Five Random Thoughts on a November Afternoon

There wasn't much to report on my current project, "Tom Swiftly", so I decided to contemplate a few more ideas I've bounced around recently.

Lincoln Quotes

While Abraham Lincoln did contribute more than his share of important quotes to posterity, many quotes you see attributed to him on the Internet are simply made up. Often that is done with the intent of adding credibility to a questionable idea.

When I first noticed this tendency, I thought that the primary reason for misquotes was that people would remember a quote from someone is the 1800s, but forget who said it. Since Lincoln was someone they did remember, they would give him the credit. I thought of that as "The Lincoln effect" and I wondered if it was common with other famous people.

At one time I thought of using a made up Lincoln quote to promote my work. Something like: "James Morison is one of the most creative people on the Internet and you should support him with a donation." I felt a bit guilty about making such a bold statement, so I decided to add in a qualifier: "Lincoln really did say this, albeit the words were not in the same order and he didn't say them all at the same time." I know that Internet  is a bit of stretch, but I'm sure he used both "inter" and "net".

Thoughtless Tank

About six years ago I came across a number of small think tanks in the course of my work. In reality they were one person operations. I wouldn't really consider a one person organization a think tank, but it made me wonder if I could set up my own think tank.

I never did, but the idea I developed was to create a "Thoughtless Tank". It would be a satire of some of the low value think tanks that vie for our attention. I think there is a lot of very superficial work done by some of these think tanks. I never developed the concept any further than that. Maybe if I had come up with a good name for it, I would have moved forward.

I want peace, justice and prosperity for everyone in the world, but can't find them anywhere on Amazon

I really mean this. If you can find them on Amazon, please let me know. I just hope they are cheap enough for my budget.

The secret cabal running the world isn't doing a very good job. Maybe it is time that they step aside and let another secret cabal try.

Many conspiracy theories posit the existence of a secret group that runs the World's affairs. What struck me about this theory is that if there is a secret group is running things, they don't seem to be doing a very good job. Even if you assume they are totally in it for their own aggrandizement, they don't seem to be doing that well for themselves.

Some people assume that the secret cabal is evil. I think Hanlon's razor is a better explanation: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

If this secret cabal does exist, it should seriously consider turning things over to another secret cabal who can do a better job.

If aliens visited earth in ancient times, where are they now?

This is one of the things I've thought about the ancient astronaut theory. While it is a plausible hypothesis that alien beings visited Earth in the past, I haven't heard of anything that doesn't have a more plausible explanation. Namely, people in ancient times were just as smart as we are now.

I know some people will say that they are still here, but hiding. I suppose that is possible, but if that were the case, then why were they so open in ancient times?

Maybe this idea could be the basis for a story. These are some of the questions we could ask when we develop such a story:

-       Did they leave?

-       Why did they leave?

-       Where did they go?

-       When did they go?

-       How long did they stay?

-       Did they die out?

-       What killed them?

-       How long were they here?

-       Did they hide?

-       Where did they hide?

-       Why did they hide?

-       Why did they come here in the first place?

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

"Tom Swiftly" and Puns: The Bad and the Lame

I completed the second draft of "Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model". It is an improvement, but there is a problem I haven't decided how to deal with yet.

I'm not sure if Tom Swiftlys are considered puns or not, but I would lump the two together. They are both words at play. As it stands, most lines of the story are either a Tom Swiftly or a pun. Maybe that is a bit of over kill.

The problem I have is that in order to have the story follow a plot, I needed to create some new Tom Swiftlys. I was fortunate in that I was able to find a fair number of pre-existing Tom Swiftlys I could repurpose. However, many of the ones I created were not of the same quality.

Now, bad Tom Swiftlys and bad puns are often what you want. They both provoke the groans that the punster desires. While some of my Tom Swiftlys are bad, many might be better described as lame. I fear that they cannot elicit the groan I aim for. I don't want readers to think "that's awful" and really mean it.

The dilemma for me is what I do about them.

·         I could simply remove the Tom Swiftly and leave the sentence as a straight line to move the story forward. My goal with this story was be to have every sentence be a Tom Swiftly or a pun. I am reluctant to lose too many Tom Swiftlys, even if they are lame.

·         I could just leave them as they are, publish and hope that the readers will accept the occasional clunker. While this keeps up my Tom Swiftly count, I worry that too many clunkers will disappoint readers and drive them away.

·         I could take my time to develop bad Tom Swiftlys to replace the lame ones. When I did the second draft, I was able to eliminate replace some of the lame Tom Swiftlys with bad Tom Swiftlys. This would be the best option,  but would may take a long time and many rewrites before I can publish.

I am not sure how reliable my judgement is when I decide if a Tom Swiftly is bad or lame. Maybe the ones I worry about will work, and the ones I think are bad are really lame.

