Friday Fictioneer Photo Prompt

This week the Friday Fictioneers get Festive once again. I had to pass on it. It was just too normal.  Anyway here is the picture offered up by Scott L Vanatter

You folks can enjoy it while I get into a staring contest with the kitty on the table.

By Scott L Vanatter

Check out the other Fictioneers in the Blog Hop on this inlinks thingie.  You can also contribute your own 100 words using the same link. You can peep the Facebook page too, there's  some other information on it that might interest you.

The Stuck-ness of this week's Book Review

I'm usually very good with getting through a book that needs a review. This week's book is posing a little bit of a challenge. While the concept behind the story is truly engaging, I'm just not feeling the pull that I usually feel when I have a new book in front of me. 

I'm strangely also having the same problem with my current ebook. I think though it's because it is a Mystery though and I'm not a big fan of that genre. I do like this ebook, the main character is dealing with some issues that I can relate to in a very personal way.

So with that in mind I'm giving myself until Saturday to complete these books. Sorry kiddies You'll just have to wait until then.

Enjoy the exorbitantly large picture of just my eyes...

Friday Fictioneer's - Potential

This week's Fictioneer Photo Prompt threw me for such a loop that I pretty much ignored it until I realized that I hadn't done one since the week before last. I wish I hadn't skipped last week now. But I'm going to give it a go-go and see what happens.

Copyright -Douglas M Macllroy

Potential

“The challenge is to take these random heaps of scrap and make art out of it.” The voice from video said. Its tin-like sound grated on Charity’s ears as she fidgeted with her wire cutters. “You have two days to complete your masterpiece.” 

Charity was considered dumb as rocks to the folks at school, but here in her garage she was an artistic genius. Her previous sculptures lined the shelves while she eyed the mesh wire. There was potential here and she knew it.

Charity closed her eyes the metallic scent of the wire came to her. She began to work.

Check out the other Fictioneers in the Blog Hop on this inlinks thingie.  You can also contribute your own 100 words using the same link. You can peep the Facebook page too, there's  some other information on it that might interest you.

Things That should Never Happen in the Same 48 Hours

Taken from IMdB

The last two days have been rather interesting for me. They may not be very significant to you or anyone else but I think they should not have occurred while I was aware. We could call them a Series of Unfortunate Events. Or we could just say the last 48 hours and be done with them.

Let's start with 12/12/12 and the over abundance of Facebook messages stating that the end of the world was at hand. Come on people, if the End was at hand do you think I'd have time to troll Facebook? Negative Ghost Rider, I'd be screaming bloody murder and huddling in a corner with my dog. Fact: I really would be huddling with my dog because, what else would I be doing?

Speaking of dogs, right before I headed out with my Best Friend to do some serious grocery shopping, some ass clown hit one outside my house. Anyone who follows me on Google+, Twitter or the infamous Facebook will know that there is more than a slight problem with the stray dogs in my neighborhood. There's also something with everyone owning chickens and roosters but that's another issue all together. 

A dog that looked to be some Malti-Poo or Bichon Frise mix was hit in front of my apartment the other night and Animal Control had to be called. I'm sort of familiar with this little one so I was pretty sad that it was now suffering. My neighbor an Army Medic, assessed it and pretty much listed it's injuries as: a shattered pelvis, one broken leg, a couple cracked ribs, one or two head injuries, possibly some internal bleeding. The driver never even stopped. 

What pissed me off is that the owner of the dog arrived right around the time Animal Control did. They said that the dog "Toby" escapes every time they leave the house. Are we serious? You know this is going to happen and yet you do nothing to prevent it? We were very angry over that statement and did not feel bad when Animal Control offered to euthanized Toby right there on the spot. The four of us (my two neighbors, my BF and myself) felt that Toby's owners were beyond irresponsible.

The next day finds me stuck in the house all day trying out my new medicine. It makes me so sleepy that I miss a super important call regarding a job interview, another super important call regarding the guy who stole my check back in June and my appointment to donate plasma. Anxiety medicine is supposed to calm me down, not put me out. Now, awake at 2:30 in the morning, the earth began to shake.

Which brings me to, this morning Earthquakes, yes I said quakes as in plural, meaning more than one. In fact, there were two somewhere off the coast that were 6.1 and 6.4 in magnitude. Nothing could make me more homesick for Japan than an earthquake. But not this time and of course since no one would be awake at 2:36 am I figured it was safe to get on Facebook and post about it. I was wrong there were a few and from them, I learned that San Onofre was built to only withstand a magnitude of 7.0 Earthquake. Great, what in the world is San Onofre? 

From Wikipedia

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. I looked it up. Methinks back to March 2011 when the Plant in Tomadachi, Japan went into melt down. All hell is breaking loose in my brain. Good thing I'm on the worlds greatest anxiety drug, I can sleep right through it. Which is exactly what I do after reading all about how jacked up San Onofre is on Wikipedia. Hey, the meds throw me off...

Which is why at roughly 12:45 this afternoon I wake up again to Facebook all atwitter with people saying how saddened they are by what happened in Connecticut. What happened in CT? My dad lives there and I'm a little concerned.

