Author Archives: lytspeed

An Opportunity

By lytspeed Posted in Writing Leave a reply

I will be having lunch my friend Michael today, on his gracious invitation. We will be discussing writing in general and whatever else comes up. Tonight, I will be attending Stories for All Seasons. Earlier today, I updated the Stories for All Seasons web page with upcoming appearances. It looks like they are fairly booked through February 2003, with some very big names appearing. That’s great to see.

(Later that day)

Lunch with Michael was good, and we had some Real discussion about artistic inspiration and responsibility. We also briefly discussed recurring themes in our work, which gave me a lot to chew on.

Late in the day, I got an e-mail from John, the bassist for Flat Rabbit. Evidently his other band is in need of a guitarist, and I’m going to try out for the spot. If I do manage to land the spot, it will mean looking closely at my available time and deciding which creative activities I want to pursue most.

Music + Computer = Geek

By lytspeed Posted in Computers, Geek, Music Leave a reply

Today I made a practice CD for my band, Flat Rabbit. Using the World Wide Woodshed‘s Slow Gold program, I was able to transpose three of the songs from the key of E flat up a half step to E, which will be convenient because it means that we can practice along with the CD without having to detune our instruments. In a live setting, we would just play the songs a half step up anyway, so it makes sense to practice them as we would play them. The songs lost some quality and gained some delay artifacts in the transposition, but they will still suit the purpose well.

Fatima

By lytspeed Posted in Poetry Leave a reply

I plan to write a poem at lunch about the death of the little girl on I-25 yesterday. It won’t be about the death directly, but about the sadness of the loss. I’ve thought about writing a series of poems exploring perspectives, and this might be the first.

(Later that day)

Instead of writing the poem, I struggled with the moral question of whether it is right for me to use this incident for inspiration. I’ve done something like this before, in the poem “It Could Have Been a Masterpiece,” about the death of one of my college friends, but that was a grown person, not a three-year old child. The child’s name has been released to the press — Fatima Guadalupe-Guerrero — and I would like to dedicate the poem to her memory. But am I being too invasive by doing so? Is there something fundamentally wrong with using the death of a child to make an observation about the different perspectives of society? If I write this poem, am I reducing her death to a supporting point for an argument, or am I elevating it to something more than just a dreadfully unfortunate accident?

Father’s Day Tragedy

By lytspeed Posted in General Leave a reply

I didn’t do much that was creative today, other than playing the kinds of memory games that families play while driving on the road. We went to Loveland to pick up my sister and brother-in-law, then went to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. For me, the whole day was fun, but tainted by one thing that occurred on I-25 near Longmont.

We were driving northbound, keeping with traffic flow, when brake lights flashed on all the cars in front of me. I was keeping a safe following distance, so I was able to slow down in time, but a Chrysler two cars ahead of me only had enough time to swerve into the median. He did so, creating a cloud of dust and dry grass, but he kept the car under control and brought it to a stop. The rest of the cars on the highway continued forward slowly.

About a mile up the road, we found the reason for the immediate stop. Evidently a southbound pickup had been hit from behind, rolled across the median, and came to rest in the northbound lanes of traffic. Police and rescue vehicles were just beginning to arrive at the scene, and as we inched by, I saw a small, brown hand sticking out from under a folded blanket on the burning asphalt. Someone’s Father’s Day will never be the same.

Morrowind Creativity

By lytspeed Posted in Computers, Gaming, Music Leave a reply

The most creative thing I did today involved playing Morrowind. My character contracted a disease in a remote area after fighting several undead creatures which had drained his strength and endurance. The disease (called “the Blight”) further drained him until he had no strength or endurance left at all. (In this game, Strength and Endurance are physical attributes of the character. Both attributes had values of zero.)

The challenge before me was to get my character back up to full strength and get the disease cured, but since his strength was sapped, he couldn’t carry anything with him. Part of his quest involved returning a couple of items to a guild master in another town, so he had to be able to carry things to complete the quest. However, in order for him to be able to move at all, he had to take off all the armor and possessions that he carried, leaving him defenseless against creatures in the wilderness. Fortunately, in Morrowind, gold evidently weighs nothing, so he was at least able to carry money.

After stripping to his loin cloth and picking up his gold, he ran through the wilderness to the nearest town. In several places along the way, he encountered creatures that tried to attack him, but he was able to get by the creatures without being injured too much more. When he arrived at the town, he spoke with several locals who were a bit offended by his lack of dress. Through those conversations, he learned that there was no healer in town and no place to purchase healing potions. Fortunately, the town was coastal, so he was able to book passage on a ship to another, larger town.

In the larger town, he found a healer and purchased potions to cure the Blight, restore his strength and restore his endurance. With the few gold coins he had left, he bought a knife and some clothes, took the ship back to the small coastal town, and ran back through the wilderness to gather his things. He then ran back to the small town, took the ship back to the larger town, and was able to use other transport to get back to the guild master and complete his quest. That was the closest this character has come to death and still avoided it.

Of course, I could have just loaded a previously saved game and completed the quest again, but that wouldn’t have been creative, now would it?

(I also went to see my friend John play with his band, Better Than Nothing, and that was fun. I couldn’t stay late enough to see the whole show, unfortunately.)