Thursday, February 25, 2021

Bolt from the Blue Update

 

According to Blogger, a whole 5 people read what I posted yesterday (or at least visited the page for a moment) even though I did nothing to promote it.  So, instead of changing anything in that post, here's an addendum as a new post.


Having pretty much worked out where I was going with these two stories, I rewrote Orphan Black (again) this morning, and renamed it All I Ever Wanted, a title I like better.  It's a reference to the song Vacation by the Go Go's -- calling my story Vacation was too obvious.  I think it works well now -- but I may rework it a bit later, we'll see.


I wrote the opening portion of My Clone Sleeps Alone and reworked a bit of the middle scene, and now that one's finished as well.


I had intended Trust Mother to happen not long after this, but instead I've plotted several new stories.


All I Ever Wanted sends Miss Anarchy into space, and My Clone Sleeps Alone deals with the illegal clone body problem, but I still wanted at least one story that actually involved an adventure in space.  I'd already created a file for it, called Girl Squared.  Miss Anarchy is in space with her two great granddaughters and with a teenaged version of Miss Trinity/Annie Two.  Four girls, Girl Squared.  I also came up with an ending for this that I think works, tied into one of the ideas I wrote about yesterday.


But then, I decided to write a story that involved the mounting fame Miss Anarchy is generating as all of her adventures in space are recorded and sent to earth.  She's becoming a sensation!  At first I called this Paparazzi Story, then considered Famous on Prokone 4, and then Space Famous.  But I'm thinking, with two previous stories based on songs that I like, possibly something like Noticeable One (a Missing Persons song) or possibly Celebrity Skin (Hole) or Pretty on the Outside (Dollyrots).


Aaaand... I decided I should address the issue of Elsie and Kelli's over-protective mothers, since their two daughters will be showing up on video all over the world getting shot at and and possibly even injured or killed.  At least, I know Miss Anarchy will be killed on video, then resurrected again of course.  But that just seemed like the sort of thing the girl's mothers would react negatively to -- and they probably are not too keen on the girls hanging out with "Miss Anarchy" who happens to be their grandfather as a girl.

I'm calling that story Beauty Treatment.


After that I should squeeze in the Just Like Miss Anarchy story, and maybe then I can write Trust  Mother, and after that will come Real Girl.


So my list of stories currently looks like:

415  I, Gardener

416  Maid Ex Machina

417  Infinite Dojo

418  Princess of Pluto

419  The Return of Normal

420  Free Advertising

421  Inevitable

422  All I Ever Wanted

423  My Clone Sleeps Alone

(the rest are not yet fully written, but are planned in this order)

424  Girl Squared

425  Beauty Treatment

426  Just Like Miss Anarchy

427  Noticeable One

428  Trust Mother

429  Real Girl

This also means I've written six stories this month, and may finish at least one or two more before Sunday night.

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Bolt from the Blue

 This will be a needlessly long description of my recent writing process, which probably interests no one but me.  I think I will publish it but not post to Twitter or anything.


In the beginning there was a story called The Return of Normal.  I had envisioned bringing one of Grandpa Anarchy's old enemies back to life, and this would be the story about that.  As I got closer to writing it, I decided that the spirit of Victorian Honesty St. Normal would possess a clone body in a resurrection station set up by Glory Ashes, making him a version of her that is only 10 years old, because the clones were not fully grown.


I wrote the story, and it involved a battle with a demon.  Almost immediately after it was done, I considered that the battle had been too easy.  Surely I could kill Miss St. Normal, and it would be okay because his/her spirit would claim another of the Glory Ashes clones?  (I figured there were at least four available).  My plan was that later, he would be adopted by Julia Judas, the mother of Glory Ashes and the CEO of Omnigen Inc, and a nominal enemy of Grandpa Anarchy.


Then I thought, what if I kill Grandpa Anarchy too?  The existence of resurrection chambers has led to Grandpa dying rather frequently.


