NaNoWriMo is a wonderful celebration of writing–just writing--without stumbling over one's own misguided obsession with making theur furst draft some perfect masterpiece. In this vein I promise to write whatever my brain spews out everyday and post it in this here thread with no inhibitions whatsoever. The backspace key will be verboten for the month of November, including in my other forum posts. This is the No Backspace Challenge I have concocted to finally get me writing my first novel. Won't you join me? Post your daily awful word stretches alongside my own! It'll be beast!
Glib's Ambition! NaNoWriMo No Backspace Charenji?
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Well I've typed up a storm, and a ton of the bullet points of my general outline were ignored as the story took me where it willed. For example, the main character was supposed to be older and the first chapter was just supposed to be a sort of prologue with her younger self, but then my reptile brain decided that she should just stay this age. I promised uninhibited writing, so I had to deliver. Of course, I did use backspace for typos, but you can keep a gentleman's secret, can't you?
! _SIDE_realITY
! by Giuseppe di Martino
! PROLOGUE
! Jaxros dodged the slime god's space axe, the Star Squids' guiding chorus bolstering him and making the far off nebulae buzz and sway with life.
! “You think I didn't feed off your species's memories without learning a thing or two about how to defeat you!?” When the slime god laughed, his jagged, horrid teeth shot out from his underbelly, cosmic cilia jiggling raucously. “Eat THIS!!”
! The axe halted in the vacuum of space instantly, already quite the feat without friction, but then it proceeded to split into seventy or so tinier razors, all seemingly keen to slice all of Jaxros's noble limbs clean off. If just one of those blades grazed his battlesuit slightly, his blood would begin to boil and his corpse would simply land in the Slime Dumps as yet another casualty of its senseless hunger.
! “That may be true, Madbash, but there's something you failed to take into your calculations!” said Jaxros. “And that's that as long as I'm connected with my rocket otter in spirit as WELL as in mind, we're unbeatable!!”
! “Daddy, what are you writing?” She took her lollipop out of her mouth.
! “Heh. Nothing. Just a first draft. Needs work.”
! He looked up at the stars, as though searching for something new.
! Chapter 1: An Authorial Challenge
! “Once upon a time, there was a poor little girl…”
! Samey for the opening line of a novel, to be sure, but there was an audacity to sameyness. Or at least, that was what she told herself. After all, it was more than possible to be so over the top iconoclastic in a opening work that there'd be no grounding in reality. In fact, that essence of the real is why she'd settled on making her debut opus have whisps of autobiography.
! “Essie, are you done in there?”
! “Almost,” she lied. Although, seeing as she was only 8, her life's story was, perhaps, not very long anyway.
! “Honey, listen. I know you think the bathroom is a conduit for 'creative flow,' but Mommy and Daddy NEED to freshen up in the morning before work! You can channel the energies of the universal mind AFTER the new tutor comes by. You may even like this one?”
! Essie was open to the endless marvels of this beautiful world she lived in—Dad was a planetarium curator, after all—but liking a tutor was not within the realm of the possible.
! Essie resolutely took pen to page, legs banging on the strange appliance no one used with the Frenchish name across from her perch on the edge of the bathtub. “…who was BULLIED at all turns by multiplication tables and conjugation charts. It was, simply, the absolute worst prison of the mind. A lab erinth of BOREDOM!”
! Those vocabulary lessons may have come in handy, though.
! Essie shot a glance at her reflection in the mirror. However, she didn't really know how to describe physical descriptions well, so she skipped that part, apart from a passing mention that she was blonde and liked wearing hats that were too big for her. The rest she would leave to the reader's imagination—smartly, cleverly, ingeniously.
! “Darling,” a gruff voice came. “Come out of there. Wim is worried about you.”
! Sure enough, she could make out a tinge of the forlorn in Wim's purring. That could just as easily have been the kitten's angst over when breakfast would be served, but Essie found herself stomping out to cradle him anyway.
! “You always find a new trick,” Mom fawned admiringly.
! “I'm full of 'em,” Dad said. Matter of fact-…ly? “You shower first, I'll make her some eggs.”
! “Make Wimmy some eggs, too, Daddy!”
! “Only the finest.”
! “Can cats eat eggs?”
! “I saw him eat some of the granola you left on the coffee table yesterday,” said Essie. “I'm sure he can eat anything.”
! “Well, all right dear, but Google it first to make sure.” Mom spied her watch. “Late. As usual.”
! “Relax. I don't think ancient fiction researchers prize punctuality above all things,” said Dad.
! “Go make eggs,” she replied with a look that seemed a bit dangerous. “And see you later baby,” she told Essie, complete with a peck on the forehead.
! “I'm NOT a baby!” she pouted, clutching Wim closer to her chest.
! “C'mon, downstairs we go,” said Dad, absently pushing her along as he researched egg dishes for kittens with the smartphone in the other hand.
! “Daaaad, tell her I'm not a baby!”
! “Slay as many dragons as you write about and then we'll talk,” he half-grinned.
! Essie spent the majority of her exodus down the stairs and into the kitchen contemplating how best to allegorify her parents in her no-doubt bestseller debut (incredulous townsfolk? Aloof taskmasters? Bread and circuses warmongers?) when before she knew it, her resentment vanished, replaced with mushroom and bacon omelet.
