Flash Fiction: The Itinerary

Flash Fiction: The Itinerary — Blue Ink Alchemy

For the Terribleminds flash fiction challenge, Corporate Abuse.

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He arrived from his personal trainer's private facility five minutes early. She had already brewed him the first espresso of the day and had picked out a suit for him. She gave him time to change before stepping into his office. The view always impressed her. It was like the entire city was laid out at his feet. "What's first for me today?" His voice came out of the walk-in closet. "You have a 9 AM conference call with Bob Sanders from the Election Committee, sir." "Remind me, is that the committee for the senate or presidential race?" "Presidential, sir. The senatorial committee won't be calling until after lunch." "Just as well." He emerged checking his golden cuff-links, the tailored suit ensuring the benefits of his workouts were emphasized. "Did you send out those gift baskets I picked out?" "Yes, sir. The committee should be getting them today or tomorrow." "Always good to grease the wheels a little." "If you say so, sir." She gave him his espresso. He sipped, and gave her a satisfied nod. Little gestures like that indicated a good mood, which in turn had her biting her lip and reminding herself to stay focused on the job for now. "What's next?" "A 10 AM review for the shareholder's meeting this Friday." "It should be brief, our stocks are up. Hand me that red tie, would you?" She reached into the closet and handed it to him. "It does go better with the suit, sir." "Thank you, I thought so." He began to tie it, regarding his clean-shaven face in the mirror. "Will any of our overseas offices be attending?" "I haven't heard any give confirmations, sir. With tensions on the rise, they may be unwilling to travel." "Well, the oil refinery people, I can understand." He frowned, not getting the length of the tie quite right. "But the plant owners from China should be able to make it. It's not like their workers need constant supervision to churn out their products." She stepped in front of him, taking his tie in her hands. She didn't dare look at his eyes as she fixed it. It might be difficult to form a sentence if she let herself get lost. "I think they're worried about the public image, sir. Public sentiment being what it is." "Ah." She could feel his smile. She didn't need to see it. It had an effect on her anyway. "The notion that we owe them astronomical debts. People might think they own this company." "That's the theory, sir." It's you that owns them. And me. She stepped away from the tie, smiled and retrieved her tablet. Better focus on this and leave the rest for later. "You still have an 11:30 lunch appointment with the mayor." "The usual pre-election shenanigans, I trust. He's probably worried that all the protesting has put me in a foul mood." "Some of the banks are certainly unhappy with the protests, sir." He walked to the window, hands behind his back. She watched every move he made. Master of his domain. "Let the people talk. They like their own voices. It doesn't change what we do or the reality of the situation." He turned back to her, and this time she didn't look away. "As for the mayor, I'll let him lunch me up. Let him think his re-election is assured so he can focus on the infrastructure bill for the city. Once that's out of the way we finance his opponent into office, so he can work on the civil rights issues our current mayor's been ignoring." She nodded. Tempted as she was to take down a note to that effect, she knew such things were best left undocumented. She didn't know how much of this was known to other members of the corporation, but she wasn't about to betray his confidence. He walked towards her and she turned her eyes back to the tablet. She could smell his cologne, and very faintly beneath it, the tang of his sweat from working out in the early morning. "Senatorial committee is, as I said, after lunch. Then at 2 is the weekly review of domestic productivity, followed by the CFO going over next quarter's budget with you." He rolled his eyes. "That old codger does love his numbers. Maybe I should shift our funds again, to keep him on his toes." She bit her lip. "Didn't a bank fail the last time you did that, sir?" "And they were gobbled up by one of the larger ones. Survival of the fittest, my dear. What cannot survive is devoured." He paused, looking down. "Are those your new Choos?" She glanced down at her shoes, the skinny heels and the odd but playful combination of leopard print and patent leather. His scrutiny made her blush. "Yes, sir." "They look great on you." He turned away and finished his espresso. She immediately collected the cup and saucer. "I'll be needing you later this afternoon, perhaps into the evening. I'm sure I'll have several letters to dictate." "I'll be right here, sir." Waiting for you. He smiled. "Good to know. What would I do without you?" I'd rather know what you want to do with me... She bit her lip again. "Type your own letters?" He laughed. "Fair point. But I can't make decent espresso to save my life. Thank you. I better go get this day started." "Good luck, sir." Nodding, he walked out the door. She cleaned up his office and sat at her desk outside. It'd be a day of taking phone calls, making appointments and sorting information. Tedious work. She didn't care. The most powerful man in the world, a man who for all intents and purposes owned the country, needed to have these things organized and coordinated so he could maintain his level of control. He needed his itinerary laid out like his suits. He needed her. And she, for entirely different reasons that made her knees weak, needed him.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Oldboy

