The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Less than 12 hours left of this year in Izzieland. It's still a pickly 40 celsius outside which is most annoying. Only good thing that it is a dry sizzling sort of heat rather than the disgusting steamy sultry humidity of recent days.

Been taking advantage of the particular energy of this time of year to do some ritual decluttering. Tossed ten things about ten times. A very simple but effective trick as it sneaks around the sabotage of the inner beasts bent in keeping things stuck in a rut and miserable and can be done even when the mercury is on the north side of 40
The funniest of all was the recent letter from a friend with a wonderful visual image for dealing with the toad dramas (This letter did not get tossed but added to the stash of treasures)

( Toad Turds and other tasteless tales )

So now it's time to scrub the scales again, slink off into the sunset and toast to the end of 2012 and the beginning of a bright shiny new year full of potential

Here's wishing a wonderful new year to everyone out there.

PS Here's hoping this entry will be the last one for a long time with that box ticking b@#$ as an icon

This serpent is amused when thinking of the rituals for this year’s nanowrimo adventure.
In order to save the hassle of shuffling twice, decided in early 2011 to kill two birds with one stone. So went and bought two 200 page spiral notebooks. One for 2011 and one for this year
So this cheapskate serpent shuffled one deck. 22 chapters and 4 cards per chapter with each group returned to the deck. Sometimes would work in batches of 3 in order to guarantee that the same cards would not turn up twice

In order to save time and effort in November when every minute is precious, had devoted two pages per card of the spiral notebook to the 88 randomly shuffled cards. The point of this exercise was to have somewhere to squiggle unplugged when out and about and away from a decent keyboard such as on the annual visit to the garden festival down south or at various nano write ins

But there was not one but two spiral notebooks. While the first was randomly drawn, the second was going to consist of exactly the same sequence but with a different deck. Aside from sheer laziness it would be an interesting experiment. A picture paints a thousand words so what sort of story would the Dark Grimoire deliver in comparison to the original Victorian Romantic deck (which was just perfect for a story about gardens and all sorts of green goodness)

After 8 weeks or so (this ritual being usually reserved for Thursdays and Fridays) had gotten through all 22 chapters. In both cases would take a quick glance of each set of four cards and find some story line to link them all together. Promptly put away the second set and forgot all about them until this September.
( The Map is not the territory )

The serpent has been busy in Nanoland. Combined with the ritual of the annual visit to the spring garden festival down south, this has proved to be an interesting mix indeed

Had looked forward to the train journey but had the bad luck to get one of the few seats just behind a wall meaning that there’s not much leg room and no table. Also there was a squealing kid strategically located in the seat just behind the Izzie. He wasn’t even particular pesky as far as kids go but the constant wailing and whining and banging of the back of the seat was as annoying as hell.

Did try to tune out by rereading “No Plot, No Problem” but its effect was rather limited. This is a bad omen indeed to be such a neurotic nut job when this journey should be for relaxing and unwinding

Turned out there was at least two squealing beasties in each carriage. Was a murderous wreck by the time the train got to Bunbury. Could not get on the coach quick enough. It at least was half empty and full of oldies. Space, peace and quiet. What bliss. Also had the inspired idea of listening to music since the scenery is too nice to be wasted on a book and not wanting to risk motion sickness by doing something so silly

Listening to Lisa Gerrard was just the spookiness this serpent needed to switch into mystical magical mode. So silly not to have thought of this earlier. Figured too that it would be fun to see how many Dead Can Dance song (or album) titles could do double duty as chapter headings too. The Serpent’s Egg has already made an appearance

But there were side effects too of being in this state. Got to thinking that it seems a bit implausible to write a story about the most evil corporation in the universe with its headquarters in Melbourne and offices in Perth and even miserable Manjimup (yessss - this company really is that soulless and awful) To have three Australians and four Indians on the board of directors which has twelve in total plus the CEO is even more unlikely. Somehow the excuse that it is the serpent’s story and she can do whatever she damn well likes just did not cut the mustard. It’s sort of the story equivalent of the parent who constantly proclaims “Because I said so”
But then just the tiniest tweek came to mind. What if Megatherion Money Management isn’t actually the most evil corporation ever but is just a sad and pathetic bunch of wannabees with delusions of grandeur?

