Greetings, fellow travelers, and welcome to the second posting of volume four of the Blog. Last week, I began a 52-week journey, where I was to post something once a week. To let you in something, I'm starting on this posting having just finished and scheduled last week's posting. With that out of the way, I say to you that any word of last week's posting hasn't arrived yet. If you wish to let me know you've visited, just write a comment below. You can write anything, even "I was here and I read this".
Now, last week, I was telling the story of how Cy and Conrad, two characters from my current attempt at a book, went through an evolution. Now, when I left off, it was the summer of 2009. My first attempts at internet postings, with my MySpace page, had somewhat failed when I discovered that there was an upper limit of what you could post. I tried to turn my second story, a serial for a webseries called The Quantum Argonauts, from a weekly thing to a daily thing. However, that didn't work, so I moved on.
I still wanted a future for Cy and Conrad, so I looked around the web for a place to put them. Finally, I came to this spot... okay, not this spot. It was my first real blogsite. It, too, went by the name Quantum Argonauts, and it was still my intention to put Cy and Conrad in sci-fi adventures. As I readied myself for the next stage, I still was in the dark about blogging. I thought you had to post it right after you write it. If I has known of scheduling, I would still be there.
Of course, I did make a couple of changes to the format of the series. I went from a serial to a series simple. The other thing was Cy's last name. After going by the name Jones since his creation, I changed it to Scott, to better reflect his new parentage. That was the first sign that Debralee was affecting my work. You see, my intend with the serial nature of the earlier stories was to parallel the original Doctor Who, which had a serial format for its first 26 years. With Debralee as Cy's mother, it would seem her sitcom work was changing the pace of things.
Indeed, the only serial left in the new run of stories was the opener, a rehashing of that first story. I changed the Cy Joneses to Cy Scotts. I also edited it from a three-parter published on MySpace to a two-parter. Let me tell you something, that change itself helped the pacing of the story. The ending of part one and beginning of part two was of a character having a moment in a parallel universe. By removing that cliffhanger, part one now ended where part two did: with that same character being dragged off to jail for something his counterpart from the other world did.
After rehashing my first story, I proceeded with now the third story with Cy and Conrad. However, that third story also was different. After going for a story-within-a-story, the challenge was what tale would be contained within the third story. I first had a sci-fi mystery set in a parallel universes (for those who are spotting a pattern, that's a thing with me) Actually, this alternate world was an interesting one. It was set in a 1975, where rigid airships still flew the skies. The way it was turning out, I felt I had something. However, it was not meant to be.
Let me see, the whole reason for the third story to be that way was that Halloween was the publication date. After a while, I went for a simple werewolf story (another pattern with me), set in my hometown of Buchanan, Michigan. When I was writing that one, I had the feeling that, in the world of Cy and Conrad, Buchanan was as fictional as their hometown of Hyperion. That feeling led to somewhat of an loose ending. I had other stories to tell and needed the time to write them. I was still in the dark about posting and scheduling said posts.
The following tale, the first one especially written for the blog, was a mystery story. Here, my new knowledge of Debralee and her career came into play, as well as Cy's past. To start, Cy had re-discovered an old alter ego of his: Detective Totsi. That was the first thing I did with Debralee's past. Next, a pinball machine to be delivered to the station goes missing. Cy decides to role-play his way into finding said machine. After a whole adventure, the machine was discovered to be in a truck in the radio station's parking lot. Not bad for a second blog story.
The next story in the line-up was a sleepwalking tale. It was the first time I introduced Conrad's sister into the mix. The sister is another character in my book. She was actually an import, from another run of stories taking place in my hometown. I'll share with you that sister. In the other set of stories, it was my intention to create an split personality with her (yet another pattern with me. I can't stop myself). That split personality was always someone of low morals and loose with their sex life. That was meant to be an opposite to the sister's uptight persona.
In the sleepwalking story, Conrad was the one who was sleepwalking. The problem here was that, when he sleptwalked, he would rush over to his sister's house. The reason was that he was gonna take her to the hospital so she could deliver her baby. The thing was: the sister, name of Darlene, was not pregnant. In fact, Cy observed that such an act was beyond her thought process. In the story, Cy remained quite a mysterious figure. The sleepwalking was an element that ended up in early drafts of the current book. Holdovers, they're called in the writers' world.
