[RBSAAUT] - A wild Christmas appears

... It uses family. It's super effective.

But enough with the lame jokes that haven't been funny during the last two years or so. As I've hinted on in my last blog post, which should be from Friday the 16th, I'm currently at my mom's and grandma's house in Saxony enjoying the good life.

I'm aware of the lack of updates during the last week and I originally intended to not let it slip but in the end, all that's left is for me to apologize and tell you that the regular schedule will pick up again after Christmas, or at least in the new year (latest time to kick it off again would be the 3rd of January).

But for the time being, I've been thinking about a couple of things for Loner's Peak and Fool's Flight. For the latter of the two I put a code together on the train ride here which will be of some importance for the story, but for obvious reasons I can't quite tell you all too much about it.

I've also got to meet my new "little sister". Mauzi III, she's quite the lively one I have to say but most of all she's not too fond of sleeping through the whole of the night (I know, I know, most cats aren't) as she takes particular interest in waking me every couple of hours mainly for the sake of it.
Ever been woken up by your cat because she's sitting on your chest, loudly purring and frantically shoving her cold nose into your face over and over again?

Aside from that I had the opportunity to torture a couple of unsuspecting students last Thursday morning as I took part in an oral examination... as the examiner... I've been fighting against being dragged into the teacher's role my whole (short) life long... and now... at the age of 23 ... I've already lost. To make things even more drastic... It turns out it was kinda fun.

So anyways... Enjoy your holidays! If you're from Germany: Merry Christmas and have fun getting together and celebrating later on today. For the rest of the world, enjoy your Christmas, holidays or whatever today, tomorrow or whenever it's time to celebrate anything! It might even be your birthday.

As always, thanks for reading. I'll be baaaaack.
Marc, somewhat tired due to kitteh.

[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 5: The Room

Welcome my dear readers. Yes! It's Friday! And as on every Friday, I have a new part of my short story The Bamboo Labyrinth for you! So let's get started right away!

If you are a first time reader though, I'd recommend starting off with part one. You..., well you know why.

[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 1: Introduction
[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 2: Delving Deeper
[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 3: A Memory's Embrace
[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 4: Treacherous Darkness


Well, then... enjoy!


*~*

The gloom of the night only crept by agonizingly slowly, I can still remember that much. Minutes turned into hours and hours into days as sleep was a rare treat I apparently wasn’t worthy of. And even now it feels nothing short but the same, although I can easily skip through the pictures of my mind within mere seconds after they appear.    

I’m not entirely sure anymore but I can only assume that my ears still tried to catch a glimpse of the mysterious sound at that time. My thoughts running haywire and my heartbeat uneasy, as I had no real other option left than to just continue watching the nothingness of the night revolve around me.

Luckily for me, it would all clear up rather soon.

Daybreak follows. It brings along all the pleasant noises of the forest outside, replacing the humming of insects and remote rustlings of all kind with the light headed songs of the birds in the treetops. A welcome change in the scenery my brother would never come to enjoy in either way.

The usual pleasantries were exchanged at breakfast as most of both families met yet again. Remarkable and utmost strange how happy my mother was to see these faceless individuals. But yet again my real attention was taken by an unoccupied chair. Inconspicuous at first, it’s true, somewhat insidious nature managed to escape me for a good while. I kept asking myself who this seating could have belonged to, especially as everybody we had met as soon as we had arrived were already here together with us, glaring at us from their strange distorted faces, the demented voices of this past echo even now still ringing in the far back of what is my mind.

Afterwards we were set free to explore whatever the grounds would hold in store for us at our own ends. Finally, nobody holding me back anymore, I surely said to myself. The faint prayer of thankfulness directed to the heavens despite being as close to an atheist as you could probably be at that age.

Just as quickly as my brother ventured back to our room, begging for this nightmare to end, I picked up back on the trail of what might have rested hidden directly under my sight.

The bowels of this manor slowly start contracting as my past self keeps on venturing straight through his dull surroundings, not paying any attention to such a pointless abnormality.

It was on this day, that I first stumbled upon this very special room.

The sight of it now unfolding right in front of me again, it’s interior somewhat resembling old eastern architecture. Using the term loosely as surely images of my past life intruded even into this utmost sacred of territories.

Along the outside of this room a wooden way seems to be keeping its shape, holding it together, preventing the contractions from outside doing any damage to this sanctuary. But what lies of more importance was the floor in the middle. It was crafted from only the finest and sturdiest bamboo, ensuring it would last at least a lifetime. It all had a rather simple appeal to it..., at least at first glance but as I stepped beyond this wooden walkway I soon discovered a detail I had overlooked before. Fine straps of cut bamboo were arranged along the surface of my new found footing. But as I was still thinking of them as something simple like decoration or even worse, a means to an end, a very different feeling crept up upon me, tearing apart the feeling of security that rested within.

I quickly realized though... I was not alone anymore.

*~*

*click here to keep on reading with part 6*

What is the meaning behind the mysterious room? And more so, who or what is there with our protagonist? Find out next week on the 23rd!

As always, thanks to everybody for stopping by, reading and all that good jazz. I'm sorry, I can't concentrate to save my life today... so it'll be better if I'll just leave it at that.
Have a great weekend.
Marc, mentally unfocused

[SUM] - Some mixed up world we have here

So, here's the deal... originally I had planned on letting you all have part in on some crazy, dark place in the back of my head and how it works, maybe even explain how it comes up with all those shenanigans and whatnot... buuut... as Sunday was more of a content update ... or at least a content-filler... I'll switch it up for you and give you something else entirely.

Apples.

You may now wonder... apples?

Uhm.... that's why -> Apples

Do yourself a favor though and turn down the volume ... its rather loud... and might be disturbing for ... uhm... younger audience(?)


In any case... enjoy your apples...
And as always thanks for reading,
Marc, nope... not a bro-nie

P.S.: For those of you who might actually be wondering and waiting for some actual stuff..., fear not, there will be more, and you might want to check out Sunday's post on all that, if you haven't already.

[RBS] - Green Stuff everywhere!

...at least when I turn my head to the right.
Those lights... It really is pathetically easy to make me happy if you know how...

Anyways, I've been taking my old warlock out, giving him a spin for a change as the weekend slowly but surely comes to a close here in Germany. But I'm well aware that you aren't necessarily interested in knowing precisely how I wasted my time during the last couple of days so I'll keep it to a minimum on that account.

And I'm well aware that I'm currently not posting too many updates on actual stuff I'm working on. That's because, as I've mentioned already, there isn't much to talk about. Loner's Peak reached the stage where I can do hardly anything but play a waiting game on, believe me, several different levels. Yet that's how the world apparently rolls with these kinds of things.
And Fool's Flight is mainly about gathering and sorting out plot elements in my head and offline-notes at the moment and even that is going rather... slow. I've reached a point where my head starts spewing out 'critical errors' when I rethink a few things,  because I want to go too deep into matter that I, well, don't really understand at the moment. And writing stuff you don't know about? It's not too uncommon when you think about most Sci-Fi or Fantasy stuff and is usually solved by putting up your own rules for the world you're creating, but yeah... seems I'm not totally happy with those rules right now. And for all our sakes... I'd be better if I take the time and do it properly and be satisfied with the results.
Maybe the upcoming change of scenery will help me out on those accounts as in a week from now, I'll be posting my Sunday update from my mom's place back in good ol' Saxony. Meeting the newest addition to the family... our new little kitty-cat. I'll upload a picture of the young mistress, promise.

