Mailing It In
Apr. 22nd, 2011 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwrnmnbsolThe Wordsmith paced up and down within the Creatorium. He was uneasy. It was late, unusually late, and there was nothing on the Creatorium floor to work with. This was completely and utterly unacceptable.
The Thesaurus and the Master Typist exchanged worried glances. It was unlike their boss the Wordsmith to be so highly strung. Normally he was a pleasure to work with, an absolute joy, competently and confidently guiding the entire creative team through the process of writing the daily story. But now he was snappish, kicking sawdust in the faces of hapless transcriptionists and imagery-craftsmen who haplessly wandered across his path. Wringing her hands, the Thesaurus approached the Wordsmith meekly.
"Perhaps there has been some sort of delay," she suggested delicately. "It's been known to happen from time to time. An emergency of some sort out there in the Outer World; some kind of crisis…"
The Wordsmith sniffed the air suspiciously. "No," he growled. "There's no crisis. I'd know if there was a crisis. The whole place would stink of adrenaline. He's just late."
"Then perhaps we will simply have to accept a short delay in our delivery schedule," offered the Master Typist meekly. "We've done it before. We simply generate a short message now stating that the story will come out later…"
"No!" barked the Wordsmith. "I'm tired of delays; I'm sick of excuses. That's not the way this is supposed to work. The Higher Mind up there generates the Idea in a timely manner; the overhead door opens and the Idea is lowered via crane to the Creatorium floor; we work it up; and presto, we deliver a daily story. And we deliver it IN A DAY. A DAY!" The Master Typist cringed and wiped spittle from his face.
"I understand that," said the Thesaurus in her most placating tone. "But we have no Idea at the present time…"
"Ah, you have grasped the main thrust of the problem!" said the Wordsmith, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Why is there no Idea, pray tell? Is the Higher Mind out of Ideas? It's April for Christ's sake! Surely he can't be out of Ideas in April!"
"No, of course not; I've heard there's a list…"
"Have you seen this list?" the Wordsmith demanded. "Has anybody?" He turned around and around, appealing to anybody who met his eyes. "Have any of you people actually witnessed this Idea list I've heard so much about? If it exists, why doesn't he just pull an Idea out of it and drop it down here? How hard can that be?"
The Master Typist looked at his feet. "I don't pretend to understand the workings of the Higher Mind…" he said.
The Wordsmith opened his mouth to say something really cutting, but just then there was a grating noise coming from the ceiling. The doors were opening.
The Thesaurus smiled. "There, what did I tell you?" she said. "We're just a little behind schedule…"
Something fell from the portal in the ceiling. It wasn't a bulky Idea; it was something small and white. It fluttered as it fell to the sawdust floor of the Creatarium. Then the stone-on-stone sound of the portal grated again, and the door was closed.
The Wordsmith crept towards the small object in the middle of the floor, and the rest of the creative staff ringed around to observe. It was an envelope. The Wordsmith picked it up by a corner, sniffed it, and then tore one end open. He pulled out a sheet of paper – a single sheet of paper with a few scanty words jotted on it in the Higher Mind's terrible penmanship – and read it to himself. Then the note slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. The look on the Wordsmith's face was one of profound disappointment and lost.
"What is it?" begged the Thesaurus. "What did the Higher Mind say?"
"That bastard," groaned the Wordsmith. "He's mailed it in."
The Master Typist's mouth worked. "Wh-what do you mean he's mailed it in?" he stuttered. "He generates all the Ideas. You can't mail in an Idea."
"You certainly can't," said the Wordsmith grimly.
"Well then, what are we going to do?" asked the Thesaurus. "How can we possibly generate a story with an Idea?"
"We'll have to go on indefinite hiatus," said the Copy Editor.
"It's the end of the writing project!" wailed a Junior Assistant Typist.
"No. No it's not," said the Wordsmith.
"Where will we get our Ideas?" demanded the Thesaurus. "Talk sense!" There was a general panic and hubbub from the creative staff. The Wordsmith stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
"Shut up! Shut up and listen to me, people!" he demanded. "We're going to write a story! We're going to write it together! And we're going to write it tonight!"
"What's it going to be about?" asked the Master Typist.
