What Was I Saying...?

The SJ Forums are all FUBAR again. Every time the Keenspot Powers That Be utter the dread word "Upgrade" I cringe, 'cause I know we're in for a month of this crud.

Anyway, enough about that. :)

I finished Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire yesterday; I am now current on the Harry Potter series. On the whole, I like it, although I am sorta fretting at the idea that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is rumored to be a chapter longer than Goblet of Fire -- that one was already pushing it, in my opinion. My favorite overall so far is the third book, Prisoner of Azkaban, even if the characters did spend the whole book being irritable and constantly on the verge of biting each others' heads off.

Dave at Plan Nine keeps drawing parallels between Harry Potter and NeverNever, and I can certainly see his point. However, I can also see NN's big flaw starting to creep into Harry Potter in Goblet of Fire -- it's ponderous, man, really ponderous. GoF comes dangerous close to collapsing under its own weight, just as NN is threatening to do. I'll be watching with great interest to see how she gets around this problem -- assuming she does.

However, examing Harry Potter has given me some interesting grist for the NN mill ... assuming I can get out of the current rut, I may have some cool new directions for the storyline to go. The hard part, is getting out of the rut gracefully.

I have for the past day or two also been having Michael Macbeth pop up in my awareness a bit ... he does this every once in a while, usually saying, "Write me!" but without giving me anything vaguely like a story idea. At least this time, I have a bit of a hook to work with ... I'll see if I can flesh it out a bit this weekend.

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Catcha later!

-The Gneech

Normally I don't engage in these exercises, but this time, I think I shall.

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Here it is: you have been given an opportunity to write yourself a letter. This letter will be sent back in time to your past self at any point in your life. In sending this letter, you must adhere to the following:

- Only your past self will be able to see the letter. No one else.
- You cannot include objects in with the transfer of the letter. The only thing in the envelope will be the letter.
- You can only write one letter, and that letter will only be delivered to yourself at one point in your past.
- The delivery of the letter will be very inconspicuous. Your past self will simply turn around and see it lying there with the words "To __" written on the front.

The concept of writing a letter to yourself raises all sorts of questions, including:

- Even with this opportunity, would you write a letter to yourself?
- What would you say? Would it be intensely personal, even if your past self wouldn't understand what you were saying?
- How much would you tell of the future. Would you tell yourself about September 11, or not to invest in Enron? Would this risk altering the time stream?
- At which point in your life would you send this letter to? How much good/bad would it do?

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