Further discussion of A Small Town Anywhere is kind of exploding in its Dispatch follow-up post, including (just now) some lengthy and illuminating commentary from one of the organizers.
Category: Writing
How I spent my summer abroad
So some of you may remember that I like Hackers. I like it a lot. I realized some time ago that while I am not into Rocky Horror, if Rocky Horror was Hackers, I would be a full on costume-wearing hot-dog-throwing line-reciting fanboy. GET A JOB, I would shriek. YOU ARE IN THE BUTTER ZONE.
I recently moved to London and into a house where the function of the residents is, essentially, to egg each other on about goofy ideas. Catriona provided the idea of doing read-throughs of plays or movie scripts as a form of participatory recreation, and Holly asked if there was anything I’d like to toss in the prospective-script pile. Could it be really bad, I asked? Because there was one that could be funny.
Later, we were passing around emails about said read-throughs and a possible visit to a museum full of automata. Somehow Holly came up with the joke of steampunk “hackers” as “clockers,” constructing automata instead of programs. I laughed at it. Then I said “clock the Bigben!” Then I said “oh no,” because I really had more important things to do.
Instead, Holly and I spent a few weeks interpolating the movie script into 1860s London, replacing the absurd computer-feats with absurd clockwork and technobabble with Victorian slang. Then we revised and got it printed and got some friends to come over and wear funny hats, and this was the result: Clockers.
Of the people who did the read-through, only Holly and I had read the script or indeed seen the original movie beforehand, and they all did a fantastic job picking up multiple parts and figuring out what was going on. And putting up with my Matthew Lillard impression. Thanks again, guys, and let me know if you want a link under your name on that page.
Proserpinacrusish
Stephen claims that by stretching the Proserpina story out, I am forcing him to write stuff like this:
Proserpina gets so good at punching (after practice) that she finds herself able to punch not only physical objects, but concepts as well.
“Ow!” says Love. “What was that for?”
“You were never around.” And she is gone.
“My arm!” says Loneliness. “Why’d you hit me?”
She sits, and begins to stretch. “You never left.”
Hours later, she’s still swinging.
Her cel phone rings. “nnnnJello?” she answers.
“There are some skinheads sitting at the bar, and everyone’s super uncomfortable. Can you do something?”
“Watch them a minute. Don’t hang up.” She squints, turns her head eight degrees and points at a thin figure. “Are you Nazism?”
“Ja. Unt?” The figure stands defiantly, arms akimbo.
“Prosperina, what are you–hey, they fell off their stools! How did you–“
Several punishing jabs and an uppercut later, Proserpina picks the phone up off the ground. “Anything cool happen?”
“Their hair grew back! Then they started making out!”
“Pff. Nazis. ” She spat.
… which I think is awesome. Rest assured, Stephen, you are not helping your own case.
Thus begins… KIND OF ABOUT SUPERHEROES WEEK on ANACRUSIS
All the old blogs have been moved over to WordPress. People who blog or used to blog here: I’ll email you later with instructions and logins and stuff. When I find the strength. The Dispatch is a work in progress, as WP has no provision for importing comments except from other WP blogs, so I’m doing it manually. I didn’t realize it had this much content.
I’ve also uploaded the Idiotcams, all 278 of them, to Flickr. Now I just get to go through and retitle and retag every… one… of them.
I really miss NewsBruiser.
Hbleagh.
Okay, the highest-volume blogs are up, all content and categories and whatnot included. They also, regrettably, all look like WordPress blogs. I’ll fix that after I spend tomorrow importing the lower-volume ones.
With the exception of the calendar, category and random-entry pages, all the old links to everything SHOULD be working, so please let me know if you find stuff that isn’t. I’m tired. It’s almost 5 am here.
But there will be an Anacrusis later today.
I’ve fallen prey to the great Dreamhost CPU disaster and what that basically means is I have to change my weblog software. I’m very unhappy about this, but I can’t afford to move to a dedicated server and I don’t believe the situation would improve at another host. At least I won’t have to bug Leonard for help anymore (this is a lie, I’m writing him an email right now).
NewsBruiser did exactly what I needed it to do for almost four years and I’ll miss using it. Those of you whose blogs I host, I’m sorry; I’ll be sending out a guided tour email once I’ve got (sigh) WordPress or whatever up and running. The front page of NFD is static, so it will remain up for the duration, but everything else will go down later today.
Today the aristocracy frolic among us
And tomorrow, deep in the pixel trenches, we peasants will still toil on.
Speaking of Story Hacks
Hey, I actually picked up last prize in the Lyttle Lyttons this year!
Story Hacks: Fifth in a Series
There’s one thing every writer agrees on: child abuse is great!
Not real child abuse, of course. Real child abuse is tragic, and people who don’t love all its victims unconditionally are hideous monsters and probably pederasts themselves. This makes it very easy to find abusers in real life. Haven’t you ever asked your friends whether they’d spank their kids? Trick question! Good writers have no friends.
The thing that makes child abuse great in fiction, though, is that it’s worth infinity points on the badness-goodness scale. Is your hero not sympathetic enough? Do your readers say she’s “selfish” or “disturbingly violent” or “clearly you with your name spelled differently?” Reveal a history of abuse to explain everything forever! Or maybe you have an antagonist who just isn’t sufficiently evil–“I don’t think Wicca is that bad,” your readers might say, or “you psychopath, stop reading this garbage and let me go.” But make your villain a pedophile and watch their eyes glimmer with hate!
Aren’t you glad we’ve discovered this technique together? It’s like our own special secret! Just remember not to let anyone else know about it.
Today’s Hack in a Nutshell: Black and white is one color too many!