This is an excerpt from the MS5 (manuscript 5) version of Book #2: "The Saeshell Book of Time: Part 2: The Rebirth of Innocents" MS6 is the version that goes to the publisher. I picked this excerpt because it is a small number of words that exemplified the drama in the book. In this excerpt, Paul25 is a nine year old boy and Tova2 is a 19 year old girl. Paul with Numbers is a nickname for Paul25. Stefan is Tova2's future younger lover.
The excerpt:
Paul25 looks at Tova2. “You could not be a Stefan bomb!”
“I am sorry, Little Brother, but I am and you ARE the trigger,” says Tova2. She thinks, “This is what the noble orators of the dead civilizations of long ago must have felt like—orators of civilizations about to die. I glow with brilliant warmth that removes no chill.”
All of Paul25’s rocks fall and he hits the ground. He begins to cry. Tova2 swoops over, picks him up, and cuddles him.
“Paul with Numbers, do not worry,” says Tova2. “If we get back our Stefan, I couldn’t possibly kill him. I love Stefan. But we will see if Stefan remembers who he really is. We shall see if he still has his gentle heart.”
“I couldn’t kill him,” says Paul25.
“Of course not,” says Tova2. “But I could, despite my love. And that is why you are the trigger. Only you will know that there is no hope.”
“And if I told you, you would kill him?” asks Paul25 shakily.
“Yes,” says Tova2. “And if he harmed you, I wouldn’t hesitate an instant.”
Paul25 continues to cry because this is more than he can bear.
“Paul with Numbers, I need you to focus,” says Tova2. “There is worse news. Yesterday you were hurt. I can’t stand to see you hurt. It’s how you have become the trigger. There are no limits of what I will do for you. As a result, I created a tunnel through time to show you Atreyeu. Unfortunately, the tunnel also acted as a signal light to every advanced being that we are here. The Sophistans are no longer safe because they are no longer in hiding.”
Paul25 begins to cry uncontrollably.
A faint echo of Stefan’s voice touches Tova2’s mind momentarily, “There is no limit to what I will do for you, my love. As you will one day see.” Tova2 twitches, trying to hide her momentary confusion at hearing Stefan’s voice again. She tells herself that she must focus on the immediate needs of Paul25’s emotional chaos. Yet she thinks, “I feel so strange. The horror of this doesn’t move me at all. What have I become?”
(C) Copyright 2011 by Rusty Biesele, All Rights Reserved
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Cover Proof #2
Well the book cover is getting down the road but is still not totally there. Some of the characters still look too old. And of course, the background is not fully there yet. The look of this still will change quite a bit of the next few iterations. One reason I put the early covers here is to show how a book cover is built up step by step.
The K-12 Jail
I just read an article about some Misery school banning "Slaughterhouse Five". It seems from what I've read, that the books being banned are ones that allow young readers to think out of the box or to think about what being human really means. I started thinking about banning "thinking out of the box." Then I started to realize, when you think about young people thinking out of the box who comes to mind? Gifted kids for one thing. Effectively, because of selective funding cuts, gifted kids have been banned really. Put them back into the regular classroom where their minds can be beat back into the box along with the rest of the kids. And of course, while we're doing that, let's find other innovative ways to be sure kids' minds never come out of the box. California leads the way on things, so California got rid of school libraries. Basically, if you have a Pay Pal account or credit card, you can read whatever you want. Otherwise your mind will be shaped into a compliant form or thrown in prison, whichever is more convenient to the political element of the moment.
Gifted people, while making up 5% of the population, make up 20% of the prison population according to articles I've seen. I guess in that sense, the K-12 jail is preparing them for their future.
Gifted people, while making up 5% of the population, make up 20% of the prison population according to articles I've seen. I guess in that sense, the K-12 jail is preparing them for their future.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
First Early Sketch of Book 1's Cover
Here is an early concept sketch for the book cover for the first book: The Saeshell Book of Time: Part 1: The Death of Innocents. There are some inaccuracies so there is still a long way to go.
But I thought I would show you the early sketch so you can see how a book is actually put together.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Excerpt from Book 2: The Saeshell Book of Time
I'm currently working on Book #2, incorporating the suggestions of a professional editor. I thought these paragraphs exemplify some of the strong emotion that run through the book. So here it is, an excerpt from The Saeshell Book of Time: Part 2: The Rebirth of Innocents:
Stefan stands back from the couch and just stares. He doesn’t know what to do next. All he can do is stand there and watch his mum breathing; she looks much like she did that happy morning he went to see the artists in the market. The immediately visible change is the black Peter-style pajamas she is wearing with white Paul stripes on the sleeves; her long blond ponytail is now punctuated by the multiple bright red streaks running through it.
Stefan whispers quietly to his mum from across the room as if she is awake. “Mum, you were the one thing in my life I thought would never change. I could accept my changes because I knew you would always be there, solid and strong as rock.”