! She looked down at her plate, fork tapping idly. “Daddy, will I ever write a book as great as The Book of the Stars?”
! “Depends on how much you want it,” he responded, a little too bluntly. The answer she was fishing for was yes, in fact this next book you're writing right now will be the greatest in recent memory.
! However, his next line was one that filled his audience with intrigue. “Actually, I daresay if you rock the world with your literature and prove your creative mettle to the world, you wouldn't need to sit through any lessons thereafter. How's that for incentive?”
! Essie's pearly whites shined. “And you won't call me a baby anymore?”
! “You won't be an elder statesman, that's for sure, but we'll graduate you to the level of 'young adult'… if, that is, you manage to pull it off.”
! Mom piped up, her voice carrying from her bedroom on the second floor. “You'll need more life experience to beat us at our own game!”
! The Book of the Stars entered the literary limelight as a novel authored jointly by a sweet, happily married couple. Dad painted the picture of a civilization of spacefaring aliens who were both handy with a space wrench and quite poetic about the magic of existence. Mom, for her part, injected into the sprawling tale a mystery plot chasing down the ancient secrets of the protagonist's ancestors, based upon her own studies and essays on hoary, long forgotten mythologies. In any case, it was the reason they could now afford their life of comparative luxury, chilling in a nice neighborhood of Montreal.
! Essie had noticed Dad didn't like the term “rich,” though. It didn't sit right with him. He preferred calling themselves “advantaged.” “Rich” sounded like he was born into money, but at the same time he acknowledged that most people didn't have the opportunities he enjoyed throughout his life. And now he was determined to give Essie the biggest boost he could short of lifting her up directly on his own shoulders. Anything less, as a parent, would be criminal. And so, even though it was winter vacation, Essie would continue her studies.
! “You'll see,” Essie said with a determined steel. “I'll prove to the world that you raised me well.”
! “I like the look in your eyes.” Dad now flashed his full grin, which only popped up when he was truly impressed. “You're giving me the heeby jeebies, you are. I need to shower it off. See you after work baby.”
! And with that one word the good will was thoroughly pulverized. Wim meowed as Dad strode up to shower, a spring in his step. In his place, Mom thumped downstairs, earrings still barely inserted, briefcase-mostly-for-show in hand.
! “The new tutor will come at noon. We picked a new agency with a more “relaxed” feel, so maybe there'll be a chance you two will click this time. And, no matter what, DO NOT PUNCH HER IN THE KNEES. Or we will ground you for so long you will never gain enough life experience to beat The Book of the Stars. Got it?”
! Essie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Tutors were so stifling. She much preferred the presentation of the mysteries of the cosmos to the stodgier, less inspiring facts of 67 divided by 3. “Can't I go to the Planetarium today instead?? I feel like if I stay in the Sidereal Room it might give me the inspiration I need to write my–”
! “NO. You've been there a hundred times. The answer is no and that is final. Behave yourself, Essie.”
! Awwww.
! “What happened to the 'look' your father praised?” she scolded. “At this rate you'll never grow up. Ahh. Look at the time, I absolutely have to go. Listen, if you behave yourself, that's one step further to adulthood, right sweetums? Just think of it that way. Love you babe~”
! With a jangling of keys and swish of the door, Mom dashed for the bus. Soon afterwards, Dad followed suit, revving up the old Pathfinder he couldn't let go of and vrooming off to the other side of the city. Leaving Essie alone with her books.
! She supposed all she could do until noon was… well, write. Oddly enough, she found herself tidying her room instead. When Wim wouldn't stop toppling her astronaut plushy off her desk, she finally set down to continue her masterpiece, nay, her manifesto… but once again came manipulated by the dark forces of procrastination as her pen spun doodles instead of yarns. For some reason she'd seen fit to draw flowerpots in place of Dad's hands (hands are hard, okay?). And Mom's hair twined down and merged with her scarf, apropos of nothing.
! The doorbell rang. As much as Essie would have liked to pretend she wasn't home, she'd never hear the end of it from Flowermitts and Scarfwoman if she didn't greet her cordially.
! It rang again. Ugggh. She stomped down with affected reluctance and, with a deep breath, opened the door.
! “Hey, kid. What, you alone?”
! Essie may not have had much experience or practice describing physical appearances, but for this lady it'd be harder not to be able to. Perhaps even more striking than the cigarette she was casually puffing was the white mascara (black having become far too mainstream), and that in turn was rivaled by the short purple mohawk-like spikes adorning her otherwise normal, shoulder-length locks. The rather conservative turtleneck did help to take some of the edge off, but Essie had a feeling that part of the ensemble was mandated by the company rather than picked out freely.
! “Hi, what's your name?” said Essie, curious despite herself.
! “I'm Olive. Olive Sextrain. Nice to meet you… Essie, was it?”
! Essie had never shaken a hand with such long nails before.
! “Now can I come inside? I'm fuc–-really freezing my tits off.” -
Chapter 2 and a bit of Chapter 3!
! Chapter 2: Tutorial Level
! The clock ticked and the faucet dripped as the odd specimen of a woman before her eyes rummaged her backpack for the requisite math textbooks. A minute passed, Essie staring all the while.
! “Shit. I must have forgot 'em at Ronny's.”
! “You shouldn't smoke,” said Essie. “Mom says it'll make you smell bad.”
