Much Ado About Nothing

On By C. L. BlackeIn Randomness2 Comments

As some of you may know, I play World of Warcaft, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. Though there’s not really much roleplaying involved. Basically you get together with your friends, if you have any, and kill things.

My main character‘s name is Nothing. She is a Night Elf rogue. “The rogues of Azeroth are the masters of subterfuge, skilled and cunning adversaries of those who dare not look into the shadows to see what lurks there. Roguery is a profession for those who seek the adventures of stalking in silent forests, dimly lit halls and heavily guarded strongholds. Using trickery in combat and able to vanish at the slightest distraction, the rogue is a welcome addition to any group of adventurers. Ideal spies, deadly to those they can catch unaware, rogues have no problem finding a place in the world. Deadly masters of stealth, rogues are the whispers in shadowy corners and the hooded figures crossing dark fields. Skilled with daggers and the art of silent death, these vagabonds and bandits skulk about Azeroth seeking targets and profit.” (http://www.wowwiki.com/Rogue)

My Azeroth Adventures installments are based on this character, whom I renamed Rumer. (Yes, even my characters have characters.)

In the past two years I’ve been playing this character, I have received much attention because of her name. Random people have whispered me saying they like my choice and that it suits the rogue class. Nothing is also the butt of many jokes in my guild. My favorite is, “We’re all standing around doing Nothing.” Pictures are posted on my Facebook and our guild’s Facebook page about anything that has the word Nothing in it, like:

 

 

 

 

 

and:

and:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So in case any of you are wondering where I came up with that name, I have written a little ditty about it.  Here goes:

Much Ado About Nothing

It’s nice to know you don’t love me for my beauty because she is ugly.

It’s nice to know you don’t love me for my money because she is poor.

It’s nice to know you don’t love me for my sex because she gives you none.

It’s nice to know you don’t love me.

Because I’m Nothing.

Warning: This Might Offend the Religious

On By C. L. BlackeIn My Two CentsLeave a comment

On my way to work, I saw two vehicles with the Jesus fish symbol. The first was a big fish with the word “Jesus” on the inside eating a little fish with the word “Darwin” on the inside. If you’re an idiot like me, you might not have known that a fish could symbolize two mutually exclusive things.

Anyway, I am neither Christianly religious or scientifically minded. I have problems with both theories. In any other culture, the story of the Christian god creating the world and making Eve populate it (and we all know how much help Adam was) would be called a myth. I say this because I highly doubt there are any modern-day Grecians or Romans that still believe Zeus/Jupiter and all the other gods still control the universe from the heavens. They are nice stories and give us hope and faith in a better life and afterlife, but they do not supersede science.

On the other hand, I can’t fathom the theory of evolution either. If man were to evolve from apes, wouldn’t there still be all those stages of Neanderthals running around? There are apes and there are men. Both ends of the spectrum are still alive and well.  How does science explain the whole missing link bit? (Hm, maybe I should read up on this. I suppose there are scientific theories on this too.)

My second run-in with the Jesus fish symbol was waiting in the drive-through at Starbucks. The truck in front of me had a fish symbol with a cross where its eye would be. And it occurred to me that no other religion (besides Jehovah Witnesses, but I won’t go into that whole disaster) promotes itself like Christianity. People are obsessed with it, and they like to tell everyone about it. There are bumper stickers that say, “God is my co-pilot,” lawn signs that spout passages from the bible that make absolutely no sense let alone a complete sentence, the illustrious fish symbol, and the nod to Jesus, my savior, from every athlete and American Idol contestant at their moment of triumph. And there are many more references that I won’t go into. Usually people who are Christianly religious let everyone know by either mentioning it or by sending them Mass cards at every holiday, so we can be prayed for at the Basilica because our names are supposedly in a box on the altar (nod to my mom and damn, that’s gotta be a big altar).

I thought all this while waiting for the truck in front of me at Starbucks to move.  Then something happened. The woman driving this huge Avalanche couldn’t make it around the curve (okay, it’s really like a 90 degree angle). She pulled up, backed up (almost into me), turned a little bit, pulled up, backed up (almost into me), turned…you get the picture. She even honked her horn, I assumed at me. I had nowhere to go as there was a line of cars behind me. I said to myself, or rather out loud, “Why do you have a truck that f**king big if you can’t drive it.” As the woman was turning the steering wheel, it looked like she was struggling, then she finally pulled her truck out of the line and alongside the curb. She rolled her window down and apologized, saying she lost her power steering.  Did I feel bad that I thought she was a dumbass? Not really, but I’m a mean person. So she got out of her truck and walked up to the drive-through window to pay and get her drink. She was embarrassed and kept apologizing.

I wondered how Jesus could have let this happen to her and where exactly he was while this was going on. Could it be bad things happen to good people or was it karma? All I know was that Jesus did not take her wheel.

Cross My Heart; Hope to Die

On By C. L. BlackeIn Bad Poetry2 Comments

Wondering what I’ve been doing lately? Writing bad poetry, of course. I really wanted it to snow today.

