Out Into the World

And so we say hello. After much deliberation and nervous worrying, What is Now: Easter Sunday and When Otis Met Everlyse are gone out into the world. Godspeed, friends. Now, I will hold my breath for the next 5-12 weeks and pray. But! Do not fear, dear readers! I have, waiting in the wings, a variety of fabulously fun short stories, mostly consisting of other science fiction and fantasy-esque pieces.

My novel chapter is due to be outlined and revised tomorrow, so you may know this: the hour of true revision is at hand. You'll have to forgive the overdramatic tone in this entry. I tend to feel more free to express my grandiloquence when I'm not face-to-face with people. When you say these things in the "real," you sound silly. Here, you sound silly and eccentric. That's the trick.

The last thing on the list of things to discuss is my lunch. Today, dear readers, I enjoyed the most perfect sandwich in the world: toasted wheat bread, smoked turkey, American cheese and a fruit-cup jar of orange juice. Most wonderful. I think I might write that sandwich a song.

So say we all.
Bri

On Siege and Storm

War Reports from the Front:

A storm is coming. While those may be the most cliche words in a fantasy series, it is the truth tonight as I sit in my dorm room. The clouds circled menacingly all day, massing their legion over our small city, and I believe, that following the traditional flashing of lightning spears and war-drum thunder, the stormlings will advance the siege against us. So, I have decided to wait out the coming battle with cool new musics and a horrifying Ray Bradbury story.

A storm is coming. This next week work and finals, along with a torrent of short stories and portfolios are bearing down on me with hurricane force.

A storm is coming. Editors beware! By this Friday, I will have flooded your post office boxes with the most lovely of manuscripts and incorrigible characters!

That's the news from the front.

So say we all.
Bri

Lost...in Space

Since the discussion in our Into Print class this morning, I am much more confident about my current path in the literary life and in the class. Other students have already submitted to publications and while that was a little intimidating, I was sort of inspired to send out my stuff sooner than later, to at least say that I had the courage to send out something. After Spring Break, the three stories previously mentioned will be ready, and that's when I will have to brace myself and send them out.

On another note, the science fiction story has grown several pages within the past few hours mainly because of an idea I had about distance and time that came while I was playing around with a program called Celestia. This setup allows you to start at Sol and move out into our solar system, covering vast distances to find Earth and the moon, then from there, the orbits of various other solar bodies. While I was looking around, I lost track of Earth and found myself wandering into strange space where I didn't know the constellations and I couldn't find a point of reference to find my way back .

When I closed the program, the thought stayed with me of how vast that distance was and how disoriented and frustrated I felt when I couldn't even find our sun or any of our constellations. I think I will definitely use that sense of detachment and disorientation in part of my science fiction piece, so thanks to my friend Charlie for passing the word to me about the program. If any of you are interested, definitely take a look - while sometimes disorienting, there is actually much fun to be had.

So say we all.
Bri