! Olive might have fired back with a little number about how Mommy's cunt definitely smelled bad because of the little monster it produced, but without her job she'd be back to doing massages of the unsavory variety. “Oh yeah, well why don't you tutor me then?”
! Essie's eyes instantly lit up. Finally, an opportunity to prove herself a smart and capable young woman! What she lacked in years she made up for with poise, after all.
! “Really?”
! “Uh–”
! Before she could respond, Essie was on her, whipping out a notebook from her own knapsack. “Look, it's a map of the solar system! Do you know which one this planet is?”
! “Uranus?”
! “Noooo, this is–”
! “Mercury, yeah, I know kid. That's like first grade level, and I'm like a quarter of the way through my GED application, so unless you've got some store of knowledge that'll REALLY knock my socks off, then I'll be the teacher here, got it pipsqueak?” she said, staring at her nails. Evidently the extended rummaging in her backpack had rendered them less than pristine.
! Essie slammed the book a bit more forcefully than she intended. She blamed the tears beginning to well up in her eyes on the dust flying out from the pages.
! “I'll show you a book,” she replied, head bowed but teeth gritted. Then her lips curled into something evil. “A book that'll really knock your 'tits' up, Ms. Sextrain.”
! You see, it was only friends and family that were in the know regarding the authorship of the Book of the Stars, as her parents had chosen to write it pseudonymously. Nobody else knew it was them specifically. Ever since the novel had started a small fire in the publishing world with all the major houses now searching for young couples from whom they could mine their respective cuteness factor, the tabloids had been on the lookout for a scoop revealing their identities. It was nothing of life-shattering importance, of course, but nevertheless Mom and Dad valued their privacy, and so Essie was under strict orders not to out the truth—though she resented her family not getting their due praise and adulation as a result. More honestly, she wanted to use her parents' would-be fame as a popularity trump card whenever her classmates teased her for her nose always being in a book.
! “Here.” Essie plopped down the final draft of The Book of the Stars, proof perfect that it was her parents who had written it.
! Olive shifted in her seat, taken aback by the surprising intensity in the girl's voice. “What's this, kid, your theories on life?”
! “No, though that's coming soon,” she said with an air of superiority. “This is the really smart book you didn't believe I (we) could write!”
! “All right. I'll humor you,” she said, flipping through the pages even though they were stapled together in that really stupid way. “Ain't like I wanna drill world capitals any more than you do. Wait a sec, 'Book of the Stars,' isn't that that book that's all mysterious and shit?”
! “So you've heard of it!!” she shouted with more than a hint of pride.
! “Even I can afford a newspaper or two now and again. Though the one I bought that mentioned the book thought it was the CIA that wrote it. And something about Shakespeare being in on it.”
! “You need to read it,” she averred. “It's the best.”
! “Oh no, no more homework for me. Not after I had to do a year's work of homework twice that one time. Though come to think of it, wouldn't it be easier to be held back and that way do a year's worth of homework over twice the time you'd normally be allowed? Well anyway, never mind, just give me the Reader's Digest version, would you?” Olive wondered if she could ingratiate herself to her parents by pretending to be a big fan. Since the longest thing she'd read in the past week was her horoscope, that'd prove a bit tricky, but she'd scraped by before on her silver tongue, both in the sense of her way with words (she WAS an aspiring punk rocker, after all) and the silver stud in her tongue.
! “It's all about love and happiness.”
! “What, you mean like one of those hippie books?”
! “No! The Space Rangers have to fight against the evil 'federation' of slime kings to discover their locked past and be free to help one another again! It makes me cry every time I read the ending.”
! Pfeh. Another happy ending.
! “Kid, if you wanna know about the REAL world, I'll be more than happy to teach you what it's like. And happy endings don't got jackshit to do with the real world.”
! “How can you say that!? YOU'RE THE WORST!” Essie balled up her fists, lest some knees were to meet with some unfortunate punching once again.
! Olive just cracked a grin—a cocky one. “That happy-go-lala land is just the LIE the demons at the top feed the bottom dwellers! Then they can go ahead and keep CRUSHING it while the masses scramble for their table scraps!!” Her hand instinctually pulled the internationally recognized symbol for METAL AS FUCK, and her tongue likewise flashed silvery outside her mouth. Her other hand was…elsewhere, but as they were still seated across from each other on the kitchen table, this thankfully Essie could not see, and was to be left to the audience's no doubt warped imagination. “I'll tutor you on the LEVELS of HELL we live in!!”
! “No wonder you smell if you think LIKE that!!”
! “You'll never understand. You're a rich kid. You're one of the few with your head poking above the scum of the pond, because the rest of us are forming a ladder underneath you, holding you aloft as we drown!” This outburst was NOT word-smithed on the fly, but rather was sampled from her latest album, which won a silver medal during a biannual contest on a Montreal indie rock forum under the category of “Artist to Keep an Eye On… For One Reason or Another.”
! Essie didn't quite understand what she was getting at, but she bristled nonetheless. “Let's see YOU make a better book, then!!” she steamed. Her facade of vicarious accomplishment seemed so very long ago now.
! “I bet I could. All it'd take would be a better ending—where the cries of the damned aren't immediately SILENCED, but instead championed, encouraged! All while the REVOLUTIONARIES with all the DARK ENERGY lead the pack and swing their sabers with the inherited will of thousands of the fallen to RAKE THE HEADS of the aloof slavedrivers who can't even tell their asses from their rolling craniums anymore!! YEAAHHH!!!!!!”
