The Monkocracy Is Nigh

'The Ninja Of Health' is wrapped up, even if ended up being a little unsatisfactory. A single post-script might be necessary, but the natures of these serial stories are very experimental and I think each segment really only functions as a snapshot of a larger narrative. That is why most of the problems get ironed out in the joined up, edited down, cleaned up and polished up versions. What would happen if all the segments in which I was casting around for the next direction for the story were removed? Wouldn't it get reduced down to five lines, every one of which involved the much ballyhooed 'Pattern'. I may never use the word 'Pattern' again, and even now it feels like I may have borrowed it from somewhere. There was a lot of talk about Order and Chaos in the LE Modesit 'Recluce' saga. Maybe it's connected to that? Was there a Pattern in the Roger Zelazny 'Amber' chronicles...? Yes! Yes, there was! It only took several years to remember! Oh, all those hopes of originality, lost to the winds. Go read those instead, at least the first cycle.

With 'The Ninja Of Health' finished, and put into the queue for a 'stitch-up' into one piece, that leaves a few other stories that have been on hold for a remarkably long time. 'The Glove' is out there, waiting, as are 'Diary Of A Laundry Robot' and the second phase of 'Wordspace'. That's quite a lot to be getting on with, in the usual halting style. The oldest story there is 'The Glove', so that seems to be the most reasonable choice to either finish or reinvent in some way. That has been one troubled experiment. Sometimes, it is tempting to just write it off, but there's a kernel of something in that effort. It feels like something that would be more cynical than its writer, though, so perhaps it needs to be re-bashed into a hat of a different shape. Or a fez. Maybe it should be rewritten and retitled 'The Purple Fez'? That, of course, was a joke. (But are you sure it was a joke?)

Yes, no more health ninjas for now. That will take some getting used to. Actually, they seemed to lose a lot of their ninja-iness pretty quickly, didn't they? They ended up being 'Monks of Health'. Now, monks don't get nearly enough time in the spotlight any more. Perhaps that can be the new fad of the twenty-first century: a monk renaissance? It's got a touch of style to it. Yes, '2017: Dawn Of The New Monk Republic'. We could have a monkocracy! Even now, it seems entirely practical. Westminster is practically a monastery already. Let's just shift a load more people in, with much quieter styles of discourse.

It all makes sense.

O.