Excerpt - NaNo 09

I may fail to post anything creative during NaNo, but that doesn't mean by two faithful readers should be completely deprived. Well, one of them is actually not deprived at all because I email him excerpts. Well, here's an entire Chapter of the Book of Venire for your perusing pleasure. Now let's see how screwy Blogger can possibly make the html here...

Oh, and I have removed the footnotes. They're fun, but this part is long enough without them.

Excerpt: The Book of Venire, Chapter in which believer Kinshos receives a True Dream but denies His True Word

Author: Unknown
Publisher: AuthorHouse

The Power That Dreams did touch the mind of a believer, Kinshos, and Kinshos did dream. The dreams of Kinshos foretold a new world, and in that world, Kinshos told all peoples about The Power That Dreams. Far did he travel and far did he preach the Word of the Supreme Lover of Souls. Though he did the work of the Higher Power, yet was he spat upon and kicked and thrown to the dust. Though he preached the Words of Love, yet was he battered by the people tainted by the whispers of the mongers of hate, the winged ones. Kinshos awoke with tears streaming from his eyes, for he had witnessed in his True Dream his own death. The Power That Dreams had shown him that the claws of the winged ones would tear Kinshos in twain, and again in twain, until naught remained of Kinshos but blood on sand.

Kinshos told no one of his True Dream, not his brothers and sisters in the True Faith, not his wife and children. The Power That Dreams saw all this as He slept 'neath the sea, and He did tremble with a most holy wrath. Kinshos forsook his brothers and sisters in the True Faith, his wife and children, and fled for a distant port on waters sapphire and still. But when Kinshos placed his unworthy foot on the ship that was to carry him far from his home and community, lo! The seas foamed as if beaten and the waters ran red as blood. The heavens darkened. Great storms whipped the seas into a screaming frenzy and harried the ship until it was many leagues off course. Monstrous creatures never glimpsed by human eyes rose from the seas, gnashing their many teeth and moaning their hunger.

“Surely a god has set his wrath upon this ship!” the sailors cried, but Kinshos remained silent. These sailors were masters of their seafaring craft, yet their every trick only cast the ship further and further from familiar stars and familiar waters.

“Surely a god is demanding vengeance!” the sailors wept, but Kinshos remained silent. He knew that his disobedience to the True Dream had sent this storm, yet the same fear that had driven him from his home and the course he had dreamed now drove him to silence.

The surface of the waters broke as a mountain appeared to rise from the sea. Luminous it was, shining though there were no stars to light its skin. The sailors fell upon their deck and hid their eyes, for they knew without understanding the reason that one glance upon this Great and Mighty Creature would drive them utterly from their senses. Only Kinshos dared to look, for he knew that he gazed upon the Power That Dreams. Still the Supreme Lover of Souls dreamed, but in His True Dream, he lashed out with one mighty tentacle to destroy the one who had defied the True Dream He had sent.

It was not a mountain that parted the foam, but a tentacle, as long as the horizon. Kinshos wept to see The Power That Dreams, no longer for fear but for the love he felt. The Power That Dreams sends True Dreams to those He Loves most dearly, and this man's treachery had cut him to His Loving Soul. For even in anger, the Power That Dreams Loves humanity with a Love that is beyond our reckoning. Kinshos leapt to the bow and spread his arms wide.

“Supreme Lover of Souls!” he wept. “I have failed the True Dream. Though I have woken Your Wrath, I do not deserve this glance upon Your Shining Flesh! Only spare these sailors, and I shall preach Your Word this very day. I shall preach it until the day I perish, whether that be this day 'neath Your Sea or a century from now in a far land.”

The Power That Dreams then Dreamt that He touched Kinshos as gently as a mother kissing her newborn babe. The waters stilled, the thunderheads departed, and the sailors stood again, amazed at what they had witnesses.

“'twas you!” they cried. “Kinshos, you brought this storm upon us!” He confessed that he had provoked the Power That Dreams, and they spat at him. They kicked him and battered him, but as the blows landed on his flesh, Kinshos proclaimed the True Word of the Power That Dreams. When the sailors tired, they found that their ship had drifted back to its course. They tied the moorings of their ship and brought Kinshos to the front of the bow.

“Kinshos! You have caused the wrath of the seas to rise against us, yet you also calmed them. Even as we punished you, you preached the True Word of the Power That Dreams. We must cast you now from our ship, but we must also confess that we are eternally indebted to you. For your faith, we have realized the error of our false faiths and have accepted the Supreme Lover of Souls into our hearts. Go now and do not curse our ship again, but spread the True Word that the Power That Dreams has tasked you to spread.”

Kinshos wept many tears. The sailors cast him from the ship, and he fell on sharp rocks as he tumbled to the sands of the shore. At that moment did he understand the True Dream the Supreme Lover of Souls had sent him. In truth, he had been spat upon, kicked, cursed, and battered. In truth, he now lay upon sands of a distant land as his blood spilled from him. In truth, he died, but it was his fear that died, his hardness of heart. All these were the claws of the winged ones he had seen in his dreams. After a day and a night on the sand, Kinshos arose again and began to preach the True Word of the Power That Dreams. He showed many of his brothers and sisters the Way of Love and Unity, and together they rejected hate and fear.

