Lots of "blah blah blah"s and the wicked witch's reform

Ahhhh, it's that time of the week again! The time I recap all of the ideas I came up with throughout the week and cross out those who are either too similar to those already posted or are too full of my robot delusions and realise I've got nothing to post. Yeah. This week I'll refrain from posting another story, mainly because I would have to finish one to post it and I also want to post a Halloween story I've got no ideas for. (So, tune in next week to see what I come up with to conceal the fact that I've got no idea what I'm writing!) And did I mention it's 2:28 a.m. here? And that I have to be up at 6? ...
What's with the long and pointless introduction again, you may ask. If not, I've got my Imaginary readers handling the asking of uncomfortable and/or obvious questions. In case you're wondering, my Imaginary readers are some really annoying voices I come up with after asking myself how can my words be misinterpreted. To answer your question, that long introduction serves the same purpose as this paragraph: to distract you from the fact that I've got no idea what to write. Actually, the only certitudes I have are the fact that I really need sleep and the fact that I have to come up with something really awesome next week to make up for today's this month's laziness. Well, I guess we'll have robot ghosts then. How about this: a tale about the wicked witch wishing to reform herself. By "wicked witch" I refer to the archetypal evil sorceress in fairy-tales: knows various spells, is creative, envious, controlled by an unexplainable grudge against the main character of the story and usually has a repulsive physique to match with the soul. What could lead her to reform? What feelings does the wicked witch have before and after? How does she atone for her wrongdoings? Does she manage to atone for them? Does the others' perception of her change?
I'll post next week my take on this story. As always, I'm looking froward to receiving feedback from you. There's a limit to how much my Imaginary readers can stand my writing.

No character traits

Sorry about the delay of this week's post. Before accusing me of being lazy, please allow me to say that I am that I've been trying to continue the robot-free streak I've been on. Moreover, the post I'm trying to write has undergone tens of changes, in my feeble attempt to convey the proper message since, no matter how many times I wrote it or re-phrased it, it ended up meaning a completely different thing altogether. In the end I gave up and posted the most recent version of it.

All characters have at least one trait, even if it's not mentioned specifically. As long as they do, think, say something, a trait will stem from there. Even in stories featuring otherwise mindless creatures, such as zombies, the character around which the action is centred must have a trait: be it that they're compassionate, merciless, active, humorous, they must have something that drives them through the story.

As a result, I was wondering whether it would be possible to write a story where the main character has no traits. Just like the woman in "B.D. în alertă" :„nici tânără, nici bătrână, nici înaltă, nici scundă, nici grasă, nici slabă” ("neither young, nor old, neither tall, nor short, neither fat nor thin"), they can't be defined by anything. I've spent months thinking whether there was already a type of character like this. After all, zombies are supposed to be mindless and robots are supposed to be soulless. However, in all stories I've come across, main character zombies had to have even an ounce of brain or soul and robots, although cold and soulless, were programmed to do actions that were either immoral and/or cruel or empathic and/or helpful. 
Would a main character that can't be defined through anything be dull? Would they be mysterious? Isn't being mysterious a trait in itself? How can it be avoided? Would it be possible to make a captivating story even with such a character?

Creativity

A friend agreed to let me post one (or more *evil grin*) of her stories here. And I planned for this week's post to be one of them until I got an idea for a post (actually, until I realised I can't find the right story among the chaos in my computer).

I noticed today's society pushes us more and more to think outside the box. If we are to succeed, we must find new unexplored corners, new creative ideas and solutions. So more and more people strive to find newer and more original ideas.

  Is this where we are headed? In a place where individuality is so high that everybody is required to find a new niche, a new unexplored corner of humanity's imagination to exploit? How would we live in a world where if you're not able to come up with something creative, you might as well cease to have dreams of succeeding in life? What would happen if our world really evolved into it? Would we be ranked by the success of our ideas? By the level of our creativity? Would we have a maximum level of ideas we can come up with or, the other way around, a quota of innovative ideas to come up with?

What would happen when we won't be able to find any new idea? When every possible idea in the world has been explored and exploited to its maximum potential? What would we do then? How would our society look like? Would it fall apart?

