Evil Overlord

The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

(copyrighted excerpts, from the List.)

- My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.

- My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.

- My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.

- Shooting is not too good for my enemies.

- The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

- When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."

- After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.

- I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.

- I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.

- Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.

- I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)

- I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.

- I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.

- If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.

- If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.

- My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.

- If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.

- If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.

- If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.

- I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button."

- I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.

~ ~ ~

Complete list is here. There's a coupla' iffy things in it, content-wise, but predominately clean and hilarious and oh-so-true.

http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

chortling maliciously,

-whisper

8 Everythings

Greetings and salutations!

I have been largely absent from the online world. I have many excuses, none of which you'd like to hear, and all of which matter to me but not to you. So. Here comes a highly condensed account of some Lately-Things, concerning, respectively, a blog, a job, Eagles Wings, Apprentice, mornings, story titles, Jabberwocky, and an anonymous quote. Good stuff.

- - -

1. My sister has a blog. I've already mentioned the blog of Hark, but now my other sister, The Golux (alias Fountain, alias the wearer of the Indescribable Hat) has one of her own, as well! Entitled "The Simple Tales of Fountain", you can find it by clicking the screenshot below.



2. My Dad got a job. Huzzah! As you can read in this post, my Dad recently left his job as a pastor for complicated reasons. But a few weeks ago, he got a new, different sort of job, which, except for the fact that it pays less, is better in every way: Dad gets to work predominately from home, it's a Christian-run company and, ironically, there are a lot of other ex-pastors there. o_O Conspiracy. Anyhow, thank you so much for any and all prayers you submitted to the King concerning this matter - He heard and met them wondrously. :)


3. In a few days.... I'm going to meet Eagles Wings. O_O Elves, you know who this is. You know of Eagles Wings, the mighty, the brave, the cheerful. I and Rowan are going to meet her together for an afternoon. XD Huzzah! I'd offer to show pictures, but I don't want to compromise any of our secret identities. ^_^


4. My pet story, (working title) Apprentice, (you can find some info on it here) has gone through much, much, much rewriting. Between drafts one and three, I doubled the characters and quadrupled the word count. ^_^ I have no idea how much longer it will take me to complete the story. But at least I'm starting to think about beta readers. o_O Anyhow, Apprentice keeps me happy and gobbles up my time. I'm going to try to compose a nice "back-cover blurb" description thingy so I can explain what in the seven stars is it about, both to the mighty readers of this humble blog and to anyone (friend, foe, or family member) who inquires.


5. This is how I feel.

Every morning.

Just thought I'd share.










6. Concerning story titles. I leave you three to consider.

A. The Can Go Bang.
B. Revenge of the Plot Bunnies
C. The Legend of Aunt Sylvia

^ I want to write those stories one day, and many more.

If you think you've missed something, don't worry, you haven't. :| For some reason I felt I ought to disclose these deep and bizzarre inclinations to you. Thank you for bearing with me in my hour of great need; I hope we understand each other.


7. According to legend (aka, in this instance, Leighton) there might be a Jabberwocky video game coming out at some point. o_O The truth of this matter is unverified, but there's still a cool trailer to be watched. ---> http://vz3.blur.com/work/detail/jabberwocky#movies/1

note the vorpral sword. ^_^

8. I'll leave you with a thought-provoking thought; an anonymous quote of great and profound meaning:

"Time flies like the wind.
Fruit flies like bananas."

- - -

Miscellaneous,
-whisper

The Creed of the Sociopathic Obsessive Compulsive

Peter's Laws

The Creed of the Sociopathic Obsessive Compulsive

1. If anything can go wrong, Fix it!

2. When given a choice -- Take both!

3. Multiple projects lead to multiple successes.

4. Start at the top and work your way up.

5. Do it by the book...but be the author!

6. When forced to compromise, ask for more.

7. If you can't beat them, join them, and then beat them.

8. If it's worth doing, it's got to be done right now.

9. If you can't win, change the rules.

10. If you can't change the rules, ignore them.

11. Perfection is not optional.

12.. When faced without a challenge, make one.

13. "No" simply means begin again at the next highest level.

14. Don't walk when you can run.

15. Bureaucracy is a challenge to the be conquered with a righteous attitude, an intolerance for stupidity, and bulldozer when necessary.

16. When in doubt: THINK!

17. Patience is a virtue but persistence to the point of success is a blessing.

18. The squeaky wheel gets replaced.

19. The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live.


(notice: I did not write this; I found it on a poster somewhere. I mildly edited the list in order to remove a word of profanity)

sociopathic in the dark,
-whisper

Risk

"I try all things; I achieve what I can." - Moby Dick

That simple line inspires and thrills me. Behind it lurks a daring and a desire to accomplish more, harder, and riskier things. I wish there were more worthwhile risks in my life - that I had great opportunities to take steps against the social norm and to stand strong as a Christian.

Problem is, I don't know of many such opportunities. >_> Do you have any spare Worthy Risks sitting about? Because I could use one. Or two.

I've been trying to live life to the fullest and to try new things. But I have no high goals to achieve! Sure, I've been composing a bucket list, including (but by no means limited to):

- visit the loch ness
- go skydiving
- learn morse code
- adopt a girl from china
- attend an owl city concert
- publish a book

It looks all well and grand on paper. But what am I to do with my life, right here, right now? Days ride by on schoolwork and meals and empty words. We live, we eat, we dance, we go to libraries, we make pumpkin pie, we post clever FB statuses, we dive, we read classics. To what purpose? To what point?