The world that Kinshos witnessed in his True Dream did not come to pass within his lifetime, for his brothers and sisters in faith were sworn to secrecy. Thus he had been taught, and thus would the True Faith thrive for thousands of years. Yet Kinshos did expand the community of True Faith, and many more reached out to trusted brothers and sisters. Thus for the first time did the community reach across the globe, like the great tentacles of the Power That Dreams.

Plotting - NaNo 09

Only 8k words in, and I began despairing of making word count. This isn't because I don't have sufficiently rich fodder for my fictional non-fiction account of a made-up cult but because I have a hard time organizing it and keeping the passages different from one another and interesting to write. I can only say "Cthulhu loves us" in so many ways, so many times.

But then I had a revelation: if I ever am desperate for words, I can re-write various Bible stories according to my modified Cthulhu mythos. The most fun of these will of course be Cthulhu Genesis and Cthulhu Revelation (in which we actually are eaten, but in being eaten, we are transported to a dimension of pure love and union and wisdom), but the more I think about it, the more I think that any Bible story can be re-written as a Cthulhu story. One of the founders claims to be the illegitimate son of African dictator Jean-Bedel Bokassa. I forgot which country he dictated, but the important thing is that he claimed to be the 13th Apostle secretly anointed by the Pope. Admirably crazy. This is a great way for this character to claim that he is a prophet and so has visions of the way various Biblical stories REALLY went.

Jonah and the whale? Jonah and the tentacle monster (who just ate him because he wanted to enlighten him). Dude on the road to Damascus? Dude on a sea voyage where he meets Cthulhu. Tower of Babel? Big tower that gets destroyed by the evil winged creatures because people were working together too much. I think there's definitely 50K worth of material there if I can't think of anything else. But I draw the line at the begats. Oh, and I also have arbitrary rules to make up. Woohoo!

Brainstorming - NaNo 09

Something I forgot to mention in yesterday's post about Made-Up Religion is the financial shenanigans, which I'm thinking will prompt the investigative journalism that will make up part of the book. And what self-respecting wacky cult doesn't engage in financial (and possibly legal) shenanigans??

My ideas so far, are...
1) "Free" dream interpretation - I also forgot to mention that, because Cthulhu our all-loving savior sleeps under the sea, dreams are very important to this religion - which inevitably leads to harassing people for a longer, paid report or session.
2) Expensive hypnotherapy sessions to tap into the humanity's collective unconscious. During one's intensive hypnotherapy, one is encouraged to cut off contact with non-believers, even loved ones.
3) Expensive training to become an expensive hypnotherapist (unlicensed by the ignorant state boards, of course)
4) Ridiculous claims of trademarks over common phrases and the lines they use in hypnotherapy sessions
5) Ponzi investment schemes. As investors get higher in the ranks, Slytherin claims that they get more in tune with humanity and thus the stock market - and their returns will increase as more people join, especially if they become hypnotherapy trainers.
6) Aggressive litigation against people who criticize them. The journalist undertaking this book is risking a major suit and will probably remind the reader of this many, many times.

I think six financial/legal schemes is sufficient fodder, at least to begin with, in addition to the other things I need to figure out. Very exciting!

A friend linked me to this article, which I'm reading right now. I suspect it will be inspiring.

Brainstorming - NaNo 09

My vast and varied body of readers knows of my plan for NaNo 09, so I'll recap very briefly: made-up religion. Actually, that's exactly how it started in my head after I read a wiki article on one of those cult religions. I've been thinking about it ever since that fateful wiki surf, and I've had some more ideas elaborating the story.

For one thing, it will be written like a non-fiction documentation of the religion, with both narrative passages by the author describing the founders and practices, as well as pamphlets and things written by them. I'm not sure who the narrator will be; actually, this is the first time I've even thought to wonder about that. Hmm.

There are four founders, who my brain insists on associating with the Hogwarts founders. I may change the genders of some of them. Slytherin = the sleazy businessman who engineers the profit-making part of the enterprise. Hufflepuff = the clueless, obscure daughter of minor royalty who finances everything. Ravenclaw = the hardline fanatic who believes passionately in the religion. Gryffindor = the classic insane demagogue personality who attracts all the attention. I think he's the one who made it up in the first place. He's so self-deluded that he may actually believe in it.

The basic tenet of the religion is that Cthulhu loves us all. He wants us to be happy and to enjoy our full potential as his equals, which means accessing our collective magic. He sleeps under the sea and rules it through his disciples, but he's happy to give us the land. His enemies are the cloud-dwelling beings (sometimes mistaken for angels) who want complete dominion over the earth, including the land and the sea. The cloud-dwelling beings have been working all throughout human history to divide us and to pit us against each other so we don't learn to use our communal magic. They've also been working to give Cthulhu a bad name, and as you probably know, they succeeded pretty well on both counts.

So there are some points I need to ponder further, perhaps even outline. These are:
The backgrounds of the Founders, especially Hufflepuff's (supposed) lineage
The history of the cloud-dwelling beings
The history of Cthulhu

However, one of the best part of this project is that the details are completely allowed to be contradictory. The factual parts, the biographies, should be fairly consistent (though differing reports would be fun), but I imagine that some contradictions would not only be realistic for a made-up religion but also present a lot of fodder for pamphleteering and speechifying.

I'm very excited about this. It's an ultimate parody epic in its own right!