Now that turns out to be rather more close to the reality of the organization providing the original inspiration for this story but there were some interesting side effects. Suddenly the story had an engine and could start going places.

Big M wants to get bigger and badder and its board of directors are constantly plotting to invade Poland while a whole bunch of other characters are trying to prevent that happening
Then there’s the board of directors who are continually bickering and bitching about each other. There’s rumours going around that the big bad boss (one John Winston Smith) is going senile and every single one of them is scheming and plotting how to get the top job while appearing to be eternally loyal to their goblin master.

Now there’s a nice little gold mine of potential conflict.

So with all those possible plot points simmering away in the serpent skull plus a few visits to a seriously kitsch cafe and bric a brac store (the same one which provided a cast of characters and locations for last year’s adventure) got out the spiral notebook and emerald ink and started squiggling. The fountain pen is much slower than a horrid scratchy ballpoint pen. The whole point of this ritual is to be forced to write slowly and neatly. No point in churning out thirty pages like last year and then discovering they were almost indecipherable when sitting at the keyboard two days later

Between those two days and the journey back on the train with no squealing rampaging kids and half empty seats was able to not only squiggle some forty something A5 pages but had a whole pile of fun doing it

Not once was there any need to resort to the safety net of the 88 index cards. That may have something to do with bringing a certain character out of retirement. But his seedy plotting and scheming will have to stop or else the poor old toad will not even get two minutes as a creature feature. She is supposed to be the star of the show after all.

The lazy loser hasn’t gotten around to writing a single memo yet and she seems to have outsourced all the disciplinary action. Tomorrow it will be time to take that stuffed cane toad out from her little bag which she shares with the Thoth tarot and let her loose on those muses.

Enjoyed these unplugged writing adventures so much that it might be time to add a few more of them

Some simple serpent musings while slinking at the nano campfire toasting a toad on a stick. Here’s hoping the serpent doesn’t get food poisoning. Toads are such tricksy toxic creatures that no amount of precautions are completely fool proof.

The serpent’s favourite saying of all time just has to be “The map is not the territory” It appeals to the introvert’s eternal questioning of the nature of reality and insanity and even to the toxic paper work culture where nothing has happened unless it is documented documented and documented to death

This particular map was made way back in January this year with the shuffling of a tarot deck. Twenty six stories with three cards each and no returns so every single card made an appearance at some stage or other. This is rather different from the usual story structure of a prologue and 21 chapters each based on the major arcana in order. Cards 8 and 11 get ordered according to what works best for a particular story but usually Strength works out best as 8 and Justice as 11 which also seems to work well with the cluster of shit sandwiches that usually make an appearance from chapters 10 to 16.

That pattern of course is what we use in November. Camp Nano is for playing the fool, doing rebellious and adventurous stuff and basically using the opportunity to brainstorm ideas for the November novel. Last time camp nano squiggling did not even make any attempts at producing stories. It was simply a run through a particularly inspiring deck from the point of view of creating characters and the odd plot point. When that did not produce the requisite word count simply grabbed another one and started with the Fool all the way some 77 cards later to the King of Pentacles

This year was supposed to concentrate on short stories. The serpent pattern for all nano adventures has been to crash around two thirds of the way through a story and never quite complete it. Always made the word count but could never quite conquer the nuts and bolts of story structure. Well of course it was ridiculously stupid to dive in at the deep end with a fifty thousand word story having never done such a thing before. This year would be dedicated to the art of finishing things. Twenty six stories should provide sufficient practice in theory

( The Map is not the territory )