What I lean toward now is to publish and have readers tell me which are bad and which are lame. Since it is all on-line, I can always do a release 1.1 or 1.2 to address the lameness problem.

I should end this post with a bad Tom Swiftly, but I wasn't able to come up with one.

Note: I wasn't sure the proper way to pluralize Tom Swiftly. In the end I decided to use Tom Swiftlys rather than Tom Swiftlies. Maybe someone who knows for sure can give me some advice.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

5 Unrelated Thoughts Masquerading as an Article

Like most people who think of themselves as creative, I write notes about the ideas I have. I pulled together a few of these ideas to discuss.

My ideas list isn't well organized and I am always surprised by what I find written on the backs of envelopes. Some times it is hard to tell if it was my own idea, or something I read and forgot to attribute when I wrote it down. I usually do that, but I sometimes forget.

I wonder what other people think about these ideas.

Where Do You See Yourself in 3 Millennia?

This is a very recent idea. I'm not sure exactly how it came about, but I think it was the juxtaposition of something I saw about job interviews with something I saw about ancient history.

The line suggests to me the title of a Science Fiction story. A common theme of SF is the idea of life extension. Will we be able to live for hundreds or thousands of years. What would that life be like?

Many people find it a struggle to imagine where they would see themselves in 10 or 20 years. Some people can't imagine where they want to be this afternoon. How can people imagine what they want to be in a thousand or three thousand years.

Clue Deficit Syndrome (CDS)

I thought this was a nicer way to say some one was clueless. While I occasionally feel this way about some people, I think it really isn't a good thing to do. All of us, at one time or another, think we understand things better than we actually do.

Fact Resistant Decision Making

This is similar to CDS, but I think it is a more valid criticism, since it involves a conscience effort to reject valid information. Many times in my life I have been very angry with people who are too quick to dismiss relevant information, or even avoid possible exposure to anything that might conflict with the decision they want to make.

I've fallen into this kind of behaviour more than once. Every time I did, I ended up regretting the decision. Often your emotions are in conflict with your intellectual side. While some people say "go with your heart", when you reject your own analysis, you may find yourself further from achieving what your heart desires.

I think this might be an idea I picked up somewhere else, but I think the wording is my own.

Happy "Excuse To Be Nice" Day

This is a more positive thought than the two above. When I went through a difficult period in my life I made a vow to find an excuse to be happy every day, even if it were for only a few seconds. That was a big help to me.

Later I ruminated on how people will wish people a happy birthday. Why, I thought, don't we do that every day. No one really needs an excuse to be nice, but maybe if there were an "Excuse To Be Nice" Day, more people would be nice.

I think we can pretend that every day is "Excuse To Be Nice" Day.

Confidence in Uncertainty

A couple of the classes I took for my master's degree focussed on operational research. The title of a chapter in one of the text books was something like "Decision Making Under Uncertainty". Throughout my engineering career I found that the biggest technical obstacle was always uncertainty.

For most people, uncertainty is something that undermines confidence. As my thoughts matured I began to feel that I should try to see uncertainty was something that would give confidence.

It may not be a very realistic goal, but the fact is, you need to make decisions when you don't know everything that could affect your decision. This uncertainty can cause you to hesitate to decide, or even never decide.

The best approach I was able to come up with was to make your decisions with the clear understanding that they could be wrong. Then, you watch how the world unfolds. In time, it will often become obvious if you made the right decision. If you make the wrong decision, you may be able to change your decision, or mitigate the effects of the wrong decision.

I found many people were very uncomfortable with this view of reality.

When I started to write this blog post, I believed that these ideas were all unrelated to each other. After I reread what I wrote, I think they may have more in common that I thought.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

First Draft of "Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" Done

I surprised myself this week. I actually finished the first draft of "Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" just like I said I would.

It came in at just a bit over 2,000 words. That makes it one of my non-formulaic short stories. That could change after a few more drafts.

Most lines are either  a Tom Swiftly or a pun. I want to have another go at the non-pun lines and see if I can bring them into line. Some of the puns and Tom Swiftlies are pretty bad, so I want to see if I can come up with improvements there.

I don't normally make much use of a thesaurus in my writing, but this time I used it quite a lot. A short time ago I saw an interview with John Cleese where he talked about how they wrote the Parrot Sketch. He said they used a thesaurus for that one, so I was inspired to try it on this story.

I am worried that I may have overdone the Tom Swiftlies. I think I have more than 200 now. Most of the time, when people read Tom Swiftlies, they only do a dozen or so at a time. Will people burn out after a hundred or so?

One article I read about comedy writing recommended that you write a good story first, then go back and make it funny. I tried to do that with this story. It has some similarities to "The Barrier". As it stands, the story is kind of thin, but I think it is enough of a story to make the humour work. I'm sure people will be more than happy to correct my impression.