In this first version, Cy offers to place Conrad under hypnosis (pattern again here). Here, my little research on Debralee at this point came into play. I had learned that her fiancee had been a victim of the attacks on 9/11. In the story, Cy had studied hypnosis and had used it on his mother when she began sleepwalking after the attacks. Under hypnosis, Cy had Conrad re-stage the dream he was having while sleepwalking. With Darlene helping out, Cy learns that a confusing report about a rape led to the sleepwalking. With that, Conrad gets cured and life moves on.
As I started on the fifth story, I began to notice how the science fiction element I wanted to include was missing. Indeed, beyond the rehashed opener, science fiction was totally non-existent. As summer faded to fall, the stories I was writing for the new webseries had little to no science fiction, beyond the fact that now, Cy and Conrad hosted both their show on science fiction and a weekday morning show. One of the stories I was writing was a tale where we followed Cy and Conrad as they readied for an edition of their weekend show on sci-fi.
In that story, I remember, Cy had acquired a girlfriend during the adventure with the pinball machine. Here, the girl, named Joanne, had invited herself and a friend to see the goings-on. The friend, however, didn't believe Cy was the son of Debralee Scott and he spent the time trying to both prove the truth and prepare for his show, which was a small radio play he had written. My memory tells me that I ended up combining this story with another day-in-the-life tale I was writing for a full posting. My troubles was just beginning now.
Writing the first part of this posting stirred memories of another story I wrote during the summer of 2009. It was the sixth story I wrote for the blog. It was called "The Melting of the Iceberg". I remember the title because of what happened as I wrote it. As I started writing it, my struggles in writing the first five stories were fresh in my mind. In fact, I was still re-writing them because I wasn't sure if they were good enough or not. That's the trouble when you lack feedback. You don't know if you're on the right track or about to go over a cliff.
However, as I was writing it, the words seem to flow with quick secession. To give you a clue, I measured the stories by page count. My set average was between 15 and 20 pages. The first five were hard to get near that length. I was writing this one when I found, to my surprise, I was somewhat far from the ending and I was 20 pages in. At that time, reading it over, I realized that I had produced a perfect piece of fiction, one that could hold its head high with other classic works. That was to me. It flowed naturally out of me and just worked nicely.
The story itself was as follows. It was Conrad's sister Darlene's 28th birthday. However, she was, according to Cy, a human iceberg. A human iceberg is a person devoid of personality, feelings, and human responses to ideas and situations. Conrad tried to prove Cy wrong by throwing a surprise party and inviting the closet circle of friends, including station intern Phil and Cy's new girlfriend Joanne. The party turns out to be a disaster with Darlene ruining any attempt to surprise her and snub Cy's gift to her: a bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey.
Darlene's cold and ruthless comments about Cy and his mother send him out, ending the party. That evening, as Cy walks home from the local tavern, he sees Darlene walking toward him. As he tries to ignore her, she calls out to him, calling him 'Cy'. It surprises him as she never called that before, always 'Cyrus'. Cy then finds that Darlene has drank his gift, all of it, and that the whiskey has melted her icy core. This leads to a night of further drinking. The next day, he takes Phil to see the new Darlene. However, he leaves Conrad in the dark as, in Cy's mind, he let her stay frozen all that time.
The next two stories after that proved that this one was perfect, as they proved hard to even decide their content. The following story went through rewrite after rewrite. Even I write this, I find it hard to remember what story I planned it to be. I remember one version was where Cy was coming down with what he called the winter doldrums, which is total boredom due to the season. I also remember one storyline where another character, a police station janitor named Polly, was a closeted singer. This lead to Cy proving her talent to the world.
The next one is somewhat clearer in my mind. It was a delightful tale where Cy, fed up with the blatant commericalism of Christmas announces a boycott on commercials on his show. This got him in trouble with his boss and Joanne's father, who's a wealthy coffee magnate who advertises on the radio station. As I wrote that one, the whole saga came to an end. My inability to write regularly proved to be the major factor. Also, I still didn't know about scheduling posts and that also proved to be a factor. However, I had gotten eight stories in.