Besides, I wanted to use the week before Christmas to get some work done anyhow.
But until then, there's still some time to use wisely (a.k.a. waste) and get a few things sorted out. Like getting a new passport... or putting up the pin board I got presented with yesterday.

So as always, thanks for staying around, listening to my ramblings. Enjoy your third of advent or just the weekend in general, light a candle or something like that.
Marc, the Mesmerized

[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 4: Treacherous Darkness

Hello once again to all of you, my dear readers. It's already Friday again and therefore time for yet another part of my short 'The Bamboo Labyrinth'.

For those who are new to the site and haven't already checked out the previous parts, it's only natural for me to recommend starting right at the beginning. Just follow the links below and delve right into it! And trust me, it'll all make more sense if you get to see the whole picture.

The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 1: Introduction
The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 2: Delving Deeper
The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 3: A Memory's Embrace


So without further ado, I present to you part four! Enjoy!


*~*

You see... within in the walls of this truly majestic building, something was lying in wait for me, something which I had still to discover until those days. Dangerous, yet strangely magnificent in its ways, how wisely it kept itself hidden away, but I was still too young and by all means too daft and curious to be fooled into giving up on finding it so easily. I was still on the hunt for all the sweet treasures life had to offer for me, despite of not even being aware of what they might turn out to be.

I can still recall a situation after entering this unknown realm in which I found myself hastily turning around upon hearing the faintest of noises coming from somewhere in the far back of one of the many hallways haply scattered out around me. Yet neither my parents nor my brother noticed it at that point in time. They were all by far too caught up by their own nonsensical means.  

The sound itself now is presented to me distorted by the ages, torn apart and quickly sewn back together again without any form of care tended to it, as I came to search for it once more. Calling it a shriek should probably serve as most fitting.

The darkness lingering in the hallway beyond, that I was staring at so eagerly, is in this picture still as smothering as it had been in that very moment. The shade dances in front of me with a certain vile lust for freshly spilled blood. But it appears that this is something I never really took notice of at such a young age. And coming back to the scene like this, I now fully realize how it all had been for the better.

As the minutes continue to creep past and my parents still rest caught up on exchanging their shallow welcomings with these unknown entities, I on the other hand started to grow uneasy. And no matter how hard I tried my eyes were unable to catch even only a glimpse of whatever it was that I had managed to hear in this one second of utmost importance.

From then on I only wanted to be set free.

I wanted to investigate.

And never being a friend of these pointless rituals, I had to urge myself, almost forcing my feet into resting in this one place and not blindly follow my instincts into this obscure chasm opening an arm length before me. Without doubt, no matter when the moment would come that they would call my name and summon me, only to tell me I was allowed to roam around this place freely, it would have been too late for my past self.

My left hand started slightly twitching, a quirk I had picked up as a teenager, as my ears continued to block out everything else around me which I thought of as insignificant. I had to be able to hear it clearly again, should the sound reemerge, not disturbed by any unimportant chattering.

It has become rather difficult to say what I really thought in such a moment. I was clearly ridden by tension, driven by curiosity and held back solely by obligation. Also, the thoughts rushing through my mind are long gone, erased and overwritten now telling strange stories of their own. They spew out random facts about Newton or Nietzsche as they are loitering in the far back of my head giving their personal tribute to my intellect as well as my insanity.

To my own disappointment I didn’t hear it again. At least not this early and..., not on this day... I dearly hoped for it to come back maybe even to show itself, but now, by all means, I came to know better.

Bestowed with the knowledge of experience and years I can now safely tell you... It won’t be returning so easily.

But this is when we encounter another rip in the fabric that is my mind. The scene skips forwards into a bleak and dark room governed by silence. It might not be complete, but surely it is close. Faint breathing being the only thing breaking it up as the moon now slowly wanders along the heavens.

Why I came back to this exact place in time?

In all honesty..., I cannot tell you for I do not know either. Memories often seem somewhat random and incontrollable. A judgment more than rightfully passed.

Yet what I know is the place and the time. It took place in the room appointed to me and my brother. I had just managed to talk him into finally being able to sleep. The afternoon took his toll on him, but he kept it sealed away until we were alone. A moment of weakness as pristine as it might be utterly unimaginable, it was sometime more than simply strange to witness. 

And of course it again came down to me to swallow my own urge to talk about a few things I was confronted with today so I could sooth somebody else’s savage soul. He never really thanked me for that either...

*~*

*click here to keep on reading with part 5*

Ominous sounds, washed out memories, inner conflincts... but yet we still move on a clear path through the apparitions of a sole mind, as we continue to venture towards the secrets that lie burried within the past.

As always thanks for reading, enjoy the upcoming weekend and by all means... feel free to comment, subscribe to the blog and/or send me messages telling me to get the hell off the interwebz.
Marc, in-search-for-a-suitable-sword

[SUM] - Crushing some Space

Aw yeah... And no, please don't ask. Just don't. Not much to be seen or to be known anyhow.

As for today and as far as short updates in my utter madness go ... I found a chocolate Santa in front of door to my apartment this morning... Yeah! And not even one of those puny, small ones... but noooo, a big one!
Apparently somebody who moved in to the empty apartment a couple of floors below me only recently wanted to say hello to the rest of the house that way. Good to see there are still a couple of nice people out there.

Anyways..., a new novel isn't a real novel if it doesn't get rejected at least once when searching for an agent, right?

Back to the drawing board for now! Or... writing board... or the PC ... or... just... whatever.

I'm already going to leave you for today, need to get a few things sorted out in my head. Hopefully that'll work out while chillaxing. If not, then I've got not much of a choice but to focus.

As a last piece of info you probably did not care about at all... a few sole snowflakes seem able to make their way down to earth in my general vicinity, although mostly followed or even directly accompanied by rain.

But as always... thanks for reading.
Marc, owner and friend to Beni James Honeypaw - probably happiest plush bear on the planet

P.S.: New Kitteh going up soon.
P.S.S. addet 3 1/2 hours later: Oops... forgot about the Kitteh... but its up now ... My bad.

[RBS] - Comfy & Cozy

Ah yes... yet another Sunday awaits us in world demanding to claim our place in life and the part of the the great cake everybody wants to have a piece of which.
BUT it is also the second advent and another great opportunity to enjoy yourself with a hot cup of coffee or tea next a pleasantly warm fireplace... or at least light a candle (or rather two) to cherish the Christmas spirit as it slowly descends upon people.

Yeah, I'll stop there for now... there's enough of a chance that I'll get enough shit for those few lines as they stand already and well, there's enough people in this world who simply can't stand this holiday / don't celebrate it / think of it as way too commercialised nowadays. Admittedly, concerning the last part - they have a point. Nevertheless it remains to each person individually to make of these few days a year what they believe in is the best. (So... stop hatin'!)

For me, the last weeks been a whole lot of nothing, except for me mesmerized by a chain of green lights. For today I got my hands on a shiny new notebook to write more stuff down into and I'm currently looking forward to that, though I'm not entirely sure for what story I should use it. Or if I should reserve it for something completely different.

The things I still got planned for the remainder of the day include going ahead in buying a train-ticket to Saxony for the Sunday in two weeks - for visiting the family - drinking the tea that's already going cold as I'm still typing away and maybe lighting a couple of candles on my own. Not to forget the whole 'staring at the green lights' nonsense from the last few days.

By the way... If you haven't had the chance to do so already. I'd recommend checking out the latest part of my short "The Bamboo Labyrinth" that I uploaded the other day. It's right over here and should provide a bit more entertainment value than me going on about, well, stuff.

