Q: So, how are you doing?
WW: I'm moving along.
Q: Not too excited, are you? It's not going as fast as you'd like it to.
WW: No.
Q: Why not?
WW: Because I keep stumbling upon juicy research.
Q: Uh-oh. I thought your new found mantra for this project was "Fuck research?"
WW: Yeah, but... It turns out that some of the things I wanted my character to feel and do were already felt and done by somebody who really existed back then!
Q: Wow. What's that supposed to mean, that you dreamed up stuff that has already happened? You are like one of those psychics?
WW: I scored high on precognition, not retrocognition when I took the test.
Q: You took a test to see whether you were a psychic?!?
"WW, when it comes to psychic abilities, you have an unusually strong talent in the area of Precognition"Q: And gullibility, they forgot to mention that. Anyway, what does this retrocognition affair mean for your project?
WW: It probably means I will have to change some things, because I'm not writing anyone's biography here.
Q: But you should be proud! It means good intuition and knowledge of the period if you imagined things that were proved right by... history!
WW: Yeah, well, I don't see it that way.
Q: That's because you're upset. How's your writing partner?
WW: She's doing great. Reading some background materials.
Q: Please don't push her down this research slope!
WW: I won't. But this bit was rather essential. Yeah, her life is too interesting to mess up with all these dead people's legacies.
Q: And you call a 300 pages philosophy book a "bit"? Hmm... Anyway, you sound intrigued by your partner's lifestyle. Nay, maybe even envious, are we?
WW: Yeah, my imagination has been under heavy fire from reality lately. As if history weren't enough!
Q: This is what happens when you welcome new people into your life.
WW: I know. And I'm grateful. It's just different.
Q: You're just too lazy to adjust your... "story" accordingly.
WW: You think? What if they don't fit in?
Q: People of a certain caliber and gamut should always fit in.
WW: See, that's where you're wrong! There are so many wonderful people in this world...
Q: "...sometimes I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is going to cave in". Alan Ball, "American Beauty". Cut it out and get back to work... Oh, did you find me a name and a character skin yet?
WW: Umm... How's "The Barefoot Pilot"?
BP: Better than "Q". I'll take it.
WW: "Q" in Star Trek was cool!
But the Barefoot Pilot had already taken off, flying one of those übercool Twin Otter seaplanes.
4 comments:
Hey! That little turquoise stripe there in your picture is pretty much like the blue lake I envisioned in my dream. Hmm...
I took that photo last summer, in the Maldives, above Sun Island. All those lagoons tend to resemble one another, but all the action is underwater, and then they become very different...
I spotted no ducklings, though, just a bunch of crows and some bats ;)
However, my recent comments on your dream may have brought it up in my mind, now that I think about it. Hence, the Barefoot Pilot's emergence as a character might be traced back to YOUR imagination! :)))
It may sound funny, but we're all so intricately connected...
BTW, that pilot WAS barefoot, like all those who fly seaplanes in the Maldives. They even have their own "Barefoot Pilots Association". But although I love those flights over the atolls, I can't envy them -- after 10 days I'm always hit by "island fever" and I can't wait to get the hell outta paradise!
I've been looking for more pictures of the Sun Island Resort and I've found myself daydreaming. Wherever there are crystal clear, ice blue waters with velvety white sands, that's where I would like to sink into oblivion :) And don't spoil my fantasy if I say Sun Island are not just two prosaic words, because I'm sure there's a meaningful layer underneath them.
As for the connection, I know it may sound like that, but I agree with you. As a matter of fact, a while ago I became aware of this huge web which entangles us, when I came across people (strangers), events and things that I later found out to be linked in a way or another. And after a few years of being all intrigued, things just didn't seem to be a simple coincidence anymore. But it's frustrating knowing all this is part of a larger picture which I am not allowed to grasp entirely with just one look.
So now, if I'm sort of responsible for the emergence of the character, does that make me a godmother or what?! :D And what should a godparent do in such circumstances? :P
But it's frustrating knowing all this is part of a larger picture which I am not allowed to grasp entirely with just one look.
I am not so concerned about this "bigger picture". I don't want to peek beyond what I'm supposed to see. I wouldn't know what to do with that knowledge and I'd feel awfully lonely owning it. Not cut out to be an oracle.
The entanglement I meant is anyway provided by our own minds if given a certain compatibility, enough time and the story chips already embedded in our cultural makeup.
As to "sinking into oblivion" on a tiny island, I do advise caution. The first time I went there, I spent the last four days hidden in the air-conditioned room, reading a pile of silly books mercifully left behind by other tourists and not even wanting to see the sun, water & sand business. OK, I may have snorkeled a bit, but one can't even do that for over ten days without getting severely punished by the sun.
As to the Barefoot Pilot, as a godparent/co-owner, feel free to tell his story, if he inspires you... :) I was thinking he'd make a pretty good novel character, in the vein of Switters from Tom Robbins' "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates". I was also thinking that the Maldives, with all those thousands of tiny islands, would make an excellent hiding place for terrorists... That is, if they don't mind island fever ;)
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