Oklahoma Earthquake - or - THEY Awakened the Sleeping Spawn of CTHULHU!!!

Considering the crazy things folks have been known to take seriously, I'd better make a disclaimer: Cthulu is fiction. Make-believe. Not real. Moreover, I don't really believe that Old Ones imprisoned the star-spawn of Cthulhu deep under our feet. Mainly because 'all of the above' are not real. Neither is what I suggest in this post, for the most part.

After writing about the big Oklahoma earthquake in another blog, I realized that part of the post belonged here.

Now, let's see how the desire to blame someone (preferably someone using newfangled technology) the unknown, and a little craziness might make the Oklahoma earthquake even more interesting than it really is.

'Inspired by Real Events' - Awakening Horrors from the Deeps of Time

Ignoring warnings by the Last Seminole Shaman and the Earth First! Society, heartless Big Oil carelessly used hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to release - as they thought - natural gas from the rocks below Oklahoma. (Drama aside, this is true: fracking has been used to extract natural gas in the Oklahoma area.)

But in their Greed and Perverse Ravaging of Fair Mother Nature - whoops, that's more a Captain Planet thing - these unwitting mortals have awakened an Ancient Evil!!! Even now, "unexplained" tremors abound as forgotten horrors from the depths of time burrow inexorably upward, seeking to destroy those who released them, and re-establish - - - well, you get the idea.

Keep doing that for about 100,000 words, and you've got a novel.

Hey! Maybe Big Oil woke up the big guy himself: Cthulhu.

More-or-less-related posts:

• "Lemming Tracks: Oklahoma Earthquake, 'Unexplained Increase,' and Sounding Crazy"
  Apathetic Lemming of the North (November 7, 2011)
• "Gods, Demons, and Used Spaceship Dealers"
  (February 13, 2010)
• " 'All We Want is Peace and Quiet' - Another Look at the Mind of the Alien"
  (December 9, 2009)
• " 'Waiting on a Dead World' "
  (October 31, 2009)
• "Advice from C. L. Moore: Read What You Enjoy Most, and Some Rambling"
  (September 28, 2009)

The Generic Science Fiction Story of the Future

I've been watching episodes of the old Buck Rogers serial, on TCM. Not regularly, but I've caught a few of the installments of the old Saturday matinee short feature.

The acting and cinematography are not up to Citizen Kane standards - but I've gathered that the 1930s Buck Rogers serial was more of a potboiler, than conceived as a great work of the cinematic arts. Special effects are, all things considered, pretty good.

Yes, they show Saturn appearing out of the clouds of outer space, spaceships sound like they're run by lawnmower engines, and we haven't had control systems that big and unwieldy for decades. But then, today's on-screen science fiction is - no, I am not going to get off-topic.

Been There, Read That

I know what "The Future" is supposed to look like: Buck Rogers' version; the Logan's Run effort; Escape From New York; A Boy And His Dog; and Escape From L.A..

Where, oh, where does Hollywood keep coming up with these new ideas? And that's yet another topic. Sort of.

The point is, we've got a fairly small number of standard-issue, generic, plug-in-your-character, science fiction "futures" by now. Nothing wrong with that, I think - as long as a writer - and readers - remember that science fiction/speculative fiction/whatever is a quite - mature? - genre by now.

I've been playing with a setting of the Buck Rogers/Star Wars flavor. (Yes - George Lucas knew about B.R., I've got fans in my family) I've mentioned Galaxy Cadet before. I'm fighting my OCD tendencies, successfully for the most part, and trying to remember how much fun I had, decades back, with the Star Trek universe. Pre-movies.

It's a good excuse for me to dust off my ambition to do a readable comic book.

These days, happily, I don't have to try to kid some publisher that it'll be the next [fill in your favorite series]. Yet one more topic.

Sort-of-related posts:

• "Daniel Boone and the Megalopolis"
  (March 5, 2010)
• "Overused Science Fiction Cliches: or, 'You Mean, Beings of Pure Energy Isn't a New Idea?'"
  (December 4, 2009)
• "The Future and Other Ideas"
  (October 24, 2009)
• "Green Lantern Oath: Something to Think About"
  (July 23, 2009)
• "Predicting the Future: a Look at a Will Be that Was"
  (June 26, 2009)

Products Have Names

A utility van - a Klaxon-6, made by Baden-Baden Auto and Gravel Sifter Works

Now, doesn't a name like that make you want to go out and buy one?

Probably not. But that's not the point in this case.

Not-completely-unrelated posts:

• "London, Londinium, Electropolis, and New York City: Names of the Far Future"
  (February 26, 2010)
• "Making a Plausible Setting"
  (February 22, 2010)
• "Creativity, Research, and Finding a Cool Name That's Not Been Used"
  (January 20, 2010)
• "Procyon and Names"
  (November 14, 2009)
• "Names: Castle Dampthorn, Regsellend, and the Indo-Europeans"
  (October 20, 2009)

"...So We Built One..."

