#deerfield run

[theouterdark]

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! Let's talk divination! What are some ways people have tried to predict the future? Are any of them effective? What's people's general opinion on it? Are any groups violently opposed, and if so, why? Can anyone do it or does it take something special?

OH BOY.

In the world of Topiary Black and Deerfield Run, future sight has been attempted, in a form, by all manner of corporations, ambitious (if eccentric) individuals, and selfish hobbyists. Then, in a concrete-lined basement in the Pacific Northwest, a 53-year-old-ocularist named Artur Belinsky collided some particles and accidentally created the God Machine.

When it inevitably leaked, because nothing that knows everything could keep anything from anyone forever, every pocket of every culture cried out in discordant tones. Governments tried to gain access so they could restrict access. Anthroposophists theorized about the existence of the akashic records. Philosophers struggled over the mind-bending implications of a real-life Library of Babel. Cults of opinion on social media churned into armed protests on the steps of every institution (secular and otherwise), waving signs that read: UNPLUG. They tweeted it to all their twitters. The Vatican dispatched investigators to validate this “God Machine” as either blasphemy or miracle (though the paperwork was already filled out for the former before boots hit the soil in Pacifica).

See, there’s a problem with a machine that knows everything. Where do you point it? What if it doesn’t want to listen?

Tagging: @saccharinemornings, @erin-writes-stuff, @midnightstreetwanderings, @byjillianmaria, @doux-ciel, @hilunawrites, @ghost-possum, @zmlorenz, @doubleviewfinder, @els-writes, @dantedevereaux, @tlbodine, @hypotheticalwriterquestions, @hazeywrites, @reeseweston, @dotr-rose-love, @katabasiss, and @quilloftheclouds. (Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from tags future tags).

D

[theouterdark]

Hello! It's World Building Wednesday, so I felt like asking a bit about the world of Topiary Black. Is there anything you can share about the world in which it takes place? It could be how it looks like, or if this is too much info, you can say if it's part of our world as we know it or not, or what inspired you create it. ^^

I’m not prepared to fully answer that at this time, but here’s an excerpt from Topiary Black that may hopefully tickle your worldbuilding curiosities:

No one wanders into the barrens where once we grew corn and wheat, and the suburban sprawl stretched from one horizon to the next. Excepting the runners. No sensible souls cross the cordons, anyhow. There’s a quiet out there. You can hear it in the steady weaving of trumpet vines up the siding of a hundred empty houses. In the patter of windswept leaves across deserted baseball diamonds, bursting with wild grass and sunken with cottontail warrens. It’s the quiet of the steady progression of nature, reclaiming order from chaos. It’s the sound of humanity in retrograde.

And—there’s something else. The runners say it’s old. They say it’s been sleeping, alone out there, before all the clapboards and eaves of our derelict homes went to rot. Before the trees so kindly fell before the axes of the men who built them. Before any of them sprouted, they say. When night falls, and the antediluvian dark smothers the barrens, they say you can hear it in the quiet of Pacifica. The hum. The stirring of a primordial mind beginning to wake.

Tagging: @saccharinemornings, @erin-writes-stuff, @midnightstreetwanderings, @byjillianmaria, @doux-ciel, @hilunawrites, @ghost-possum, @zmlorenz, @doubleviewfinder, @els-writes, @dantedevereaux, @tlbodine, @hypotheticalwriterquestions, @hazeywrites, @reeseweston, @dotr-rose-love, @katabasiss, and @quilloftheclouds. (Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from tags future tags).

D

[theouterdark]

Tag: WIP Name Game

Thanks @zmlorenz for the tag. This’ll be fun. Several unannounced WIPs here.

Rules: List your WIPs and explain how you came up with their names. If your WIP is unnamed, what are you thinking of calling it? Then tag some people.

Coldwater Sound: I don’t recall developing the title, it came about organically. I knew a sound would be a key geographical feature in the story, and I needed another word to pair with it that would fit the tone, so I went with Coldwater.

The Devil from the Outer Dark: This one is inspired by the entity within the book as well as the larger universe featured in the series. This one went through a few different iterations, including Shadow from the Outer Dark, The Shade from the Outer Dark, And When the Sky Was Opened, and The Black Paintings.

Space Pan: Ian  (@doubleviewfinder, and co-creator of Space Pan) and I needed a hobby to distract us in our Intro to Editing class since we tested out on day one. So we were messing around with 3D space effects/CGI and the only 3D model he had on his computer was a frying pan so we literally just put a frying pan in space and called it Space Pan. Very straight-forward.

Topiary Black: This one just kind of happened. It captures the vibe I’m going for of a cyberpunk thriller. Black is a play on white-hat/black-hat hackers, and topiary is just a great sounding word. Possibly for a handle.

Deerfield Run: A location-based title for a contemporary thriller based on where I grew up.

Gates of Sleep: Based on the literary image of gates of horn and ivory, involving dreams/reality. It’s the current tentative title for the third Blake Livingston Mystery.

Cracks Always There: Another Blake Livingston Mystery, based on her fractured psyche and glimpses into the horrific truths of the worlds apart from hers.

Deadbulbs: A relic from 2007 when I made an experimental film of the same name, involving a character who could see the afterlife merged over our own. Young me thought it was clever but it’s taken on a new meaning and is turning into a real story now.

Islands Disappear: Music is a big source of inspiration to me. This one is based on a Said the Whale song of the same name, and is a sort of loose follow-up idea to Coldwater Sound involving Kenny Deegan, but it hasn’t gone further than initial brainstorming.

There are a few others, but I think this is a good place to leave it since half of these projects have yet to be announced.

I’ll tag @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz, @erinisawriter, @sassypandacandy, @els-writes, and @midnightstreetwanderings. Participate if you’d like!

D