The bits so far!

Hey y'all! Not a whole lot to write at the moment, but hey, I promised. So! Here's what's going on.

Right now, I'm working on two separate pieces. The first is the story I was talking about in the post last week, which has now reached about 2000 oft-rewritten words.
In a nutshell, so far it's about an old man with a very set, uninteresting life (a secluded fisherman who fishes for survival rather than trade) who, after a bad storm, stumbles across a drowned body in the small harbor where he beaches his boat. He tries to pull it to shore to give a proper burial before the 'body' proves it's still alive in a suitably surprising (still revising this part) way. The formerly dead body says several things in foreign languages before surprising the old man by speaking his own, then collapses into a fit of laughter upon hearing where he has ended up before falling unconscious.
I have a lot more planned, but I don't want to give up too much of this until after I've gotten some of it down, and tt's likely the general plan will change somewhat between drafts. Soon, hopefully, I'll have a version of it to send around to all of ye. It's nothing particularly original, but I think it'll be interesting all the same once it's been fleshed out a bit. Who is this mysterious man washed up on the shore? And what could those odd tattoos over his back and shoulders possibly mean? Should the old man take him in and nurse him back to health?
Well he'd better, or else the story ends here, and I'd be miffed to say the least. >:C

The other is a bit of what's known as 'fluff' for a character I'm working on for an RPG campaign a friend of mine (Max Brooke for all you who came down for graduation) is running this fall. Without going into it too deeply, in RPG terms 'fluff' is character background and explanation that generally has a negligible effect on the overall abilities or mechanics of the character itself beyond how the person playing the character should act (as opposed to 'crunch', which would be all of the character's traits, abilities, equipment, etc. and affect how effective the character is in moving through the world.) It's all done on paper (or in this case, via computer), and it's a load of fun with the
Anyway, the campaign basically has the player taking the role of either a famous legendary figure from history or a modern-day wizard folks who summon and control the hero. The goal is to have them beat the heck out of both each other and various characters the creator has made until one is left as the victor. Some examples of heroes that have fought before (it's one of those 'happens-every-decade-or-so' things that the participants work hard to keep secret from the public) include Hercules, King Arthur, Cú Chulainn, Medea, Gilgamesh, Medusa, and many, many more.
I tried to find something off the beaten path, so I'll be playing as Jābir ibn Hayyān, the most influential Alchemist of the age and one of the first practical alchemists ever to live (remember the Philosopher's Stone from Harry Potter? One of the biiig goals of alchemy was making that, among other things.) Don't feel bad if you don't know him, I didn't either. Real interesting guy though, have a look. Anyway, using the bit I've found about him, I need to write a brief story of his life and experiences from his point of view, filling out the bits that aren't known and generally just making him into a real human character. You know, someone you'd want to buy a beer with after a hard day at work. I'm almost done with the first draft of this, and really enjoying it. I'm debating whether or not to learn an Arabic accent for when the campaign actually starts though. Thoughts on the matter, anybody?

Whew. On to real life! Work continues to grind on at Hospice, nothing real exciting to say there. Tomorrow's likely going to be nuts as people bring in all of the post-Labor day garage sale leftovers, so at least it'll move along pretty fast! Here's hoping for slightly cooler weather. :)

Also had a wonderful time at the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center Bazaar this Saturday. I'd been meaning to go to the center for literally like half a year now (apologies to Kate for that), and it finally worked out. Mom, Dad, and I drove down there to meet Kate, eat some tasty food, gawk at the beautiful, terribly expensive wares, and generally just have a heck of a good time. Mom keeps talking about how it was way out in the boonies, but it didn't feel like we were that far out to me, and honestly I kind of liked how quickly one could get out of the city of Santa Rosa into such lovely scenery. Oh well, hopefully I'll be able to spend the night over there and go to a real program soon.

Today (Monday) Uncle Doug took us out on a tour of the Cobb Geysers and facilities, which he had a major part in building from the ground up in the 80's. It's pretty incredible up there, both in just how pretty the landscape is and in just how much work has been done up there. He says it's incredible in the winter, when the cold air makes all of the steam from natural and built steam releases condense into these huge clouds that just cover the landscape. Could you imagine just walking along a pine valley and having big gouts of mist and steam flowing out from under rocks and dead needles? Sounds amazing, hope I'll be able to go some day. Then we went back and barbequed, which is, in my opinion, the best (and ONLY) way to end a good trip like this one.

Weeelll, I guess that was actually plenty to write about. Think I'll put off finishing that last bit of background work for Jabir until tomorrow, and go make my lunch. Talk to you all soon!


(A Buddhist monk walks up to a hot dog cart. The man selling the dogs asks, "What'll it be, buddy?" The monk places his hands together and respectfully bows his head before replying, "Please, make me One with Everything." Bah dum tish!)