And just if you were wondering... I originally had something planned for today... something to talk about and give this post an actual reason behind its existence... but... I forgot. I know, I know... I should just make a list... write stuff down. It's not like that's the usual stuff I do, isn't it? But it's too late now! Deal with it... especially if you read this far.
Nevertheless... I will try to waste less of your precious time in the future, my dearest readers. I could go ahead and turn the good old Short-update-madness into a two-per-week thing... it's not that short honestly and well... why not, eh? That way I'd be forced to come up with more new content and not only ramblings...
I'll think about it and maybe a couple of other possibilities...

For now... thanks for reading despite the pointless nature of today, enjoy your weekend, cherish the [insert holiday name here] spirit and give a bit of warmth to the people you like/love or just goddamn know.
Marc, who still can't get over those green lights...

[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 3: A Memory's Embrace

Hello and welcome to everybody who managed to find his or her way to this site and today's post!
You are right on time to get the opportunity to read the third part of my short story "The Bamboo Labyrinth"!

For those who are here for the first time - please, head two these two pages first. It's only natural to start off with part 1. And this way you will get a better idea of the story as a whole and you'll make sure you didn't miss out on anything!

The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 1: Introduction
The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 2: Delving Deeper

For those of you who already had the chance to check out the first two parts - just keep on reading and enjoy!


*~*

I remember how we, my brother and I were sitting in the back of my father’s car, slowly making our way across a dark and bumpy path, leading straight past the vast number of trees, clearing a way through this ocean of plants and shade in a way perfectly fine for an off-roader like my father's.

It should have been a fairly quiet afternoon, only broken up by the sound of the motor, not roaring up but constantly humming, giving away how it felt not challenged enough by the road we picked for our venture, as well as the occasional scratching along the outside of the windows as we graze twigs and branches along the side that had been reaching out towards us. They left behind a terrifying sound, something that could only come from an unseen monstrosity stalking us, at least in the eyes and ears of my brother at that time. I can still see him in front of my eyes..., how he was writhing next to me as we ventured deeper and deeper into the forest. On that day I felt like being part of one of the older versions of Little Red Riding Hood, slightly even fearing what might happen to us, ignoring that I knew any better and the strange setting it had to it on top of it all.

As I let the events unfold around me I noticed my mother turning to us, she showed a strange smile whilst saying something. Words I can't hear anymore, carefully erased and replaced with silent echoes. Also..., she looks a lot older than she should have been. More wrinkles and signs of age spread out across her face as she keeps on speaking in silence, a tongue never to be heard, yet without distorting it enough so it would become unrecognizable for me. She might look old, but she's still the same.

From that moment on things speed up for a brief period of time. Within mere seconds we find ourselves still sitting in the car, but now standing in front of a large metal gateway. There's a speaker on the side of it, faint rustling and the scratching of feedback the only things that successfully were able to make their way to my ears. Meanwhile my brother kept on panicking on the inside. He tried to play it cool, to pose as the strong one, but you can clearly tell how he suffered on that day..., in that particular moment. Only by having a single look at his eyes it immediately turned crystal clear for me just how frightened he still was. Harmless and frail like an infant...

All of a sudden the feedback from the speakers was broken up and replaced by a brief click before it died down completely. Moments later the gate would open and make way for us to enter this protected little place.

Slowly the car rolled into something that looked like a courtyard. It's size was most definitely decent, but I would have to lie nonetheless should any of you want me to give you any kind of more detailed estimate. Though I can say... it was most certainly green.

Carefully my father let the vehicle creep along the stony surface below, pushing constantly forward, deeper towards something I would have never come to imagine.

The house wasn't bearing too much that I would have called remarkable at that time, so I assume it has been replaced over the years with a mash-up of pictures from all over the world, forming something I would find more suitable for its appearance. The architecture remained to be European, French, British maybe partly German too..., yet the building itself changed shape to something more like a castle than an ordinary house, despite still looking at a wooden front with large panes of glass breaking it up. It even had a tower on its side, a gazebo as some of my British friends would probably call it. Everything else... utterly irrelevant.

The flowers probably blossoming around us? Did not care.

The trees dimming out, letting the sun shine through freely, now even down to us? Did not care.

The neatly trimmed hedges? Did .. not... care...

And why should I really? I was young, never too interested in those, for me, bland things like architecture or gardening. And I can't say it changed too much over the years. Most things I look at either hold some beauty to them, which I admire, or only the lifelessness I regret to have seen afterwards. So I had no reason to keep track of something this trivial to my likings.

As the doors of our car finally opened and our venture came to an end I stepped out into the open, facing a strange new world with faceless people already waiting at the main entrance to greet us.

We step forth without any fear as there shouldn't be any. My mother almost hurried towards them, but only after a soothing gaze of my father rested upon her she gave in.

Quickly she embraced this old friend of hers. A woman at that time not much older than herself, her husband I guess, standing close by her side. My memory slowly falls apart further as it now presents to me my elderly mother dearly hugging a creature..., the shadow of a person maybe, not even bearing a face.

There aren't any words left in this place. Most of them lost track of what happened here and fled to somewhere safer from decay. The treasury of words is a place in our personality where hardly any things are to be discarded or found unworthy of their appointed seat amongst the masses.

And as we proceed into the house itself, the shadow spreads out as wide as it can, covering up pictures on the walls as well as still living flowers decorating the small entrance hall alike. But it all does not matter much as we continue to venture on closer to the core of this memory of mine. None of these idle things, the tapestry or even the people my mother wanted to see are of yet any importance to me.

But just as the darkness grows in intensity, a glow arises, looming beyond the borders of my mind which creates this vision before my very eyes.

It is pushing me onwards and away from the things of no value to me. I by myself am urging me to skip all the pointless distorted chatter I might still come up with and hurry over to the parts I actually want to revisit.

*~*

*click here to keep on reading with part 4*

And there you go. I hope you enjoy today's brief venture into the mind of our, so far, unnamed narrator and I hope for you all to return for part 4 of the story, next Friday.

Have a great weekend!
As always thanks for reading.
Marc, happy about his new chain of LED-lights... they're green!

P.S.: New Kitteh uploaded ^.^

[SUM] - Man's not really supposed to be flying

What sounds like a campaign against larger flight companies or well... flying in general is but a little hint on what I'll be working on as the year slowly draws to an end.

Anyways... the Skyrim mania slowly leaves my mind and body behind... after completing the main quest, reaching level 52 (of 81) with my main character and forging a weapon, something nice and to my liking, suiting myself better than those pitiful presents the daedric princes left me with.
But now I feel the urge to focus on a few, well..., more important things again... But it sure was a hell of a time! I so love the snow storms in that game.

But back to what I wanted to talk about... I'm currently trying to get into 'Fool's Flight' at the moment. Just got done writing my prologue for it, or well... the thingy that I want to call prologue. Let's just say it's not your average opening for a story, though I'm pretty sure somebody, sometime, somewhere already did a thing like that... After all, it's always like that. Or well, at least most of the time.
I also edited a few things on the first 5 'intervals' that I already wrote during my summer holiday, giving them a nice little overhaul.
For clarification means - an interval in this story will basically be what you'd normally call a 'chapter', but then again not really.
I can tell you this much: there will most likely be 14 intervals all together (plus one prologue and maybe something similar to an epilogue) and one interval is - you surely guessed it - a means of measuring a certain amount of time that passes/has passed.
I'll try to loosen the whole chapter concept up a bit after the straight forward 20 chapters plus the prologue of Loner's Peak. Yeah... I'm full of wonky ideas like that.
But for now... you should just look at them as chapters, though their length should vary considerably. As time and my work on this project progresses I will probably come back to this and clarify a few things concerning the whole topic.