! Essie took a deep breath. Calm down. Clearly Ms. Sextrain was just crazy. She would have to teach her the truth.
! “Haaahh,” she sighed, fanning herself for effect. “I guess you just don't get it… and no number of bruised knees will be the thing that teaches you. What you need is education. Take this home with you, and LEARN from it. If you don't cry, your money back,” she said meaninglessly.
! Olive's eyes widened for a split second as her brain seized upon the opportunity presented before her. This wasn't just the book itself, but a final draft of it, which might mean it'd come annotated with the thoughts of the authors themselves—thereby giving her an easy insight into all the things Essie's parents believed in, and an in with them. Connections were necessary in the business, and they were kind of indie themselves! Now all she needed to do was suck up to Essie with a sufficiently believable show of remorse, and the game was hers.
! “A-are you sure? Isn't this supposed to be a secret?” she said, donning her best attempt at puppy eyes.
! “You're right, Mom and Dad'll kill me if they found out I gave you the manuscript–” she said, suddenly realizing she was in hot water.
! “Tell you what, they don't have to know. We'll just say you accidentally let the secret of their authorial identity slip while we were having an amazing session today. I mean, it's not like that's the end of the world, right? You can give me this and I'll return it as soon as possible, with them never having been any the wiser. Meanwhile you can spend our sessions every day lecturing me. Sound like a deal?”
! Wow. Essie couldn't see any downside!
! “Let's shake!” she said.
! In the back of both of their heads there rang a distinct “mwahahahahaha.”
! And strangely, the manuscript seemed to shake a little in Olive's hands.
! Chapter 3: First Lesson
! A couple of days later…
! “Today we'll be discussing the nature of the separate dimensions or realms of reality throughout folklore and myth,” said
! “Amanda? Amanda Renfield?”
! “Oh, uh, yes?” She looked down from the podium, a bit startled at the… figure in the front aisle.
! “Sorry, just making sure I got the right lecture,” said Olive with a barely suppressed smile.
! Ahaha. Essie's mom. -
Well, I didn't finish the 50,000 words, since I let too many days slip by, but I did write more, and it did give me a solid base to work up from. Here's the rest I've written
! If she paid attention, this was her chance to seal a good impression and continue her easy-payment scheme with Essie. With the knowledge of the annotations in the manuscript (revealing their authorial intentions and perspectives) and a feigned interest in whatever ancient bullshit the great and wise Professor Renfield was about to wax on and on about, there was no way these two rich motherfuckers would ever fire her. It was the perfect plan.
! “Ah!” It dawned on Amanda. “You must be–”
! “Olive. Olive Sestelli. Nice to meet you!”
! Amanda smiled warmly. “I heard from Gary. You made quite the impression on him last night!”
! “Oh, that? Just a little chat, you know, to get acquainted, and meet with the masters!”
! Amanda sighed, eyes on the clock and hands shuffling her papers as all the learned mythology aficionados settled into their seats. “I swear, Essie just runs her mouth sometimes.”
! “I wouldn't know about running one's mouth…”
! “I bet she talked us up to high heaven, when really we couldn't be more normal. We're definitely not the titans of literature she loves making us out to be. Ah, I've already said too much.” Furtively she cleared her throat.
! Olive made a motion to zip her lips. Amanda frowned and concentrated. The academic small talk came to a hush and her lecture began.
! *__
! Among dozens of other common traits that characterize human myths and fables, one of the most salient storytelling aspects that pervade the creative output of all peoples through history is the concept of separate worlds… and the energies that reside in them. Prophecy, soothsaying and scrying were almost invariably said to be fueled by a new lens, a divine “energy” seeping through the cracks and offering a glimpse of the cosmic forces that shaped the Earth. Of course, the stars twinkling overhead held and continue to hold a particularly privileged position in our hearts. The stars, it was thought, were more than just exerting their influence... they were exerting their will_. They were living beings, set in fixed paths through the agency of the Creator just as humans were made to. The night sky could guide and comfort mankind as surely as the sun. It was only a matter of time before people came to recognize the possibility that each of those little pinpricks in the firmament's curtain could in fact be individual worlds with their own strange creatures, their own mysteries. And so no wonder they had proven to be so inspirational a boon to humanity's dreamtime. Each and every celestial body was a bright reflection of the sublime, inscrutable wonders that wreathed the highest of the high, the order above even the gods themselves—from which even they took energy for renewal. But mirrors, of course, existed on the human scale as well, not restricted merely to gazing at hopelessly distant alien worlds. Reflections of the human experience, housed in microcosms, stories, with worlds within that, however dwarfed they may have been by the magic movement of the nebulas, were nevertheless vast… and penetrable. Changeable. Intoxicatingly comfortable. So much could be explained through a parable, and so much could be rationalized by a suitably heroic narrative. So much could be LIVED, vicariously, through a gripping tale or two. And one society in particular, which we've only discovered in recent years existed, became absolutely obsessed with the notion of outright entering the world of a story._
! The name of this society, their language, their way of life, all have been unfortunately lost to time—ironically, if you think about it, since they so loved preserving writings for posterity. It seems like something of a long shot for the time being, but hope holds out that one day we may finally be able to decipher the tomes they left behind, though their pages have come tattered by rain and sand. We don't even understand how it is their civilization collapsed—they seemed to have simply vanished, out of the blue, from the archaeological record (not uniquely but especially suddenly!). But one thing is clear, from what's left of their glyphs and drawings. They were obsessed to the point of fervor with the idea of writing a story, and then entering that story. Of becoming gods of their own microcosms. And, so it's suggested, they believed the power of concentrated starlight would serve as the catalyst to open the seams between realms. Just as the starlight of the cosmos poked through to their dimension, showering them with the faint aura of an otherworldly presence they could not begin to fathom, so they believed they could harness that energy to achieve access to their own worlds within worlds. Their own, personal heavens, where THEY were the ones who set the stars into their paths. Their own side realities, made realer than real.
