Am I capable of writing something that hits the way 17776 by Jon Bois hits?

Can I affect people in any similar way? Can I imagine a journey like that? Can I play with form the way Bois and his editors did to tell this story in multiple ways: words, images, video, music, and more?

Without saying anything about the content of 17776, I can say the story reminded me of outside-the-box strips by xkcd, especially its epic "Time." And yes, I mean "epic."

17776 is challenging, sprawling, and transformative. I wanted to note that. And to imagine how someone could build on that.

I love football, but this is worth it even for those who don't really know or follow football.

My cleaning has led me not just to blues song lyrics, but to a mid-90s list I was making of possible titles. I've yet to use them, all these years later, which may be a sign that I should write more. But I can copy them down here, so I can see them again, and maybe be inspired by them. Maybe you will be inspired by them. Use 'em if you want. Seriously.


Gather the Players
Sanity in a Brown Plastic Bag
Blank Stares | Blank Verse and Blank Stares
Beleaguered of the Pack
In Between the Dark and the Light*
Everything I've Told You Is A Lie
Someone Isn't Breathing Air...
Despair with a Cherry on Top
When He Wrote 'I NO NO 1'
The Life of Cozwell
The Blanket of Clouds
Fresh Dry Socks and Other Small Pleasures
Mellow Drama
Wink Wink Grin and a Salute to Boot
The King of Crushes of King of Prussia, PA**
An Endless, Senseless, Winless War
___________'s Okwurd Wurld***
The Dripping Meat
Beware of Sudden Depth
The Forever Endeavor
Too Many Pennies
The Tragic State of Comics
Hole in the World****
The Sword of Zohar
Gee-Whiz-Isms
The Dark Calm Before the Dawn Storm
Friendship, Free of Charge
I'm a Thigh Guy
Dat's Macabre!*****
The Reason For Evil | The Reason Of Evil
The Irreverent Reverend Reference
Hard On My Mind
For Tomb, the Well Bowls
Women With Guns!******
"Hundreds of Dead Chickens..."
Get Fucking (a song to sex)
And. and And.*******
Over-Sober********
Ugly Ugly Ugly
Handing Out a Few Heart Attacks

This page also has phrases and names that might not work as titles, but I'll preserve them here, too:

"Is this deep or what?" "Deeper than whale shit, yes."
Blood, Phlegm and the Biles (heavy-metal group)
Two-Headed Nixon Productions
"Sentences about as long as the 18th century and paragraphs about as large as his ego..."
Xessex
Julea
Acting oh so unimpressed
MAYOR TO MARRY MERRY MARY

---

* Could this be Don Henley's autobiography?
** Sounds like a YA novel!
*** I never came up with a good name to use here.
**** Which I picked up from the 1994 film Speed, a line written by an uncredited Joss Whedon. He used it later, heartbreakingly, as the title for the Angel episode where the god Illyria kills Winifred "Fred" Birkle and takes over Fred's body.

I didn't know any of that (and of course it'd be years before Angel was even created), but I liked the term. I even developed the seed of an idea around it, involving the Pacific Northwest being cut off from the rest of America by both an Electromagnetic Pulse and some form of energy bubble preventing people from leaving or entering. I never came near to writing it, though.
***** I find this kind of funny.
****** I wrote some lines for a song of this!
******* a.k.a. 'The Adventures of Andy and Anders,' friends of mine from my college dorm from 1994 to 1996. They could've been a team in a buddy comedy.
******** Slight added context: I wouldn't have my first drink until 1999.

In Portland, drastic measures for drastic traffic

RIGHT HERE IN RIVER CITY — With downtown Portland's Morrison Bridge under major repairs for the next several months and with traffic on the span reduced from six lanes to two, the city has decided to combat congestion and help get cars in and out of downtown by building the city's first trebuchets.

Cars, SUVs, delivery vehicles, recumbent bikes and more can be loaded into the machines and thrown across the Willamette, bypassing bridge traffic and with only birds in the way.


(file photo)

To catch vehicles after they're flung, Portland will install nets in the Reverse Bungee rides that usually come to town for the Rose Festival.


(file photo, too)

East-west traffic will be handled just north of the Hawthorne Bridge, with cars going west-to-east launching from just south of the same bridge.



Yelling "Wooooooo!" will be encouraged.

Tall bikes will not be allowed due to height restrictions.

"This city has actual pirates, so a trebuchet is well within the realm of possibility for Portland," explained Fletcher Ness of Far-Flung Siege Engine Technologies, which is providing equipment. "We hope to relieve traffic with the efficiency of using the air above the Willamette plus the added thrills of Fast and Furious stunts.