See "The Barrier" at: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Swift Progress

I made some progress on my short story: "Tom Swiftly and his Incredible Traffic Model". I broke it up into seven sections and I have four done now. I might get a first draft done next week, although it looks like it will be busy. There were a few lines I wasn't happy with, but I decided to skip past them for now. I'll try to fix them in the rewrite.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

A New (Old) Transportation Planning Story

About 20 years ago I got an idea for a story about transportation planning. I've started and abandoned it several times. I think I'm finally on a track to get it done.

The initial inspiration for the story came from the book "The Wealthy Barber" by David Chilton. After several attempts, the story I have in mind now bears little resemblance to that book. I did use some of the ideas I developed in my movie "The Barrier".

The "story" will consist mainly of (hopefully) funny one liners. The plot is pretty rudimentary. There in lies the problem. With out a decent story line, it is very hard to place the jokes in any kind of order.

I read an article once about how to write comedy. The writer said that you write an interesting story, and only then do you go back and make it funny. I didn't do it that way, and I see now why that approach makes sense.

I developed the current approach back in 2010. While I generated a lot of one liners, I wasn't able to cobble them together. Last August I took a step back and developed a proper outline for the story. I still found it difficult to move forward with. It just seemed too intimidating.

This week I took another stab at it. I decided that I would break up the story into smaller sections and then work on each section one at a time. I thought that would make it less intimidating.

I got the first section done. After an initial slow start, it started to flow a bit easier. It could use some cleaning up, but over all I'm satisfied with it. I intended to move on to the next section right away, but then I got distracted by other things.

I'll try to get back on top of it next week.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

More Thoughts on "The Disruptors": Characters, Relationships, Terrorism, False Flags and Art

I haven't done much on my "The Disruptors" story idea for a while. This week I had a few ideas on how to overcome some of barriers I face.

Characters and Their Relationships

One mistake I've made with some of the stories I've worked on was not to put enough thought into the characters and their relationships. This is something I've been aware of for some time, but It has risen up in my consciousness in the last few weeks.

I think the work I did on my Doc Savage story, "The 89th Key" helped me realize that.  (see http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/).

What drove it home for me this week, was a comment in an interview about the Doc Savage convention. http://blogs.evtrib.com/nerdvana/comics/get-your-doc-savage-on-at-doc-con/107605/. Jay Ryan, one of the event’s original organizers, says that what attracted to him to the stories was that the stories, while adventure stories, were really about the characters and their friendship.

When I wrote my Doc Savage story, I found it much easier to write than many of my other stories, because the characters helped write the story. I hadn't thought of the characters in these stories as having much depth or reality. In some ways they are superficial. Never the less, they are distinct characters whose behaviour is predictable and consistent.

What is more important, as Jay Ryan points out in his interview, it is the relationships between the characters that make the story come alive. While I have tried to create characters for my stories, I usually make no effort to develop the relationships between the characters.

With my "The Disruptors" story idea, the plot I started to sketch out doesn't give much opportunity for relationships between the characters. I'm a little unsure about how I fix that. My initial feeling is that I should develop the characters and their relationships before I try to develop a plot.

Terrorism, False Flags and Performance Art

In my story, the protagonists' primary objective is to disrupt terrorist groups. I've struggled with just how the would do that. I know there are techniques to influence people to change their views, but I have trouble understanding them well enough to depict them in a way that makes a good story.

I've read several articles that ask the question: Does terrorism work?" Here's one of them: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/does-terrorism-work/394028/

The bottom line is that terrorism rarely, if ever, a successful tactic. This must be apparent to the terrorists; so why do they take this route? As I see it, terrorism is an act of desperation. It is the only tool a small group, with no broad support, have available. Small is a relative measure; a thousand terrorists is a big group, but on the world stage, that is a very small group.

Many conspiracy theorists claim that some terrorist attacks are "false flag" operations by the secret government to manipulate the population. I feel that terrorism is, in essence, always a false flag operation. Since these are small groups with little support, their objective is to appear to be larger, more effective and have broader support than they actually have.

In this view, terrorism is a kind of performance art. The objective is to provoke a response. They need to have their enemy over react to their threat. If the dominant power does what the terrorists want, they will attack the broader group the terrorists claim to represent and drive them to side with the terrorists. This, they hope, will eventually allow them to adopt tactics that are effective.

How does this help me develop the methods that my protagonists need to disrupt the terrorists? The most obvious objective would be to convince the terrorists that terrorism is unlikely to help them achieve their goals. I think it doesn't make sense to try to get them to give up their goals. Rather, we want them to find less violent ways they can work toward their goals. If their goals have broad appeal, they may succeed. If not, they won't.


I think these ideas are very helpful to me. There still remains a lot of effort to convert them into a workable basis for the stories. That is still intimidating.



This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog