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Bad Seeds
It's that time of year again. Last October, for the first time I was not sure if I would be signing up for Nanowrimo or not. I had a major operation scheduled for the last week of the month and had no idea what to expect or how what state I would find myself in during November.
I half expected to be a brain dead bed ridden zombie for several weeks so did not want to commit myself to anything in that state. Things turned out to be the exact opposite. The docs and nurses did such a good job that I ended up in the Green Zone for nearly 2 months. That was completely and totally unexpected.
So I had 4 weeks with no work commitments while in inspired serpent mode. So with all the stars aligned, it would have been crazy not to Nano.
At this stage I am signing up for the month of craziness simply because it has now become an ingrained habit. The default setting for November. It would simply feel strange not to be squiggling next month.
For the first few years I planned a bunch of plot points more as a safety net than anything. Usually using randomly drawn Tarot cards to create them. Trying to link each card to the next was usually sufficient to create some sort of storyline. Of course the map is not the territory and once I started writing, I would often end up down some random rabbit hole that had more potential than the next destination on the original map.
But since 2018 I have been unable to write proper tales with a beginning, middle and sometimes an end. I still keep writing anyway in the hope that the spark will come back.
I still need to choose a tarot deck for when I get stuck. I haven't even got the bones of a plot yet. Normally I have all of that sorted by the middle of October.
The main idea I have so far has been inspired by the strange Australian trait of claiming that even the cutest and cuddliest of the famous Oz creatures are actually vicious killers.
We don't have just the weirdos of Wolf Creek lying in wait for unsuspecting backpackers to walk into their house of horrors. We also have an army of animals ready to unleash their venom on every single visitor to this wide brown land.
Awesome Australian Animals
But while our fabulous fauna gets all the attention, the flora is sadly neglected.
It's time to fix that. So after the last few months of planting pretty little critters, I think it's the perfect time to create the Oz Floranomicon.
I've got a handy plant catalogue from one of the nurseries at the Garden Festival yesterday. Also after working a while in a native plant nursery, I notice that I am able to recognize a lot of local plants. I always use the botanical names since they are unambiguous. A habit I learnt when studying Herbology in Germany which has proved to be very useful.
I even got a voucher for a free seedling for being able to spot the 12 weeds from a photo collection of 18 plants. I even knew the names of 9 of them.
(I had already bought 10 leaf babies from the stall accepting the vouchers)
Of course a Book of Evil Weeds is just a plot device in search of a plot. I guess I am hoping that picking the right tarot deck might provide some inspiration for plot creation.
Along with the fascinating book I am currently reading "Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store"
There's always Dan Brown if I ever get desperate for plot points.
I half expected to be a brain dead bed ridden zombie for several weeks so did not want to commit myself to anything in that state. Things turned out to be the exact opposite. The docs and nurses did such a good job that I ended up in the Green Zone for nearly 2 months. That was completely and totally unexpected.
So I had 4 weeks with no work commitments while in inspired serpent mode. So with all the stars aligned, it would have been crazy not to Nano.
At this stage I am signing up for the month of craziness simply because it has now become an ingrained habit. The default setting for November. It would simply feel strange not to be squiggling next month.
For the first few years I planned a bunch of plot points more as a safety net than anything. Usually using randomly drawn Tarot cards to create them. Trying to link each card to the next was usually sufficient to create some sort of storyline. Of course the map is not the territory and once I started writing, I would often end up down some random rabbit hole that had more potential than the next destination on the original map.
But since 2018 I have been unable to write proper tales with a beginning, middle and sometimes an end. I still keep writing anyway in the hope that the spark will come back.
I still need to choose a tarot deck for when I get stuck. I haven't even got the bones of a plot yet. Normally I have all of that sorted by the middle of October.
The main idea I have so far has been inspired by the strange Australian trait of claiming that even the cutest and cuddliest of the famous Oz creatures are actually vicious killers.
We don't have just the weirdos of Wolf Creek lying in wait for unsuspecting backpackers to walk into their house of horrors. We also have an army of animals ready to unleash their venom on every single visitor to this wide brown land.
Awesome Australian Animals
But while our fabulous fauna gets all the attention, the flora is sadly neglected.
It's time to fix that. So after the last few months of planting pretty little critters, I think it's the perfect time to create the Oz Floranomicon.
I've got a handy plant catalogue from one of the nurseries at the Garden Festival yesterday. Also after working a while in a native plant nursery, I notice that I am able to recognize a lot of local plants. I always use the botanical names since they are unambiguous. A habit I learnt when studying Herbology in Germany which has proved to be very useful.
I even got a voucher for a free seedling for being able to spot the 12 weeds from a photo collection of 18 plants. I even knew the names of 9 of them.
(I had already bought 10 leaf babies from the stall accepting the vouchers)
Of course a Book of Evil Weeds is just a plot device in search of a plot. I guess I am hoping that picking the right tarot deck might provide some inspiration for plot creation.
Along with the fascinating book I am currently reading "Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store"
There's always Dan Brown if I ever get desperate for plot points.
no subject
May the words and ideas flow like a rainforest waterfall after the wet season! <3
A Feast of Weeds
I did get it all sorted but that well and truly sent the muses scurrying off to some other more interesting corner of Nanoland
Unfortunately, all these dramas and distractions have left the serpent brain dead and the story weeds greatly neglected.
I had hoped to get on to telling the weedy story on Monday because the muse finally turned up the day before.
A bit tricky when I have done no planning at all. For the last few years since my mother died, I seem to have gotten stuck with proper story telling. What ends up happening is that November turns into a giant Pensieve on steroids. But unlike the old fashioned hand written sort, I can still read it some ten years later.
When I was doing a bit bus hopping today, the bus to the city went past some buildings with the logo from hell. Ten years ago the nursing home I worked at was taken over by a bunch of Macquarie goblins who ran the place like they run their bank. They turned it into a giant ATM and cut the staff and kitchen budget. The cook left because she refused to make bacon soup with just a pigs ear. But there will always be some newbie willing to jump through hoops for the boss.
All of this was long before Covid. Now even the good aged care places cannot get staff so I dread to imagine what sort of hell holes the for profit ones have become.
Just imagine Elon Musk running a nursing home will give you some sort of idea of just how awful it was. So seeing that logo pushed a whole bunch of buttons but it did remind me of a Nano story I wrote from back in those days where a Goblin manager wanting the top job is bitching about the public relations disaster of the "Lucifer's Gardens Royal Commission"
So while not a single story weed has sprouted yet just before the half way mark, the nursing home from hell with some very dodgy green fingered residents could be fun.
I could just randomly write stories about the residents. One is using retirement to fulfil a life long dream of writing the Floranomicon, another green fingered one is breeding some very dodgy carnivorous plants while another has access to CRSPR gene editing technology.
I could even have the odd politician drop by on a vote grabbing mission or to announce the latest Covid dramas. There could even be some crazy old resident busy breeding Covid infected bats or knitting socks for them or something.
I was on a coffee crawl today and one gorgeous cafe I visited had a tree loaded with apricots looking like it would fit very nicely in the Garden of Eden. The scent of jasmine was wafting everywhere. Plants can be so magical.