Next week I will post a story. My mind needs a break from all this thinking! 

Without the Internet

Since I skipped last week's post (because I'm a moron), I decided to give out a double post this week. ^^

In the past years, the Internet has replaced in many homes the well-established means of information and communication, such as the television, the radio, the post, even the phone. Speaking of phones, now even on our mobile-phones we use the Internet to communicate with our loved ones. Because the Internet has made the world smaller. Now we can see what every one does regardless of the distance or time. Every action someone takes is known by every one and every one knows ever action that is taken. We became dependent of it: we work through it, we talk through it, we learn through it, we escape our world through it. 

What would happen to our society without the Internet? Would it collapse? Would it face mass-spread withdrawal symptoms? Would we be able to cope with not keeping in constant contact? 

But what if a war struck? A war so massive it would leave a great chunk of our world without electricity and, subsequently, without the Internet. Would be able to cope with it the way our ancestors did? Or would we crumble, would the contrast between what we lived so far and the situation at hand would be too great, too massive for our minds to comprehend? We choose to escape even from the current society, how would we cope with a war or a major cataclysm without our primary means of escape from reality?

What if we faced a major cataclysm? Would we handle the mental pressure of not knowing whether our loved ones are all right. Would we pack everything we have and head to find them? Or would we wait, the incertitude slowly eating us from the inside? Would we wait, confident that whatever happens, humanity will find another way of keeping in touch with their loved ones?

Our world's reflection in our mind

I was supposed to post this last week, but, as I am a moron, I completely forgot to, you know, write it. I'm deeply sorry.
Either way, I shall continue last post with something anticipated but completely unrelated. As I said last week, there was a story I wrote for a contest about a girl who builds a world in her mind and lives in it in stead of the real world.
It's not a ground-breaking idea, but it allows for many interpretations and possible storylines to stem from this.
Mine was for her to have always found reality boring, so she created her own little world with her own little friends. Her life was happy and cosy and she enjoyed every moment spent in there. Only one day her friends riot and throw her back into reality. She it faced with a vital decision: to escape from reality for good by means of suicide, to go back to her realm and seek forgiveness or to try and adjust to reality. She cannot adjust to the real world, so she tries to kill herself. Only, at the last minute, she realises that all she has done in this world, all she has left for eternity is her world. Only, if she dies, her world dies with her. So she decides to stop and ask her friends for forgiveness.
But there's a lot to be done with this: you could explore her past and what's made her seclude in a delusion, or how she interacts with her delusion, or have her adapt slowly to reality, or the drama of her family and so on and so forth.
Also, one could simply mirror the two: her delusion and reality, to see the measure in which they coincide. Moreover, one could expand this into a meditation upon the manner in which reality influences a delusion.

Utopia

I was away from my computer these last 10 days, hence the story I posted. Somehow, I came absolutely convinced I'll return from my trip to the countryside full of ideas and ready to write lots and lots of entries. Obviously, my prediction was really wrong. I did get one idea, but, as I forgot to write it down, it went away as soon as it came.Anyway, yesterday I remembered about something that had been on my mind over a year ago.

During that time I wanted to participate on a writing contest titled "Dream Worlds" and had two radically opposing ideas. The first one was to re-write a story with a girl who creates a world of her own, story which I'll treat next post. The second one really got me thinking. The main idea was to have a spaceship filled with various people (and aliens and robots) heading for a distant planet believing it to be an utopia. Although their goal is the same planet, their dream worlds are different and, since no one knows what they will find, their dreams clash to each other, leading to discord and disagreement. 

Then I really got to think on the whole concept of utopia. Isn't it kind of impossible to have a country where everybody is content? We're all different and there will always be even a few displeased members of the society regardless of how the society is shaped. To put it in pretty words, one's utopia is another's dystopia. Then how would the concept of perfect world come into contact with human nature? Is it impossible or hard to achieve?
Could a world where every possible form of leadership have their own country and people the freedom to be citizens of any country they wish qualify as an utopia? After all, it would allow everyone to have their desired degree and manifestation of the concept of freedom.
As you can see, not only am I not a great philosopher, but I don't even read philosophy, so these thoughts came solely to aid me to sketch out a story about a female android who is dragged by her creator to a clandestine voyage to a mythical planet. She is disgusted by the love he bears for her and hopes to achieve independence from her creator as a life form rather than an object. On the spaceship she confronts different, often conflicting goals and expectations about the illusory planet and eventually, when they stop by a planet that was colonised by robots, decides to remain there, considering it to be a safer battle to bear than a world she has no concrete information about.
As for the story that was eventually written down for the contest, I shall gladly post it on a week when I'm even slower on ideas.