! __*
! Olive sat with her legs stretched out and her mouth agape—though not in a yawn, as she had expected. No, while she was certain before that she would need to really struggle to pay attention to this ivory tower piffling that never made an impact like a death metal riff could move an army, she was, in fact, surprisingly engrossed. She supposed she shouldn't have been all that shocked at the content of the lecture, given that the Book of the Stars contained a similar overarching theme—albeit obliquely—but it was still more fascinating than she would have given anything farted out by a stuffy morning meeting dweller credit for. And, more than that, it sounded familiar. All too familiar.
! Amanda made her rounds shaking hands and nodding over that one paper in that one journal until, at last, she made it to over her to her daughter's newest, hippest tutor, who was looking something up on her smartphone. Amanda was quite keen to see just how intelligent this mohawked smoker could really be. Essie was quite vocally pleased with her, but she did seem a bit sparse on details when asked what made Olive's teaching style so much better than all the other girls who'd come knocking on their door.
! “Hi, Olive?”
! “Oh my god,” Olive gasped, almost dropping the phone. “This is… this is it! Exactly what you were talking about!”
! Huh? Amanda peeked over her shoulder. She was greeted with an old Geocities webpage clearly slapped together by a metalhead, complete with a rather stereotypical flaming skull .gif and a border of swaying upside-down crucifixes. However, it also had something of the touch of a poet, exemplified by the softer tones and thankful evasion of Comic Sans.
! “He was an indie rocker back in, like, 2004,” Olive explained, making Amanda feel really old. “I remember stumbling on his page once word got around that he vanished without a trace… which only became a sensational story in the community once people began spotting that the lyrics to his latest album before he went all, like, reclusive, were all about how he'd, like, enter his own world or something.”
! “I'm sure it was just a coincidence…” said Amanda, taken aback. “I mean, it's not as though it's a totally unheard of idea or anything.”
! “But, the name of that album… was Starreality.” You could practically chart the shadows creeping over Olive's face when the full weight of what she said hit her. “And where did you say that society or whatever was from?”
! “Look, I'm sure it's just an odd coincidence,” repeatedly Amanda sternly. It had to be… right? “Whatever you do, don't show Essie. She'll lose herself to that whole notion and it's not worth her becoming fixated over it.”
! But Olive pressed. “Was that civilization from around… the Horn of Africa?”
! Okay. It had officially gotten scary.
! Amanda didn't want to confirm it, but her eyes betrayed her.
! “Haha,” cooed Olive, her sinister smile freed from suppression. “Woooow.”
! Amanda's rational mind engaged into overdrive maneuvers.
! “A remnant of the knowledge of that culture must be alive in some esoteric oral tradition, that rocker must have come from that sect. So it's not totally unreasonable that, after becoming a bit unhinged from the sex and drugs of the West or what have you, he flew into a paranoid self-fulfilling fantasy and subconsciously engineered his own 'vanishing' in accordance to the legend he'd grown up with.”
! “Yeah huh,” said Olive. Her attention span had finally given way halfway through that first sentence. She had to overnight that album on Amazon as soon as possible. Easy money was great, but nothing could beat becoming a literal heavy metal goddess. She liked the idea of juggling the stars, while her eyes blazed like hellfire. Of starting a revolution, with absolute impunity. And even if it turned out to be a dead end after all, she could at the very least make a mint peddling the idea as a book of her own. A tell all memoir selling the Renfields out was always in the cards now, after all. She might even concoct some conspiracy theory claiming they murdered Starreality guy for his secret or something!
! Meanwhile, Mrs. Renfield was reeling from her own epiphany. If she tracked down the esoteric sect she now realized HAD to exist to make sense of Starreality, she could crack open her whole field of study! Not for personal glory, which she didn't need to be happy, but to ensure that her struggling, inchoate subject could flourish for generations of intrepid, rosy-cheeked researchers and theorists. Although becoming famous effectively twice over through her own merit did sound appealing to her ego.
! The two very different women thought the very same thought at that very same moment:
! I mean, holy fucking shit. Hot DAMN.
! Chapter 4: The Book of the Stars
! She definitely didn't want to admit it to herself, but Essie's budding new book that was born to blow the socks off of her parents and the world and prove herself a fully adult member of the marketplace of ideas… was a bit derivative of The Book of the Stars. Sure, the characters and the scenario and the setting were different enough, but in terms of thematic elements and the basic conflict driving the plot, her book was noticeably echoing the other. And she'd probably have to change the name from “The Tome of the Galaxies,” for one.