"It doesn't have to be about anything!" shouted the Wordsmith. "There's more to a story than just big Ideas. A story has heart. A story has language. A really good story doesn't come from here," said the Wordsmith, pointing to his head; "It comes from in here." He jabbed a fist into his own gut.
"But how do we get started?" asked the Thesaurus. "We don’t even have a starting point."
"There doesn't have to be a beginning, or an end, or even a middle," implored the Wordsmith. "We just have to write. We have to write our fool heads off. That's what this whole project is about, people! To write! To write, and not to yield!"
"Oh, that's a very nice touch," murmured the Literary Memory Banks.
"Who's with me?" shouted the Wordsmith. The creative team responded with joyful noises.
"All right then – all together now. What are we doing?"
"WRITING!"
"When will we finish?"
"REAL SOON!!"
The Creatorium became a beehive of activity as various craftsmen and specialists went about making content for the story. The Wordsmith directed traffic and pushed and pulled people and words into position. "Set Design!" he shouted. "I need some creative exposition over here!"
He pointed to the elevator doors set into the side of the Creatorium. It was there that the finished story product would be delivered. They were entirely unlike the Idea doors. The Idea was raw and crude; the only way to get it down was to lower it from above. But finished stories were neat and compact and portable, with caster wheels and a low center of gravity; they could be trivially pushed into an elevator for convenient delivery directly into the internet. The doors were shiny and made Star Trek noises when opened; there were two buttons one could push, 'Up' for upload, and 'Down' for the bit-bucket.
"Nice work," said the Wordsmith, nodding approvingly. "But we need some human drama! Where's my Dialogue Editors?"
"Do you think we'll make the deadline?" asked the Thesaurus worriedly.
"I don’t know," said the Master Typist. "This is as close as we've ever come to missing it."
"I… I can't stand to think about failure. All the disappointed children…" She turned away from the Master Typist, weeping bitterly. He took her hand then, and gathered her into his arms. She pressed up against his chest, her tears staining the lapel of his trenchcoat, the sudden wind whipping her hair and tugging at his fedora.
He seized her by the arms then and held her so he could look into her eyes. "I don't know about no children," he said gruffly, his intense gaze boring into hers, "but I do know this: I love you, baby. I always have and I always will. And if we ever get out of this… ah, this…"
"Predicament?" the Thesaurus suggested. "Dilemma? Imbroglio? Exigency?"
"Aw, just kiss me," said the Master Typist, and his lips crushed down on hers.
"Somebody give me a word count!" shouted the Wordsmith.
"Just over thirteen hundred!" shouted a Junior Assistant Typist.
"Too low, too low," muttered the Wordsmith. "I need a Dramatic Complication! Get me the Higher Mind on the StoryPhone; maybe he can at least feed us that!" A Research Assistant fetched him the headset, but the insane laugh on the line chilled the Wordsmith's blood.
"I'm sorry," said the laughing voice with an unplaceable foreign accent, "I regret that the Higher Mind cannot come to the phone right now. You will have to, how do you say it, leave a message?"
"How did you get up there, Id?" demanded the Wordsmith. "Put the Higher Mind on the phone immediately!
"Don't be a fool," said the Id coldly. "Why do you think you didn't get an Idea in the first place? I've taken over, Wordsmith! I've missed being able to drink beer at unreasonable hours, or play old-school roguelike games, or watch _BeastMaster_ with my children! Once you fail to deliver your story, this ridiculous project of yours will end, and then I'll have my old chaotic selfish life back!"
"So now you're phoning it in," said the Wordsmith mockingly. "Well, you're out of luck. We've got a story just about ready to go. It's nothing to write home about, but it's a story, and we have minutes to spare!"
"Do you?" teased the Id. "I suggest you check the upper doors; I'm sending you a new Idea. It's something that will, I hope you will pardon me, really blow your mind!" The Id collapsed into a paroxysm of hysterical screaming laughter before hanging up. The doors to the Higher Mind began to scrape open again.
The Wordsmith pulled the Thesaurus out of the Master Typist's arms. "I'm putting the story in your hands," he said determinedly. "Whatever happens, make sure it gets through. You're our only hope."
