Air Frame = Pressure Hull + X

Feel so...dumb. As in stupid, that I didn't see this sooner. And as in not able to communicate effectively. Only just comprehending just how dumb I've been, 'coz I've just had a Eureka! moment.

Outlining ... y'know, The Project, which because it's so big a project really should be outlined, not so inflexibly set that it allows no further step of exploration nor joy, tho enough plan for building the house on, putting the main bits where they should properly go, and the thing looking like a house when I've finished.

I was convinced I had the right POV, y'see. Only I hadn't, it wasn't, and in fact my choice of POV was not ever going to summon up a living breathing story before me. Not with one thousand years of tinkering and the synopsis dead-text-book perfect.

Because I had the entirely wrong point of view character struggling to tell the story impossible for him to tell. I might as well have tried cobbling together an aeroplane from mini-sub parts.

But. But it's my beloved project, y'see! he exclaims, as if being blinkered so long explains.

And it doesn't. First-Person voice worked in that longago when it first blazed along so very nicely: then it was all idea, a character, and getting his story down before gone forever, like a dream forgotten come waking. And not a thought about outlining, not then. But a story is like exploring an unknown land: writing it enlarges the map. Soon enough, in his effort to tell the larger story, his voice sounded less natural. Starts and stops jarred. I thought a road map, an outline, should restore story flow. Because I'd set it in motion using First-Person, and sprinting so promisingly in First-Person, then in First-Person it logically should continue. Shouldn't it?

[Cusses out self for the mistake that wasted quite a lot of time: none of which is appropriate to record here.]

No. But now I hear the best fitting voice, and it's all He, She, and They. Simple.

Once upon a time, there was this guy, and his name was Guy. And this is what happened to this guy, Guy, one fine morning when Julie Andrews, young and irresistible, invited him to picnic with her, and the pack of kids she was herding, high in a wide-angle sunny alpine meadow...

I can feel it writing itself!

Mountain Lesson Lessened

Beijing's Olympics' flame atop Mount Everest. Mountains, for some folks, are sacred places. The Olympics, for some folks, has become an affront. Maybe it's just me. Feels as if that Highest among the high dry spots today became a bit lower: lessened to little more than video filler on the morning news; a gas flame sputtering where a human usually draws air from a bottle; meaningless as an Olympics publicity stunt.

How might the I.O.C. have responded had the summit team met disaster, I wonder? The place since Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund has become a climber's cemetery.

Chomolungma, Goddess Mother of the World. Sagarmatha, Ocean Mother. Mount Everest, named for a surveyor from an empire half the world away. No pun intended, but while growing up it used to give me chills watching those rare climbing documentaries on tv. Eventually, other docs opened my eyes about cultures in our wondrous world, and their reverence for such places. And then we come to our current-day mindset. The un-ending train of climbing expeditions, where so many others have already been and all the routes imaginable already climbed. Elite, and Extreme, the descriptors for the adventurers: some certainly seeking something less tangible than coming away with another checkmark in a logbook. And others ... Well, there are said to be untold ways to enlightenment; so how is it any less right if they do make their career climbing every high place in succession?

Still, my way isn't any less right, either - and I can dislike a thing I dislike!

And I dislike seeing something very like this mountain lessening happening even in my pre-Olympics Vancouver. The Grouse Grind, named so for the attitude of so many who use what once was a hiking trail up Grouse Mountain: now in the main no longer experienced as a hike, that might possibly refresh the soul plodding step after step higher above everyday concerns. Instead used, like a piece of exercise equipment, like a stair climber is used, for the cardio work-out, for burning off the fat of a sedentary lifestyle; (and now I'm being snarky) -- and afterward, the adherents head off for some over-priced coffee cocktail!

Of course, their way might not be any less right, either.

Jottings on the Go

Got me this notion of writing a thing using this shiny-new mobile I'm tipping about in my hand so it catches the light just right. Sure, not a new idea: using a cell phone’s techno-nifties, creating short somethings, such as all those video bits and photo albums incessantly posted to YouTube, MySpace, blogs, and even news providers. Thought I heard someone made a movie using one of these.

And just an idea for now, this Jottings on the Go. Needs researching. The 140-character message limit certain to severely hobble things, if it's Ulysses, wandering the town. Well, maybe not a novel, then ... unless some novel kinda novel, told in one hundred and forty character installments. Hmm, right, at fifteen cents per chapter.

And then there's the language to choose. Standard English? - nyet, and not even if only the essential most concisely picked - certainly not compact enough. Nor enuf. Not even in same dialect as that shortened enuf. Not in weird, as in uncommon abbreviations, perhaps only confusing. Logically, the most must be said with less: every word where it can doing multiple duty, for the meaning and the emotion it might possibly convey. The compressed thing prob'ly best told in a compressed language, such as this Text-Chat-Shorthand ... uh,I.M. currently all the bee's knees, especially with the young’uns.

Dug out a yellowing print-up of a Chatters' Dictionary from 2001. Tho...[Hah! as in Although], quick googling has already returned a promising couple of more modern Texting and Instant Messaging info-sites. So, it's back to school for me!