Learn

Compare this learning to school learning. #thatisall

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

--Reblogged from http://willrichardson.com/

Twitter Dialogue Blog Hop

Juliana's hosting the Twitter Dialogue Blog Hop this week.

It sounded like too much fun to miss.

The requirements:

1. Write a scene using only dialogue...
2. The dialogue must be Twitter style (140 characters).

A great exercise in word economy, so here's mine! A scene (sort of) out of my ghost story WIP.

Steps:
1. Start with a theme: A seemingly tidy case behind them, Emily and Tad are en route (by car) to report.
2. Add characters: @RangerEm (girl) @BeaslySight (guy) @Garrett (girl)
3. And have fun!

@RangerEm: Cling much? I might have super strength, but I still bruise. Jeez.
@BeaslySight: Can we not do this again?
@RangerEm: Don't tell me you didn't love picking that lock.
@BeaslySight: We should've told @Garrett. She could've--
@RangerEm: Renting the dive gear would've been a waste of money. Tonight was a no-show anyway.
@BeaslySight: Actually not so much.
@RangerEm: What'd you mean?
@BeaslySight: I think the Vagari was there the whole time. Watching you.
@RangerEm: Yeah, right. I would've felt it. Rangers aren't totally blind. Just cause you're my Sight, doesn't mean...
@BeaslySight: Em, listen. *I* couldn't See you. About six feet underwater, and you could've been dead. And I was stuck up there on the pier.
@RangerEm: ...
@BeaslySight: I couldn't *See* you, Emily.
@RangerEm: ...You never use my name.
@BeaslySight: I think someone put a glamour on him--on me. I think the Vagari was there.
@RangerEm: Then why didn't it kill me...? I was drifting. Oh God, Tad. I was drifting!
@BeaslySight: Like a baby in her fucking bathwater.
@RangerEm: Um, mixed metaphors much? ... But seriously, why didn't it--
@BeaslySight: possess you? eat you for a midnight snack? ... Maybe it needs you alive.
@RangerEm: Oookay *shiver* Off the record, I like it better when your eyes are green. Icy blue is just *shiver*
@BeaslySight: And how would you go kicking Vagari ass without me, SkitSkat?
@RangerEm: (So Emily "Em" Mars was M&M for a while, until Tad discovered my more rainbow fruity weakness. Thus, Skittles.)
@BeaslySight: Green's the color of the blind.
@RangerEm: *whispers* Maybe your eyes should stay green then. This is getting too dangerous. Tad--
@BeaslySight: We're in this together, Skittles.You missed the driveway. *crunch*
@RangerEm: Crap. @Garrett loved that gardenia.
@BeaslySight: Squoosh. *grins*
@RangerEm: Rub it in, jeez. Come on. Let's go report. And Tad...
@BeaslySight: What's up?
@RangerEm: ... Nothing.

One Book to Rule Them All

Last night, the world ended.

In my dream, the few of us remaining would be Noah's Arking it on a starship, destination: unknown.

I was allowed to bring one book. And if I didn't choose fast enough, they'd leave me behind.

How in the hell was I supposed to choose???

This wasn't a standard desert island scenario. We were trying to preserve not only our own species and any others we could herd along with us, two-by-two, but also the world as we'd known it before it ended. Which "mirror for reality" would do? Which would speak to the enormity of what had been?

I woke up, hands outstretched and hovering above me, as if my fingers were still fumbling at the bookshelf.

***

Which book would you choose?

UPDATE:

...After talking with writer friend Kai Sunday morning, we decided this scenario requires teamwork. We'd each pick different books so the Ark would have something of a library. Whew. Now I think I can choose: I'd pick Orson Scott Card's Xenocide. 

Photo courtesy of http://images.google.com

Beyond On Love

Spoiler alert:

I just finished watching the final season of Angel.

Like two seconds ago.

Probably shouldn't be blogging now.

"Drink alcohol,"

they told me.

"It helps."

I won't offer analysis.

not on the ending,

or on plots that get out of control,

not on Big Bads that are really minions for even Bigger Bads --

and how annoying this is for an invested audience/reader --

not on the killing off of characters

or comic relief,

or on good and evil,

on free will,

fighting the good fight,

on champions and heroes, love and hope,

or whether, indeed,

there is "nothing in this world but grief." 

It had to end this way, didn't it?

I will say, there's something about love. Beyond romance (or bromance), beyond friendship or kinship or duty . . . That's what I'm left thinking about, as I watch them each die in my mind's eye, finishing off the story. How much they loved each other.

Such a sap, I know. Hope I'm not the only one. . . .

But oh how I want this. This kind of love in life. And if not in life, in art. Maybe it's a Joss Whedon thing. I think Firefly might do it too. Buffy sure does. Makes hell worth living in, worth loving in. And those stakes skyrocket, don't they? Makes the fight worth the dying.

It's why I read. Why I watch shows like this.

And you?