! Her bashful but courageous young hero, Sam “Samuel” O'Sullivan, was just beginning to hear of the plight of the noble tabbies of Ululon 4, who were suffering from the eternal loop of forced diadochokinesis (the alternate flexing and extending of the limbs, and a magical medical dictionary discovery) at the hands of the Council of the Asteroid Jungle to power the Gimble of Suns and spread searing cosmic light in all directions. One of the wizened tabby elders, the unflappable Herschel of Lucretiana 12, had offered Samuel a glimpse of a desperate future full of shredded, bare skies should he not take up the Uranium Scepter that no cat's paw could hold and fight against the Asteroids' evil rockfall rains, but where to go from there? Who or what would be Samuel's first challenge? Things were happening awfully quickly; maybe she just take things easily and build a bit more momentum before the first skirmish of the big war. Samuel had only just gotten out of bed before he was whisked away by that wormhole, after all.
! She closed her notepad and sighed; writing a novel was proving more difficult than she had anticipated. It was so easy when it was just an idea in her head, but putting it to paper and committing to it to the end was surprisingly arduous. Maybe she should have spent more time really absorbing that Wikipedia article on the three act story structure. She knew she shouldn't be feeling so… cold… about the direction her story was going It was reaching the point of “what should I write next” doldrums that she was seriously considering a whole evening of incorporating words from the usual lists of obscure vocabulary (“internecine” and “baleful” were great words to raise the stakes a little, but a tad on the depressing end of the spectrum for what was ultimately meant to be an uplifting tale of love and derring-do), when finally it came to her: she would simply go over every aspect of The Book of the Stars, and just NOT repeat any of them for her new book, The Tome of... Suns.
! Essie looked at the clock. Nine thirty, nearly bed time. And not yet New Year's Eve, so she had no reason to stay up. But what kind of Global Literary Super Star selfishly fell asleep when she could be penning the next masterpiece the masses needed to be whole? She couldn't be a failure to herself and others, not with such a famous soul scraping to be heard from within her. There was no denying her duty, and she was afraid the world might fall into some hopeless pit without the inspiration they needed from her. Catching pieces of the evening news that her folks were watching downstairs in the living room was all it took to render a person a little numb, as far as she could discern. She was struck by just how amazing her parents were for holding onto their positive, winning attitude in life despite the sad reality surrounding them. The power lay not in our stars, but in our selves… but it's also best to protect those without power, and remember what it's like to be weak. It'd be a crying shame to steer away from that message, no matter how much she wanted to surpass the Book of the Stars. Her book would lay gutted of a meaningful moral. So she couldn't bring herself to make EVERYTHING different. But still, it would be nevertheless a useful exercise to chart what happened in The Book of the Stars in order to spin a story that wouldn't be seen as a fourth rate substitute.
! Essie dusted off the manuscript Ms. Sextrain gave her back that afternoon, and skimmed it over, making notes of the general synopsis.
! THE BOOK OF THE STARS OUTLINE:
! Main Conflict: The space faring federation of clans, comprising the first three planets of a binary solar system, traversed the unique gravity streams connecting each outpost and, riding their trusty mounts, the Star Squids who have become fond of the various alien species due to their relatively peaceful interactions with one another. However, none could prepare for the onslaught of the slimy Slug Lords from a distant star, who used their noxious vapors to quash all resistance and set the inhabitants of the planets of Treem, Sybule, and Onafona against each other with suspicions sown of traitors and covert collaborators, all the while profiting off their labor harvesting their unique wares for the intergalactic trade. How can the dwellers of the Triple Stars—whose efforts combined were said to outshine even their twin suns—fend off their slavers, and reunite in harmony? And even when their yokes and shackles come undone, how then to deal with the Slug Lord population?
! Main Character: Jaxros, a poor Frexon of Onafona whose brood brother was turned into a scapegoat by the village elders to explain why their promises of a perfectly safe city fell apart even though they'd sworn to keep flawless care of the surrounding flame jungle with which they were purported to have a synchronicity since birth. Jaxros never believed their lies putting the onus on poor little Gewa!! During Jaxros's attempt to stage a prison riot straight under the nose of one of the Slug Lords' top commanders, he discovers snapshots of a previously undiscovered ancient ruins, which, as he understands better than those smelly gobblers of goods ever could, probably contain the fabled Book of the Stars, which in turn contains the blueprints to eliciting thought convergence with the Space Squids by channeling the energies of the constellations above in a specific, mathematically brilliant way. (That book was lost to time due to a naturally occurring, cataclysmic dust bowl which enveloped the island continent, extinguishing many flames). Frexons, as furnace eyed, four legged slinking eel people, need periodic sources of fire to survive, but Jaxros cleverly breathes in the Slug Lord vapors deliberately to trigger his gag reflex and regurgitate the fire inside him right back at his oppressors! And he gains a heart of gold to go with his sharp, analytical mind through the ordeals he witnesses of the helpless and terrified prisoners apart from his brother, whom he could have saved immediately, but instead chose to stay in solitary confinement in the hopes that he could figure out a way to free everyone, even if that means attempting to reach the hearts of the legitimate criminals locked up alongside the political patsies. In the end, it is Jaxros's unique ability to forge allies that turns the tables against the Slug Lords, opening up the hearts of men and squid alike to unleash the power within and beat the Slug Lords at their own game of divide and conquer, with a side order of actual integration (it turns out those noxious vapors have amazing gardening utility, particularly for the Fire Jungles of Onafona!) And the audience rejoices when Jaxros and Gewa finally join their three fingered hands once again, after so much time spent fretting and missing him a lot.
