The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

If the fates had ignored a certain serpent then today I would have been marking 19 years of servitude in Salazar’s Sanatorium for Superannuated Sorcerers. Also known as the day job.
Thanks to the intervention of a certain toad, the clock stopped just short of 17.5 years. The loss of those 500 plus hours of accumulated sick leave still peeves me to this very day.

The grand plan back in May 2012 was to pay off a $25,000 mortgage in 250 days. The simple act of creating this deadline provided the motivation to nuke half of the total in less than one week. I raided several nest eggs to achieve this aim. This was largely inspired by the Queen of Cane Toads slowly and steadily picking off the old house elves one by one. The place was becoming so toxic, it was time to make plans to join the rest of the rats leaving the sinking ship.

( A toadish tale )

In an alternative universe I would have been at “The Very Potter Quiz” on this evening where four tables of pot heads dressed up as their favourite characters and assigned to the appropriate houses would be vying for the House Cup and raising funds for assorted charities. Due to not possessing a broomstick or even a muggle motor vehicle, would be unable to get back to the Lair using the bus. It seems silly to have a student event finishing at 11.30 when so many of them do not have transport. So made do with slinking about a pretty park reading and then going on a coffee crawl before returning to the Lair to do lots of catching up online.

After being unable to find it in any local library, resorted to Amazon to get Stephen King’s book about writing. Saved it especially as a reward for finishing April’s word marathon. Had been reading another book for about fifteen minutes while sitting on a park bench under a tree before switching to the King. Within less than a minute a big black greenish blob splattered onto one page. Some squawking creature in the tree was obviously not impressed. This must be some sort of omen or a sign to write a story about some very snooty birds and their arty farty book club. The Izzie had indulged in the deluxe hardback edition so was particularly peeved. Found bits of newspaper to wipe it off but a dark green stain still remains. There must be some way to turn this blemish from a bug into a feature. Maybe I should stab the book with a basilisk fang to see what happens.

The weather has been crisp and crunch of late with a dark sky at night and a pretty sliver of a moon. It’s two days since departing Camp Nano. Suddenly there’s an extra 90 minutes to play with per evening that does not need to be devoted to the all important 50,000 word count. All sorts of temptations conspire to fill that time mainly in the form of online courses. Two of them will be finishing within the next week or so.

It’s also gorgeous weather for gardening. But the big event this time of year is not one but two government budgets. There’s a chainsaw massacre a coming and the fallout will be scary indeed. That is another story entirely. I’ve not been talking much about the two day jobs but their central feature is that they are unpaid. Which in today’s goblin dominated culture means that they don’t count as real work at all.

But they’ve been essential in preserving the serpent’s tiniest sliver of sanity and relegating the significance of a certain toxic toad to a dimly distant memory of dark days to be dragged out of hibernation only when the word count needs turbo charging.

It’s funny how often we are so focused on the money that it is easy to forget the other important and necessary things that a job can provide. It’s nice to be useful instead of being still stuck on the scrap heap where that old toad tossed me and hoped I’d stay forever.

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 )

Izzie is a bit of a tarot junkie. Not for fortune telling but for all the pretty pictures and particularly for story telling. This mystical serpent just loves the feast of images and symbols. There is also a method to this madness, a pattern behind the kaleidoscope of images as well as the inevitable iconoclastic streak.

A certain serpent associate treats the cards as Gospel from on high and any use of the cards not involving candles, incense, a darkened room and the appropriate amount of respect while in the presence of the Almighty is regarded as blasphemy most foul. She thinks it is appalling that Izzie uses these holy relics for tawdry purposes such as the telling of tall tales

She regularly goes for readings and swears by the uncanny accuracy of the cards. This curious serpent decided it might be time for a try too. Being rather well acquainted with the Devil’s picture book means that they do not have the mystery and magical powers that most muggles attribute to them. But they are much prettier and more potent than a bunch of slushy Rorschach blobs. A sort of Muggle Mirror of Erised one could say. Ten people can look at the same card and each will see something completely different but usually relevant to their own individual issues

So reserved this first visit for the auspicious day of Friday 13th. There were three of them to choose from this year. Chose the middle one where there were no immediate dramas on the horizon.
While the reading was reasonably accurate there was no outstanding issues. The reader who goes by the name of Rosie did pick up on work dramas looming on the horizon. She did say that a lack of major cards was a good sign. Things are sailing along smoothly on a reasonably even keel.
Was satisfied that Rosie knew her stuff. She did not do the Sybil Trelawney or Gypsy Rose thing. No gimmicks just a dowdy old lady reading the cards.