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Oldboy — Blue Ink Alchemy

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/oldboy.mp3] There's an old French proverb that tells us "Revenge is a dish best served cold." Can you just leave it out in the open, though? No, of course not, it will rot and small animals will make off with it if that were the case. Such urges are bottled up, kept deep inside, for the right moment to release their dark and depraved impulses upon the world. Cautionary tales like Moby Dick teach us to be careful how far our thirst for vengeance takes us, while those like The Count of Monte Christo show us the magnificent lengths to which the truly driven can go to exact their revenge. Oldboy does both. Oh Dea-Su is a middle management worker and a bit of a drunkard on his way home to his wife and daughter after a run-in with the local cops. He is plucked from the street in a moment his friend is looking in another direction. He is thrown into a small room, barely a studio apartment, with a locked and heavily fortified door featuring only a small slot for meals. He has a TV, desk, bathroom facilities and writing implements. This is his home for 15 years. Then, one day, he is mysteriously released, given new clothes and a few clues, and given 5 days to sort out who locked him up and why. He's been gassed, dragged around, poked, prodded and who knows what else. Nobody's spoken to him in 15 years. As you can imagine, he is... a little upset. Director Park Chan-Wook lists Alfred Hitchcock as one of his key influences. The construction of this film shows that in nearly every frame. Composition and angles are so precise and pitch-perfect for a given scene, and no shot goes on for a moment longer than it needs to. It reminded me a bit of Hitchcock's North by Northwest, replacing the espionage and mistaken identity themes with a need for vengeance so all-consuming it verges on complete madness. Much like last month's Hannibal Lecter, we are shown creatures that, after so many years of torment and loss, can only barely be considered human. They look like us, move like us, even talk like us at times... but there is something very wrong, here.
Totally still a human being. Underscoring the disturbing things that lurk in human skin that we see in Oldboy, we also see quite a bit of visceral harm done to human bodies. Like the view of the human soul, the sight of the violence is unflinching. However, this is not to say that it's gratuitous. On the contrary, in the vein of both Hitchcock and Hannibal Lecter, or at least Silence of the Lambs, the violence drives home the point of the story instead of existing for its own sake. The lulls between the violence also serve a purpose. When we see Oh Dea-Su staring straight ahead, saying nothing, we know the sort of beast he's become is lurking just beneath the surface, all too eager to lash out at anything in his path. Perhaps the most disturbing thing of all about the central character in Oldboy is that he begins as a thoroughly ordinary man. You've probably seen or worked with or even befriended people like him in the course of your life. Fifteen years in captivity makes him nearly unrecognizable. This ordinary man is twisted and pressed and pushed into becoming something different, something at once far more dangerous and far more diminished. He can perpetuate all sorts of chaos yet holds onto his humanity by the slimmest of threads. And it could be any one of us.
Do I make a hammer time joke? Or say that the director nailed it? Decisions, decisions... Fascinating, disturbing, at times funny and others soberingly heart-wrenching, Oldboy is a masterpiece of a suspense film. It's psychological aspects dig quite deep, its thriller beats never fail to deliver and its cast never feels unnatural or over-the-top in their performances. It's dark storytelling at its most basic and very finest all at once. While at times its violence and events feel like something from another world, it's so grounded in its setting and characters that not only could this happen to any normal human being, it could be happening right now. There's an immediacy to it, an intimacy, that gets right into your head and sits there daring you to take a closer look at what it's saying. Don't let the violence, the foreign language or the occasionally manic oddness of Oldboy put you off. If you're at all interested in film-making, psychological suspense or a stripped-down unflinching examination of some very dark corners of the human condition, this is the film you've been waiting for. Josh Loomis can't always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it's unclear if this week's film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain... IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

