It’s been a while since I had a night that useful. I got the bulk of Ninth Art’s re-build done – just some testing to do and a few trivial back-end functions to move across now, although it’ll probably be a few weeks before I get it all done. Then I went home and for some reason I don’t quite understand, decided to slot in an extra session at the gym this week. Having done that, I did the page breakdowns for SIX STRINGS, got a few pages of script written, and nailed down the storytelling approach I want to use for the project. With any luck, I’ll break the back of it tonight…

I’m not given to deity-worship. I don’t believe in encouraging the little bastards. But still, I have a certain amount of sympathy for Odin. Sure, everyone knows him as chief of the norse pantheon, but most people tend to look at him as Jupiter/Zeus figure, when he’s an awful lot more than that. He’s a christ-figure, a shaman deity, and a god of wisdom and knowledge. He has the more martial aspect present in Jupiter and Zeus, but with a grimmer, darker edge that I find more fitting to that role. He’s the Norse god of magic and knowledge, but everyone is so busy with Thoth or Mercury/Hermes that this gets forgotten, but unlike the book-magic that the others seem to favour, that hermetic tradition has imprinted on them, Odin’s magic is from that primal root, shrouded in visionquest, plucked from darkness and wind.

But today, listening to Julian Cope’s CD programme, I come across a single line “Myself a sacrifice to I”, and something kicks hard in my brain. This I like. The notion of a god whose power and knowledge comes not from outside, not from story or fable, not from simply being woven into his very being by his divinity (or from worshippers, or from the other means that you might think gods draw their power) from from their own effort to find it inside themselves.

A god whose basic example says “You don’t need gods. Anyone could do what I did, and get what I got.”

Well, no, not really. But it’s getting closer. A totally fictional country has a real world GNP per-capita only slightly behind that of Russia. New Scientist has a report on the real-world economic impact of Norrath, the fictional landscape that frames Sony’s EverQuest on-line game.

I find this interesting on several levels. My magical worldview is based in large part around ideaspace, the notion that our hopes, dreams, desires and gods exist on a “plane of concept and idea, where thought is form” (Alan Moore). The fictional worlds of MMRPGs (Massively Multiplayer RolePlaying Games) like EQ strike me as interesting, as a shared “unreal” space that has real and concrete impact in the “real” world. They don’t spring from the more abstract reaches of ideaspace that give birth to religion – they’re closer, more tied to reality, but they’re occupying some of the same bits of psychic real estate.

And y’know, more concretely, I’m just pleased to see that a country that doesn’t exist is worth so much.

Via Anna, I present the translateotronned version of this page.

Always, more candies for me.

Well, I wasn’t happy with “Going Pro” as a title. Yes, I’ve paid for Blogger Pro. Now I’ve got shiny new things, like titles on my posts and other clever stuff.

Between the weightlifting I’ve started doing and the yoga class (Dru Yoga, for those that were asking), it’s getting so that every other day has me suffering from mild aches in various muscles. I have never been as aware of specific muscle groups as I have been in the last week or two. It’s kinda weird.

I haven’t been clubbing in ages. I must do something about this. Soon. Tenbrae is on tonight, but I don’t think I’ll make that. Nevertheless, I feel the urge to go clubbing again soon. Hmmm…

As a result of the sweeties (below), I have been enjoying a pleasant sugar rush all afternoon.

Someone at the office was given a large tub of Sherbert Flying Saucers as a gift. It transpires that out of an office of nearly 30 people, I am the only one who a) likes them and b) remembers buying them in penny-sweet shops as a kid.

I work with freaks. Still, more sweeties for me.

Irritatingly, I have been forced to shelve my plans for Electricana for a while. I’ve got too many scripts and pitches to write in the next few weeks, and I just don’t have the time to devote to it – the narrative structure is just that bit to complex for me to be able to bang them out like I’d intended. I’ll take the listing off the sidebar when I get a minute. With any luck, I’ll have the time to ressurect it toward the back end of the summer.

I am, however, developing a replacement (non-fiction) project that will take less of my time – I’m hoping to drag other people in on this as well. More on that when I have a full brief written up.