Not without going over idea after idea. One idea for the Christmas story was of a homeless man who takes up residence in the station's green room. I actually wrote out that story after I failed to find more plot with Cy's boycott story. However, it was never posted, because by the winter of 2009, the series was dead. This was even after I wrote out the rest of the season in an outline. I even wrote out two more seasons in said outline before it came to an end. However, the very makeup of Cy and Conrad's story had changed and continued that way.
I believe it is where this week's posting should end. I hope you enjoyed this, because further discussion of Cy and Conrad's origins are on hold. I need to discuss other things, like the upcoming inauguration. In fact, I've just decided that this will be the subject of my post, I will talk about the history of making a president official. Believe me, when and where has changed over time. In conclusion, this whole mess of a blog is about to get messier.
The third posting of volume four will be published on January 26th, 2013, at 5:15 pm.
Join me, won't you?
Yours truly, John Maxwell.
However, as I was writing it, the words seem to flow with quick secession. To give you a clue, I measured the stories by page count. My set average was between 15 and 20 pages. The first five were hard to get near that length. I was writing this one when I found, to my surprise, I was somewhat far from the ending and I was 20 pages in. At that time, reading it over, I realized that I had produced a perfect piece of fiction, one that could hold its head high with other classic works. That was to me. It flowed naturally out of me and just worked nicely.
The story itself was as follows. It was Conrad's sister Darlene's 28th birthday. However, she was, according to Cy, a human iceberg. A human iceberg is a person devoid of personality, feelings, and human responses to ideas and situations. Conrad tried to prove Cy wrong by throwing a surprise party and inviting the closet circle of friends, including station intern Phil and Cy's new girlfriend Joanne. The party turns out to be a disaster with Darlene ruining any attempt to surprise her and snub Cy's gift to her: a bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey.
Darlene's cold and ruthless comments about Cy and his mother send him out, ending the party. That evening, as Cy walks home from the local tavern, he sees Darlene walking toward him. As he tries to ignore her, she calls out to him, calling him 'Cy'. It surprises him as she never called that before, always 'Cyrus'. Cy then finds that Darlene has drank his gift, all of it, and that the whiskey has melted her icy core. This leads to a night of further drinking. The next day, he takes Phil to see the new Darlene. However, he leaves Conrad in the dark as, in Cy's mind, he let her stay frozen all that time.
The next two stories after that proved that this one was perfect, as they proved hard to even decide their content. The following story went through rewrite after rewrite. Even I write this, I find it hard to remember what story I planned it to be. I remember one version was where Cy was coming down with what he called the winter doldrums, which is total boredom due to the season. I also remember one storyline where another character, a police station janitor named Polly, was a closeted singer. This lead to Cy proving her talent to the world.
The next one is somewhat clearer in my mind. It was a delightful tale where Cy, fed up with the blatant commericalism of Christmas announces a boycott on commercials on his show. This got him in trouble with his boss and Joanne's father, who's a wealthy coffee magnate who advertises on the radio station. As I wrote that one, the whole saga came to an end. My inability to write regularly proved to be the major factor. Also, I still didn't know about scheduling posts and that also proved to be a factor. However, I had gotten eight stories in.
Not without going over idea after idea. One idea for the Christmas story was of a homeless man who takes up residence in the station's green room. I actually wrote out that story after I failed to find more plot with Cy's boycott story. However, it was never posted, because by the winter of 2009, the series was dead. This was even after I wrote out the rest of the season in an outline. I even wrote out two more seasons in said outline before it came to an end. However, the very makeup of Cy and Conrad's story had changed and continued that way.
I believe it is where this week's posting should end. I hope you enjoyed this, because further discussion of Cy and Conrad's origins are on hold. I need to discuss other things, like the upcoming inauguration. In fact, I've just decided that this will be the subject of my post, I will talk about the history of making a president official. Believe me, when and where has changed over time. In conclusion, this whole mess of a blog is about to get messier.
The third posting of volume four will be published on January 26th, 2013, at 5:15 pm.
Join me, won't you?
Yours truly, John Maxwell.
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