How to Survive Living with a Writer

How to Survive Living with a Writer — Blue Ink Alchemy

Courtesy Floating Robes One of the most popular posts ever over at terribleminds is this one, entitled "Beware of Writer." He also penned a sequel that's just as worthwhile to read. But let's say you've ignored his advice. You're going to fly in the face of common sense and good taste and actually shack up with one of us crackpot writer-types, in spite of the tiny hurricanes of impotent rage and the nigh-constant smell of booze. Here's a couple things to keep in mind that may help you keep from running screaming into the night.

Writers are Finicky Bitches

In addition to being very easily distracted (if you didn't know, we are), writers can get new ideas all the time, at the drop of a hat. It's not uncommon for a writer to have a few projects at work at any given time. Let's say our subject is working on a novel and some poetry, and all of a sudden gets an idea for a new tv series about puppet detectives. It's not enough for us to be distracted by video games or movies or pet antics or offspring or bright flashing lights or loud noises. No no, we need to distract ourselves on top of all of that. Writers either drift in a slight miasma of barely cognizant perceptions as they indulge in their distractions, or they're frustrated by efforts to reassert their concentration on something they're righting. It can make a writer seem bipolar. And if they really are bipolar, woo boy you talk about fun times!¹ Surviving this as an outsider requires a metric fuckton of patience. Either you will be asked to participate in some sort of odd habit, or you will be all but ignored as something new distracts the writer. You can go along with it or rail against it, but the important thing is to remind the writer that they should, at some point, write. Yes, you may get bitten over it. That's what the rolled-up newspaper is for. Aim for the nose.

Writers are Masters (and Mistresses) of Excuses

You're going to catch a writer not writing. This can be like catching a teenager with their pants down and making them explain the nature of the self-examination they seem to be enjoying. You just need to keep in mind that procrastination is perfectly natural and lots of writers do it. There are even some writers who encourage other writers to procrastinate. Before I stretch that metaphor any more uncomfortably, the important thing to note is that writers will tell you all manner of tall tales in an effort to avoid your scrutiny. Especially if said writer's bailiwick is fiction. I mean, come on, these people lie for a living. Or at least as a primary hobby. Of course they're going to tell you space monkeys invaded in the middle of the night and that's why the lawn hasn't been mowed or the dishes remain unwashed. Damn dirty space simians!² Just as writers need and, if they're responsible and good, want to be told when something they write doesn't quite work, writers also need to occasionally be called on their bullshit. "Space monkeys? I don't see any poo on the walls other than your own. It's time to shut off the Internet and make some more of that word magic happen, pooplord." Your exact wording may vary, but you get the idea.

Writers Do, In Fact, Want to Write

So let's say you're keeping a writer focused on the now. You're getting them to help out around the house. They're watching the kids. They're cooking meals. They're renovating your siding and keeping you in whatever it is you like to do when you're not working. Guess what they're not doing? If you guessed "writing", you just won a bigass shiny No-Prize! Congrats!³ Take a look at any writer pontificating on the need to write, and you'll see something emerge. There's definitely a deep-seated compulsion there. On top of any other madness or psychosis, a writer needs to write. Yes, the writer may procrastinate, putter around, put off writing because writing can suck a big fat one from time to time, but at the end of the day, writing is at the core of who that person is, otherwise - Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? - they wouldn't be a writer. So do them and yourself a favor. Take the kids for an hour. Put the video game down yourself. Mow the lawn or wash a few dishes. Just give them space, and a little bit of time. If it's been a while since they've written, you bet your ass words will happen while you're tending to chores. Or you could not, and they'll resent you in a deeply personal way. Your call. I think this may be the biggest key to surviving life with a writer. Giving a little measure of time to write, moreso than calling them on excuses or distractions, relieves the pressure in their minds and helps them get closer to their goals. And the writer will love you for it.

