h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Primal.

What?

Typo.

Primal, not primary.

Primal suggests back to the beginning, creation emerging, with all dinosaurs and things.

You know, I'm really not sure about dinosaurs.

Oh, OK, I'll leave that debate for another time.



Been thinking about characters, the kernel of weakness, familiarity and strangeness. Inpsiring. Jotted down some notes this morning, but only got as far as an imaginary lady named...

...Mrs Margery Anderson who wears a fake diamond lizard brooch, and has a lifesized bronze buddha in her yard.

I'll have to find out who she is. . She's definitely psychic, and eats a lot of victoria sponge cake.

I've got a brown inhaler called Qvar, which is supposed to be taken regularly and a blue inhaler called Ventolin, which is supposed to ease an asthma attack if it starts. In practice, I almost never use the latter. I'm supposed to breathe in the Qvar through a spacer, which plays a if I get it at the wrong angle. In practice, the little bit of black plastic that produces the keeps falling out.

I'm interested in Mrs Margery Anderson. I think I write stories by starting with a plot and working out characters to fit. What happens if you start with a character and work out a plot to fit? Why does she wear a fake diamond lizard brooch, and what is the relevance of the victoria sponge cake? I'll have to go and think about her, write about her. I can see her in a garden with delphiniums. Why?

Interesting about the inhalers. With added . Thanks mvp. It must be very scary, living with asthma. Are there support groups available?



I like!! About the delphiniums. I like the questions you're asking. I shall ask Margery some questions too.

Of course, we'll end up with completely different stories.

Or imagine if we didn't? Imagine if Margery turns out to be a real person out there in the atmosphere, and we've tuned into her.

Like we're mediums. What is your message, Margery.

Nope, doesn't happen. Except in stories. Be a good story. Two people set out to write to fit a plot around a character. Their facts turn out to be the same....



Yours will be an amazing story, , could you send if you write it? Really curious now.

So, Margery ...

The fake diamond lizard brooch was given to her by ... by .. damn, lost the signal.

Now I have much work for the weekend!! Hope your weekend goes well! You have lots of writing to do also!!

I use Primatene tablets, though there is also a mist, available on a non-prescription basis for asthma.

At least in California, one has to sign for the tablets since there's a problem with them being diverted illegally as a base for methamphetamine manufacture.

I personally go through about one packet a year.

My own asthma was adult onset and diagnosed as having a bacterial root, a problem for me since I'm allergic to the antibiotics used to treat it.

If I have a serious attack, coughing, wheezing, choking, retching, etc., usually 1 or 2 Primatene (ephedrine together with an expectorant) tablets quickly bring the problem under control.

Hullo ITI!

So you have asthma attacks also. Wowzum. That sounds awful, but thank goodness for the Primatene.

One packet a year sounds quite minimal? Or maybe not.

How inconvenient that you're allergic to the antibiotics. Is it one of the ingredients in the tablet that gets you?

It would be difficult if one was allergic to all antibiotics. I know they get used too much these days, but they sure are lifesavers.

I'll have a go writing a Margery story and put a link to an A number page here. It won't be as original as yours. (I was in Hove today doing my Writers'HQ retreat and I managed 3,400 words.)

My Qvar is Beclometasone Dipropionate (whatever that is)

hullo mvp! Oooh excellent! an mvp story. Well, the difference between yours and mine is that yours will be an actual story whereas mine will fall into the void halfway through and wonder where it can find some popcorn. . .

I was thinking about your Writers Retreat day in Hove! I hope it was a good day. 3,400 words?? Good heavens! What was your theme? Or is it private to the group.

Funnily enough I just started making notes on my Margery Anderson piece. If you're making an A number, then so might I. Its so good with the Guide Entry format, 'cos you can sneak back in and change it all around.

Until the Post Ed gets there. . Not that he's requested random stories about a fictional lady with a fake diamond lizard brooch. I think we're straying.

You will write...I will sneak in and steal them for some issue in September... They will fit nicely in the section devoted to FWR's ongoing horror story, the Ha'penny Dreadful...