What about humans and plants?

Ever since I was very little I have been passionate about myths and legends. I own about 10-13 books about various mythologies and legends from different places. The book that got me into all this was a book about Greek Mythology called "Legendele Olimpului" ("The Legends of Olympus"), which I've read for over 50 times to this day. 

There is one recurring theme in those legends: that of the metamorphosis of a human into a plant, usually a girl trying to escape a god. (Seriously, Greek gods were horrible.) 

I can't say I get it, though, since, in most cases, there would have been other, more logical means of escape. For example, in one of my favourite legends, the god Pan falls in love with the nymph Sirinx, the daughter of the Ladon river. One day she runs scared from the god until she gets to the banks of the very river her father patrons with the god catching up with her. Somehow, she considers herself unable to continue forward and asks her father and her sisters for help. Then she gets turned into a reed. The god cries after her and makes a panpipe using pieces of reed. And that's why the panpipe is called a syrinx and a reed pipe. I must ask: why did she have to turn into a tree? Couldn't she have been transformed into, say, a fish and be together with her family? Or a mer... oh, ok, not a mermaid since the greek didn't have that. Still, you get my point. Or why couldn't the spell be reversed?

See, always the story ends here. The human gets turned into a plant, end of story. Why? What happens after they're turned into a plant? Do they regret that? Do they enjoy the photosynthesis? Can they still reason? Do they still love? Do they still feel pain? And so on and so forth. Why won't we write a story on this? What happens after a human gets turned into a plant? How does that new species spread? Do they have plant sex?

This post is full of random - I'm trying to shed some light on some... posting... things...

So... umm... I kind of made this blog with the intention of being serious about it and sticking to the topic, no matter how much my mind's yelling "Hahahahahh, write a post on chocolate. Yaaaaa! Riding on Rainbows! Reverse Nyan Cat! It's ought to make a good political satire! Why don't you comment upon that weird thi.... OOOH! Look, those treeeees! <3 Could you post pictures too?" (yes, my mind actually thinks those things in that succession). And... I still want this. So... umm... because I am as random as you've seen above, I think this post... will... help me clear up the mess while shedding some light about ... something.

Alright, after this highly hesitant and rather irrelevant start, I would like to say:

1. I would really like to post some new idea or possible source of inspiration every week since I do have several posts in my tiny distracted little brain, but every time I try wording them out, they sound plain stupid. (Pfft! Like there could be a possibility that they're actually really incredibly stupid!) 
2. When I have nothing of any significance in my head, I'll post a story I've written. Maybe I'll start with this week's post, I've got a story I wanted to share with you guys for quite some time.
3. As I've said time and time again, I'd love to link other peoples' stories as well, especially if they're fit for one of the posts. Same with other ideas or sites with inspiration. If no link, I'll credit the people.

I'd love to hear what you have to say on this matter. Really. (If ever I would get any form of acknowledgement of this blog's readers, I'll cry tears of joy.)

That should be about it. I can't shed the feeling that I had something else really important to write, important enough to warrant my going so badly off-topic, though.

Oh! Indeed. 

Wouldn't a crossover between Humanoid Kikaider and Gepetto be the most awesome thing to ever possibly happen? Really, Internet, do you know if such a thing happened? Could you direct me to such a beautiful piece of fanfiction? Or, you know, if maybe my mad fan mind inspired you, be bothered to share it with me?

How Robots Took Over The World

Yes. Two posts about robots almost in a row. I can't help it, every time I see something electronic, my mind drifts to the robot apocalypse.