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¹ I can't say anybody acted all that surprised when I was diagnosed as bipolar. There was plenty of relief that legitimate psychosis wasn't involved, though. Not that the doctors could detect, at least. Suckers. ² They're rude as hell, too. Coming in the middle of the evening and keeping me from finishing a blog post with their howling and poop-slinging and I was researching League of Legends champion builds and got distracted from finishing this last night I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry please don't bap me with the newspaper again. ³ Actual contents of No-Prize may vary, from "absolutely nothing" to "sweet fuck-all."

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Learning New ARTS

Learning New ARTS — Blue Ink Alchemy

She's like a miniature Tank Girl. Moreso than Strongbad, she is 'tiny Heavy'. I've had an interest in strategy games for many a year, from the tabletop war simulations like Squad Leader and Risk to 4X computer games in the style of Civilization and Master of Orion. I've made a series of entries on StarCraft 2. But like Master of Orion taking the 4X formula into SPACE, there was a precursor of the original StarCraft that shook up the standard RTS setup. It's a custom map for Warcraft III called Defense of the Ancients. Often abbreviated "DotA", the game does not focus on base construction or unit composition, but instead casts each player on the opposing teams as a single hero unit, supporting the automatically-generated waves of disposable peons called 'creeps' as they attack the enemy base. Each hero or 'champion' has a set of unique powers that they "level up" RPG-style and can also purchase items to bolster their abilities. This heady mix of RPG gameplay and RTS rhythm and competition has come to be known as either DotA-type, Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games or Action RTS - ARTS. I missed out on the initial DotA stuff, and actually had to dig out my old collector's edition disk of Blizzard's seminal RTS. Unfortunately I also require the expansion, The Frozen Throne, and while I have some copies of the disc I don't know if such copies will be recognized for legitimate online play, even on a custom map. I don't need Blizzard's secret police knocking down my door. So while I wait for my next paycheck, I've been getting to know this variation on the game a bit more through Riot Games' free-to-play take on the genre called League of Legends. From what I understand thanks to some help from the fine gents and ladies of Team Liquid, there are some fundamental differences between League of Legends and the original DotA. The overall impression is that Riot's entry into the ARTS is 'easy mode' as champions do not need to worry about getting in final hits, proper use of town portal scrolls and the mechanics of the more limited eengine. DotA sounds more unforgiving and, by extension, more rewarding than LoL. I'm looking forward to trying it out. What makes games like League of Legends appealing is something I've alluded to previously. While you can get into team matches in StarCraft 2 they are not the crux of the game's multiplayer scene. This may be the perspective of an admittedly casual gamer, but when it comes to extended sessions of games keyed for multiple players, going solo against a single opponent can get very lonely. I've had a few good experiences so far in LoL teaming up with others. I've had some bad ones, too, but I chalk that up to some of my fellow players being quick to blame newcomers like myself instead of examining their own shortcomings. Because that's hard! Anyway, League of Legends is at least helping me grasp the basics of this ARTS genre. Steam is working on a direct sequel to DotA itself, while Blizzard revealed that they are creating their own proprietary version with characters culled from their various IPs. I don't feel pressed for time by either of these, and I do plan on firing up the original DotA once I've acquired a fresh, legit copy of Frozen Throne. For the most part this will strictly be for enjoyment, rather than some attempt to develop competitive skills. I know I may never break into any level of professional gaming, nor do I want gaming to turn into a job to the point that I cease enjoying it. After all, if I had to focus entirely on one game for hours on end, things like League of Legends might pass me by completely. I'm entertaining the notion of starting an adventure in Terraria with a couple others, I plan on coaching a friend in Magic the Gathering and there will always be new single-player games to explore. However I spend my leisure time when firing up Steam or a console, the goal will not necessarily to be a top-level pro or boast the highest APM, but simply to have fun. That's what games are for, after all. Right?