"This is the closest most of us will get to flying cars."

Ness added that the system will be tested with two-person Smart Cars, because "those cars are like shot puts."

This entry will be fairly niche, as I'm writing about my Serenity fanfic I posted yesterday, so I'm placing it behind a cut. This is also kind of for my records and my memory. In other words, don't worry if you don't want to read it.

( Interesting exercise, writing from the P.O.V. of someone you don't like and aren't meant to like...Collapse )

Serenity: In Point of Fact

By Christopher Walsh

3,113 words. Inspired by Firefly, created by Joss Whedon and Tim Minear, and Serenity, written/directed by Whedon. Characters c/o Joss’s big, giant, story-holding head. Story notes here.
( When his world as he knew it disintegrated, he faced that shattered existence with both arms broken.Collapse )

Tomorrow I'll post a story. Fiction. Fanfic, to be more exact, inspired by the 2005 film Serenity. I hope the story is unexpected in a good way; it was an idea that occurred to me years ago that I eventually decided to get out of me.

The story, just over 3,100 words, is called "In Point of Fact." It's about someone I do not root for; I hope that will be clear. Still, it's been a while since I've published any fiction, particularly something serious. (This piece wasn't serious. I mean, come on, it's inspired by Spaceballs.)

I hope if you have an interest in and a fondness for Serenity and the show which led to it, Firefly, you will try it. The story goes live Thursday morning at 7:00.

He is a little older, a little more aware, a little wiser. He never grew especially taller, nor grew more than thin wisps of straight, black hair; the marks of the child he was are as clear as his yellowish skin, but somehow he does not look sallow, does not look sickly. He is who he is. He understands that. He's grown into it.

He had adventures, for a surprisingly long time; it had seemed like a forever-childhood, one where everything that could have happened to him — friendship, puppy love, heartbreak, warmth, family, quizzical looks from so many who didn't quite "get" him — occurred. He has stories. He is, now, at last, ready to tell them.

He sits down at his computer, smiles wistfully, and types




WHERE I AM A VIKING
a novel
Ralph Wiggum

Back from First Thursday and the opening night of an art show of work by Mike Russell, and I'm warming up my bed for the night. I can also write from bed.

Tonight I can report that I've written something and finished it.

Fiction. Actual short story draft, currently just under 2,900 words (editing to ensue), of a fanfic. Fanfic of the film Serenity (2005), an idea I'd had literally a few years ago, even before I moved to this house.

There's the amateur fiction writer's dilemma: FINISHING STUFF. A story can't actually be good if it's not actually finished, if it's just drafted fragments without a THE END in it. That's what I've been telling myself, so I've poked at what I had of the story during the past couple of weeks. I set today as a target to finish it. I did. I felt productive.

Like a lot of you, I've gotten a story out of me. Which encourages me to get more stories out of me. Meanwhile, I'll look at this story, see what work it needs, and post it when I can. And hope it's worth sharing.

Latest headline doesn't tell you what the fuck to feel

SOMEWHERE — Something happened. Happened, past tense. Means we can report it. "Something happened." In a shocking twist, the headline describing this thing doesn't say how you should react to the thing, doesn't have a colorful word in all-caps like "DESTROYED" or "PSYCHED," doesn't have exclamation points (not a one, let alone three or two), and has no unrelated photo next to it of an attractive woman or an ugly piece of food, it simply says, paraphrased, "Something happened." This is what headlines should do, quickly convey info considered newsworthy. The above tactics are used online to get you to click on links to stories so sites get more page views. They have nothing to do with the newsworthiness of the story.

In other news, something happened. Which, in fact, on its own would be a terrible headline.

Sheena was a punk rocker.

Was.


(My previous version: "Sheena was a punk rocker. Alas." But I decided "alas" was too fancy for the context.)

I wrote the haiku first, then I wrote the opening non-poem lines to figure out what was going on in the haiku. Thus, this:

* * *
The house was a hard sell: a white-elephant-big, repair-starved relic, painted bright yellow. The rich eccentric bought it anyway, after years of people turning it down. Or, in haiku:

Old, bold, and gold: Sold,
All told, for a price that polled
As "That leaves us cold."
I've been reading Ray Bradbury, by the way. I think that's reflected in how the little story starts.

STUDY SHOWS BILL MURRAY NEVER IN FACT ACTUALLY SAYS ANYTHING



LOS ANGELES, CA—In what is being hailed as a long-secret, finally-revealed technological breakthrough, Hollywood technicians admitted after an investigation into their work that famous actor Bill Murray not only never says what is attributed to him online, but never speaks for himself at all.

