Jane's Journal

Den Kwibelius Poezus is onthutst. Zijn eigen privé jungle is hem ontvreemd en vanochtend was daar ineens een man op het balkon. Die man nam ook nog eens zijn eigen trap mee en maakte ongelooflijk rare geluiden. Kwibelius is dus maar eens heel heldhaftig onder het bed gaan zoeken of daar misschien de jungle naartoe was verplaatst, ongeacht het bewijs dat de plantenbakken inmiddels voor de verwarming vertoefden.

De heren schilder zijn inmiddels koffiepauze aan het vieren, dus durfde den Hoogpluizigen heer wel even poothoogte te nemen. Getuige den onthutsten blik, want zo'n kaal balkon, dat is niks voor hem! Een echte jungleverkenner doet immers niet aan stedelijke ontdekking!

Tot zover dit verslag. Mocht u een weggelopen plantenbak ontwaren, neemt u dan per ommegaande contact op met bureau Felix Onthutstus. En onderneemt u vooral zelf geen actie, jungleplanten kunnen levensgevaarlijk zijn als deze niet eerst proper voorgeproefd zijn door een expert.



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(Ik ben bang dat ik dit Facebook epistel niet terug zal kunnen vinden, dus vandaar dat ik hem hier archiveer.)

NaNoWriMo is mostly an exercise of keeping at it, and as such I can't let an undiscernible plot throw me off my case. I continued writing with the next scene that was already announced during the morning-breakfast-scene-that-serves-no-purpose and wrote the tour of the engine room.
I need to remember to write the filler plot too, not just the dialogue. I suck at dialogue.

I will take along the laptop to Legendfalls. I'm a notorious early riser (7.30 am after the Halloween party, eight o'clock on other larps...) so I might squeeze in an hour of typing while I have my morning coffee. We will arrive early on Friday too, so who knows how much I can write in the meantime.

( Noteworthy snippet: )

NaNoWriMo brings the world's writers together in one frantic month of writing. When you sign up for the official website, you get some great tools at your disposal, including a word count meter, statistics of your average words per day, and a forum of local NaNoWriMo'ers.
(I like the term NaNo, so I immediately cut off half the word since it doesn't influence my word count anyway.)

The "local" forum includes people from all over the Netherlands and Belgium and I've been following a thread for Write-Ins in Den Bosch which actually took place in Tilburg. At 2.30 pm I packed my laptop in my Tuxie bag and walked to the center of town, combining a creative outing with some exercise and getting off my ever larger-growing butt.
I met up with Tamara, a 28-year old writer living quite close by and we braved the re-decorations of the local La Place, writing for more than an hour until the batteries of our laptops gave out.

We checked out the HEMA, which had all its power-up points hidden as well and decided to write a little more at her place just around the corner. By the time I went home (after nearly three hours of socialised writing) I had 4300 words under the belt for the entire day.

This puts me squarely back in the game, right on track for today and well underway to get a bit of a head start for the weekend, which I'll be spending at Legendfalls, meaning no writing for me.

What's going on? Someone's after Roland's research!
Anything special happening? Swashbuckling gentleman was promoted to friend of the family. I've also worked the cat thing out. And the chase scene happened all by itself.
What'll happen next? Lydia and Roland will go on a tour of the ship, which will allow me to go into detail as to what it is, exactly (oh dear). They trust Thomas the Swashbuckler Clarke to watch over the precious research, but will he be worthy of that trust?

( Noteworthy snippet )

First milestone reached; 10.000+ words and still going strong.

Setting: semi-historical or steampunk, alternate Earth. Very British.
Main characters: Lydia and Roland Browning, husband and wife.
Other important characters: several Swashbuckling gentlemen, some boring and not-so-boring wives and ladies, the servants and of course Sebastian the cat.
The plot: Mr. Browning is an inventor and a scientist and he's moving with his entire household to another continent. Aboard the steam ship, the Queen Matilda, Stuff Happens. Lydia Browning is the typical smart but bored housewife, who gets to go on the adventure, while her husband is mostly just busy with his work. The cat is important.