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Show (Don't Tell) Your Work

Show (Don't Tell) Your Work — Blue Ink Alchemy

Staring the month with a little advice. So NaNoWriMo is beginning and a lot of you out there are taking freshly-sharpened pencils to blank pages. This next month is going to be full of inspiration, frustration, erasures, crossed-out words, broken tips and lots of caffeinated beverages. I wish you the best of luck. Related to last week's post on showing instead of telling, I wanted to touch on something that came up in a recent edit. This will not apply to everything, mostly genre works or those rooted in history. And as with any writing advice, you may find it useful or you might not. But here it is. You'll want to show your audience the details in your work, without showing off how much you know. If you've done a lot of world-building behind the scenes, chances are you're practically busting at the seams to invite people into that new world. And in doing so, you want to show off all the neat stuff you have going on, from the retrograde rotation of the planet to the native people who are a cross between the Na'vi, red pandas and baby seals. That's fine, but if you front-load your story with long passages on the world's ecosystem and fauna, you're committed the aforementioned cardinal sin: you are telling, not showing. It's similar with historical works. If you want to do it right, you've done a lot of research. You want to make sure that history buffs don't tear your work to ribbons and ignore the thrust of your narrative because you made the sash worn by the second-in-command to the regional commandant the wrong color. If your audience might obsess over the details, it's to your benefit to do the same, but not necessarily to the detriment of showing over telling. Here, as with other expository writing, action and dialog will once again come to your rescue. It may take a little narrative positioning, but you can adjust your characters and their conversations in such a way as to convey the facts without taking away from the story. Don't just describe the historically accurate landscape, do so through the eyes of character seeing it for the first time, or perhaps who has seen it one time too many. It's one thing to put down the inner workings of your semi-magical difference engine on paper, it's another to have a scruffy engineer explain things to a wet-behind-the-ears physics wizard while banging on the thing with a wrench. So on and so forth. I hope other writers will find this sort of thing useful as NaNoWriMo begins. For them, and perhaps for you, this is the beginning of a grand adventure that may open the doors to a brand new way of conveying ideas and fleshing out dreams, and that's wonderful. For me, it's Tuesday.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Worldbuilding Challenge: The Gods of Blackbloom

Worldbuilding Challenge: The Gods of Blackbloom — Blue Ink Alchemy

Courtesy the excellent xeedee Once a month, instead of flash fiction Chuck calls upon his readers to contribute in a worldbuilding exercise he's doing. One of the few things we know is: The gods walk among men but are forgotten and unrecognized. Nobody believes in them anymore. Some say the gods are dead; others simply do not remember them. I took this notion and ran with it along with my affinity for trickster spirits, and came up with the following for his latest challenge.

Men may have forgotten his name, but once they called him Brightflower, Smirk or simply the Jackal. He can assume any form of any size he wishes, but prefers to walk as a man among them, since they're so amusing to him. He toys with their perceptions, slipping secrets between his half-truths, but he never lies. Despite his cheerful, playful and jocular demeanor, he's still got a temper. The other gods tried to curtail his shenanigans by helping men call him a lord of lies. In response, he helped the people of Blackbloom forget the gods – including himself – ever existed.

I guess we'll find out soon, as Chuck is taking the challenge to a biweekly schedule. This will get interesting!

