Odd Transformations 18: The Novelization! (Special Edition)

I tried posting this a few days back, but Blogger decided to kill the post due to server maintenance.

So, here we go, with some extra content...

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So I'm involved again with the National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, or NaNo, or Nnnnnn...But I'll be referring to it as NaNo...)

Two weeks ago, I had a dream that involved me winning a scholarship to a pirate school. It was a pretty "Harry Potterish" dream, with pirate magic, and a huge archaic school building with golden banisters and staircases everywhere.

I remember buying some fancy pirate clothes with my scholarship. And then I woke up.

The next dream right after that involved a friend of mine who, in my dream, moved to France. I went to visit her, and a wicker chair was stolen from the store she was working at.

Since I had, as yet, no plot for my NaNo project (starting up on November 1st), I thought I could go a story based on the dream.

But the pirate school dream was, in my mind, WAY too stupid for a 50,000 word novel.

I brainstormed a bit, came up with three characters that would work well in a story about a guy who visits France to meet up with a female friend who suddenly moved there two years ago. It was to be revealed that there was a third character (the best friend of the guy, the boyfriend of the girl) who had died of cancer, which led to the situation that the two living characters were in.

When I posted on the NaNo message boards, I started getting messages from friends asking me to do the pirate story.

I realized, after a bit of brainstorming, that I could make the ludicrous pirate academy work.

I forget who said this, (if it was Peter David, or David Cross, or someone who might or might not have "David" in their name) but I remember telling a good trick to writing anything:

The audience will only believe one lie that you tell them. The trick is to make that lie SO big that within the context of the one big lie, you can cram as many implausibilities into that premise.

So make the lie so STUPID, so incredible, that the reader will go along with anything you tell them afterwards.

Also, if I make the main character real enough, and have him comment on the stupidity of pirate school, I will deflate anyone else who tried to naysay my story with that argument.

So I've got a way for him to get into pirate school and win a scholarship. After that, everything else can be the most ludicrous story ideas I've ever thought of.

Such as the rival school across the lake, the school that consists of ninjas...

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So there's a lunar eclipse happening as I type this. Every now and then, I stop typing, go to the front door, and watch.

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On Monday, the members of Kow FINALLY had their Fringe-end dinner, something we wanted to do right after our last show on Sunday. Then our show got rained out, and we didn't have the energy to go out right away.

We thought we'd do it the day of NoHarm. And then we realized we wouldn't have enough time after sound check. So we postponed it again.

But, damn, that was a meal to wait for. We went to Tom Goodchild's Moose Factory, where it happened to be "30% off steak" night. And such GOOD steak! My mouth waters just thinking of it. I was completely satisfied with the ribeye, but I think I'd try the bison the next time I go there...

Dev wasn't too happy about not being able to eat half his mussels due to not being able to pry them open, but they managed to give us a huge amount of foccacia bread and garlic loafs. And the Honey Brown was great (probably the best on tap I've had in a while...).

Dev and I were considering dessert, but the rest of the guys wanted to leave. So I bought a peach Boston cream cake at Safeway when Dev and I went to D!'s for wrestling action later that night.

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I'm just getting off a case of illness, one that left me bedprone and sleeping for about 16 hours over the course of yesterday.

I think I'll be back to work tomorrow, since I'm able to sit at my computer and type this...

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I've decided to get tested at the hospital and see if I'm a match for my dad. He's going to need a new kidney, and my aunt Kim is a match as well.

I thought, "What the hey?" Dad's helped me out so much over the course of my life, the LEAST I can do is attempt to extend his life.

I'll wait until after Christmas for the surgery, but I'll have the testing done on me soon.

I was waiting to see what my company would say to me missing 6 weeks of work, and they said that I'd be eligible for temporary disability for donating a kidney. Which is good.