Tova2 eyes become wet. She tries to maintain control of emotions for the sake of her distraught love.
“What have I done to you, mum. Look at how I’ve changed you. How can you ever forgive me for killing dad. Will you forgive for tearing my sister from your body and storing her in computer. How could you? How could you ever forgive me?
“What do I do? I don’t know where to start. Hi, your son, the butcher, has just brought you back to life and killed your husband? And by the way, do you know you are pregnant, Mum, and we have taken the baby out of you and aged her three years.”
Tova2 says softly, “How about just starting out with ‘I love you, Mum, I’m so glad you are alive,’ and see where things go from there? Once you prove she is really here, I can get my hands out of this machine and be with you.”
Those words, “prove she is really here”, struck Stefan as if they were a lightning bolt. The fact that his mum is back, but might be disintegrated by the love of his life at any moment, was almost too much to bear.
“Containment field dropped,” announces Tonya.
“Go on over, Stefan,” says Tova2 gently. “Paul with Numbers will be there with you.”
Paul25 flies down and gives Stefan a long hug. “Come on, Stefan, let’s wake your mom. I like your mom and I want her back.”
Paul25 took Stefan’s hand and led him to the medical couch. “Climb up there and hug her. The first few seconds after awakening are the most disturbing and disorienting. If there is something firm from your former life to fix on, it makes the transition so much easier.”
Stefan dutifully climbed up on the couch, hugging his mom and whispering into her ear, “Come back to me, Mum, come back to me, I need you so badly now.”
Stefan stands back from the couch and just stares. He doesn’t know what to do next. All he can do is stand there and watch his mum breathing; she looks much like she did that happy morning he went to see the artists in the market. The immediately visible change is the black Peter-style pajamas she is wearing with white Paul stripes on the sleeves; her long blond ponytail is now punctuated by the multiple bright red streaks running through it.
Stefan whispers quietly to his mum from across the room as if she is awake. “Mum, you were the one thing in my life I thought would never change. I could accept my changes because I knew you would always be there, solid and strong as rock.”
Tova2 eyes become wet. She tries to maintain control of emotions for the sake of her distraught love.
“What have I done to you, mum. Look at how I’ve changed you. How can you ever forgive me for killing dad. Will you forgive for tearing my sister from your body and storing her in computer. How could you? How could you ever forgive me?
“What do I do? I don’t know where to start. Hi, your son, the butcher, has just brought you back to life and killed your husband? And by the way, do you know you are pregnant, Mum, and we have taken the baby out of you and aged her three years.”
Tova2 says softly, “How about just starting out with ‘I love you, Mum, I’m so glad you are alive,’ and see where things go from there? Once you prove she is really here, I can get my hands out of this machine and be with you.”
Those words, “prove she is really here”, struck Stefan as if they were a lightning bolt. The fact that his mum is back, but might be disintegrated by the love of his life at any moment, was almost too much to bear.
“Containment field dropped,” announces Tonya.
“Go on over, Stefan,” says Tova2 gently. “Paul with Numbers will be there with you.”
Paul25 flies down and gives Stefan a long hug. “Come on, Stefan, let’s wake your mom. I like your mom and I want her back.”
Paul25 took Stefan’s hand and led him to the medical couch. “Climb up there and hug her. The first few seconds after awakening are the most disturbing and disorienting. If there is something firm from your former life to fix on, it makes the transition so much easier.”
Stefan dutifully climbed up on the couch, hugging his mom and whispering into her ear, “Come back to me, Mum, come back to me, I need you so badly now.”
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Mental Parents Day
This is a post that I am doing while under the influence of a variety of cold medications so it is likely to be weird. I got that disclaimer out of the way because I am likely going to offend about 90% of the world, give or take some percentage unknown to me in my present state.
I got the idea for this post by reading another clever quote posted on twitter; a quote from Einstein. I really like his quotes, well, at least the ones I've seen. And while rolling his quote over in my head, I came to the idea that, really, all us gifted people have mental gifted parents (as opposed to the biological ones) which we probably don't think about all that much. But what struck me was how Einstein was a gifted human being who went out on a limb and proposed something pretty wacko for the time. Worse, he wrote down his wackiness for the whole world to see. The thing is that while he wrote those things to benefit the world, really those writings were meant for another gifted person. A random set of gifted (mental) sons and daughters--a message in a bottle to them really--to help give them his thoughts so they could have some wacky thoughts of their own. Although he wrote things aimed at the general public, those wacky writings about physics were just aimed at those sons and daughters.
Other gifted people, whether or not they are aware of it, have their own set of (mental) gifted parents. But even more important, as you continue working on wacky stuff of your own, is to not only think about who your mental parents were but to realize that when your life is done, all your future mental gifted sons and daughters are depending on you to leave them something. Why should they have to reinvent it all over again. That would be boring. We gifted don't do boring.