We play life so safe and scheduled. Where are our challenges? Where are our quests and feats of valor? Where are our mistakes and our epic fails? Where are our triumphs and stories? Where have all the adventures gone?


“Let me do all the good I can, for all the people I can, as often as I can, for I shall not pass this way again.” - John Wesley

“It's probably true that a person who makes it through life without making any enemies never stood up for anything important.” - Start Here

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.” - Mark Twain


I want a risk.

Mark Twain's Rules of Writing

The following are the 18 rules of writing that Mark Twain scathingly accused Fenimore Cooper's novel The Deerslayer of violating. According to Twain, fiction requires:

1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

2. That the episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale and shall help to develop it.

3. That the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

4. That the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.

5. That when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

6. That when the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify the said description.

7. That when a person talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship’s Offering in the beginning of a paragraph he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel at the end of it.

8. That crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as “the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest,” by either the author or the people in the tale.

9. That the personages in the tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.

10. That the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate, and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.

11. That the characters in the tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.

12. The author shall say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near to it.

13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.

14. Eschew surplusage.

15. Not omit necessary details.

16. Avoid slovenliness of form.

17. Use good grammar.

18. Employ a simple and straightforward style.

- - -

Such sound wisdom from the esteemed Twain. 3 is hilarious. 14 is beautiful. 11 is golden.

Do you agree with his rules? (I do.)

Does your novel violate any of these principles? (mine does.)

Have you read The Deerslayer? (I haven't.)

Is "surplusage" even a word? (dictionary.com says it is.)

Do you like carrot cake? (I do.)

Simply,

-whisper

C. S. Lewis

A few of my favorite C. S. Lewis quotes.

- - -

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."

"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you."

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing."

"We read to know that we are not alone."

- - -

What are your favorite lines from Sir Lewis?

Metaphor Mishaps

Every year, English teachers from across the USA submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers (and many others) across the country. Here are the winners of a few years ago:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

3. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of

his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:3o.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

"maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding..."

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24 . His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

25 . He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

- - - - -

I love these. XD If you're ever feeling discouraged about your writing skills, look back at this list and be encouraged. :)

Always Hope,
-whisper

NaNoWriMo

So. It is finished. I am through.

I have completed NaNoWriMo.

At 50,663 words, it - that infamous novel that has diligently plagued me all throughout the long November month - sits without a name. I only recently realized this problem. Hm. Titles I contemplate are "Wilderwood King" or "Rebel's Cause."

Because I enjoy listing elements of stories, I shall do so now for mine. My tale contains/concerns:

1. Knights
2. Slavers
3. Nuns
   
4. A peasant uprising
5. Wolves
   
6. Quartz
7. A steep cliff
8. A bonfire
   
9. Waterfall
10. Blood. Lots of blood. My poor characters suffered much. >_>
    

I freely admit that it is a poor story. Perhaps some characters, scenes, or threads of plot will be salvageable, but on the whole I have little affection for it. Yet I am still content. I did not jump into NaNo with the intention of coming out with a worthy story; I wanted to do it for the sheer challenge and adventure; to be able to say that I have done it! Here in prosperous America, I do not have many chances for true adventures, but I try to take what I can get. :) NaNoWriMo was not terribly adventurous or thrilling, but it was a challenge, a task, a quest - one that I have successfully completed. I am content. I can now say that I have done NaNoWriMo; 50,000 words, 30 days.

Thanks to Millard for the many word wars and vigorous encouragements! I think I would have lost strength and motivation and tossed the whole project without his help. :) You can read Millard's ominous story of his dreadful experience with NaNoWriMo here.

Millard was ALSO the one who, upon the completion of my novel, convinced me to - against my better judgment - write "NaNoWriMo" on my socks with a Sharpie, as he himself did. And (heheh) I took a video of the event. If you're truly so bored that you'd care to see -




And, finally, I shall close with a quote from the book "No Plot, No Problem!" written by Chris Baty, the man who created NaNoWriMo (and consequentially became the man whose name is alternately cursed and blessed by aspiring authors more than any other appellation). The following narrates his method of celebrating a NaNoWriMo victory:

“I tend to celebrate crossing over with a meditative ceremony where I print the book out and neatly stack the pages on the floor. When everything has been properly laid out, I take a few steps back from the work, close my eyes, and offer up my thanks to the writing powers for another bountiful harvest. At which point, I get a running start and dive headlong into my wordpile, rolling around and snorting like a pig.

"And then I fall asleep for three days."

Over and out.
The triumphant,
-whisper

Courage

"Never alone."
- The Door Within


"Tell a man he is brave, and you help him become so."
- Thomas Carlyle


"The human race is a race of cowards, and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner."
- Mark Twain


"When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson


"Keep calm and carry on."
- British saying


"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."
- Mark Twain

Time

"The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present."
- Alice Morse Earle

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."
- Mark Twain


"Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them."
- Dion Buicicault


"Only one life,
'Twill soon be past,
Only what's done
For Christ will last."
- Anonymous