Come to think of it. Loner's Peak will not have what you'd call an Epilogue (I'm not sure if I ever referred to it as that), despite my personal cravings for such things... BUT I plan on having a little tidbit at the end, a one-page thingy giving a bit of additional inside... for those able to read it. It's nothing mandatory and won't give any info on stuff you don't get from just reading the story but I think it's a nice addition to it.

I'll try to get something of a page up for Fool's Flight during the next week or so, or... come to think of it. There already is a link to said page at the very end of the Loner's Peak page... feel free to check that out - but don't expect too much just now. But it should at least make clear why I chose this headline.

The writing-stuff commences once more.

And just to have it said at least once. I'm not sure what I'll post of the things I've written so far, if anything at all (at least right now)... It's kinda hard not to spoil anything, it being the second part of the series and all. Though I'm rather sure I'll find something.

But that's all for today... Now I got to rest a bit as I'm feeling like something's growing on me. I don't really want to be sick so... yeah... better take it slow for a day or two. Maybe drink a whisky or something like that.
As always, thanks for reading.
Marc, Probably-soon-without-the-cough-again

[RBS] - And the first candle...

Well hello there, all of you.
So... did everybody remember to light a candle on this first Advent Sunday? (Christmas keeps on drawing closer!)
Aw who am I asking... I didn't even do so myself. But I would have! If I had any candles at home at least... Let's better just forget about that again really quickly...

Anyways... I'm not really making any progress with any actual progress for the moment. Not that that would be my own fault or something... nooooo... of course not... how could one even think something like that?! *cough*
Fool's Flight will be on hold for the time being, though I guess the moment I upload this post my mind'll start gathering ideas on how I could get started on that or simply how to delve back into it, so to speak. After all, now with my Vaio back resting right beneath my fingertips I've got the outlines I've done for it a while go returned to me in a file format the machine can actually work with and even open it without throwing a fit.
Oh... oh and a few more ideas for the whole series are starting to grow more and more to my liking... can't spoil any of those though. Can't reveal anything now, can I?

On the personal side of things: I had a strange, yet somewhat enjoyable and fun night out last Friday before I returned to the frozen north of an imaginary world for most of the day yesterday. I had finished the main quest line on Friday morning already (can't really recall when it was), though strangely enough now after defeating the final boss the number of dragons stalking me started to rise drastically. Not quite what I had expected but I'll deal with it.
Aside from all that I actually slept for a while - yay - so I can assume I won't die due to fatigue anymore, or well... at least not today.

But that'll have to do for now. I'm really hungry at the moment and I should start working on solving that problem asap. Especially as there's not even a fruit salad around. Also I feel a headache growing on me... let's just hope it's a normal one and not my migraine wanting to say hello at the end of the year.

As always... thanks for reading. Feel free to check out the latest installment of Storytime to read more of the short I'm currently publishing on my blog - The Bamboo Labyrinth. And, of course, have a great day and a good start into the new week tomorrow.
Marc, I ain't no Honeybadger!

[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 2: Delving Deeper

Gather around me boys and girls as you listen to the stories of young and old. As fairy tales and legends, prayers and singings are told.

Today I will spare you on any unnecessary text or speech beforehand and just let you have the second part of my short 'The Bamboo Labyrinth' to read and hopefully delight in.
Still I would like to advise you to start from the very beginning if you so happen to have stumbled upon this site for the very first time. Just follow the link below to the post containing part one.

'The Bamboo Labyringth' - Part 1: Introduction

As for the rest of you. Enjoy!


*~*


[..]

But today I am not here to discuss these fruitless matters. I am here to, maybe not set an example, but to justify helping myself in all the pure, nature given selfishness I possess.  I will vainly attempt to bring both parts of mankind together for even only a second as I wish to tell you my little story whilst I also continue to write it down. To perhaps share a secret amongst others which I kept away from distant eyes and ears for so long so desperately.

Nevertheless it is now but only a forgotten memory, a fading dream on the brink of obliteration. Something crippled that I always held dear to me, despite any revulsion I might have ever felt towards it. But now as I fear to be too weak to hold on to it any much longer, I shall pass it on. Let it take its destined place and live anew within somebody else, as I try to replant the almost colourless seed of a once beautiful blossom, which bloomed many summers ago.

At least that is what it is... or, pardon me, what it was for me. For you it will rather be a smallest fraction of a lucid yet likewise volatile daydream, a fairytale at the most. No clear beginning to it nor an end to be determined.

And that's fine.

That is how it is meant to be and I will embrace this fact with comfort and ease as I will try to convey the passion and understanding necessary.

It all happened once upon a time, in a lush green land, the exact place already discarded from my mind.

I was still young and foolish, maybe just about to come off age, only the time of aimless rebellion already left behind me.

My family always considered themselves up to the heartbeat of the current time, modern to all its extend, flattered by the technological development of the recent decade, driving us ever further down the rabbit hole and into a corner of limited emotion and lifelessness.

My father, a paragon in this position, was especially fascinated with all kinds of automobiles, a passion I never fully understood, nor ever wanted to. He reached the prime with this obsession as he acquired something on the lines of an off-road vehicle. This was to become his treasure. Material and cold, though he remained good-hearted as a man. His wife, my mother so to speak and we, his children, never had to take a second place for him. Although the struggle within remained, yet merely sometimes noticeable.

Yet on said day, the date washed away, it was this vehicle that formed the carriage, bringing us to a place I long haven't visited but also never truly left since then.

My mother, a saint amongst women like most mothers for their children, incarnated almost everything our father wasn't in my eyes. When he turned cold, she became the warmer. Where he sought out truth, she always seemed satisfied with bare fiction. Whilst he tried to approach, she always kept a strange distance to others, even to us, her only children, yet she never gave away an ill impression to the outside. She never tried to stay away..., on the contrary... it felt forced. Again, something I never fully understood, although I still know how she never was too fond of friends and artificial bonds as she would call them. Always insisting to watch out who we trusted, we emerged to making up our mind on such matters on our own fairly soon.

Yet on said day, it was a person my mother knew and held dearest that we wanted to visit, refreshing a bond as artificial as the love those two might have never felt towards each other.

My brother, the nightmare of my childhood, vigorously playing the treacherous game of siblings at that time, going so far to even pretend to hate me from the bottom of his heart. He was a year older than me and thus he usually believed in being the superior one. Fortunately enough, he was a good actor and nothing much else. We feared for each other as well as we were able to experience the fear, the terror together. The dark and relentless density of a ever so lush forest standing out in the open being the only thing he couldn't cope with as he continued to grow older. Any other obstacle, he would easily overcome... but a group of trees? No. Again a mystery for me... or at least another missing detail carelessly replaced by a splash of monotonous green color.

Yet on said day, the place we visited was kept hidden away by branches and twigs, leaves and the tree trunks themselves.

There have been many days and nights in which my brain tried to convince me of my brother dying on that day, right in my arms, his dying breath grazing lightly over my skin.

Yet none of these thoughts bear any form of truth. They were born from the darkest abyss and the voids my personality holds in unseen places. An area of the mind most people keep on denying at all cost during the course of their lives, something that apparently exists only within the most rotten and wicked ones of our society.

Yet this proves to be merely just another lie, almost like the memory that was conjured up by itself.