And while I am being a bit loony myself, I will leave you with this idea. If you have biological sons and daughters, ask them this: "Who do you think your mental parents are and what will you leave for your gifted mental sons and daughters in the future? You are not going to make them miserably bored, are you?"
I got the idea for this post by reading another clever quote posted on twitter; a quote from Einstein. I really like his quotes, well, at least the ones I've seen. And while rolling his quote over in my head, I came to the idea that, really, all us gifted people have mental gifted parents (as opposed to the biological ones) which we probably don't think about all that much. But what struck me was how Einstein was a gifted human being who went out on a limb and proposed something pretty wacko for the time. Worse, he wrote down his wackiness for the whole world to see. The thing is that while he wrote those things to benefit the world, really those writings were meant for another gifted person. A random set of gifted (mental) sons and daughters--a message in a bottle to them really--to help give them his thoughts so they could have some wacky thoughts of their own. Although he wrote things aimed at the general public, those wacky writings about physics were just aimed at those sons and daughters.
Other gifted people, whether or not they are aware of it, have their own set of (mental) gifted parents. But even more important, as you continue working on wacky stuff of your own, is to not only think about who your mental parents were but to realize that when your life is done, all your future mental gifted sons and daughters are depending on you to leave them something. Why should they have to reinvent it all over again. That would be boring. We gifted don't do boring.
And while I am being a bit loony myself, I will leave you with this idea. If you have biological sons and daughters, ask them this: "Who do you think your mental parents are and what will you leave for your gifted mental sons and daughters in the future? You are not going to make them miserably bored, are you?"
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Repressed Memories and Writing
I was digging through my old junk yesterday and I came upon an old poem that I had written in 1978 and didn't remember ever having written. This poem would have been written during my early college days. Now you are probably sitting there thinking, gee, I have tons of old crap sitting in my garage, what's up with this guy. Well, give me a chance to explain.
You see, there are many transitions in life that can be somewhat traumatic. Leaving home and going to college, especially if you liked your home, can be especially traumatic. What that means is that you are transitioning to a time in your life where for several years, your environment maybe not be totally under your control, ever. Some people embrace this chaos and find it exhilarating. For some of us gifted people, what this means is that your emotional OE is going to be accosted nonstop. There is no place that you can withdraw into in absolute secure solitude to allow that OE to cool down a bit and your thoughts to withdraw to within yourself, totally oblivious of the world, for that full mind recharge. And it is oh so much more fun if at the time, you are gifted but don't know it.
In that case, it means you think you are friggin going nuts. It's like never sleeping and trying to walk about in the world with that lifestyle. Those hallucinations start to get to you. Likewise, not allowing your emotional OE to cool off and recharge, just causes some pretty strange, inexplicable things to happen to you. Your brain, in that case, starts to go into battle mode and, well, your intelligence goes down and down and down until you feel like you are some reactive creature that lives under a rock. Now if you are unaware you are gifted, never heard of an OE, the game becomes oh so much more fun. You feel like some stroke victim, where every day a little more of your brain, a little more of you, just simply dies. And as each bit of you goes, you struggle to reorganize your thinking and your life, to cope with what's left, never understanding why this is happening.
Unfortunately, as I now know, what's happening is that you are putting bits of you away to protect it. You break off another piece and throw it in the lock box. The trouble is that your mind isn't a computer. It's not like you can just break off the OE part of your mind. Everything, even things unrelated to what's going on, get stuffed in that box.
So now I will take you back to that dusty old poem I dug out, or another name for it, the lock box key. I picked up that poem and looked at it. I read it. I know I must have written this. But it sounds like someone else wrote it. I read it again. What is this saying? I can't hardly understand the words. I read again and again and again, trying to understand what it said. It evokes a feeling, I mean that is what a poem is supposed to do, give you a feeling and a picture in your mind. But this feeling was so weird. I don't think that's the feeling these words are supposed to invoke. I remember what is was like, writing at the beginning of college, before I put it down, thinking this is not what I am supposed to be doing. I'm having so much trouble focusing on my studies, my grades keep getting worse and worse to the point of being an extreme embarrassment to me -- I feel so stupid. I remember, I'm not sure I really wanted to.
After reading enough times, with that feeling of stupidity that I used to have, I finally felt like I had its meaning. I put the poem back in the folder, and quietly went back to editing on my book. I'm drowning in edits from the professional editor that need to get done. Where was my brain when I wrote this chapter. Okay, focus. Hmm, the editor says I need to write some more here, let me add some. What's there looks pretty brain dead. I don't know how many times I passed over this part editing it. I guess that is why you get a professional editor. I start to write the insertion. After some time, I stop and read back what I wrote. Who wrote this? It sounds so different to what I normally write. Wherever this is coming from, I like it. I want to keep writing like that!