 

You promised me wind and snow

and gave me sun.

You promised fire and passion

and gave a cold shoulder.

You promised love and future;

I have the blackest nights.

Without you,

promises are my only hope.

 

You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover, But You Can by Its Opening Line

On By C. L. BlackeIn Craft Work2 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about opening lines/sentences. Mostly because I’m supposed to have another installment in my serial fiction posted by Monday at the latest (my own deadline), and I can’t seem to find a way to start it. I know what’s going to happen but damned if I can fill that blank page. (So I know that technically this isn’t considered an opening line as it is a continuation, but for someone who might stumble upon it at some point, it is crucial that they want to go back and read the previous installments.)

The opening line is so important because every other word hangs on it. It’s got to be strong, evocative, surprising, and a whole host of other adjectives every writer knows and dreads. Not only do those first few words carry the weight of the entire piece on its shoulders (if it had any), but they are also the basis for our audience’s approval. How many times have you gone into a bookstore, picked up a random book because you liked the cover art, read the first sentence, and put it back down again? Granted, some of us may read the first few sentences and then do that, but really, it’s that first one that strikes an impression.

Maybe in that nano-second it takes to read the first few words strung together into a cohesive (or sometimes not) thought, your subconscious decides whether it’s worth reading a little more, which you do, only to be disappointed by the drivel that comes next. Now you have the added agony of trying to top that first line in everything else you write. (Writers are experts at self-torture in so many ways.)

As I was walking into hospital yesterday, an opening sentence just popped into my brain. (That is how it usually works–don’t try to create one on your own, don’t try to coax, threaten, wrangle, bribe, or even beg those first words into existence. It won’t work. We are masochists [spell check told me this wasn’t a word, but I don’t care] not sadists.)

Here it is: When the MRI tech asked if I was claustrophobic, I told her no because I’d been locked in a coffin before.

If I was to analyze this sentence, here’s what I would say: First, I would want to know two things: 1) what was the speaker getting an MRI of and why? what had happened leading up to this event? 2) how the hell did the speaker get locked in a coffin? Would I want to read more? Sure, but that’s just because I’m a sucker for the word “coffin.”

I can tell you with some certainty that I will not be writing a story based on this sentence anytime soon or otherwise, but I can guarantee that if I were, it would not be about vampires, zombies, or wrongfully-pronounced dead people. No, it would have to be something much more spectacular.

Surprise! The opening line should not give away the rest of the story, but merely hint at the wonders to come. (Ok, I’m going to be cliché now and say this is called the hook.)

If you’re a writer and have managed to capture anything on the page, look at your opening sentence (or line if you’re a poet). Does it live up to the same standards you use when evaluating other writers’ works? If it doesn’t, never fear. Until that sucker gets published, there’s always room for improvement. And sometimes you may have to get to the end of your piece before you find just the right way to begin it.

Black Friday Stupidity

On By C. L. BlackeIn My Two Cents3 Comments

Every year on Black Friday we hear about some dumbass who injures or kills fellow shoppers just to get a sweet deal on soon-to-be outdated electronics or the current craze in stuffed toys (Remember Cabbage Patch dolls, Furbies, Tickle Me Elmo?).

This year was no exception.

NEW YORK (AP) — “On Thanksgiving night, a Walmart in Los Angeles brought out a crate of discounted Xboxes, and as a crowd waited for the video game players to be unwrapped, a woman fired pepper spray at the other shoppers “in order to get an advantage,” police said.

Ten people suffered cuts and bruises in the chaos, and 10 others had minor injuries from the spray, authorities said. The woman got away in the confusion, and it was not immediately clear whether she got an Xbox.”

I have to ask “Why?” I also have to ask “Who’s to blame?” Is it solely the woman’s fault? Clearly, she had the forethought to bring her pepper spray with her and actually use it on other shoppers just like herself, but I tend to blame the stores for perpetuating and even propagating this type of behavior.

Is it really necessary to line up hours ahead of time just to be let into Wal-Mart at 4:00 am for “door-buster deals?” (Granted, I have stood in line on a Monday night at Gamestop to pick up my prepaid copy of World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King when the doors opened at midnight even though I didn’t even download it for two months afterwards. But video gamers are known to be lazy, and not one fight broke out. I think we were all frozen and tired.)

So why can’t stores just open at their normal time? Why can’t they continue the sale for longer than a few hours? Wouldn’t they make more money and have less stress? Wouldn’t their employees prefer to spend Thanksgiving with their families instead of sleeping during the day because they have to work some ungodly hours the next day?

And what about people like me who actually have to work the day after Thanksgiving? I’m not entitled to great savings because I can’t hit the stores in the middle of the night?

Really, Black Friday shopping extravaganzas bring out the worst in people. Not mere hours after giving thanks for everything we hold dear, we go out there and knife random people just to make sure we get ours first. That is truly not in the spirit of Thanksgiving or Christmas.

“Look what Santa got you, little Susie!”

“But Mommy, there’s blood on it.”

“Don’t mind that. Santa just had to kill someone to get it.”

“This is the best Christmas ever!”