The Hazardous Precept

There was a loud crack near me. It sounded somewhat distant, but that was deceiving. You see at some time in the last month or so, I actually got to see time catching up with me. Time was this translucent wall of waviness, like a sheet of heated air compressed and moving with its own intent. Time thought I wasn't watching but I was. I attempted to do my 45th low squat at the urgings of a sadistically polite digital trainer. As the proxy trainer encouraged me to put my ass lower to the ground like some form of hideous wobbly crab man, I looked to my left and observed. Time washed over me with an unpleasant warmth, the world went sideways for a second and I saw myself from above. Apparently, the cinematographer of my life had picked just that moment to adjust perspectives. Instead of the tight "POV" lens I usually experienced my world through, I was suddenly looking down from a crane shot, the lighting muted by a Vaseline effect. The man I saw looked nothing like

So this is day one on the resurrected Blogger version of the Hazardous Precept. Overall a bit of a bummer day - ended up spending 2k on car repairs - which is enough to cripple us financially till the end of the month. (Getting paid 1x per month sucks sometimes...) On the creative front I had a bit of a strike out as far as recruiting players for a Tuesday night game session. I think I might just go out and try and find a new group. Be a player not a storyteller and recharge my batteries. I need to step away from the dynamics of my past groups a bit and hopefully rekindle the passion I have for the hobby. Writing wise I'm still at a standstill. Not really doing any active work aside from the monthly Columbus Parent gig. I have plenty of seeds planted here on the blog, but I have not gotten a lot of feedback so far, so I'm not sure which of them are worth diving into. I'm not prepared to do a lot until some other things in my personal and professional life settle down so

Life and stress and having 20 million priorities are all factors, but I wanted to spark some of my creativity. I've been using Livejournal over the last few years for personal and creative blogging but I think it's time to just shrink down to one blog I fail to regularly maintain.. and guess what.. Google wins! Over the course of the next few days I will be transferring some of my work from ssines.livejournal.com over to this blog and I'll be maintaining the site on livejournal for contact with other friends however I expect to only be updating this site long term.

Here's the revision of the opening section of the Spark. Still tuning a bit.. I took time to try and normalize the perspective and cut out a lot of the background info that wasn't key to building the scene through dialog and action. I'd appreciate comment. ----------------------------------------------- The Spark - Chapter 1  Lt. Commander Jessie Marshal, recently appointed ships navigator of the UCS William Argyle , enjoyed her typical pastime of counting the blinking lights on the countless instrument panels of the bridge. Three days to real-space. They’d been traveling uneventfully for two months now. Two months of nothing to do. Two months of boredom and malaise. Empty hours mostly spent reading technical reports and familiarizing herself with their destination. Often, she found herself lamenting the lack of creature comforts aboard the ship compared to her usual place driving a desk at the Confederate Exploration Institute. Another light blinked o

Here is the second part revised - from here it'll all be new work. ------- Valana wasn’t happy. Nothing was executed according to her experience and no one seemed to want to listen. Preparations for departure had slowed to a crawl and with the third moon rising she knew it would not be too long before the council of riftmakers insisted on delaying the expedition. Storming boldly down the long expanse of Lady Almanthia’s meeting-house, she caught glimpses of servants skittering into the nooks and corners at her approach. The crystalline walls of the dwelling refracted the dusk light and gave the normally cool blue glow a startling red-green hue. Normally, she would have sent one of her officers to deal with this. They could easily ferry a message or otherwise handle the bureaucratic aspects of the trip, but something told her the Admistrati were up to something and she couldn't trust a subordinate to handle it. Sweat ran gently down her obsidian skin. Desp