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Blue Ink Alchemy

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Hannibal

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Hannibal — Blue Ink Alchemy

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/hannibal.mp3] After two truly excellent films and a somewhat passable prequel, we come to the fourth and final installment in our look at Hannibal Lecter. Like the other movies based on the novels of Thomas Harris, we're presented with a charismatic and compelling villainous protagonist, shown dark recesses of the human condition and are at least somewhat creeped out by the goings-on. But Hannibal, to be blunt, doesn't measure up to the truly excellent Silence of the Lambs and the very good Red Dragon. Let's peel it apart and find out why, shall we? At the core of any decent film should be a decent story, right? I mean, fun films can get by with gaping plot holes and one-note characters - a common criticism of most superhero flicks, even decent ones - but to make a film with something approaching meaning the story has to be solid. And while the story in Hannibal never really smacks of total implausability, every once in an while a moment comes where you feel like Thomas Harris either chuckled at the thought of skeeving his audience or dialed up a bit of lurid absurdity to underscore the fact that a novel like Silence of the Lambs adapated into a film that wins five Oscars doesn't really need a sequel. But getting paid is nice, I guess. So, the premise: Hannibal's absconded to Europe and tries to get a steady job as curator at a museum. Special Agent Clarice Starling is struggling to coordinate operations but keeps getting the short end of the stick on account of having boobs. A faceless man - literally, this man has no face - is on the revenge warpath for Doctor Lecter and a Florentine police officer who has yet to notice the oddly-dressed gentleman free-running on the rooftops is beginning to suspect that his erudite, polite American is more than he seems. Seriously, when are Americans erudite and polite? There's gotta be something up with the guy.
His leering is nowhere near as creepy as Hannibal's default state, so Starling is completely unphased. If there's one thing that approaches salvaging the film, it's Sir Anthony Hopkins. His portrayal of Hannibal remains pitch-perfect, equal parts cold menace and disarming charisma, and he's always fun to watch. What made Silence of the Lambs so great and Red Dragon a success, however, was that he was supported by excellent material and a talented cast that kept up with him. This is not to say that Julianne Moore, Ray Liotta and Gary Oldman (face or no face) aren't talented, but Anthony just leaves them in his dust here. I don't think it's the fault of the cast, honestly, nor of Ridley Scott the director. The writing is where this one falls short, and while there are glimmers of truly interesting conversation thanks to David Mamet, the big weakness that causes people to assault this film for massive damage is its focus. In the other two films I keep raving about, the focus is on character development and interpersonal drama. They're deeply psychological films, every bit as much explorations of the darker corners of the human mind as they are tense murder thrillers. Hannibal, on the other hand, is a gorefest. As it's wearing the dressings of Florence and the mannerisms of Hannibal Lecter, it doesn't have the naked self-indulgent gore of Saw or any other current horror flick you'd care to name, but it certainly likes to slice and dice its way through its running time. It takes no time to develop the new characters that are introduced other than one-note traits that verge on stereotyping, and the established characters unfortunate enough to not be Hannibal Lecter are left flat and uninteresting, mere passengers on the Cannibal Express. I say this is the writing's fault because Julianne Moore has been in several fantastic films carrying more than her own weight, Ray Liotta was stellar in GoodFellas and Gary Oldman is one of the most talented character actors I've ever seen. I don't think they were intending to play characters who are so completely flat, but that's what they were handed.
Hannibal is considering eating her raw. ...Um. There were warning signs from the beginning that this would not end well. Both Jodie Foster and Jonathan Demme, originally foregone conclusions in the continuation of Hannibal's story, walked away from the project due to the direction it takes and the proposed changes to Clarice's character. The funny thing is, Ridley Scott asked Harris if he was married to his original ending, and Harris really wasn't. In fact, the impression one gets is that Harris has little to nothing to do with this project at all. It's unlike Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon to such a degree that if you change the names of the characters, it doesn't lose a thing, and neither do those other stories. There's an underlying cynicism to the whole affair of Hannibal that makes me wonder what Harris' real motivation was in writing the novel. Was he prompted to do it due to Hannibal being so interesting, or did the studio hound him for another story, driven by the success of Silence of the Lambs? Whichever's the case, the feeling one gets upon examining this odd and disappointing specimen is that it was completely unnecessary - unnecessary to write, unnecessary to make, and unnecessary to watch. Save yourself some time, and read the excellent and hysterical Hannibal in 15 Minutes by Cleolinda Jones. She even lifts lines and moments directly out of the film. Things like Gary Oldman not having a face and Starling's disturbingly funny lines and Hannibal carefully preparing bits of brain in a saute pan. I swear, she is not making that stuff up. Josh Loomis can't always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it's unclear if this week's film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain... IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.

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Blue Ink Alchemy