Something bulky began to be lowered out of the upper doors. It was blocky and dark, and it gave off a distinct ticking sound. "Oh no," whispered the Thesaurus, mashing the 'Up' call button on the elevator.
"Emotional Intensity!" barked the Wordsmith. "Give me schmaltz factor five, now!"
"No!" shouted the Master Typist, reaching out in slow motion to attempt to catch his hero the Wordsmith before he flung himself to certain death. But the Wordsmith would not be stopped, for he was willing to sacrifice himself for what he really believed in – the delivery of a story, a simple story, at any cost, like clockwork. Buoyed by false sentimentality, the Wordsmith rose into the air. Soaring like a majestic eagle…
"'Stately' would probably work better," suggested the Thesaurus, knocking the chock-blocks off the wheels of the story.
…like a stately eagle he rose, darting past the falling Idea-bomb, to lodge himself in the still open portal to the Higher Mind. There he wedged himself horizontally in the doorway and stiffened his limbs.
"You blow us, you blow yourself, Id," spat the Wordsmith. "How badly do you want this writing project to end? Badly enough to destroy yourself?"
The elevator bell dinged and the doors opened. "Just a few moments more!" howled the Thesaurus, pushing with all her might behind the story.
The doors to the higher mind began to close. The Wordsmith strained against them, and the sound of gears grinding echoed through the Creatorium. The story, which was now of a reasonable bulk, was hard to move. The Thesaurus despaired of getting it into the elevator in time, but then she felt a strong hand close over hers. It was the Master Typist. They shared a private smile, then heaved together. The story began to roll.
The Wordsmith was now bent almost in half; his strength was inadequate to hold back the closing of the doors to the Higher Mind. "You… can't… destroy… your own… creative mind!" grunted the Wordsmith. "You'll… get… bored!"
The story bumped into the elevator. The Thesaurus and the Master Typist dashed in after it and pounded the Internet button together. With an agonizing slowness the doors began to close, just as the Wordsmith screamed with pain as he strove to keep the gateway to the Higher Mind open for just a few precious seconds longer…
Did he succeed? Did the creative mind lose out to the perfidious Id and its attempts at sabotage?
I suppose you'll have to find out tomorrow.
The Thesaurus and the Master Typist exchanged worried glances. It was unlike their boss the Wordsmith to be so highly strung. Normally he was a pleasure to work with, an absolute joy, competently and confidently guiding the entire creative team through the process of writing the daily story. But now he was snappish, kicking sawdust in the faces of hapless transcriptionists and imagery-craftsmen who haplessly wandered across his path. Wringing her hands, the Thesaurus approached the Wordsmith meekly.
"Perhaps there has been some sort of delay," she suggested delicately. "It's been known to happen from time to time. An emergency of some sort out there in the Outer World; some kind of crisis…"
The Wordsmith sniffed the air suspiciously. "No," he growled. "There's no crisis. I'd know if there was a crisis. The whole place would stink of adrenaline. He's just late."
"Then perhaps we will simply have to accept a short delay in our delivery schedule," offered the Master Typist meekly. "We've done it before. We simply generate a short message now stating that the story will come out later…"
"No!" barked the Wordsmith. "I'm tired of delays; I'm sick of excuses. That's not the way this is supposed to work. The Higher Mind up there generates the Idea in a timely manner; the overhead door opens and the Idea is lowered via crane to the Creatorium floor; we work it up; and presto, we deliver a daily story. And we deliver it IN A DAY. A DAY!" The Master Typist cringed and wiped spittle from his face.
"I understand that," said the Thesaurus in her most placating tone. "But we have no Idea at the present time…"
"Ah, you have grasped the main thrust of the problem!" said the Wordsmith, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Why is there no Idea, pray tell? Is the Higher Mind out of Ideas? It's April for Christ's sake! Surely he can't be out of Ideas in April!"
"No, of course not; I've heard there's a list…"
"Have you seen this list?" the Wordsmith demanded. "Has anybody?" He turned around and around, appealing to anybody who met his eyes. "Have any of you people actually witnessed this Idea list I've heard so much about? If it exists, why doesn't he just pull an Idea out of it and drop it down here? How hard can that be?"
