MSNBC headline: Pirate Fined for Assaulting Sausage.
Just when I think that major league sports couldn't sink any lower. Just when I think that baseball couldn't become any more of a joke. Just when I think that the world is a weird place and can't get any weirder, this happens.
Just like that comedian says, when the story came about about Fabio on a roller coaster getting hit in the face by a goose, you have to wonder if the fates sitting before their typewriters have had way too much to drink...
Thanks to Rick Jessup for the link.
Written by the window of Krispy Kreme earlier this morning:
There are dark clouds above us. When the Krispy Kreme drive-thru cashier sticks her hand out to the cars, she dips her hands into a verticle stream. I hope they use plastic bags to pass the donuts. The coffee could end up a little watery, otherwise.
Everybody's attention is at the window. Skies this interesting command it. I've never seen a tornado, and I'd very much like to -- one heading away from me, over an open field, with not a farmhouse in sight. I love the power of nature, but I don't want it to hurt anyone, if it could help itself.
I dream of tornadoes, sometimes. Like Lisa, these are not nightmares. There is alarm, but mostly excitement, to see the billowing white clouds stretch down their fingers to the ground. There is a rush for cover, and I lie low as the storm passes, close, whirling. Then it is past. I've heard of other tornado dreamers and I wonder what the dream means. I know what Freud would say, but he says that about toothpaste.
Indoors, the machine is working to the tune of Simon & Garfunkle's Cecilia, and the march of the donuts begins...
While I was writing that, a group of kids entered, with their coach, dressed in baseball caps and t-shirts bearing the Tim Horton's logo. No, they weren't here to make trouble, they just wanted donuts. The staff at Krispy Kreme did not seem surprised at this sudden detante.
I've written more of The Young City. The really exciting part with Faith and Rosemary travelling the sewers in a flatbed boat is really coming along. Now, however, I have to figure out how to bring about the exciting conclusion. One idea I have is a bit deus ex-machina, but I may go with it and see how it works. This is a first draft, after all, and the story will see extensive revisions before any publisher gets to see it.
Faith and Rosemary have really good chemistry. I've already spoken about how Faith appeared out of nowhere and almost walked away with the story. The two characters work well together as pseudo-sisters, swapping the role of eldest sister between the times that Rosemary learns to cope with living in Victorian Toronto, and the times Faith has to cope with being hunted down by a bunch of Birge's goons.
I find that the best characters do have the tendency to show up after you start writing a story. Consider Ariel from Fathom Five. Inserted as an afterthought in chapter eight, she grew and grew until she was the only siren left standing at the end of the novel. In some ways this is frustrating, as you never know where your novel will take you, but if you're smart, you'll just let it go. Writing is something you never control; you yourself must, at first, submit to it.