Then I thought, what if Grandpa's spirit accidentally possesses another of the Glory clones?  Oops!  Grandpa's accidentally become a girl again!


Now, I have to admit that this is kind of a fetish of mine and therefore I've used this kind of ending as a joke far more than I need to -- it's not really a surprise anymore.  And yet, I was still mulling over the idea.


Second, there was the "next" story I was planning to write, which I'd titled Real Girl.  This was based around the idea that the robot known as Magical Girl Anne (another version of Annie Two) would be visited by a being known as Eternia the Watcher.  Eternia's thing is magical girls, so I thought, what if she shows up and offers to make Anne human?


At first this struck me as a great idea.  The new girl could be made a daughter of Grandpa Anarchy, whether he really wanted that or not.  Of course she's far more knowledgeable than a typical child but also possibly quite naieve about being a living creature.


The more I pondered this story in my head, however, the less it worked.  I mean, the basic idea is:  Goddess shows up, says Hey, want to be a real girl?  Robot girl says yes.  Boom!   She's a girl.


I couldn't come up with a version of this that included any surprise or twist ending.  Eventually I wrote a portion of the story in which Anne herself points out that there's no surprise involved, and therefore this does not make a good Grandpa Anarchy story.  It seemed to me that the A.I. that works with Grandpa Anarchy might be self-aware about how everything he does revolves around stories.  He can do what he does because he's the hero of the story.


And then I thought, well, in that case, maybe Eternia transforms Anne into twins -- or even triplets!  The prospect of Grandpa suddenly having three super-smart daughters amused me quite a bit.


So!  These things were in my head when last Saturday morning I woke up about 2:30 or 3 AM, and I not only had an idea for a story in my head, I had ideas for MULTIPLE stories in my head.  I had to jump out of bed and write them all down.  Even knowing that maybe most of this would turn out to be unworkable junk ideas formed while half-asleep, I was excited at how many stories I had spun out of my current proposed setup.  My ideas went like this:


What A Waste It Is:  Grandpa decides to remain in the 10-year-old clone body of Glory Ashes, on the theory that it's a waste to immediately destroy the body and he'll probably get killed soon enough, and resurrected in a clone of his old body.  But weeks go by without a single death.


Just Like Miss Anarchy:  Grandpa fights crime as Miss Anarchy.  Miss Anarchy is a fictional teenage female version of Grandpa Anarchy that appears in the cartoon series Girls of Two-Fisted Justice.  A REAL Miss Anarchy fighting crime would be a sensation for fans of the show.


Real Girl:  My proposed make-robot-girl-Anne-a-real-girl story.


My Own Daughter:  Julia Judas attempts to adopt not only Miss Normal, but also Miss Anarchy, in an attempt to take over the estate of her rival.  But she has Grandpa's demonic lawyer Mal to contend with, and Mal has already drawn up paperwork proving that Miss Anarchy is actually the daughter of Grandpa Anarchy, rather than Grandpa himself.  After some negotiation, it is established as "fact" (via paperwork trail at least) that Grandpa is the father of both Miss Anarchy and Miss Normal -- and that Julia Judas is the mother!  (This may not mean they slept together -- as the head of a genetics company it probably means that Julia "borrowed" Grandpa's DNA, or something.)


We Meet Again:  Kid Anarchy and Prof Victorian Honesty St. Normal once fought each other over the fate of the city and the world.  Now they have a fight over clothing, as sisters.


Entourage:  Miss Anarchy and all her relatives and siblings show up to the premier of the live-action movie version of Girls of Two-Fisted Justice and create a scene.  There's Miss Anarchy and Miss Normal, Glory Ashes, and also the three adopted Anne triplets, perhaps at least one version of Annie Two as a robot, possibly F8Wasp and Miss Bloodraven, Possibly Grandpa's great granddaughters Elsie and Kelli, possibly his granddaughter the Russian Eagle as well.  And then, Grandpa Anarchy himself shows up!  Is this some evil doppleganger assuming a disguise?  Miss Anarchy would know immediately.  Or perhaps Miss Anarchy has decided to remain who she currently is, and "resurrected" Grandpa as a separate person?