"...When humanity spread among the stars, we hoped to find vast, complex civilizations.

"They weren't there.

"So we built one...."
('Notes of a Traveler,' Otha Sisk)

Sort-of-related posts:

• "Thought for the Day: Fate and Character"
  (October 30, 2009)
• " '...Into the Future...' - Excerpt; Attitude; Comment and Theme"
  (July 3, 2009)
• "Excerpts and Inspirations II"
  (July 2, 2009)
• "Excerpts and Inspirations"
  (June 26, 2009)
• "Prologue"
  (June 23, 2009)

Continuity and All That

I've discussed what I call 'Star Trek syndrome' before. (February 1, 2010) That's where a writer starts out with a nifty, plausible-seeming idea and starts adding detail. Then, after a few stories, discovers that the details won't fit together.

Or readers may discover the inconsistencies.

It's called "continuity," but I think 'Star Trek syndrome' sounds cooler.

A related issue is picking the wrong narrator. Or a narrator who can't do what the writer wants, in terms of telling the story.

That happened to me, with the Loonfoot Falls Chronicle-Gazette blog. It turned out to be a good way to give me practice at writing short, (relatively) tightly-worded posts: and provided me with quite a bit of background for Loonfoot Falls, a small town in central Minnesota.

Then, last year I realized that the blog, which was mostly 250-word columns in the fictional small town's newspaper, couldn't tell some of the stories I wanted it to.

That wasn't the only reason I've taken a sabbatical from that blog, but it was a major one.

A human-interest column like that, published in a small-town weekly, has limitations. Don't expect a conventional rant about repressive small-town parochialism: it's just a cultural thing. Small-town weeklies, in my experience, tend to focus on the positive aspects of personal stories. When they're not reporting 'regular' news: which is about the same in small towns as it is anywhere else.

There's a reason why I'm not at all likely to read a celebrity exposé in Sauk Centre, Minnesota's, newspaper. It's not that we lack folks like, say, Charlie Sheen or Paris Hilton. There was a fellow who got in the paper after he ran buck-naked down Main Street. The difference is that the paper treated the incident as another bit of local news, and left it at that. No op-ed about the unfairness of anti-streaker laws, the lack of a naked-pedestrian lane on local streets, or a wig-picker's explanation for why it isn't the fellow's fault. Or wasn't: the 'victim of society' fad seems to have faded.

And I've gotten off-topic.

The point is that I need to find a suitable viewpoint character for more Loonfoot Falls accounts. Or maybe take the one I have, and change the venue.

Somewhat-related posts:

• "What I've Done, What I Plan to Do"
  (February 22, 2011)
• "A Not-Entirely-Misspent Afternoon"
  (August 20, 2010)
• "Epic Scale and Painting the Floor"
  (February 1, 2010)
• " 'Belvedere Union Grand's Room 313' - a Short-Short Story"
  (November 2, 2009)

Making Comics: Status Report, February 24, 2011

I posted a sort of status report on Tuesday, and this far-from-remarkable picture of a door:



There's an explanation for that, which is what this post is about. Mostly.

I've wanted to create comics for a long time, and tried once or twice. With unsatisfactory results. This winter I gave it another try: and posted a seven-panel sequence in another blog: "Narcissus-X: TRAPPED!," Narcissus-X (February 11, 2011)). I've mentioned Narcissus-X before: a sort of alter-ego and a terribly angsty, self-important artist.

The point is that this time, I told a story in seven panels of pictures and text: with satisfactory results. In my opinion, anyway.

So now I'm starting work on a graphic novel that will rival Shakespeare's King Lear and Adam's Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

Hardly.

But I am doing makee-learnee with several 3D models, sort of an apprenticeship: except without a master to tell me how to get things done. Also, happily, without deadlines.

It's not as frivolous an approach as it may seem. I've found that starting work on a project and learning skills as I go is more effective, and a lot less frustrating, than trying to slog through most tutorials.

In this case, I've started with a set of already-completed models, created by some folks who know what they're doing. Their screen names are Predatron, maclean, and Stonemason. Here's what I had at the beginning of this week:


Most of the urban scene is Predatron's City Streets: what's on this side is a collection of models by maclean.

So far, the only work I'd done was to stack some of mclean's models to make interiors for an office/commercial building whose exterior I'll be working on.

Across the street, one of Predatron's buildings already has a (very simple) interior:



I could leave that building as-is, but decided to play with the interior, instead. I'm pretty sure that the building's interior is intended to give the impression of a complete, occupied building when viewed from the street. The model as it stands gets that job done quite well.