Though I have admit... a certain part of him probably really died away in said place. Silently flickered away like a candle facing a raging storm. Luckily only some of the bad parts perished, as I might recall correctly under all the focus I can muster up to bear.

But on to the actual memory, the fairytale which pursued my heart for so long now. I can only barely tell whether the pictures in my mind are still in order or form any kind of linear happening, but I will show them to you nonetheless.

Just as the dream I already mentioned ever so often, it starts out in the middle of a scene, probably not too long before any of the first important happenings occur.

[..]

To be continued

*~*


*click here to keep on reading with part 3*


As it turns out... this part is longer than the first one. Scratch all that about shorter parts. I had the story already divided into certain smaller 'fragments' and I think I will go with those for the time being. As you might notice the blank line, that's where the "first part" originally ended. I will eventually fix this, but as it is now I will let it remain as is.

Anyways... I hope you enjoyed today's part of my short story!
For those wondering about the actual story behind it (and to those shouting "stop with the cryptic ********, for ***** ****!" ... Well actually I guess the only thing I can tell those people is to read something else, can I?) - it will all start to clear up a bit more after getting aside all of the introduction.
Part three will delve directly into the actual scene as the last sentence hints at.
Foreshadowing.... wooooh.

But here I go, talking too much yet again...
Better be off again, got some more dragons to kill!

As always, thanks for reading!
Marc, Weaver of the lucid Dream

P.S.: New Kitteh will go up shortly!

[SUM] Time flies when you're having fun.

Indeed it does...

After announcing I'd keep it short on Sunday and as per usually not giving a damn about it afterwards I'll try to cut it today...
Skyrim's taking it's toll on my mind and boy *MUST PLAY... MUST SLAY DRAGONS* etc pp. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

For the actual topic of Short-Update-Madness before I completely forget about it: Pretty much nothing. There's not much to be said honestly. I've been thinking about on how I could continue on with the storyline introduced via Loner's Peak and thanks to a few third party ideas coming from mah family something completely new opened up for me in my mind, now waiting to be explored and evaluated by my bad-idea sensors.
Aside from that, oddly enough I got a few more lines for Nightingale ready to be taken down on digital paper. Not that it'd help out a whole lot right now but I guess it's still better than nothing, right?

On the skyrim part of my life... I invested the last night into becoming a great and strong viking - falling for various daedra princes as they started to seduce me and I think I'm ready to go ingame crazy and just say to hell with it all.
But that could also only be actual-me as I grow more and more tired.
Gotta love those days when you've got the chance to do nothing else but essentially killing yourself with clichées.
Anyways... as I continue to barter with myself whether or not I can add a second day just like this one to this already completely screwed up week I'll try not to keel over from exhaustion as addmittedly I am kinda tired. But I'm not Korean ... no offence.

And before you head back off the site - if you want a quality read for a change - check out last Friday's Storytime with the first part of 'The Bamboo Labyrinth'. The second part will of course follow this weeks Friday.

As always, thanks for reading... more info on all the stuff to come ... worst case szenario: next week. Just look at it as vacation, or something like that...
Marc, Sheogorath's disciple

[RBS] Winter Wonderland

Oh my god... almost forgot it's Sunday.
I guess I'll keep it shorter than usual... to get back to what I was doing till right now - killing bandits! Yay!

So... where to begin?
First things first: The good news of the day! He's back! He's finally back home... my laptop apparently decided that this little vacation had been dragging on long enough for him(it) to fully recover and I could pick him up from the shop yesterday sometime around noon. And well... he's working again. He was returned to me with regards from Sony. They also let me know that they didn't do a single thing in order to repair it... Seems it just started working again...
The guy in the shop (not the one who took the laptop in) wasn't all that helpful to be honest so I stand, or yeah sit here still a bit baffled on what's going on... But yeah... It works so don't question it too much Marc...

Aside from all that good jazz I picked up The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim on the way back home... Boy what a mistake... Now I won't be getting anything done during the next few weeks.
I already put a few hours into the game and I have to say I enjoy it thoroughly so far. And as I'm a sucker for the cold, Nordic vibe of the game I personally can't really say anything bad about it. Of course there are a few glitches here and there but you can easily overlook them as far as I'm concerned and honestly... which game doesn't bug out from time to time?
I also like the fact that the game can be used as a hiking simulator from time to time... and be honest with yourself... who doesn't like running through a forest and catching bugs whilst being chased from various forms of wildlife and bandits from time to time, eh?

I'm still on the synopsis stuff... but yeah... that part of my weekend got hit in the face with a Nordic warhammer a couple of hours ago.
Yep... I've got no form of self-control whatsoever.

And I didn't even mention that it's also an MLG weekend...

In other not so exciting news... I managed to cut myself on a blanket made of fleece the other day... Beat that world!

Anyways... as always thanks for reading and back into the cold north!
Marc. the wanna-be Viking

[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 1: Introduction

Once again it is Friday, the end of yet another week upon us. And this week you are in for a special treat. As already announced during the last week(s), today I will upload the first part of my short story "The Bamboo Labyrinth" onto the site.
Only the first part you ask? Why yes. I won't be uploading all of it at once as it would probably only serve to be somewhat of an overkill (and to be quite honest with you... it's not entirely done yet). But why do I do it like this? Well... let me give you a heads up on what I'm currently planning on doing.
First of all... "The Bamboo Labyrinth" is a short story, not a piece of flash fiction, meaning it is considerably longer - which also gives me more time and more importantly more words to elaborate on certain aspects of the story, unlike to the sometimes crude and unfinished seeming style flash fiction tends to bear.
Or well..., I'm just bad at the whole FLASH! AH-A stuff...
In any way or case for now it will continue like this: Each Friday I will upload a new part of "The Bamboo Labyrinth". The size of these portions of text will most likely vary a bit, but it shouldn't be too excessively - maybe +/- 50 words. For this week said piece of text will also be a bit longer than those to come, hopefully setting up the right mood for the actual story.
Today it's merely one part of the introduction... should be a bit less than 800 words.
But enough with the ramblings... delve right into the text below and I dearly hope you'll enjoy it!