Just a quick note from the serpent. Camp Nanowrimo has started and the Izzie is squiggling on two fronts. One to reach the daily quota plus an extra few hundred words as a safety net and the other words are being wasted responding to horrid Howlers from toxic toads

So no slinking allowed in Cyberia until the homework is done. And with those dementors sapping the old serpent brain, not many green cells left for catching up on all the gossip. Been ever so tempted by a post on the topic of 'What's your favourite decade?" Even been getting all nostalgic thinking about it. But in this serpents' present distracted state seems most unlikely to be able to get around to proper commenting

In the meantime got to be off polishing the nails for a new coffin in Toad Hall. It is short and squat not big and fat. Must be off camping. Got to be off to toast some critters over the fire for a serpent snack.
Most peeved indeed that the old toad has pissed on our Camp nano parade. Had been so looking forward to cooking up that cauldron of alphabet soup

Due to the evil goblins chopping our holidays, Izzie missed out on observing two most favorite rituals - New Year’s Eve sunset at Cottesloe Beach and the New Year’s Night fireworks by the river. So was going to make sure that at least the serpent tenth birthday did not go unmarked. There was the pesky problem of the public holiday meaning that watching the sunset from anywhere but the Lair would mean being stranded as most buses have their bed time at the ridiculous hour of 8pm
Figured it would also mean that the arts centre would be crowded as it was the last time 2nd January was on a Monday back in 2006. That was a disgustingly hot and muggy day with intermittent sea breezes

But unlike then, did not have a week’s holiday so had the whole public holiday bus schedule to contend with after work and then pottering off for the afternoon adventures
Keeping the New Year’s resolution in mind of first checking out available resources rather than running off to the shops to get stuff, put a little picnic together of bread, crackers, cheese and the remaining half of the bottle of wine from the pretend new year’s eve picnic at the beach on Friday.

So got the bus to the Lair after work, scrubbed the scales, packed the picnic and pottered off to catch the 2.15 bus. One bus later got to the lunatic asylum just after 3pm.
Got to the gates and noticed that not only were they closed but there was a big fat chain and padlock wrapped around them. Izzie was most peeved indeed. Had been looking forward to this day for a good few weeks and had not expected a twist like this

Right next to the gate is a big black and white centre proclaiming “Fremantle Arts Centre - open 10am-5pm 7 days a week”. And in smaller print - closed Good Friday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day

There was no notice whatsoever on the gate proclaiming why the place was closed. So decides to take a peek up at the vehicle entry gate which was open.
Sat in the gorgeous grounds under the plane trees but an inner voice whispered that these beasties are not to be trusted and would be better off sitting up the top end in view of the gate in case the little freaks decided to lock the place up.

Sure enough, hardly five minutes sitting there and some slimy security guard sorts comes up and says that the Izzie needs to get out as he will be locking the place soon.
He knew nothing at all about why the place was closed and was ‘just following orders’
So that was the end of an afternoon of squiggling, reading and nibbling on cheese and sipping red wine. Dragged our little picnic all this way for nothing and ended up having it back in the lair around sunset

Did visit two cafes instead but none with the magical atmosphere and nostalgic associations. Turned out half the cafes were closing early and charging 10-15% public holiday surcharges
So there was no point in lingering. Could not even stay for the sunset due to the limited bus services on public holidays so just left around 6pm and was back at the Lair for just after 7pm

Must go and visit the arts centre website and see if they bothered posting there that they would be observing unusual opening hours. It’s just plain bad manners not to have some note of explanation posted on the gate.
This day will not be a public holiday in 2013 and will have jumped two days to Wednesday. It will be interesting to see what evil schemes they have plotted for their opening hours between now and then - maybe two weeks off for Christmas or something

But some of the magic must have rubbed off. Was a bit peeved but avoided going into one of those gloomy doomy ‘princess of pity parties’ mode and managed to remain in the present moment in spite of the whole purpose of the visit being one of unadulterated nostalgia