For those of you who care to follow my writing progress, here’s a brief interlude:
A Paleo Friendship #1: https://goo.gl/Jsj7nn
A Paleo Friendship #2: https://goo.gl/YjLJC3
If I could slap a button, big, round and red, and send myself back to such a time – POOF! That would be the end of me.
POV: First Person
Era/locale: 25,000 years ago, North American Western Coast
I’m going for “Hunger Games” style action and description. This is just an experiment, a diversion. One I’ve probably wanted to write since I was 17. It’s just a teaser, but, well, judge it for any writerly-progress.
(It’s still not “my voice”, as PH is wont to call to my attention. And it’s still YA — for some reason I can’t seem to push myself into adult writing mode.)
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
Now, it’s a good Jack Londish read, BUT -shout-fars, smoke or others in the valley. One-eyed Tak, Ten-ten, flap-tail dams, Diza, da, Hounta, two-ten summers,“KO-TAH, KEEN-BAKA NA.” Just to name a few.
PUH – freaking – leeeeeze. Especially the last one. WTF? Kotex? Clean Bathroom Now? Sorry, my jaw’s wired shut. Kroger. Mean Banana. Paint us picture of grumbles and snarls. There’s plenty of exclusionary subcultural and vocational vernacular out there obscuring and obfuscating enough to embarass Chinese smog. You dystopian guys. Go back and read some Verne, Vonnegut, Bradbury. All the jargon and made up shit for everyday shit is the cheap, set dresser’s way out of creating an environment. Remember Monty Python and the Holy Grail before you step off into the fantastic because there’s a fine line between the fantastic and the absurd. And readers need to be introduced into a new world. Running therough the forest is a good, energetic start. All the baubles and beads without depth are like costume jewelry. Dump them. If you have to write in flashback to tell backstory let little buddy stare into the fire and remember for us. In fewer than two pages or it needs it’s own chapter.
“KO-TAH, KEEN-BAKA NA.” which, judging from accompanying his motions, meant haul ass off the dam and don’t look back. Without old one nut Sampaw and his endless whispered advice I knew run beats dead. I know that’s a little pulpy for you, but
They obviously have decimal, but haven’t learned to count on their toes? Diza, we get a little about her, but all the comingling of modern and made up dialect, no idea at all who or what? Why not have OE Tak and Da and the experience of Diza screwing him blind happen around a camp fire, THEN we get here?
crevice, a . Periods and joiners won’t kill you. You write more run-ons than I do, and that’s a freaking Olympic feat.
Hey, you asked. I get my ass kicked daily. Don’t take it the wrong way. Nail your craft and tell the story you want, to the best of your ability and think of someone besides yourself. If you want to go there, make it the best you can. I keep telling you this. Don’t put on a costume and play jungle boy, put yourself in the scene.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Like “Caddy Shack” Be the balllllll……..
LikeLiked by 1 person
World building on the fly — I enjoy it, but it’s tough to get aspects of another world/era/time across without blatant authorian narrative. And authenticity is another one that is tough. It’s pretty easy to just assume every culture has miles, feet, hours, months, hundreds, thousands, breakfast, dinner, etc. Trying to make a world where none of that exists, or at least give the sense that it’s not just just some hackneyed attempt to tell an out-of-context story — that’s hard too.
I don’t want to be here.
If I could wish a BIG FUCKING ASTEROID DOWN ON THE EARTH RIGHT FUCKING NOW — I WOULD.
I FUCKING HATE MY LIFE.
So, I write and imagine ANY FUCKING PLACE ELSE BUT HERE.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“but it’s tough to get aspects of another world/era/time across without blatant authorian narrative.” Bullshit. All you need is a setup. The Navajo don’t have 47 words for dick, but they have sexual humor. However, one would require a translator and that’s your job, lazy ass.
“I enjoy it,” Ahh. THAT I understand. Hanging with characters you like, in places you like, just to be there instead of (insert place). Fine for you. Outside of that private realm you need to sell US on it. No, not every place has miles and can count, nor do they all have “bitch”, so which is it? Hybrid? The Prius of literature? Or – “Now listen to this… I’ll tell you about Texas radio and the big beat Soft driven, slow and mad like some new language.” Jim Morrison could take us there. BAM. Build a world and show it to us. Or say, up front, “This is me wanking ’cause I hate my life” and we’ll read it for what it is. Wanking. The choice is really yours, to take your wanking seriously enough to get us ALL lost in it, or stream of consciousness enough to drag Army men and the Fort Apache indians through your mom’s Lilies for a while until she hollers time to come in.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are one hard customer!
LikeLike
Thank you Phil. I do need your “tough love” — don’t ever change.
LikeLike
> The choice is really yours, to take your wanking seriously enough to get us ALL lost in it, or stream of consciousness enough to drag Army men and the Fort Apache indians through your mom’s Lilies for a while until she hollers time to come in.
See, if you could stay lucid long enough to write a decent plot — we’d all attach chains and drag ourselves behind your tour bus.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I write pulp, and in the Lamar vein, decent short stories. I’m a vignette Guy. Step out for a breath of fresh air. “Plot” is one of those paint by numbers fill in the blanks things that make fiction predictable. All that changes is how those cells are populated. Stream of consciousness is escapism without procedure. On the other bit, you need to read only chapter 12 of Forster’s “Howards End”, the rest might kill you. But 12 is you, muttering over the meaning of your life, much kinder than me choking on my opinion of the misery of selling out. Escapism is a good thing. Much better than tequila and a handgun!
LikeLiked by 1 person
A quote worth saving: “It is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought to die–neither as victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he must leave.”
Thanks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
https://www.theringer.com/music/2018/5/22/17378874/maynard-james-keenan-tool
Enjoyed the “thanks for all the fish” video.
LikeLike
https://goo.gl/YjLJC3
LikeLike
I’ll read. Thanks.
LikeLike