! Onafona: A planet of earth like gravity, occupied by two sentient species, the Frexons and the Raybiods. Frexons mostly keep to the large continent of fiery life forms that make up the northern reaches of the planet, while the Raybiods are mole like adventurers who make it their mission as a species to find a way to cut through the tougher hyper carbon soils blocking the way to the mysterious underground treasures the mantles of the planet have to offer. The over world beyond the Fire Continent of Drom Drome also plays host to strange creatures, natural phenomena and geological formation of all sorts.
! Sybule: Pronounced SAI BYOOL. A planet of Mercury like gravity. The sentient species here on this planet of intersecting cloud-continents are the industrious macroscopic sky-plankton, the Poilfs. Don't be scared of their disconcerting cellular appearances, and definitely don't offend them when you first see them by thinking aloud that you're hallucinating seeing them. That rythmic blinking they do is just their way of signaling to each other, should they as a group come across a promising patch of kelp-bison for the hunt, or should a cross-planet gravity stream swing by so they can experience what the tourism industry hails as the relaxing, spine-realigning Gravity Presses of Onafona or the bounciness of Treem. The Poilfs considered themselves to have quite great relations with the Raybiods of Onafona (the Frexons mostly kept to themselves) up until the Slug Lord conquest, when they began to suspect that the Raybiods were only exploiting the Poilfs all this time for their crops of ruby corn so that they could curry favor with their incoming ovelords (since Raybiods could see wavelenghts of light Poilfs couldn't, they would understand the stars and the goings-on of the greater cosmos far greater than the Poilfs could hope to by relying on their own eyes, and as such the Raybiods had leverage over them when it came to sharing intelligence).
! Treem: A planet of moon like gravity, the sentient species of which is the stern amphibious birds who named themselves Ttattattatt after the sound their beaks make when they peck against the shells of those annoying screeching volcano snails. Every other volcano snail erupts with soot upon being disturbed. The other 50% erupt with fireworks and sparks. This has given the Ttattatts the perspective of NEVER TAKING LIFE FOR GRANTED. The other peoples of the Triple Stars came to Treem for the picturesque landscapes of actual living paint, like a Jackson Pollack rising from the frame and attacking the atmosphere. The Ttattatts are often irritated by the other species' view of these paint landscapes as some sort of cheerful scenery as opposed to the somber reflection of their position as hapless agents in a chaotic cosmos that cares not for their survival, but hey, a fair deal for those delicious Onafonian textiles-turned-food (anything on the dinner plate besides goddamn volcano snails is worth a fin and a wing) is a fair deal indeed. As an aside, Ttattatts don't get crushed by Onafonian gravity because of the remarkable ways their skeletal structures automatically reconfigure their marrow and adapt, born of their evolutionary need to both fly and survive deep water pressure so as to evade the ravages of the planet's frequent parabolic razor winds.
! As for the Slug Lords, they are now the stewards of the various moons and asteroids that make up the supply outposts and way stations of the Triple Stars. They are also tasked with the charting of the stars as directed by the genius tome ahead of its time, the Book of the Stars, and relaying any germane information to the Federation of Peoples, headed temporarily by Jaxros, who, as a Frexon, stands as an impartial fourth party to the dealings between the Raybiods, the Poilfs and the Ttattatts. The Slug Lords essentially have to comply because they are simply too big to make Space Squids their mounts, having relied instead on hijacked outer-galaxy rockets they can no longer fuel. But their sequestration is deliberately not punitive, and they are afforded all the luxuries a federation citizen would enjoy, so it's an optimal, lasting solution. Furthermore, even though they cannot make any space squids their mounts to travel through the gravitation streams, they can still enjoy a psychic emotional link to them as fellow tenders of the ice gardens of the Frost Belt that houses 90 percent of the waystations in this sector.
! Essie couldn't fall asleep, not while her head was once again so abuzz with fictional inter species relations and the character arc of a heroic revolutionary. Perhaps her book would undergo the same sort of dilemma that Jaxros faced—what ought one to assimilate from others, and when ought one to strike out on their own courageously? And, perhaps, the best route for her own book would be the one Jaxros set his stars on, so to speak. The middle road, with all its ambiguities.
! Essie looked out the window, but the stars weren't very visible in the big city. She turned off the light and mused that maybe the darkness was the best way to hone her creativity and bring out her imagination. Okay, maybe not darkness, which remained a bit scary, but certainly a place outside the lights of the city that illuminated everything.