Custody Battle:  Now that Grandpa is back, he fights with Julia Judas over who is going to raise their two "daughters".  This would be an all-out war in the fashion of villains and heroes doing battle of course, not just some courtroom drama.


Execution


I began working on these stories immediately, starting with What a Waste.  The idea here was that Grandpa would decide to remain in the Glory Ashes clone body, on the theory that he was going to die sooner or later and it was a waste to just kill that body off before this happened.  I also wanted to deal with the aftermath of The Return of Normal, where the base gets partially destroyed, and where it's implied that Grandpa and St. Normal are now in clone bodies of Glory Ashes, but none of that was shown or confirmed.  So I wrote a section where they wake up the clones, figure out who's who, and then go back to the main base to get clothing for the two.


At this point I was referring to them both as girls and calling Grandpa "Miss Anarchy" which is the name of the cartoon character and a name that has been applied to Grandpa as a girl before.  I also thought it would be funny to have Grandpa complain about clothing made for girls, even if it's just jeans and tee shirts with Disney princesses or My Little Pony or whatever.  But it was here that I realized that if Grandpa is annoyed at being treated as a girl, he should say so, because optional gender identity is more of a thing these days.  Even Grandpa knows that now.


I rewrote parts of this story several times.  First, Grandpa declares his preference to be  treated as a boy.  I decided to call him "Master Anarchy" instead of Miss Anarchy.  Then, I rewrote it so that the other characters anticipated the gender identity question from the start, and even provided boy's clothing as well as girl's.  I struggled to figure out:  did I call Grandpa a girl, before he states his preference?  Did I just say "the child?"  It's not like I need worry about offending my own characters, but....


Eventually I settled for something in between the two approaches.  Glory Ashes and Miss Trinity (Annie Two) do not anticipate the gender issue, but quickly realize that Grandpa would prefer to be called a boy.  Grandpa is surprised he has the choice, but happy.  They send the maid back out to get boy clothing.


This was all well and good, but my story had little punch or direction.  It meandered, and I had no idea for a good ending, or how to Grandpa would decide to fight crime as Miss Anarchy.  In fact, the direction I took with gender identity moved him further away from that idea.


Instead I focused on a new story.  Forget conversations about clothes and gender -- I wanted an action story with Miss Anarchy!  I wrote this story fairly quickly, and came up with a good ending.  I called it Inevitable, because here is where Miss Anarchy swears she's destined to die soon, but it fails to happen.  This was the first of the stories I finished, and I knew it worked.


Next:  how did we get from "treat me as a boy" to "I'm Miss Anarchy, just like in the cartoon show!"?  I went back to the previous story and quickly realized that the sudden switch was the entire point of the story -- the surprise at the end would be Grandpa's sudden reversal.  And the reason for the reversal?  Grandpa's lawyer Mal shows up to remind him that the Girls of Two-Fisted Justice cartoon show is a half-billion dollar enterprise, with a live action movie about to come out, and it would be great if the real Miss Anarchy made a few public appearances.  I retitled the story Free Advertising.


With those two stories sorted out, I started working on the idea of St. Normal and Miss Anarchy both becoming adoptive daughters of Julia Judas.  This story was called My Own Mother, and I soon realized that I had too many ideas for a single story.  I split this into My Own Mother 1, 2, and 3 -- the first ending with Miss Anarchy asking to be adopted, the second involving negotiations and formal acceptance, and the third one -- which might take place later -- is the court scene where everything is hammered out, Mal gets involved, and possibly Miss Anarchy is legally defined as the daughter of Grandpa Anarchy.