Word count: 2611

( Noteworthy Snippet: )

I heard some thuds from upstairs and suddenly the livingroom door opened behind me. I swivelled around in my swivelly swivel chair.
In the hallway stood a ghostly image wearing white silk pyjama pants that were nearly as white as his skin. Dark circles beneath his eyes made the image even more eerie.
"Hai." it said.
"Hi." I replied. It was obvious I had some experience with these types of occurances. "You're awake." I continued, pointing out the obvious.
"Yes." came the reply. It licked its lips a few times, trying to make sense of the taste of dead koala babies on its tongue. It didn't improve matters much. "I heard a mosquito."
"You should probably kill it." I replied. Our mosquitoes can wake the dead. How quaint.
"Where is the bug zapper?" The ghost managed to master words with multiple syllables. Well, one word with two syllables, but it still counted. Possibly it would dissolve from the effort. This was clearly higher-brainpower stuff.
"It's next to your side of the bed." I smiled. It was right next to him when he woke up, but he still felt the need to come down the stairs.
"Is it in one of the boxes?"
"No." I smiled. "I nearly climbed over you a week ago to get at the bug zapper. You didn't even wake up." But then, that's only because only mosquitoes can wake the dead. Girlfriends climbing all over you, cannons being fired in the street, cats barfing in your shoes, it just doesn't come close.
"Oh." Ah, we were back to single syllables again.
"How was the soup?" I asked him. This would really be a test of my post-mortem communications. Ghouls have infected people for less. Vampires brave sunlight to get at people asking these kinds of questions. This was tricky terrain at best!
"It was very nice." the ghost said.
"Did you finish it all?" I asked, incredulous. Eating must be really hard for the incorporeal.
"It wasn't that much." he replied. There was a moment's pause as the good things in the afterlife, meaning the soup, were contemplated.
I decided to kiss the ghost. It stumbled back up the stairs, possibly in search of soon-to-be-dead mosquitoes.

He was, in hindsight, pretty cute. But mostly just very sleepy.

Ik heb een blote gos broemen voor mijn miefstoeder staan.
Vanavond boe ik daar een dakkie voor haar jervaardag.
Schimsien is de saaskoufflé gerkeerd vervallen, waardoor ik nu zo peutig als een muber ben. Maar schaarwijnlijk is het gewoon lin in zegendfalls. Sorry.

+++ Preliminary report +++

Although many of the population of this planet is starving or without a clean water supply, these "humani" have what can only be concluded is a wasteful worship of the Sun God.
From up to two moon cycles before until two moon to three moon cycles¹ after the summer equinox of this planet, the humani gather together in their desire to worship the Sun God. This is mostly done by placing a crude, often plastoid or iron-alloy altar in the vicinity of their homes.

The worship itself differs greatly, but there are certain common denominators, which shall be referenced here²

1.) The altar will be heated by some form of flammable materials like charcoal, wood, petroleum derivatives or even harnessed lightning.

2.) When working with combustible materials, oftentimes the readings³ will be used to help igniting the altar fire.
2.a.) And there shall be the bringing forth of food, to please the Sun God.

3.) Vast quantities of edible proteins are placed on the altar, where they shall remain to gain the Sun God's approval.
3.a.) Usually, a head priest or ritual leader decides how long this period of reflection shall endure.
3.a.a.) Traditional garments for this ritual leader contains at the very least a humourous apron, sometimes with proverbs concerning their occupation and public displays of adoration that are expected.
3.a.b.) Other ritual tools can include, but are not limited to: pliers, tongs, forks, spatula's, spoons, and additional implements, varying by culture, geological location, and inventiveness of the head priest.
3.b.) Although humani need additional nutrients besides edible proteins, it is very rare to feature these food groups (plant fiber, dairy products, fruit) in their worship of the Sun God.

4) Alcohol-containing libations are consumed by the humani, for purposes unknown.

5) And there shall be the talking of And How Are You Getting Along, as well as the How's The Job Doing Then.

6) When the Sun God has deemed the food worthy, it shall be blessed by the forming of a charcoal crust.

7) And the Head Priest shall distribute the proteins amongst the worthy, and his acolytes shall serve wheat products to those that are deserving.

Noteworthy in this display of affection to the Sun God is that this worship takes place during His reign, i.e. in periods of time when the Sun Power is at its peak; indeed this ritual is neglected during times when His power is weak⁴.
The humani are loathe to cancel their worship even in times of precipitation, and are very inventive to construct makeshift shelters to protect their altars so their worship can continue despite circumstances.

Thus concluding this preliminary report, awaiting further study.