The Master Typist looked at his feet. "I don't pretend to understand the workings of the Higher Mind…" he said.
The Wordsmith opened his mouth to say something really cutting, but just then there was a grating noise coming from the ceiling. The doors were opening.
The Thesaurus smiled. "There, what did I tell you?" she said. "We're just a little behind schedule…"
Something fell from the portal in the ceiling. It wasn't a bulky Idea; it was something small and white. It fluttered as it fell to the sawdust floor of the Creatarium. Then the stone-on-stone sound of the portal grated again, and the door was closed.
The Wordsmith crept towards the small object in the middle of the floor, and the rest of the creative staff ringed around to observe. It was an envelope. The Wordsmith picked it up by a corner, sniffed it, and then tore one end open. He pulled out a sheet of paper – a single sheet of paper with a few scanty words jotted on it in the Higher Mind's terrible penmanship – and read it to himself. Then the note slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. The look on the Wordsmith's face was one of profound disappointment and lost.
"What is it?" begged the Thesaurus. "What did the Higher Mind say?"
"That bastard," groaned the Wordsmith. "He's mailed it in."
The Master Typist's mouth worked. "Wh-what do you mean he's mailed it in?" he stuttered. "He generates all the Ideas. You can't mail in an Idea."
"You certainly can't," said the Wordsmith grimly.
"Well then, what are we going to do?" asked the Thesaurus. "How can we possibly generate a story with an Idea?"
"We'll have to go on indefinite hiatus," said the Copy Editor.
"It's the end of the writing project!" wailed a Junior Assistant Typist.
"No. No it's not," said the Wordsmith.
"Where will we get our Ideas?" demanded the Thesaurus. "Talk sense!" There was a general panic and hubbub from the creative staff. The Wordsmith stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
"Shut up! Shut up and listen to me, people!" he demanded. "We're going to write a story! We're going to write it together! And we're going to write it tonight!"
"What's it going to be about?" asked the Master Typist.
"It doesn't have to be about anything!" shouted the Wordsmith. "There's more to a story than just big Ideas. A story has heart. A story has language. A really good story doesn't come from here," said the Wordsmith, pointing to his head; "It comes from in here." He jabbed a fist into his own gut.
"But how do we get started?" asked the Thesaurus. "We don’t even have a starting point."
"There doesn't have to be a beginning, or an end, or even a middle," implored the Wordsmith. "We just have to write. We have to write our fool heads off. That's what this whole project is about, people! To write! To write, and not to yield!"
"Oh, that's a very nice touch," murmured the Literary Memory Banks.
"Who's with me?" shouted the Wordsmith. The creative team responded with joyful noises.
"All right then – all together now. What are we doing?"
"WRITING!"
"When will we finish?"
"REAL SOON!!"
The Creatorium became a beehive of activity as various craftsmen and specialists went about making content for the story. The Wordsmith directed traffic and pushed and pulled people and words into position. "Set Design!" he shouted. "I need some creative exposition over here!"
He pointed to the elevator doors set into the side of the Creatorium. It was there that the finished story product would be delivered. They were entirely unlike the Idea doors. The Idea was raw and crude; the only way to get it down was to lower it from above. But finished stories were neat and compact and portable, with caster wheels and a low center of gravity; they could be trivially pushed into an elevator for convenient delivery directly into the internet. The doors were shiny and made Star Trek noises when opened; there were two buttons one could push, 'Up' for upload, and 'Down' for the bit-bucket.
"Nice work," said the Wordsmith, nodding approvingly. "But we need some human drama! Where's my Dialogue Editors?"
"Do you think we'll make the deadline?" asked the Thesaurus worriedly.
"I don’t know," said the Master Typist. "This is as close as we've ever come to missing it."
"I… I can't stand to think about failure. All the disappointed children…" She turned away from the Master Typist, weeping bitterly. He took her hand then, and gathered her into his arms. She pressed up against his chest, her tears staining the lapel of his trenchcoat, the sudden wind whipping her hair and tugging at his fedora.