( Sybil Says )

The Tower does not appear in any of the 88 cards drawn for this year’s nanowrimo adventure. Maybe there should be a chance for a guest appearance. Chapter 16 might be the perfect place to put it. It would make a wonderful location for an extraordinary general meeting of the Megatherion board of directors. Lock them all in there and nuke it to smithereens. After all, the only good goblin is a dead one.

The clock is tick tocking. Only five days now to get to the summit of Mount Nano situated some 50,000 words above the white blank pages at the base camp. If things had been normal, if the Izzie had a half decent map, by now would already be staking the emerald and silver serpent flag at the summit. Would not only have that big fat stash of words but also at least twenty stories with beginnings, middles and most importantly ends. Yesss. The Izzie is not good at endings. Lack of practice mainly.

It all seemed so promising at the start. Already by Friday 13th July had a little brown A-Z index book with at least 400 possible story titles and reasonable outlines and ideas for at least forty stories. But only 26 would be needed. One completed story each day and by the end of the alphabet the word count would be well in the bag along with room for another ten thousand words as extras with little effort at all. Such a nice little map that was. There was only one minor problem. What could best be described as a major earthquake took place on the last day of July. It took a good five days to assess the damage and become rather suspicious about the usefulness of that very precious map. It took until the second Saturday to realize that progress would be impossible unless we tossed the infernal thing on the campfire or at least locked it away for another time and place when it might regain its usefulness

Procrastinating on telling toadish tales until the daily word quota of proper story words was reached simply resulted in the story muses stalling and sulking and refusing to return until the toxic toad had been let loose and out and about. Those words were very easy to write. They were like genies screaming to be let out of their bottle lest it explode with the pressure. Since the whole purpose of camp squiggling is to provide a source of ideas for the main event in November, it was obvious that we would have to let the toad have her wicked way rampaging all over the page. She could run riot and then the other critters would feel free to come out of the woodwork. Such a pity that hardly any of them came from the original maps.

The psycho toad from hell had set her horrid Dementors on them and sent them all scurrying off into the recesses of the serpent’s green cells. Maybe they will return some time when it is finally safe to do so.

She is probably plotting and planning another howler if she has not popped it in the post box already. Did not see her toadish face today at the mad house and her Hummer was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she was off invading Poland or something.

In the meantime, Izzie has found new distractions from the day job with the start of an online course in Cryptography. Lucky we got three weeks to get the homework in because the rest of this week will be devoted to the last 4,000 words and hopefully a few last minute sprints of inspiration.

It’s exactly eleven years ago since last having anything to do with discrete probability and statistics so got some serious catching up to do. It will be good to get the old green cells occupied on something totally untoadish

It's not all toxic toads and devious Denentors in Izzieland

Some happy snippets


Some one is going to send Izzie a nice owl for a change
Just got an email wanting our muggle address so they can send the $20 book voucher we won at the recent University Open Day. (it was the linguistics quiz)

Thanks to the Cat, signed up for 3 FREE geeky courses at Coursera
1 Cryptography
2 Introduction to mathematical thinking
3 A beginner's guide to irrational behaviour

And last but not least

Just passed 40,000 words over in Camp Nano. The summit of Mount Nano is only just out of reach. Pity that a whole 16,000 of those words concern a certain toxic toad. Guessing that is progress. Last month she got herself a whole 30,000!

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 )

For some inexplicable reason this serpent has been thinking about this story more often than usual

Two monks were strolling by a stream on their way home to the monastery. They were startled by the sound of a young woman in a bridal gown, sitting by the stream, crying softly. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gazed across the water. She needed to cross to get to her wedding, but she was fearful that doing so might ruin her beautiful handmade gown.

In this particular sect, monks were prohibited from touching women. But one monk was filled with compassion for the bride. Ignoring the sanction, he hoisted the woman on his shoulders and carried her across the stream--assisting her journey and saving her gown. She smiled and bowed with gratitude as he noisily splashed his way back across the stream to rejoin his companion.

The second monk was livid. "How could you do that?" he scolded. "You know we are forbidden even to touch a woman, much less pick one up and carry her around!"

The offending monk listened in silence to a stern lecture that lasted all the way back to the monastery. His mind wandered as he felt the warm sunshine and listened to the singing birds. After returning to the monastery, he fell asleep for a few hours. He was jostled and awakened in the middle of the night by his fellow monk. "How could you carry that woman?" his agitated friend cried out. "Someone else could have helped her across the stream. You were a bad monk!"

"What woman?" the tired monk inquired groggily.

"Don't you even remember? That woman you carried across the stream," his colleague snapped.

"Oh, her," laughed the sleepy monk. "I only carried her across the stream. You carried her all the way back to the monastery."

source


And lots more strange and spooky tales

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