I tried writing the first two at the same time.  Neither came together, however.  The first I retitled Mother's Arms.  I wrote a bit where a robot burst into the complex to "invite" Miss St. Normal to become the daughter of Julia Judas, then I scrapped that scene.  Instead I wrote a scene where this had already happened while the others were out fighting crime (the story Inevitable).  My problem with this story was that it really didn't make sense for Miss Anarchy to ask to be adopted by her enemy, even as a temporary ruse that she didn't intend to follow through with.   I was trying to force the characters to do things that they wouldn't actually do, and I knew it.


In addition, not much was happening in the story.  "Something random and unexpected needs to happen!" I thought.  "What if the great granddaughters of Grandpa Anarchy suddenly show up?  They're dressed as Space Babes, and they want to take Miss Anarchy on a space adventure!  Maybe this is another idea from Mal, with an eye to a future Space Babes tie-in for the cartoon, or a spinoff series?"


I liked this idea.  Then I considered what might happen if Miss Anarchy, as she currently is, travels to the Eieio Empire in space.  They may very well have a genetic record of Glory Ashes already on file, and would then declare Miss Anarchy an illegal clone.  (Which, technically, she is!)


I liked this idea even more, and immediately wrote about two-thirds of it.  I titled it My Clone Sleeps Alone.  But at the same time I was trying to finish Mother's Arms, and I was writing a large chunk of My Own Daughter 2, which I retitled Mother's Treasure, and not only did both of them refuse to come together, but I also ran into a conflict between two stories.  My plots for Mother's Arms and the subsequent My Own Daughter hinged on Miss Anarchy being a clone of Glory, but My Clone Sleeps Alone ends with Miss Anarchy in a new body, because, you know, ILLEGAL CLONE BODY.  I even considered having the space adventure story take place after the big meeting with Julia Judas -- and I finished both Mother's Arms and Mother's Treasure with that in mind, but I knew as I wrote them that they didn't really work.  I had Elsie and  Kelli (Grandpa's granddaughters) show up in the first story, then hang around through the entire second story, waiting to drag Miss Anarchy off on their adventure -- and that was an additional problem for the story.  Basically Mother's Treasure wound up being a long, boring discussion without action, and with these two other girls just sitting around waiting for it to be over.


Sometimes you have to write the wrong story before you figure out which is the right one.


I had also come up with a possible idea for My Own Daughter.  My first thought was that Miss Anarchy could have Mal and/or Annie Two write up whatever paperwork was needed to prove that Miss Anarchy was not Grandpa Anarchy herself, but his daughter.  This was part of my original idea as listed above, of course.  But I realized a paternity test could disprove this easily, and we are talking about the CEO of a genetics company.  So then I thought:  what if Miss Anarchy has something which can summon Eternia the Watcher?  She probably owes Grandpa a favor for something in the past, so that's entirely plausible.  Then Miss Anarchy asks Eternia to "make her the daughter of Grandpa Anarchy" (so that the paternity test will show this), and in order to do that, Eternia has to separate Miss Anarchy into two people -- the father and the daughter.


Thus, Grandpa Anarchy reappears, but Miss Anarchy remains.  I really liked this idea, and it would explain why Eternia is around and offers to make Magical Girl Anne a real girl (I still plan to write that story),  but it also seemed to hinge on Miss Anarchy being in the clone body still, which she would not be after the events of My Clone Sleeps Alone.


Currently I'm still trying to figure out how these story ideas can work and coexist with each other.  I rewrote Mother's Arms and retitled it Orphan White (not really a good title) and one thing I did was rewrite the whole bit where Miss Anarchy is desperate to keep tabs on St. Normal,  to the point where she begs to be adopted herself, and changed it to an offhand comment, "She could just adopt me as well!"  Then they go off on their space adventure.


I re-plotted Mother's Treasure, and gave it the name Trust Mother.  My new idea is that Miss Anarchy doesn't even remember suggesting that she should be adopted, and Julia Judas convinces her somehow to sign a contract, without Mal's oversight, which includes numerous things designed to trap Miss Anarchy in the role of a Judas daughter forever, and grant control of the Anarchy estate to Julia Judas.  I really like this more sinister approach, with the villain being more manipulative and actively nasty, but... I'm still not sure how Miss Anarchy would ever agree to sign such a contract, unless she's blackmailed, mind-controlled, or mentally impaired somehow.


