Though computers are handy. . .

Though I do not have Human skulls on my writing desk, I can relate to this picture due to the mix of the archaic and the mordern. How many young people of today know how to look through a phone book?

I've been having some serious difficulties with my computer, upon which is the Writing Project, and I can say with confidence that when the machine gives up its last gasp, I will have lost nothing important. Remember, I hand write everything, (except these blogs.) I also have all the CDs of my music and a sterio on which to play them.

However, without a computer my time on the web writing these blogs and E-mailing friends will be cut out completely. . . until I get a new machine.

For anyone familiar with the Dune series written by the late Frank Herbert, you will understand the term, "hydrolic dependancy." The Chinese came up with it a thousand years before the Romans. Build conduits where running water is distributed to the populace in such a fashion as to make going to the well or stream or river on a daily basis for water no longer necessary. After only one generation, going to the well, stream or river is considered "out-moded" and a waste of time. When the Goths, led by Aleric, sacked Rome, one of the things they did was destroy the conduits of free-flowing water. There was a marked social collapse. It is the same with electricity and all of the neat little gadgets our society has become reliant upon.

I will be upset if the computer dies before I get a new one, but I won't kill myself over it.

Character characteristics

Though the above picture may seem a bit disturbing, I thought that it best describes the characteristics of the characters of the Writing Project.

Earlier this week, I finally had the breakthrough that I've been long awaiting with a couple of the characters. (And about bloody time too. . .) These particular characters had appeared out of the creative ether a couple years agao, but were never fully formed. I found that I was writing around them rather than through and thus the story began to take shape based on that path. But when it came time to review other characters, the main ones, it seemed there was a bit of a block and I couldn't really figure it out. Knowing that main characters depend upon supportive or antagonistic ones, I had been blinded by the illusion that that was the only way to go.

Obviously, I was wrong.

Supportive and antagonistic characters also have a reliance upon the main, thus creating a symbiotic relationship that is one of the paramount basics of story-telling. (I think I had been sleeping through that class session way back when in school. . .)

As I had writen about before, my style of writing takes the wholistic approach rather than the linear, and yet while understanding that, I still had been linear with the characters.

Well, not now.

The characters, be they main, supportive or antagonistic, grow out of each other necessarily and naturally. To not recognize that would be the death of the Writing Project, and that, I know, would make some people very unhappy since they've been waiting and waiting and waiting. . .for the rewrite of book one, the completion of book two and the rest to follow shortly thereafter.

Oh, by the way, Bo, my dear and very patient friend, the title of the first book has changed. And it's not my fault. Maya made me do it. . .