I'm going to share my key now. I realize that it's no great literary work. But it is what it is, a simple key.
The Musician
Tedious tediocity as the vibrations of some
Lost thought glimmer upon the strings of
Perception, an image of the sender and of
Some receiver yet unseen.
A bondage they become with tomorrow, for
Ears do not acknowledge time, only meaning,
A meaning which gives flavor and color,
But leaves little texture upon the mind.
Intent, too, weaves through these vibrations,
Stopping short of recognition, awaiting other
Ripples to untangle its entwined character.
Its character is one of deception or one of
Belief, the seeker knowing of neither
Entanglement, only the patience in trying
To understand.
Intent will also have its patience, waiting
Secretly for the time of its becoming.
Tedious tediocity, the musician
Illuminates the medium of his woven
Spirit, sending the light of mind in glimmering
Vibration, realizing the thought forgotten in
The perception of his light.
©Copyright 1978 by Rusty Biesele, All Rights Reserved.
You see, there are many transitions in life that can be somewhat traumatic. Leaving home and going to college, especially if you liked your home, can be especially traumatic. What that means is that you are transitioning to a time in your life where for several years, your environment maybe not be totally under your control, ever. Some people embrace this chaos and find it exhilarating. For some of us gifted people, what this means is that your emotional OE is going to be accosted nonstop. There is no place that you can withdraw into in absolute secure solitude to allow that OE to cool down a bit and your thoughts to withdraw to within yourself, totally oblivious of the world, for that full mind recharge. And it is oh so much more fun if at the time, you are gifted but don't know it.
In that case, it means you think you are friggin going nuts. It's like never sleeping and trying to walk about in the world with that lifestyle. Those hallucinations start to get to you. Likewise, not allowing your emotional OE to cool off and recharge, just causes some pretty strange, inexplicable things to happen to you. Your brain, in that case, starts to go into battle mode and, well, your intelligence goes down and down and down until you feel like you are some reactive creature that lives under a rock. Now if you are unaware you are gifted, never heard of an OE, the game becomes oh so much more fun. You feel like some stroke victim, where every day a little more of your brain, a little more of you, just simply dies. And as each bit of you goes, you struggle to reorganize your thinking and your life, to cope with what's left, never understanding why this is happening.
Unfortunately, as I now know, what's happening is that you are putting bits of you away to protect it. You break off another piece and throw it in the lock box. The trouble is that your mind isn't a computer. It's not like you can just break off the OE part of your mind. Everything, even things unrelated to what's going on, get stuffed in that box.
So now I will take you back to that dusty old poem I dug out, or another name for it, the lock box key. I picked up that poem and looked at it. I read it. I know I must have written this. But it sounds like someone else wrote it. I read it again. What is this saying? I can't hardly understand the words. I read again and again and again, trying to understand what it said. It evokes a feeling, I mean that is what a poem is supposed to do, give you a feeling and a picture in your mind. But this feeling was so weird. I don't think that's the feeling these words are supposed to invoke. I remember what is was like, writing at the beginning of college, before I put it down, thinking this is not what I am supposed to be doing. I'm having so much trouble focusing on my studies, my grades keep getting worse and worse to the point of being an extreme embarrassment to me -- I feel so stupid. I remember, I'm not sure I really wanted to.
After reading enough times, with that feeling of stupidity that I used to have, I finally felt like I had its meaning. I put the poem back in the folder, and quietly went back to editing on my book. I'm drowning in edits from the professional editor that need to get done. Where was my brain when I wrote this chapter. Okay, focus. Hmm, the editor says I need to write some more here, let me add some. What's there looks pretty brain dead. I don't know how many times I passed over this part editing it. I guess that is why you get a professional editor. I start to write the insertion. After some time, I stop and read back what I wrote. Who wrote this? It sounds so different to what I normally write. Wherever this is coming from, I like it. I want to keep writing like that!
I'm going to share my key now. I realize that it's no great literary work. But it is what it is, a simple key.
The Musician
Tedious tediocity as the vibrations of some
Lost thought glimmer upon the strings of
Perception, an image of the sender and of
Some receiver yet unseen.
A bondage they become with tomorrow, for
Ears do not acknowledge time, only meaning,
A meaning which gives flavor and color,
But leaves little texture upon the mind.
Intent, too, weaves through these vibrations,
Stopping short of recognition, awaiting other
Ripples to untangle its entwined character.
Its character is one of deception or one of
Belief, the seeker knowing of neither
Entanglement, only the patience in trying
To understand.
Intent will also have its patience, waiting
Secretly for the time of its becoming.
Tedious tediocity, the musician
Illuminates the medium of his woven
Spirit, sending the light of mind in glimmering
Vibration, realizing the thought forgotten in
The perception of his light.
©Copyright 1978 by Rusty Biesele, All Rights Reserved.
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