Part of this idea involves Julia getting rid of all the Grandpa Anarchy clone bodies stored on earth, to make it impossible for Miss Anarchy to become Grandpa Anarchy again.   (Which would be foiled of course if I introduce the idea involving Eternia.)


I had one other idea that came out of My Clone Sleeps Alone, and it was this:  if the Eieio Empire is concerned enough about the illegal clone created with their cloning technology, they might show up on earth and insist on shutting down or changing all of the  resurrection stations that Dark Dr. Dark has set up.  This could ALSO lead to all of the Grandpa Anarchy clones being removed, since at this point their records show that Grandpa Anarchy is now Miss Anarchy, and there should not be any clones based on who she was previously.


But I haven't decided to write that yet.


So... I've written five stories this week, but  three of them are being rewritten, and two of those have been completely written more than once.  ^_^






Monday, February 15, 2021

Mid February Update

 

Things have been going well.  After finishing Infinite Dojo at the end of January, I proceeded to write the second and third parts of that trilogy of stories... Princess of Pluto, and The Return of Normal.  I'm fairly pleased with both of them.


I worked for a  bit on The Body-Snatchers of Ator, and I reconceived how to structure this novella-length story -- and I wrote the first chapter/scene.  That almost counts as a short-short on its own.


However, I  turned back to other things, because I have a ton of planned, unwritten stories to work on.  I feel like the definition of a writer ought to include that you have more ideas than you can ever manage to write.  For example, after finishing Princess of Pluto, an idea for a subsequent story popped into my head, tentatively titled Real Girl.  The idea was that Anne the robotic magical girl would be visited by Eternia the Watcher, a powerful, godlike being who fancies magical girls.  What would they talk about?  What if Eternia offered to transform Anne into a real human girl?


My first thought was that of course Anne would decline.  As a robotic sorceress, she is unique in my universe -- and as an extension of Annie Two she is in many ways more powerful than any human, and has access to more knowledge.  Nor does she have to worry about dying one day.


But a day or two later I thought about it again, and I changed my mind.  Becoming human is an adventure of discovery that Annie Two hasn't quite accomplished yet (Miss Bloodraven is partly Annie's personality though).  Annie Two has been wondering recently if a computer A.I. or a robot can have a soul.  Why not become human, when she can build another magical girl Anne anyway?  What's to lose?


So I think she would agree to the proposal -- which would leave Grandpa and company in charge of a young girl who is far smarter (but not necessarily wiser?) than any normal kid.


Annie Two would have to create a nanny version of herself to watch over the newly-minted child.


I haven't written any of this down but I've been thinking about it quite a bit so I may do it.


In the meantime, I had decided to work on some older stories that are unfinished -- so I began with two unfinished stories from the end of Book 9 that I was convinced should exist.  These were:  A)  a story involving Wings of Liberty, B)  a story called My Gun Is Sharp (the title of that volume of stories) and C)  a story about what happened to the reincarnated Gentleman Brawler, which I called Tremors of the Earth.


I had already decided to combine A & B into one story -- a story that includes Wings of Liberty and is titled My Gun Is Sharp.  I also had plans to include the villain Holy Hatemonger, so I wrote a partial opening scene for this story.


Then I switched up again, went back even further to Book 2, and wrote two proposed stories for that volume:  Hot Stuff and  Get Down Tonight, two stories involving the disco trolls.


I finished both of those this past weekend.  Now I'm looking at the other (much larger) unfinished story from that volume, World of Hero.  I think I've figured out how to make this story work.  The really good news is that there's a lot already written, and it looks like I can use much of it.  I could maybe pound together the first part of this story in just a few days.


Anyway, that's what I've been working on.  A little of this, a little of that.