...which you're reading, of course...A87893239...(bottom of the page for archive link and other parts...)

Have to check the Ha'penny Dreadful. That's interesting, an ongoing horror story.



Not sure if my Mrs Anderson story will make the final cut. Enjoying the process though.

Need a writing lesson.

My story starts something like 'Mrs Anderson was pottering in her yard. It was a fine September afteroon, all green and gold with a light breeze.'

So, who is telling the story?? Who says that Mrs A is pottering in her yard?

My point being, do I have to weave the identity of the storyteller?, the narrator? into the story?

Thanks for any knowledge. I will repay you with my soul and my chocolate.



Daymare.

I have a dictionary app, which gives me a word for the day on my phone screen. Its a very exciting moment in my day when the word appears. I have no other life.

Anyway, today's word is daymare. A distressing experience similar to a bad dream occuring while one is awake.

Daymare entered English in the 18th century.

Nightmare. Daymare.

How come daymare became the less used word?

Or did it? Perhaps everyone has been going around using the word daymare, I just haven't noticed.

I've decided to give my narrator an identity. Thought it would be more difficult, but it somehow makes it easier.

Do all story writers give their narrator an identity?

Now I have to go figure that darn brooch.

Go into creative writing theory mode. You're asking about different points of view. In first person, the writer identifies completely with the character, so you'd say 'I was pottering in my yard.' That is a bit limiting; it would even seem odd to say 'I am a tall woman but a bit stooped.'
If you write in third person limited, you can step back a bit.'Mrs Anderson was pottering in her yard and didn't notice the man standing behind the tree.'

On the antibiotics, its anything and everything in the erythromycin family and a for real allergy problem.

There's a controversy as to whether an erythromycin reaction is a true allergy since many peo[le have a reaction the first time its administered and there doesn't appear to be a sensitization period.

The microbe from which its derived is a common leaf mold endemic, so most people are already sensitized before first administration of the antibiotic.

Thankfully, not all are allergic.

The first three occasions I was administered azithromycin, I had no reaction, but the fourth time a classical erythromycin reaction, agonizing headache and gastric pains, similar problems with vancomycin.

On the primatene preparations, I don't frequemtly have a serious problem.

If I did, the imhaler might be more appropriate.

OK, here's my Marjorie Allinson story. A87893824

ITIWBS. I thought ephedrine was suspect because it's a heart stimulant. Though it's probably all right as long as you're not going in for competitive sport!

Ooooh! The mvp A number!!! I'll go over to read it now!

Interesting, about the creative writing theory. Having resisted theory my entire life, because of my failed student blues, I could really get into it!! Perhaps the failed student blues might turn rainbow coloured. hahah.

I've got my A number, it probably still needs a bit of tweaking and a few less snails, but I'll post it.I'm quite at peace with it now, thanks to sorting the narrator problem, and completely changing Margery's description.

That's the thing about all this, eh. . If you're not keen on a character, just change and rearrange 'em.

A87893815

OK here's my Margery Anderson, although this isn't the final draft.

How does it come across?

I think I've got my tenses muddled up. It starts in the present, then changes tense. Does it sound peculiar?

I love it mvp!

And the Buddha led Marj home.

Love the grey indigo infusing everything. Very evocative. And the garden description, the poet in you is never far away.

Love the symbolism in the lizard tail.

A study of letting go and moving on. Very beautiful. Read to me like a prose poem.

Nice one.

Did you like writing it?



Eeeek! We both mention lizards and the spirit world!! This is deeply interesting.

I enjoyed both stories - I particularly enjoyed them set one against another...

In September, I shall steal them (when you're both finished, of course) and put them together in .

We probably will need a picture...

Thanks Mister D.

Yes, 'cos they're both using similar themes, so they're like two facets of a diamond.

Or a fake diamond lizard brooch. .

I wonder what picture you'll put with them? How exciting! Or we or someone else can add a photo. This will be another facet in this peculiar diamond. .

Sure, you can - or we can ask FWR when he comes back from holiday.

Or I'll try to find a picture of a garden with a Buddha...and a lizard brooch.