*~*


The Bamboo Labyrinth


Over the course of his life the human being starts to cherish many different things. They vary of course, mostly due to the age and character of a person, using them to form our, his or her individual comfort zone, resulting in a vast diversity of hidden treasures. Amongst them are many simple trinkets, but sometimes even up to the most valuable trumpery. Yet only the least of those are able to withstand the final test of time.
It is only a selected few that wander through the ages and get passed from generation to generation until they are eventually discarded either as they were found meritless by its holder or for the exact opposite: because of their blind value they have attained.
Looking at this cycle, observing how it keeps on turning with each moon that passes and each sun that rises anew, one can only imagine how grim the fate of the world actually lies.
Things are meant to be used, as tools perhaps but nothing more, and people are those meant to be loved. Unfortunately, yet not only because of this dreadful loop in cultural appraisal, it is ever so often confused and to be turned around, creating one of the worst relationships that have been bred so far over the course of our history.
Luckily for us, as we are, I assume you who are listening right now too, hopefully, mostly part of the more sensible part of humanity, we can, not necessarily completely, but find good riddance from these claws that continued to bind us for centuries already. It is, in fact, an easy thing to achieve, far too simple to be taken light headedly as it will also bear the tokens of our success in a rather quick fashion. Sadly these results appear merely for us in our individual progress, thus they seldom will be noticed in a larger community.
The thing I am so constantly referring to is, again, simple treasuring.
Holding dear the important things.
The intelligent man will now ask, and it is full right to do so, what makes up the difference between 'us' and the rest of the world, especially as I have readily devoted so many words into keeping us apart already before.
The wise man on the other hand will already have understood and remain silent, wary on not sharing it with the wrong kind of people.
Both parties have their rights to do so, just as they acted, to follow their instincts, their common senses... but both of them also remain to be wrong nevertheless.
The intelligent man did not stop and think far enough on his own. And the wise man turned out to be reacting too arrogantly to help spread the secret because he feared the tainted hearts buried in the chests of so many.
But please... hear me. Give me the chance. Let me try to do better or to do otherwise at least. For I am neither wise, nor intelligent. I am just a normal man with a passion, an ordinary being of creation by what means whatsoever. And the answer I bear is about as simple as the question itself...
I chose to cherish the things that are not to decay because of time, those could be remade anyhow, but because of essence... because of personality and its development.
The answer to this riddle I hereby posed so light-heartedly lies so simple: Memories.
They are our lifeblood. Defining who we are, what we experienced, what we learned and how we have suffered. And yet they can be eradicated within the sole blink of an eye. Now..., even though we all know of their frail nature, we still keep on pushing them away from us. We sometimes start wishing them away on a mere whim... and only begin to realize how foolish we've been after it is already too late to retrieve the things lost for all eternity. The things that were ultimately forgotten.
So..., but why do we forget in the first place if we still cling to believing we knew any better?
Because we want to? Not always.
Because of too much information trickling slowly into our heads? Probably.
Because of disease? Unfortunately.
Because of time? No..., not really.
It is the human mind and body that crumble as the years go past, not the memory itself. It will always stay pristine at its core. Yet it is the confusion we create ourselves that rips out its once so colourful details one by one and replaces them with other scraps of our already forlorn childish imagination as it acts up, fighting its own demise.
It is the denial we face in every day to come.
[..]

To be continued

*~*

[Continue reading here *click*]
 


There you go, another Friday's worth of diverting entertainment. It has a serious topic standing behind it, yes I know. But it will lighten up as we delve deeper. As we get closer to the actual... Bamboo Labyrinth!

But for right now... I'll enjoy my choco-cappucino with a sip of whisky and a piece of chocolate dissolving in it. That's what you call "living healthy"..., right?

As always thanks for reading - have a great weekend!
Marc, the Not-as-gloomy-as-you-might-have-thought


P.S.: New kitteh going up soon too!
Edt.: Stop screwing with me blogger! Changing fontsizes and the flow of the text as I post it...

[SUM] So... many... prompts...

Greetings ghouls and ghasts for another episode of 'How not to welcome your readers'. Bleugh!
I admit the joke was lame, but it did what it was supposed to so yeah... just.. ignore it, I guess?

Anyways I just got home from a lovely two-hour long walk (similar to yesterday), enjoying the fall, autumn or whatever you want to call it as much as possible, trying admittedly a bit desperately to ignore the cold and mist currently going on in Bremen. Yesterday it had me thinking whether I stumbled upon Silent Hill by accident and what I might have done to deserve that.

Aside from me walking around outside without no real aim or purpose, I finished a first "test-query" as I like to call it for Loner's Peak and got a bit deeper into the whole subject of finding a name for the whole trilogy thing. I first got caught up on "carnivore" for a while and then switched over to "omnivore" as it fits the whole thing rather nicely on various different levels.
Yet currently I'm annoying a couple of people whether or not a few of the pseudo-latin word combinations I came up with are legit or not. I wouldn't want to use stuff that is essentially incorrect.
(I kinda liked "omnivoras" judging solely from the sound of the word, but Portuguese doesn't really fit my whole plan and stuff.)

What I also delved into over the last 24 hours is this little list of prompts published origionally on the twitter account of Donald Maass, literary agent and author of various books that are aimed at helping new writers to get published. The list is currently made up of 58 of these more or less small 'tasks', all trying to get you to  rethink parts of the story you are writing and hopefully add some more depth to it. A new one is added on a weekly basis.
In other words, I've been checking Loner's Peak keeping these prompts in mind with mixed results so far. There are a few ones that are just impossible to realize with the way the story is set up (having two main characters doesn't make any easier either), others are looking farely well done (concerning my work-in-progress) and a few ones... well... let's just say they gave me a few ideas I think I still have to implement one way or the other.
In any case it's something I'd recommend to check out for anybody who wants to write a story for the first time. The key is, as always, not to follow blindly the leads that are given to you but to evaluate. Yet essentially it's a great collection of things that really let you think through the stuff you already came up with on your own, enhancing the universe you (re)created by a fair bit.
I, for my part, already saved those prompts that are published on said site in an extra file as a resource for anything I'll come up with and write in the future. It definitely helped me with smoothing out a couple of rough edges of my story so far.


Also, as of yesterday I started moving a few sites around on this blog, which could lead to a couple of broken likes to the page for 'Loner's Peak' in older posts. I can safely say that any new ones won't be affected. And all in all it's only the site for Loner's Peak that got a new, more sensible address.
I already tried to correct as many of the old links as possible yesterday evening, but I can't tell for sure whether I caught all of them or not. Anyways... you have been warned and/or informed.

But I guess this should be enough for one day's worth.
As always thanks for reading and stopping by.
Marc, the still Eager... not 'eagle' for christs sake... E-A-G-E-R

[RBS] - Dire Forgetfulness

Fortunately for me, I may be forgetful at times, but usually not when it would really matter. Anyways hello fine ladies and gents and welcome to another Sunday full of extravagance, or well.. not so much.
In any case you are now here and will read on for the next five minutes (if it even takes you so long).

As usually I'd like to diverge from the every-day topics of this blog and turn to something a bit different. Again, fortunately, yet this time for you... this won't take up too much of your spare time. Yep... you guessed it... I'm just messing with you! Hurrah!
What would there be to talk about this week? Saying the phrase "nothing much" seems to turn into a habit, probably more bad than good of sorts, anyway... nothing much. At least alongside to the common affairs of Marc, Lord of Edinburgh. Most days of this week were devoted to further editing on 'Loner's Peak', adding roughtly another 3.000 words to the lot, despite all the cutting-sentenses that was also going on alongside.
I'm quite happy with how it turned out and I'm definitely drawing closer to a somewhat final version of my text.
Speaking of editing, I've been wasting a few thoughts on maybe wanting to do some re-editing on my 'old' World of Warcraft Fan-Fiction. There are still a couple (not to say a lot) little (and not so little) mistakes scattered throughout the text and a few of them start hurting my eyes when I spot those online. I REALLY should get around to clearing those out for good... But I also shouldn't get sidetracked too much right now.
'The Bamboo Labyrinth' has reached a stage which I would call good for inital release on the site. The end of it is still missing, but as it won't go up in one go that shouldn't be too much of an issue.
And concerning the upcoming week - if I shouldn't get my "better" pc returned to me by... let's say Wednesday, I'll probably start looking into re-writing the the first few pages I already had for Fool's Flight, getting the whole thing synced once the other machine is back home...

Aside from all the actual writy-writing - I'm currently thinking about reorganizing a few things on the blog. I've been playing around with a couple of the pages for a bit and I've developed a few ideas I'd love to use on the site.