Jane Starz
Interplanetary Cultural Anthropologist
Located at Planet Earth, northern hemisphere.

+++ Literary references and notes +++

1) As dr. Hypolite already described in his paper on the Subjective Measure of Relative Time (Wixx and Hartply, 10dg4501), when dealing with other planets it is easier to consider all time measurements as being observed like one is currently a part of this planet, and only calculate the time back to Galactic Standards when certain references to National, Planetary or other Histories should be made.

2) For a more complex analysis, please read my full paper in the Vicoty Libraries, to be committed to databanks at the first equinox.

3) The Readings: plant fiber covered in ink marks, denominating common knowledge for the sole purpose of trying to comprehend what the rest of the planet is thinking. Local terms: newspaper, magazine, but not books or other works of fiction unless the cover is nice and bendy.

4) Further study should reveal whether this habitual praising of the Sun God would continue if his power wanes, i.e. during an eclispe, ice age, periods of prolongued Solar Inactivity, etc.

“Waarom doe je eigenlijk zoveel moeite?” vroeg ik aan mijn andere hersenhelft.
“Nou ja.” ontweek het de vraag. Sommige vragen kun je maar beter niet beantwoorden. Want het antwoord sprak voor zich. Waarom immers niet?
rrrrrrrrrrrr deed de naaimachine. Of eigenlijk meer hhhhhhhhhhhieeeeeeee maar dat leest niet lekker weg.
“Tja, hallooo.” deed ik dan maar, in de hoop nu wel een antwoord te krijgen. “Je hebt toch al een zwarte jas met rode paspel? Waarom maak je er dan nu nog eentje?”
Ik concentreerde me op de naald, maar eigenlijk hoefde dat niet. Vanwege het paspelvoetje liep de machine perfect over het paspelband heen, en hoefde ik alleen maar af en toe een speldje weg te trekken voor de onverbiddelijk neerdalende naald.
Waarom maakte ik eigenlijk nog zo'n jas? Ja, deze was langer, en die andere kon eigenlijk niet verlengd worden. En ik had een Reputatie, zo'n ding waar andere mensen verwachtingen aan hangen. Een soort veredelde kapstok, dus. Dus moest ik wel een nieuwe jas maken.
Was één vortexjas niet genoeg? Want eerlijk is eerlijk, ik had al een vortexjas. Een vortexjas draag je op de Vortex, waar een lange zwarte jas stoer is, en iedereen met vage woads of in ieder geval iets van tribal draagt. De andere zwarte jas met rode paspel had het beste van alle werelden in zich. Rode paspel, want dat was cool, en een drakentribal op de rug, want dat was stoer, en afknoopbare mouwen want he, de Sum is in Juli, en je wilt je niet helemaal dood zweten op de Vortex want dan lopen je woads uit en dat is sip. Dus.
Was deze jas de moeite dan wel waard? Achter mij op de pop hing de voering al. Geperst en wel, waardoor alle naadjes zo vreselijk scherp en strak werden dat het voor synthetische kutvoering nog heel wat leek. En nu zat ik alweer paspelband te naaien, met een paspelvoetje, zodat elke naad twee keer door de machine moest.
hhhhhhhhhhhieeeeeeee deed de naaimachine trouw.
Ik keek naar de randen van het pand. Met anderhalve centimeter naadtoelage had ik niet de moeite genomen om ze af te werken; de kans dat de naden open zouden rafelen was immers zo klein. De stof was ook niet zo mooi. Prima larp-katoen hoor, maar niet een erg mooie kwaliteit die ik graag in de trein zou dragen. Het was niet het soort jas wat ik naar mijn werk aan zou kunnen doen, dus zou ik het eigenlijk niet al te vaak gaan dragen. En tja, als Henriëtte vroegtijdig kassiewijle zou gaan, was het ook niet zo erg dat de jas niet zo uitwisselbaar was. Want de naadjes waren niet zo afgewerkt. En eigenlijk was het gewoon een Vortexjas. Met rode paspel.
Nouja, we gaan gewoon door. Mooi wordt het wel, ondanks de onafgewerkte naden. En mocht hij uit elkaar vallen, dan kon ik altijd later nog een betere stof op de kop tikken om de jas nog eens te maken. Ik heb er in ieder geval iets van geleerd: Niet teveel naar die tweede gedachte luisteren.