The crew demonstrated that the iconic actor, somehow born without a mouth, wears a hologram generator on his neck which 24/7 projects an image of a mouth onto his face. The speaker attached to the generator then allows him to "say" not only any line of dialogue his films require, but whatever any lazy online writer thinks should be a Twitter joke or a Facebook meme.

"His laconic hilarity in Ghostbusters, his heart-breaking performance in Groundhog Day, and that alleged joke about the deaths of Johnny Cash, Steve Jobs, and Bob Hope are all made possible by our equipment," explained technician Dalton Foster of Los Feliz. "Our technology could help anyone say anything they want him to, and whatever is said doesn't even have to be funny because having Bill Murray say it makes it funny. It's science."

Foster elaborated, "One major challenge we met was his whisper to Scarlet Johansson in Lost In Translation, but we can report that we made the illusion work and that the mystery is solved because Murray said nothing to her."

When asked for a response, Murray said something vaguely almost-funny that you could've sworn you'd heard before.


Image via http://www.thatsmyface.com

Post-Night

a short story by Christopher Walsh, finished March 2016



"I ended up at Psycho Safeway the night of my junior prom."

"We all ended up at Psycho Safeway the night of our junior prom."

"Drawn there?"

"Maybe. Drama there that we'd just see; nothing we'd caused. Maybe that's it."

"More of that at night."

"Yep. Less to distract from anything that's happening when it's night. And we'd gone there often enough in the day that we knew things still happened then."

"Feels weird. Admitting that, I mean."

"It's OK to feel that. It's how you honestly felt."

"You feel weird, knowing I went there that night?"

"I'd've felt weird if anything had happened to you. But...don't feel like you need to apologize for being there. Or for what happened with the cereal."

"Maybe I should apologize for THAT."

"It's their job to handle it. And you don't make a habit of that...right?"

"Course not. But...but I still feel odd."

"You feel that any other time there? It was a moment. You saw it. I barely missed it, probably. My luck. I'd've liked to. It was just luck."

"Luck gets weirder there."

"Of course."

"How did we not see each other?"

"I think you just answered that."

"...huh."

"The answer doesn't have to be satisfying to be right."

"Maybe. But...it'd feel better."

---

Thanks to Elisabeth Allie for the first line, and to Ted Douglass for the second. I've never been to prom, but I have been to Psycho Safeway.

Sheena was a punk rocker.

Alas.

---

There. A six-word short story.

(This entry brought to you by the very large amount of Ramones played in the house this weekend.)

I thought I was. I wasn't.


I thought I wasn't. I was.


I thought I was. I was.

Sometimes fiction comes out of me. Sometimes poetry. Sometimes...oh, something like this.

You're welcome. Maybe.


* * * * * * *

R⁸
by Christopher Walsh

Consider the life of Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo.

His name honors seven generations of Ruffalos. The ones still alive are honored.

His name is unique. No one will ever again be named Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo.

It is strangely comforting, saying it. It's almost a mantra. People have fallen asleep during it.

As he grew up, saying his full name showed that his parents were truly serious about having words with him. "Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo!" Luckily, for him and for them, he was a well-behaved child.

He never shied away from his name, even despite the resulting weirdness of class roll call.

"Hi," he'd tell people. "I'm Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo. Call me..." — he'd pause, then smile — "...Call me Rate." He sometimes spelled his name R⁸. He'd adapt.

(Also, Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo was good at math.)

He never went out for sports, to the relief of uniform makers.

Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo welcomed the rise of debit cards, so he wouldn't have to write checks. Credit cards and contracts, though, were still a slight pain.

He was fine with his wife keeping her name, of course. (And there were nicknames, between only them, also of course. In some ways, Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo was private.)

His name could make an entrance before he did. So he lived up to it.

Consider the death of Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo Ruffalo. Eventually, it had to happen. Not, thank goodness, while he or anyone else was saying his name. The end just came, with warning, with time for family and friends and honored related Ruffalos to gather at his bedside. It was a good life, and it ended well.

And his name lives on whenever someone mishears it as "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

I felt like a cliché when I quoted Leonard Cohen to a Canadian.




(Not fiction, because I did, so maybe that's Out-Of-Context Theater...)

Okay, y'all want a real short-short story? Here:

"Daredevil dared evil."

You're welcome.

There's profanity in this story. Couldn't be helped. You'll understand why.

( Behind a cut, for the profanely-squeamishCollapse )

1,513 words. Yes, this is fanfic based on this. And yes, I had too much fun writing it.