Right now my private life is still pretty cat-less and lame to be honest. No super cool things planned up ahead or mega-awesome jobs of me clouded past. Nope... nothing like that. At least not yet...
Instead I watched Day[9] freaking out whilst playing 'Amnesia, the Dark Descent' Monday and Wednesday night (or yeah... the days afterwards actually - I'm not the kind of guy to stay up till 4 in the morning for stuff like that) and got on board of the Skyrim hype over the last few days. Getting nerdier with each day as time progresses... but I'm trying to counter-act with at least some fitness training. Let's hope it's not in vain as next week it's MLG time. (Weeh?) Oh, I'm such a sucker for events like that...
I'd still prefer any kind of (Beach-)Volleyball championships over it anytime but... yeah.. still no TV.
And for any of you who might be interessted in why I'm always going on about Volleyball (which shouldn't be too many people)... it's the only type of sport I've ever been good enough at to actually win a school-medal for. And I'm still proud of that... so yeah... that's just how pathetic it gets. No, but really... It's the sport I alway enjoyed the most durng my time still in school and I eventually came to be quite good at it.

Wow... I've been going on for ages here... got carried away a bit it seems. Ah never mind. I'll leave it at that. I origionally wanted to say a few things about Amnesia, the Dark Descent (headline *HINT HINT*) but it would be better to experience that kind of game at first hand anyhow... What I will say is that it's a horror title created by the guys over at Frictional Games (check out the 'Random'-page for a link) as it's name rightfully suggests and it's mostly known for being kind of ruthless. The game... the experience... the scares. It really is a one of a kind game, deserving all the praise it currently gets and by far more. One of the best story-focussed games out there, if you'd ask me that is.
But before fully drifting off course again. I'll give you one last link, some nice music from a different game I mentioned on this blog a good while ago and I'm off...

Enjoy your evening and as always thanks for reading and stopping by!
Marc, the indeed Forgetful

[ST] - Butterflies and Bumblebees

A perfect headline for a day in November... when all the little insects are outside on their way from flower to flower and... oh... uhm... never mind.

I'm not done with the whole Bamboo thingy yet, as I've yet againg got overwhelmed by my own personal longings to get Loner's Peak done and started the second phase of editing a bit sooner than originally planned. So during the last two days I've been occupied with trying to smooth out some of the rougher edges that the story still had. And I'm quite confident that it won't be before too long that the storyline of Jonathan Mortinson is done, so I can move on to the parts of Thomas Mitchell. In any case you could just say I've been doing stuff.

For today, the flash fiction I want to present to you is a bit... awkward. It's somewhat of a stylized story for children with a save-the-environment background to it. I mentioned it aaaages ago on the site and I think the only thing I actually said about it was that Beni had approved of it.
Just don't take it too seriously.
Anyways, enjoy!


*~*


Well hello there! How nice of you to join us.
Who I mean with "us" you want to know? Well, can’t you see her? Oh yes I know, she is a bit tiny, but please do not tell I said that about her. Look! She is right over here, my good friend Camilla, the beautiful butterfly.
She really is enjoying this lovely day to the fullest. She has been outside playfully flying around ever since the sun came up! She really had a lot of fun today!
I hope she didn’t fly too fast. That really must have been exhausting!
So Camilla has to sit down for short moment. How about over there, on that small flower? Oh do not be silly, she is not that heavy. She is merely a small butterfly after all!
It has been a really warm day until now. The sun has been happily shining brightly down from the sky with a wide smile on her yellow face.
Oh! Who is that behind that flower over there! Ah! It is Bertha, the bumblebee! How good to see you too! She is a good friend of Camilla and I guess she is also happy to see her butterfly friend too.
But poor little Bertha does not have as much luck as Camilla has. She had to work all day long. She was collecting nectar from the colourful flowers all around us on the lush meadow. So Bertha must also have had a really exhausting day too! But she is not only tired it seems! What is wrong Bertha? Why do you look so sad?
‘Oh’ the cute little bumblebee says in a low voice, ‘I am sad because of my home meadow. It is all gone! It simply vanished this morning just after I got up.’
'How mean! What had happened Bertha?' Camilla also wants to know why her friend is so sad. So that maybe we can cheer her up again!
‘They are building a new motorway over there! But it was such nice meadow. All my neighbours were so friendly. Emma the Mouse, Charlie the mole and even my distant cousin Edna the wasp from the nearest forest, they all had to suddenly move away this morning! And all this happened just because those humans wanted to build another one of their noisy and dirty roads. I don’t think they needed any more, if you ask me, but I’m just a tiny bumblebee without a car. I’m just happy you did not have to move away too, Camilla!’
Camilla sees how sad Bertha looks down to the ground. 'Humans sure are mean sometimes! But you can stay with me, if you want to!’ Camilla says quickly. And you can already see how small Bertha is already lightening up a bit again.
‘It’s maybe not as great as your old home, but I’m sure we will have lots of fun!’
But unfortunately this all the time we got here on the meadow. I'm afraid we have to leave those two already. I'm sure they will be fine!
Bye now Camilla! Bye Bertha!

*~*


Another week down, another week closer to Christmas.
As for next Friday - just as announced: I'll put the first installment of The Bamboo Labyrinth up on to the site. And I'll be giving you a few more details on the whole topic in the said post as well, how it'll all work etc pp. So you get a better idea of what I'm planning.

I think I shall leave it at that for now and get back to editing. The sooner it's done, the sooner it's over with. Writing the story and coming up with it in general is a lot of fun if you ask me - but the other parts are a bit tedious from time to time.

Anyways... as always thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this weeks piece of flash-fiction I threw at you.
Marc, the one who's pretty much high on energy drinks and caffeine right now.. weeeeeeee

P.S.: I'll see what I can do to get a new kitteh up.
P.P.S.: Kitteh upz.

Seemingly unrelated songquote of the day:
"If we don't kill ourselves we'll be the leaders of a messed up generation. If we don't kid ourselves, will they believe us the reasons when we tell them why?" 

[SUM] Like bamboo on a sunny morning

I welcome all of you who managed to successfully drop by and now wait for me to start the usual ramblings (I know... I use that word way too often).

But before I head on to the main topic of today's post I'd like to share a little something with you people. Something that took place yesterday and still manages to make me raise an eyebrow. I got word from my other pc...my laptop - yes! And no it's not done yet... but... aw well, yeah it's a bit strange.
Anyways I received the call yesterday afternoon from the guy from the shop who took it in with me and did a brief inspection of its power pack, adapter or whatever you want to call it and the battery on the spot.
Both of them seemed normal and functional for both of us, but now the repair place of Sony called them to tell them they should call me and tell me that they wanted to have a look at both those things too because the notebook itself seems to be working perfectly fine. (It wouldn't even start booting when I handed it in ... so I can only assume it miraculously repaired itself on its own as Sony says to have done nothing to repair it, whilst having a nice refreshing drink somewhere at the beach. It should have just told me if it wanted to go on vacation that badly...)
In other words, I brought the stuff I still had here because it looked fine to the shop so they can send it in too and right now I'm taking bets whether or not I'll get all of my stuff back before the end of the month. Not even thinking about the whole "is it really working again" part or the infamous 'why'...
In any case I learned one thing: give them a few weeks of time, a Sony Vaio will apparently repair itself after a while. (Did somebody just say Skynet?)

As for today's Short-Update-Madness... As announced in an earlier post on the blog I'm currently working on a short-story I named "The Bamboo Labyrinth", which will most likely be published on this blog as a series of entries for my Storytime segment.
Unfortunately, finishing the whole thing will get delayed for a couple of days as writing it down is a good bit harder than I had anticipated. The start of the story as such is done and it progresses rather nicely but I'm greatly slowed down because the moment I start re-reading parts of it I go onto a re-phrasing spree. All the deleting and re-writing... oh the humanity!
All the drama aside... with my current plans it's not too much of a set back at the moment. I've still got something in store for this week's Friday (Bertha! If anybody still remembers...)
But looking at it realisticly, I suppose the whole thing will be kicking off at the end of next week, so look forward to that.
For right now... I'll give you a short excerpt of the intro for a start, just as promised. Hope you'll enjoy it.