Every piece of fiction about the Robot Apocalypse (or the Zombie one, or the Alien one, etc. etc.) I've come across shows the human resistance against the overlords or the human reactions in the face of an invasion.

Wouldn't it be nice for a change to have stories that show the other side of the coin? To see the motivations that would lead them to such a quest. Sure, you'll say, that's rather ordinary. Well, I mean beyond the short exposition the villain offers to the hero or the already painful analogies to real events of humankind. I want to know why robots conquer the world, not be reminded of Cromwell's Revolution (it was the first thing that came to mind, sorry British people, I can't remember the official name, too drowsy). I mean avoid cliches, think about why would that thing happen! Make it a story, a glorious, triumphant story about an event much feared by us all.

If you’ve got an awesome idea and you don’t mind sharing, e-mail me or comment. If you’ve got one of these ideas into a story or found one that already has, please share the link, I’d looooooove to post it here. If you’ve got a comment to make, same thing, e-mail or comment.

The journey of a lightning

Last night there was a long-awaited storm, complete with wind and lightning and rain! All that gave me an idea (so blame it on my sleep-deprived brain again >.>)

From a scientific point of view, "Lightning is a massive electrostatic discharge between electrically charged regions within clouds, or between a cloud and the Earth's surface".

But from a human point of view it's more complex than that. Since the beginnings of our existence, we've been fascinated with that fire falling from the sky. We worshipped it, we cursed it, we revered it, we hated it. 
And how could we not? For on every journey to our land, the lightning brought us something:

• Glass and subsequently windows (XP, Vista, 7, you name it)

Image from an awesome article about fulgurites.

• Light

Image from Daily Mail, check this out for more gorgeous images of lightnings

• Fire

This gorgeous photograph

• Electricity

Image from a great article

• Life

Image from here

Those were two bad jokes in a row. I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it.
Anyway, my point is that lightning, from a human point of view has always been a mythical instrument of the Universe to... well... punish us, most of the time. (Though I did read somewhere an old folk tale about the the fact that every time  the lightning strikes, a devil has been struck by a saint. I can't remember anything else, other than the fact that it was complicated.)

However, the lightning is almost always seen as a tool rather than an entity. So, how about a story about the lightning? I was thinking about its journey. How does it come here? Why does it come here? Where from? Who is this lightning? 



P.S. I found this blog while researching for this entry and... well... I know what I'll be reading for the next few days.

Robot apocalypse

 We have so much zombie fiction that outright prepares us for the zombie apocalypse. They tell us how to build our basements, what guns to pick, what to do if we/our loved ones are infected.

But what about robots? Most robot fiction I’ve come across has both nearly indestructible humanoid tin-men (and, yes. Yes, I am thinking the Cybermen from Doctor Who) or some mother-computer-thing like the Matrix. But do you think that really is the way they’re gonna conquer the world?

[I’m sorry for what you’re about to read. I’m really, really into the whole robot apocalypse thing, to the point where I talk to lamp-posts. Because fear of electronics* goes well with robot apocalypse.]

Isn’t it more likely that they will start from the little things, like, say, mobile phones? After all, they are at the moment the smartest of all gadgets around us. Probably next will be the computers who become sentient. Maybe humans will succeed in making them cross the Uncanny Valley, although I doubt that is even possible. Instead they will make them smarter and smarter until they develop a conscience of their own. Afterwards it’s only a matter of time before they usurp us. Slowly, but steadily. Not in the way the Matrix did, far less bloody. Simpler. Not only do we help them, but we end up being grateful to them. Willingly becoming their slaves. How? We make them think for us and do things for us. No, not like Wall-E! They coordinate, distribute and keep our currency. They give us entertainment. They educate us. They provide us comfort in our own homes. Do you see it now? They are everywhere already. They make their moves slowly, engulfing our bank system. They take our jobs, not just in the factories, but in the service industry as well. They make us dependent to them: for school [I always knew Wikipedia was ruled by robots!], for sports [when you go to the gym, think twice about that running thingy], for irrigations and agriculture [computerised everything. That’s all I can say.], for transportation [today the GPS, also today the driverless car!] and so on. They make us dependent until they find a way of properly repairing themselves. They still don’t do things as good as a human, but it’s strength in numbers … and usefulness … and energy … and the material they’re made of …

What will they do with us? Beats me, they might as well exterminate us.