Well I'm sure you know now that someone open fired at a school killing defenseless people, mostly children under the age of ten. This is very bad, but whats worse is the fact that the media is glamorizing it. I'm not going to talk about the gunman, or the President's reaction or putting our nation's flag at half mast. I'm not going to contribute to the hysteria surrounding this terrible event. I'm going to say it is a sad day, a terribly sad day and keep moving. And here's why:

Right here is where I'm supposed to have a youtube video about why 24 hours of constant coverage about a mass killer only glorifies the gunman into some kind of antihero. The video I wanted to play here is not loading so sorry kiddies no youtube insight here.

My day is not ever and I know that something somewhere will make this day even more perplexing. Ah yes... Okcupid.com is doing a 12 matches of Christmas thing. Whatever happened to just enjoying the Holidays because it's the Holiday's????

What Am I Reading Wednesday - Containment by Christian Cantrell

I’d like to treat you kiddies to this epically awesome story by first time novelist Christian Cantrell.  I mean seriously treat you. Cantrell bases Containment inside a dome on the planet of Venus. Humans have managed to colonize the inhospitable planet but still struggle to be completely self sustaining.

The book is way passed imaginative with it’s faux history and inventive look into our Earth’s future and his world’s past. The story chronicles Arik a young genius raised completely inside the Venus dome along with 99 other young people. His life’s purpose is to make the Venus dome habitable for more the dome’s vigorously monitored population of 1,100 citizens.

His job becomes that much harder when his wife Cadie become pregnant. While searching for a method to create a plentiful air supply Arik discovers a mountain of secrets that threaten everything he know about the dome and his own existence.

I loved this book because like another techno thriller I reviewed earlier in 2012, this is chocked full of brain busting imagery and science that my head twirled trying to grasp what the author was showing me. I get a great sense of feeling in each section and found myself not bored with the technical jargon despite my lack of education in that arena. I literally did not want to put the book down after Arik made his discoveries and even missed my bus reading how he found a resolution to the conflicts in the story.

Arik is  very likable character until the very end and because he maintains a likable guy status so well,  I ended up hating just about everyone else in the story even his wife Cadie regardless of her involvement in the conflict, which was pretty minimal. I pitied his genius for what knowledge he found and applauded the sacrifices he makes to make sure that the people inside the Venus dome achieve everything they asked of him and the information they weren’t supposed to know.

This story isn’t so much about a conspiracy. It is more like a crisis of identity, with everything Arik believes and understands. How Cantrell brings Arik to that realization is purely masterful.

I recommend Containment for anyone who has hope for the future of space travel and has faith in the Human Natures ability to still be curious.  

You can find Containment on Amazon.com here

The Alternate Reality and Getting things done.

One day I'm going to slip into a coma and wake up in a place where every person I've ever invented will actually exist.

Imagine actually bumping into Toddy and Errol, Boy and Grand Pa, Felicity Meyers, Steven Cuppard, Pete Johnson, Bestie, Barry the Shoe Whore and Jeanie, Celine Heydan, Petra, A-23, Ruddick, Malik, Davis, and Randall, Deena the deserter, Laine, Naomi, Riley and Jiro, and Geri?

Chaos would ensue. Some of these people aren't human. Some of these people aren't adults. One of them would be me. Heck all of them are me in one way or another. The scary part is that the stronger characters might actually kill me.

I'm not saying this because I'm slightly insane. I'm saying this because in my ming there is only one reason why there were so many people gathered together. The end of the world just happened and we were the survivors.

Maybe something less serious. I'm not sure but I know for sure that Heydan, Grand Pa, Jiro and possibly Errol will look at me and decide that I'm dead weight or the villain. Steven and Malik might want to control me. A-23 and Jeanie might just start spying on me. Deena might leave and take Geri and Laine with her and the rest will accept that I'm just a person stuck like them.

It's be Survivor in my brain. Minus the prize at the end.

The reason I'm even thinking about this is because I've been looking over the stories I started this past year.   I don't know if I'll ever get back to some of these characters until the time is right. I'd like to think that a few of them will pop up in a Friday Fictioneer short. I'd absolutely love to be able to revisit Jiro and Naomi to see what the gifts are bestowed on them next year. The point is that some of them deserve a second chance, in some cases maybe a first.

But most of all I want to finish The New God.

This November I did something that I previously never did. That was complete a novel. While Never Getting Laid Again was just a throw away novel for the NaNoWriMo challenge I actually finished it.  I spent exactly one day away from it then I decided that I didn't like the ending. Technically that means that the novel is once again unfinished, but it was for at least a day. I'd like that same opportunity with The New God.

I want to reach a point in every novel I write where I can sit back sigh and say: Lets do some editing. I'd especially love it for TNG. That was the book I set my heart to finishing before I die. But I'm not going to stop everything because I seemed to have lost my place in TNG.  I proved I can immerse myself in something else. If that something else becomes a published work then Yay for me.

In the mean time, let's all hope I never ever slip into that coma.