It wasn't until I started measuring the interior that I discovered some oddities in scale. The walls between rooms seemed unreasonably thick for a building of that sort. The ceiling height, about 10 feet, was okay, as was the substantial space between ceilings and the next floor. We've gotten used to seven- and eight-foot ceilings: but buildings weren't always built that way. The doors seem normal - but they're about seven feet tall, in this scale. That's really tall and wide.

So I hid the existing interior for the building and started putting up walls for a small apartment at the front of the building:



The door is the right size - but wasn't satisfactory for what I have in mind. Which is why I made that green one. Eventually, I'll have a plausible-looking small apartment - at least when viewed from some angels.

But that won't be all that interesting, without characters and some sort of story to go with it.

Right now, I'm thinking of doing something like the slice-of-life Gasoline Alley accounts - but have no idea where I'll wind up.

What I've Done, What I Plan to Do

I haven't posted anything here since November 12, 2010. For several reasons.

I caught what's probably the flu around that time: and haven't really shaken it since. I'm pushing age 60, and next year I am not missing the flu shot.

That's also when I started having problems doing creative work. Dealing with some sort of an influenza-like infection didn't help any, but there may be more going on than that.¹

This post is a sort of status report, telling what's changed in my plans.

Apathetic Lemming of the Month

The Lemming's blog is fun to research and write for: but I've decided that it's time to cut back a little. (Apathetic Lemming of the North (February 21, 2011))

Loonfoot Falls, Minnesota

From May 23, 2008 to November 5, 2010, I'd been cranking out a 250-word post each week in Loonfoot Falls Chronicle-Gazette, yet another blog. The idea was to develop the setting, a small town in Minnesota. Quite fictional: although it's at least as accurate a picture as Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon. I actually live in a small town in central Minnesota: and that's almost another topic.

Then, in mid-November of last year, I realized that I was having a hard time creating new posts - and not all that many folks had been visiting that particular blog. Since I had a modestly rich set of characters, settings, and situations established: I haven't written anything for that blog since.

The odds are pretty good that I'll restart the Gazette column - and I'm getting to that.

Only So Many Hours in a Day

Some creative types work in a studio - either as a member of a team led by someone else, or as the chief 'idea' person. There's nothing wrong with that, in my opinion.

As I recall, the big creative names in Renaissance Italy, besides being talented artists, ran businesses. These days they'd be commercial artists, interior designers, and a plethora of other job titles. They didn't necessarily do all the work on every piece that had their name on it - any more than Walt Disney or George Lucas have been doing all the work in movies they've made.

Like I say, I have no problem with that. The idea, as I see it, is to get a movie, or a comic strip, or something else 'out the door,' and if it takes a team to do it well: it takes a team.

Which doesn't have all that much to do with what I'm doing.

I'm one person. I've gotten help, from time to time, from members of my family: but there isn't much that I write or display that I didn't make myself.

That's kind of nice for my ego - when the results come out well - but it puts very real limitations on just how much I can expect to get done. Which is why I've cut back on how much I write each day.

The World of Loonfoot Falls

As I wrote those posts about Loonfoot Falls, Minnesota, I found I was collecting material about the semi-fictional world the town was in. I made notes as I went along, even when the idea never made it into one of those 250-word posts.

There's a big difference between some nifty ideas, and a story or picture involving them that someone else might find interesting. Or, I hope, entertaining.

What I've started working on is playing with that 'extra' material from the Loonfoot Falls project, and seeing if I can make them into stories, or illustrations: or something.

Which is part of what I was working on today. Here's what I have to show for most of an afternoon's work on the world of Loonfoot Falls:



That's right: It's a door. An ordinary door that someone's apparently painted green. Or some color that's sort of green.

Not very impressive, by itself.

But, it's a start.

Not-entirely-unrelated posts:

• "Facts, Frustration, and Fear"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (January 28, 2011)
  Particularly
  • "'There's a Hole in My Mind'
• Technical Difficulties
  Loonfoot Falls Chronicle-Gazette (November 13, 2010)
• "A Not-Entirely-Misspent Afternoon"
  (August 20, 2010)
• "Getting Serious by Getting Silly: Meet Galaxy Cadet Aster Alpha"
  (March 28, 2010)
• " 'Belvedere Union Grand's Room 313' - a Short-Short Story"
  (November 2, 2009)

Background:

• "The Art Market in Renaissance Florence: Workshops, Production and Business Strategies" (.pdf)
  New York University in Florence (Spring 2009

---

¹Something quite unpleasant happened around Christmas time, back in '60s, and I the way I get frantic around that time of year may be more than the usual cultural craziness. I discussed that in another blog. (A Catholic Citizen in America (January 28, 2011))