*~*


I chose to cherish the things that are not to decay because of time, those can be remade anyhow, but because of essence... because of personality and its development.
The answer to this riddle I hereby posed so light-heartedly lies so simple: Memories.
They are our lifeblood. Defining who we are, what we experienced, what we learned and how we have suffered. And yet they can be eradicated within the sole blink of an eye. Now..., even though we all know of their frail nature, we still keep on pushing them away from us. We sometimes start wishing them away on a mere whim... and only begin to realize how foolish we've been after it is already too late to retrieve the things lost for eternity. The things that were ultimately forgotten.
So..., but why do we forget in the first place if we still cling to believing we knew any better?
*~*


There you go... no bamboo in the excerpt yet... but it'll all make sense at some point. And no it's not necessarily a riddle.
Note from the Editor - which is by the way also me: Regarding today's headline ... In the story it's not even morning... it's afternoon... Geez.

As always thanks for reading, enjoy your week!
Marc, the Marc-ish

[RBS] - Crimson Bamboo Hearts

So, yeah... I almost missed out on todays update, sleeping away the day. November always makes me feel so sleepy. It's currently 17:30 as I'm writing this and it's already dark outside...
I really don't like this part of the year. It'll get a bit better when Christmas draws closer and people start decorating the windows with a few lights or when the first snow has fallen, lightening everything up a fair bit... but this time right now? It's just meh.

Anyways, as bitching about won't change a thing (unless somebody's so annoyed he/she buys me a house in Australia where I can live during the wintertime) I used a few of the brighter hours of the day for writing down the introduction for the bamboo and the shenanigans I'm planning for you.
On a less thoughtful note, yesterday I had the chance to watch 'The Crimson Rivers' and its sequel on TV with friends at their place. I've seen them before a couple of years ago, but both of them are fairly well made and heck... Jean Reno is the leading actor. Though personally I like the first one more, it seems ... a little bit more credible in my opinion. The story's at least a little bit better thought-out as a whole.

I think I'll already cut it off here for today... My head's somewhat indecisive whether to just fall asleep from one second to the other or keep on working on the short story. Either way, I'll prepare a nice little preview of that story, or at least an excerpt, for Tuesday. With a bit of luck it might even be already done till then.

Oh, there it goes again... have you ever wondered about the storyline behind something like the classical Super Mario Games published by Nintendo? How completely bizarre everything is and how it became even 'worse' over the years and funnily enough nobody really questions it anymore. It's like the feverdream of a junky come to life, but people just tend to accept it by now. But never mind.. this doens't really lead to any conclusion so... yeah.

As always, thanks for reading - feel free to check out the pages to my latest project 'Loner's Peak' or any of the previous Storytimes, if you haven't already.
Marc, the Mushroom

[ST] - Getting something done... feeling good.

So yeah, this post should actually be more about another chunk of loose text that I throw at you and get you to read it, but I'd  rather share something else with you today.
It's a feeling... a feeling of utter happiness and joy that I currently still cherish. Because as of Wednesday 2nd of November I finally got done with Loner's Peak! (As predicted. Also, I made some slight adjustments to its respective page on the blog during the day.)
Well..., for now at least... And this is when all the waiting starts off again. Getting some opinions before the next wave of editing sweeps over the text and so on. All that jazz right before writing the queries, so that the next waiting bit can go on its way.
Sounds thrilling, doesn't it?
Yep... Not really... although to be honest, not knowing when something is starting to go back on track and most of all the waiting that comes when the bit with the agencies starts off again is kinda nerve-wracking from time to time. But fear not... I will keep myself ocupied during the time Loner's Peak is somewhat on hold.
For the time being, I will focus my attention on a short story I've been thinking about for a while now during the upcoming week. This project will probably find its way onto the blog and into the world via this here Storytime segment at some point. I won't be giving away any kind of spoilers for it, but expect it to be going to be uploaded in several small parts, so it'll most likely be up on a one part per week basis once it's done. I can't really tell when the first of those is going to be uploaded yet, but middle to end of the month should be a rather safe bet. Anyways look forward to that if for some reason you don't like flash fiction with all its suddenness and short-ish shortnessy shortness (or you just think I can't write that stuff for s....).
After that I will start getting involved with the second part of the _______* - Trilogy (*insert name here).
Current working title for this part of the bigger project, the second part, is 'Fool's Flight',to have mentioned it once again.
I might start the real writing on that part of the story right away, or at least a lot sooner than with Loner's Peak, as I've got a better and more detailed idea on how that part should generally all go down than with the other two.

All that blubbering about plans aside I conclude... I'm feeling good today, a bit restless though. Didn't do much today, enjoyed my 2nd day "off". But I'll get back into it tomorrow.
Preparing some bamboo for y'all...

But ... today is Friday after all... so I'll have to give you something more or less sensible to read nevertheless. Just as you thought you'd managed to get around it ... hrhr.


*~*


What a night...
My brain is all fuzzy and my memories all seem washed-out. And if I try to remember something from yesterday I can’t fully recall what of it was dream and what reality.
It’s a complete mess, a pulp of lights, music and shouting.
All I can say for sure is that right now I’m lying in a white bed in a hospital somewhere down central, with my whole body aching like all hell broke loose an hour ago.
A white coat had already visited me once or twice. He had said a few things I didn’t quite catch. He was talking to a nurse about how severely I might have been poisoned from the stuff in the pills I had swallowed. Nobody really knows.
Damn it... what happened last night?
The harder I try to think about it, the more my head hurts.
I still know how my friends and I were talking about starting the party. I had all the small pills right in the palm of my hand. All of them had different colours, just like placebos but with an effect.
As the alcohol was already running through my veins I started imagining things... My addiction was kicking in. By now I can tell for sure that once I see things move, breathe or even hear how they talk to me, I know it’s time for my ‘medicine’ and it’s not fun at all. The blue pill was looking at me. I imagined a smiling face on its outside. Come on, it whispered to me, I should do it. I should get it over with. It said that it knew how much I wanted to.
My hands were already starting to shake wildly, but my friends were only looking at me angrily. One of them yelled at me over the music. I should be getting done he screamed and that he wanted me to pass a few of the pills to them. They didn’t even notice how I almost started flailing around aimlessly.
The blue little thing was still staring at me. It called me ‘Jackie-boy’ as it tried to persuade me again to get on with it.
I couldn’t take it any longer. I couldn’t bear the voice anymore.
With a quick movement I just chucked the hand full of pills down into my body. It was more an act of desperation than anything else! Swallowing was difficult, but not nearly as hard as trying to gather these memories.
I swear I still could hear them thanking me as they made their way into my stomach.
Immediately my friends started cursing and I think one of them punched me straight into the face. That would at least offer a reason for my right eye hurting this much.
And now I’m lying here, completely drained out and probably poisoned.
But what really worries me the most right now is that smiling face on wall opposite of me...


*~*


There you go, another Friday done, another week almost over with. In any case I hope you enjoyed this weeks piece of Flash-Fiction (FLASH! AHAAAA!) and that you have a great weekend! 

As always thanks for reading.
Marc, the Happy-without-being-drunk