Originally posted on the Benrik website:
http://benrik.co.uk/...
Nate is READING: William Golding, 'The Inheritors'
LISTENING TO: The Paddy Rock Podcast
WATCHING: Inglourious Basterds
"Mad: Adjective. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech, and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves."--Ambrose Bierce
Everyone, I have big news: I finally updated 'Ghost Dance'! http://authorofghostdance.wordpress.com/ Chapter Seven is one of my personal favorite chapters. If you like myth, folklore, teen romance, or any of the various subdivisions of fantasy, you'll like 'Ghost Dance,' or your money back.
And don't forget, guys, that yes, Nate is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/...
I look back through deep uncounted aeons of time and I see before me the awesome and terrible visage of a man as big and as strong and as heartless as a bear, for bear is his name; he is called Maethyld the Bear by his own people, and Maethyld the Man-Killer by his enemies. Seven feet is his height with some inches to spare. His head is covered in a dense shock of black hair that has never been trimmed. His eyes shine with blue bale-fire. His dusky skin is covered in blue spiralling tattoos. His hide is tough as leather and covers a knotted mass of muscles. He is naked, save for a kilt made from the hide of a wolf. He carries a big stone axe and a flint-tipped spear. He is Maethyld the Bear, Maethyld the Man-Killer, Maethyld the bane of Atlantis.
That's my new character. I've been reading this book called 'Forbidden History,' put out by the folks behind Atlantis Rising magazine. Most of it's pretty nutty, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fascinating. It planted the seed of a new story, very likely my best one yet. I learned long ago to curb my enthusiasm with new projects so as to not burn myself out, so I'm going to wait until I've done my hundred pages for ScriptFrenzy to put pen to paper on it. In the meantime, I'm going to read 'The Inheritors' by William Golding and 'The Clan of the Cave Bear' by Jean M. Auel, as well as a couple of books about Bigfoot. Because to write this story, I'm going to have to go back, way back into time, to when the only people around where troglodytes . . . cave men . . . cave women . . . Neanderthal.
Since I have a bad habit of slacking off on current projects when I get a great new idea, I also picked up the second book in Cameron Judd's Mountain War trilogy. Because I really want to finish my Overmountain man story. I wrote a new chapter for it just the other day, and it looks like this particular yarn is going to include some steampunk elements. Very nice; it's already a story about freedom fighters, so why shouldn't it also be about the triumph of the agrarian over the industrialized? Plus steampunk is just awesome.
Speaking of writing projects, I finally finished that reincarnation story. Quick summary: Anarchist gets shot in the leg, loses blood, lapses into a coma, hallucinates that he's a Hoplite-type warrior in another age, wakes up, discovers that it was more than just a hallucination. So it's done. Where should I submit it? Or, in the common tongue, "I has a storee. Wut I do wif it?"
Speaking of language: I'm sick of people who toss around the word "privelege." As if the fact that I chanced to be born a straight white male denies me the right to have an opinion on certain issues. And another thing: "Other" is not a verb. It is impossible to "other" someone. I believe you mean "ostracise," or perhaps "alienate."
Random writing advice: Whenever possible, do not use "began," use "started." "Began" is a wimpy Romance word. "Started" is a good solid Viking word. By God, sometimes it makes me sad what's happening to this fine English language of ours. Personally, I blame the Normans.
Of all the translations of 'Beowulf,' Seamus Heaney's is probably the best, but I have a hard time reading it because the picture on the cover freaks me out. It looks like an extreme closeup of one of Red Sonja's nipples: http://www.lib.udel.edu/... http://tvtropes.org/...
I didn't get a chance to pit-fire my flowerpots. I'ma do that Friday, if I can.
They say that 'Inglourious Basterds' is a terribly violent film. I disagree. You see, if you watch it very closely, you'll see that very few people get killed or wounded. It's mostly just Nazis.
So about those Tasks, those Benrik Tasks. I've been welching on them, I'm sorry to say. But here's the thing: The Book exists to help us wage war on the doldrums, to conquer ennui. And I think it's served its purpose. My life is no longer boring. I've got lots of projects going on. I'm writing now more than I have in months. Wonderful!
Speaking of writing, I'm here to remind you that it's almost time for ScriptFrenzy. ScriptFrenzy is a challenge to write a 100-page script (screenplay, stage play, comic book, whatever) in thirty days, between the beginning and end of the month of April. You can find out more here: http://scriptfrenzy.org/ If you've already signed up, we can be writing buddies! http://scriptfrenzy.org/...
That's enough for one day. May the road woind ever up tae meet ye an' may the wind be always at your back, me foin boyo! Pog ma thoin!