! Chapter 5: Fuck the GRE
! Olive knew it would work. She just felt it in her skin, commanding her night. Fuck the GRE, this is the research that would lead to a rewarding and fulfilling personal future. She virtually grew whiskers anticipating her ascension to the status of rock goddess. Literal rock goddess. As in, overseer of planets. Beat THAT on a resume, motherfucker. The Olive Dawn of the Sextrain, her grand manifesto in album form soon to be majestically transposed to reality, was at hand, and it was nary a click on the Amazon shopping cart away. Yes, one copy of Starreality, and one copy of everything in the Related Items scrawl that had any speculation or exploration of the man's life. That ought to fill a weekend. And she definitely wouldn't be fielding any calls for massages from the guy in the stupid grey business suit who still hasn't realized that he should probably prioritize placing Q-Tips at the top of his next shopping list. Although she supposed leaving that much build up in his ear canals served as a mighty fine excuse for his Neanderthalic actions as there was no way the wax hadn't hijacked at least some of his major neurons in its quest to become alive. Olive, on the other hand, prided herself on being smarter than she looked. While the world prized the putative mental prowess of those who could answer a difficult math answer on a test once after wasting half a year studying, thereafter never to apply that skill again in any meaningful real world context apart from the revolving door of—UGH—teaching, she on the other hand was keeping her wits about her on the streets. The big city cast its light everywhere to most, but the things that truly set things moving were the wheels and deals of the underworld, the dark side necessary to keep the light side going. And now that she'd kept her wily ears perked all these years, absorbing the way of the world while being forced to take every odd job you could think of, she'd finally come rewarded for her efforts. At last, an avenue to the top, and we're not talking Wall Street or Parliament. We're talking higher. We're talking the kind of job where you get to swing a trident and lightning pours out of your eyes. We're talking the clash of metal that makes weak men and women quiver. Rebellious role reversal. Why should the rich prosper while sleeping, when any one person, with enough sense and enough balls to clack, could make a bang in the night?
! After penning all those thoughts for a possible future lyric sheet, she triumphantly pressed [OK] and awaited her gold ticket to a VIP status that would make the President of the Free World quail with envy to come in the mail. One day fast shipping, baby. No way she was going to regret THIS purchase. Even if it didn't lead to any sort of supernatural mega transformation of insane mystical importance that would change the fate of the universe forever more, at least she'd get a kick out of reading the torrid details of the death of a rocker she admired and desired to emulate. If she didn't at least take the chance of maybe getting a tad disappointed, she'd be off HER rocker.
! *__
! It was dawn now, and both Essie and Olive had had nights fraught with thought. It was Saturday though, so Essie didn't have to worry about teaching Ms. Sextrain today. Today she should just relent with the pace this crazy week had seen fit to throw at her, and simply relax. It wasn't Saturday without her cartoons. Maybe Mom and Dad would notice she didn't get all that much sleep and forbid her from watching her 7:00 AM showing of My Little Pony, but she figured that as long as she didn't rest her head conspicuously on the couch cushion she could probably get away with it.
! However, when she came down to fix herself a bowl of chocolate cereal and turn on the TV, she was instead met with an altogether different parental inquisition. The crease in Mom's brow in particular raised her hackles a little. What could she have done?
! “Good morning honey,” said Mom. And, sensing her daughter's apprehension, she came right out with it. “It's about Ms. Sestelli, dear.”
! Essie just raised an eyebrow quizzically. So she… hadn't done anything bad?
! “Your mother and I were discussing your mother's concerns with her over dinner last night after the seminar. It seems as though she went to see your mother at the conference and–”
! Essie gasped. “She didn't tell everyone about the book, did she!?” Her expression was akin to the expression of a girl who'd just gotten hit by a sledge to the head.
! “No, it's nothing like that, dear,” said Mom. “It's just that she and I had something of a strange conversation after my talk, and while I can't say it didn't show me a new lead for my research, her general behavior was a bit disconcerting.”
! “Wow, she went to listen to your speech?” Essie was impressed with her. Maybe her sessions with her were actually making her interested in this sort of thing! She wasn't zoning out from her lectures on the importance of memorizing the names of the Prime Minister's cabinet members when she was smoking and looking out the window after all!! And only after three days with her, too! At this rate it'd be an absolute breeze to show the world she was capable of teaching adults, and not the other way around. She had to keep this gig going at all costs. And then, after she'd successfully crafted Ms. Sextrain into a Nobel Laureate, and she thanked Essie for giving her all her knowledge, her novel would only clinch the deal.
! “She did seem fine when she came to talk to me,” added Dad. “Nothing out of the ordinary to report from my end. In fact I'd say she was downright boring apart from the hair.”
! “Fair enough,” said Mom. “But nevertheless I want to keep an eye on her. You don't mind if I stay behind work this coming Tuesday to see what one of your tutor sessions is like? I will be expecting the tutor we've hired at long last to have sessions with you every week even after winter vacation is over, after all. Your growth is your and our target alike.”
! The aroma of fresh eggs wafted to Essie's nostrils, Mom's tried and true yes-making tactic.
! Tuesday, eh? Essie sat down between her parents and faced the TV, carefully cradling the remote as the clock hand hit 7:02. Whatever, it just meant that she'd have to counsel Ms. Sextrain in what to do and say on Monday in order to keep up the ruse. She could do that.
! “Okay, Mommy. Now let's watch the Twilight Sparkle show.”
! __* -
For something with no backspacing this was pretty good. You definitely have an outline and cast all set up and ready to go, although it feels like the story is taking a tad too long to really get the 'adventure' going. Also for some reason I had to re read the lecture to catch the part that excited Olive (who makes me think of an R Rated Vicky from Fairly Odd Parents).
I would love to see future chapters and a rewrite on this. The part that explained 'The Book of the Stars' universe felt too much like a glossary shoved into the middle of the text though. Might want to bring up each part whenever it's actually significant or not bring it up at all.
