I Keep Falling Out of Time

As I said last time, I'm going to talk some more about time travel. Because I love it. What does this have to do with upcoming Camp NaNo? Probably nothing. And that's okay.

Here's my experience with time travel. I've written two time travel stories. I think. I can only thing of two. I have Unknown Soldier (first written as a short story in 2008, then as a screenplay in 2011), and A Matter of Time (my first NaNo from 2010).

Unknown Soldier was pretty straightforward. It was a loop. Essentially, our protagonist heard a story about a mysterious guy who did a heroic thing. This inspires him to try to be heroic. He volunteers for an experimental program to test, you guessed it, a time machine.

So Close, So Far, I'm Lost in Time

Time travel.

It's one of my favorite subjects. It opens up all kinds of possibilities for stories that cross multiple time periods. It can be done really well, or really not.

There are options when it comes to time travel. You have two main types:

• Loops
• Branches

Loops are different from time loops, in which a period of time keeps repeating. Rather, I mean the kind of thing where someone went back in time and did a thing, but that doesn't change the future, because they always went back to do that thing. Like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The bit with the patronus at the lake or whatever.

Branches are when they go back and change something, and they divert events onto a different path, resulting in a future different from the one they left. Like Back to the Future. School dances and sports almanacking lead to changes in the timeline.

Oh, the Places You'll Go

This was one of those days where I wrote a good chunk of a post, before deciding it was no good and starting over. I also had to make time for Lego Jurassic Park and at least two naps, and well, here we are.

I have a week left before Camp NaNo begins. Which means I need to get my ass in gear, regarding an outline. Now, I've determined that the first chapter or so should establish these characters on their road trip. They'll make stops, fight over snacks and music, and just… do things young 20-somethings do.

A Proliferation of Portals

I've been watching 11.22.63, and spoiler alert for the first half hour, there's a portal. Not anywhere that would make any sense, it just is. And I'm only a few episodes in, but it’s not explained how it got there. In true Stephen King fashion, I suppose. Sometimes, weird things just are. I mean, in From a Buick 8, there's a portal to a hell dimension or whatever inside a car (I think, it's been a while since I read it). He can get away with it. But can I?

To be honest, The Long Road is really shaping up to be some kind of homage to Stephen King. The weird town with the sheriff is very Desperation, whether I meant it to be that way or not.

And that's where we run into trouble. There's a fine line between "inspired by" and "a rip-off of." You don't want to be on the wrong side. Especially if you hope to eventually publish something, which I do.

So on the one hand, I might be able to get away with giving no reason for the portals and reality jumping. On the other though, I kind of want to have one. It's seems kind of cheap to just say, "It's happening, just because."

What do you think? Would you want a reason to eventually be revealed, or can you accept a mystery with no answer?

Today's post is a little short, because I don't have much time. I'll see you Saturday.

The In-Between

I love liminal spaces. You probably know that by now. Those places between other places. The thresholds. The doorways. Places neither here nor there. That moment between today and tomorrow.

Somehow or another I found myself reading about hypnagogic and hypnopompic states, that is, the transitional periods of falling asleep and waking up, respectively.  Essentially, your brain doesn't always go smoothly from one to the other. It gets a little murky and mixed up, and gives you this liminal state between the two. And then I read about false awakening, where you think you've woken up, but you're still dreaming. The whole dream within a dream thing.

Me being me, I take some run of the mill mental phenomenon, and ask myself what kind of adventures could this lead to. I mean, a doorway's a doorway. Not just a link between asleep and awake, but maybe also a link to somewhere else. I've mentioned hypnic jerks before, that twitch when you're on the verge of sleep, like you've nearly fallen and caught yourself. But where were you falling to?

Long Lost Stories

I once wrote a story, or part of a story, about a kid who gets transported to some medieval land and has to find his way home.

Side note, I like just starting my posts all abruptly. I imagine it's like I just strolled into your living room and started telling you a story you weren't anticipating and didn't ask for.

Anyway, something reminded me of that story. I knew how it began, and kind of how it ended, but I never got around to figure out the middle. I haven't even seen this story in years. I wonder…

A Change of Plans

All right, guys, I'm calling it. I'm discontinuing "Just One Yesterday" for the time being. I wanted to give it a better ending, but… It was getting stuck in a rut of nothing really happening, or just the same things happening. There was all kind of other information that needed to make it in there, but for whatever reason, it never did. I think it's the nature of making it up as I go. I don't have a set plan of where to fit things in, so they don't fit in at all, and the story just wanders off the rails.

I know there were some unanswered questions, the largest of which was probably, how did Patrick end up dead and condemned to hell in the first place. That was actually the initial idea I had for the story, but when I actually started writing, I skipped to the aftermath.

I'd like to return to it someday, and I probably will eventually. But right now, I'm bored of having to write it, which is likely reflected in the quality, and everyone's getting bored of having to read it. So we're moving on, for the good of humanity.

Random Scribblings

I had a great idea about something the other day. But I didn’t write it down, so now I have no idea what it was. Let that be a lesson to you. Inspiration is a fickle bitch. The best and probably only piece of advice I can give about writing is to always have something to make notes on, whether that's a little notebook, a voice recorder, or a smartphone app. When you get an idea, you write it down. That idea's not going to stick around, and it's not going to come back when it's more convenient for you.

During Camp NaNo some years ago, I was about to go to bed when I thought of something that would solve the current issue with my story. I didn't have anything to write it on, so I willed myself to remember until morning. Well, I can tell you with some certainty that it was a word with about seven letters, and it had a "g" in it. That information did not solve the problem in my story.

Sometimes, I'll have random ideas about revision for NaNo projects I worked on years ago. And you better bet I write those down, because one day, I may actually sit down and fix those stories. If I wait long enough, I might solve all the plot holes with random thoughts.

Bailing Out

And… it's late. Again. I even had this one outlined in advance, I just didn't write it. I'll be honest with you, I'm kind of getting bored with it. I feel like it's not going how I want it to, and I can't pull it back and divert it. So, I think this is a sign that I should wrap it up. There will probably only be a few more installments, and then we'll move on to something new. I just need to get to a good stopping point, that's not like a bullshit cliffhanger.

So… Part Six:

"I thought of angels choking on their halos…"

The room spun. The ceiling warped like a heat mirage. The light fixture threatened to blink out of existence.

Patrick tried to raise his injured arm. It didn’t cooperate. He picked it up with the other hand and brought it up where he could see it. Besides the crusty bite marks, he could swear he saw something moving under the skin, crawling through his veins.

The front door opened. Patrick dropped his arm, wincing when it landed on the couch. Someone walked through the haze of the room. He expected Bryony, and thought it was her until he saw its face.