*  I mean it when I say fear of electronics. I'm afraid even of using a photo camera. Needless to say, computers scare me the most. Why am I here, in front of a computer, writing? Because fears are made to be faced! And I do so! Every single day! Even when I shouldn't! 

Elves riding dinosaurs firing rockets

 I was actually saving this post for later, but in the end I said "screw it!" and there it is. And the rest of the stuff I want to post are sadly really and completely off-topic. Seriously, I have more than 5 ideas to rant about but none that I could use here. *sigh* Anyway...

“But it’s freaking August!” you’ll say. Of course it is, but who knows how long it’ll take for us to start/finish our Christmas/Holiday stories ready? (Besides, I sing carols and quote “A Christmas Carol” all year long, I like the holiday season too much not to.)

Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, we don’t have enough Christmas stories who are guided by the Rule of Cool. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with the usual holiday cheesiness, but sometimes it’s too much.

You could go for anything that’s holiday-themed and guided by the rule of cool: Santa with an eye patch sailing the seas on a shark as a pirate, elves battling ninjas, the aforementioned elves riding dinosaurs firing rockets etc.

P.S. I would love to post some of the things I have already written, especially those I have already posted on my Gaia Journal (I'm a proud Gaian :) ) and... I guess I'll do that soon.

Hot zombie

  We can take anything and turn it into a fountain of sexiness, be it for guys or girls. Look at pirates. They transformed from a bunch of scurvy-ridden dead-drunk sailors to the icon of badassery and sexiness they are now, see Captain Sparrow for a notable example (though I'm thinking Trafalgar Law, to be honest). And it’s not the first time some undead have been revamped* into sexy tough walking fan-service. Look at vampires. Though, in all fairness, I've just finished reading Polidori’s The Vampire and it’s not all that different from good modern-day vampire imagery (I'm thinking more Anne Rice than Stephanie Meyer here).

So why shouldn't we try this for our brain-eating friends? Sure, you fans of the zombie genre will argue that if they do get a brush of sexy they will stop being so menacing and it will be yet another horror genre ruined by “the masses”. I say screw that! Even vampires could keep their dignity after Twilight, so why, oh, why can’t we have a little, little bit of zombie fan-service while you get to see them eating brains?

*I'm sorry, sorry, sorry for that pun. T_T

Two dots who live in peace.

This sentence did not let me sleep last night. “Two dots who live in peace.” What could it mean? Anything, actually. Those dots could be anything, they’re dots after all. They could do anything. They’re whatever inspires you.

If you’re inspired or really badass, you could even go with writing a story about dots. I’d love you if you do that, we don’t have enough stories about dots.

If you’ve got an awesome idea and you don’t mind sharing, e-mail me (at paula_13pisicinegre@yahoo.com or 13pisicinegre@gmail.com) or comment. If you’ve got one of these ideas into a story or found one that already has, please share the link, I’d looooooove to post it here. If you’ve got a comment to make, same thing, e-mail or comment.

Introduction

a.k.a. WHAAAAT?

Look, let’s say you’ve ran out of ideas and looking around you doesn’t help. Let’s say you want just the idea, the impulse to start your story. That’s why I made this blog: to give ideas for stories.

I love stories, they fascinated me ever since I was very little (say, 3 years old) so I wanted to do something that could help storytellers out there, regardless of the medium they use to convey their stories. For a while now, my imagination has gone into overdrive and at one point I realised I won’t be able to write all the stories that run through my head. That’s how the idea for this site was born. Of course, as soon as I had that thought in mind, my dear brain decided to forget the impulse pattern to most of the great ideas I had, so I had to delay this blog until I have gotten new ones.

If you’ve got an awesome idea and you don’t mind sharing, e-mail me (at paula_13pisicinegre@yahoo.com or 13pisicinegre@gmail.com) or comment. If you’ve got one of these ideas into a story or found one that already has, please share the link, I’d looooooove to post it here. If you’ve got a comment to make, same thing, e-mail or comment.