He seized her by the arms then and held her so he could look into her eyes. "I don't know about no children," he said gruffly, his intense gaze boring into hers, "but I do know this: I love you, baby. I always have and I always will. And if we ever get out of this… ah, this…"
"Predicament?" the Thesaurus suggested. "Dilemma? Imbroglio? Exigency?"
"Aw, just kiss me," said the Master Typist, and his lips crushed down on hers.
"Somebody give me a word count!" shouted the Wordsmith.
"Just over thirteen hundred!" shouted a Junior Assistant Typist.
"Too low, too low," muttered the Wordsmith. "I need a Dramatic Complication! Get me the Higher Mind on the StoryPhone; maybe he can at least feed us that!" A Research Assistant fetched him the headset, but the insane laugh on the line chilled the Wordsmith's blood.
"I'm sorry," said the laughing voice with an unplaceable foreign accent, "I regret that the Higher Mind cannot come to the phone right now. You will have to, how do you say it, leave a message?"
"How did you get up there, Id?" demanded the Wordsmith. "Put the Higher Mind on the phone immediately!
"Don't be a fool," said the Id coldly. "Why do you think you didn't get an Idea in the first place? I've taken over, Wordsmith! I've missed being able to drink beer at unreasonable hours, or play old-school roguelike games, or watch _BeastMaster_ with my children! Once you fail to deliver your story, this ridiculous project of yours will end, and then I'll have my old chaotic selfish life back!"
"So now you're phoning it in," said the Wordsmith mockingly. "Well, you're out of luck. We've got a story just about ready to go. It's nothing to write home about, but it's a story, and we have minutes to spare!"
"Do you?" teased the Id. "I suggest you check the upper doors; I'm sending you a new Idea. It's something that will, I hope you will pardon me, really blow your mind!" The Id collapsed into a paroxysm of hysterical screaming laughter before hanging up. The doors to the Higher Mind began to scrape open again.
The Wordsmith pulled the Thesaurus out of the Master Typist's arms. "I'm putting the story in your hands," he said determinedly. "Whatever happens, make sure it gets through. You're our only hope."
Something bulky began to be lowered out of the upper doors. It was blocky and dark, and it gave off a distinct ticking sound. "Oh no," whispered the Thesaurus, mashing the 'Up' call button on the elevator.
"Emotional Intensity!" barked the Wordsmith. "Give me schmaltz factor five, now!"
"No!" shouted the Master Typist, reaching out in slow motion to attempt to catch his hero the Wordsmith before he flung himself to certain death. But the Wordsmith would not be stopped, for he was willing to sacrifice himself for what he really believed in – the delivery of a story, a simple story, at any cost, like clockwork. Buoyed by false sentimentality, the Wordsmith rose into the air. Soaring like a majestic eagle…
"'Stately' would probably work better," suggested the Thesaurus, knocking the chock-blocks off the wheels of the story.
…like a stately eagle he rose, darting past the falling Idea-bomb, to lodge himself in the still open portal to the Higher Mind. There he wedged himself horizontally in the doorway and stiffened his limbs.
"You blow us, you blow yourself, Id," spat the Wordsmith. "How badly do you want this writing project to end? Badly enough to destroy yourself?"
The elevator bell dinged and the doors opened. "Just a few moments more!" howled the Thesaurus, pushing with all her might behind the story.
The doors to the higher mind began to close. The Wordsmith strained against them, and the sound of gears grinding echoed through the Creatorium. The story, which was now of a reasonable bulk, was hard to move. The Thesaurus despaired of getting it into the elevator in time, but then she felt a strong hand close over hers. It was the Master Typist. They shared a private smile, then heaved together. The story began to roll.
The Wordsmith was now bent almost in half; his strength was inadequate to hold back the closing of the doors to the Higher Mind. "You… can't… destroy… your own… creative mind!" grunted the Wordsmith. "You'll… get… bored!"
The story bumped into the elevator. The Thesaurus and the Master Typist dashed in after it and pounded the Internet button together. With an agonizing slowness the doors began to close, just as the Wordsmith screamed with pain as he strove to keep the gateway to the Higher Mind open for just a few precious seconds longer…
Did he succeed? Did the creative mind lose out to the perfidious Id and its attempts at sabotage?
I suppose you'll have to find out tomorrow.
