(1:41 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010)
Well, what a morning gentle reader. World class putting things off there. I was up just after six and should have jumped right into the writing. instead I just frittered away the minutes and the hours. And I feel dry inside. Almost despondent where this story is concerned. Tempted to give up. I need to find me some encouragement. I need to find some inspiration. I need to break these restraining chains. I am reminded of a bit of a lyric I wrote a number of years ago.
The Lines
It's so hard at times to write the lines
To lay the thoughts down on the page
There is ink and enough to spare and yet
For some reason it doesn't want to risk running dry
I have heard it called a block but at times
It seems more like restraining chains
Arresting the motion of the arm and the working of the brain
And you my friend, can you always find the notes
Can you string them on the lines to find the melody
A thought is passed from mind to mind and then
Begins the search to find the music that's
Between the lines, that stirs our souls and sets our minds
On fire
Yes it's hard at times to write the lines
The words are afraid to break out of their shells
And begin their lives, take their first steps
Out among the thoughts that roam the world
And you my friend, play the notes and help me find
The words to join and make my lines
It's so hard at times to write the lines
To lay the thoughts down on the page
Wow. I see I wrote that in nineteen hundred and ninety two. Eighteen years ago. Ouch.
Once again we find time getting out of sync with time. Reality creeping ahead while fiction falls behind. let's see what we can do about that together shall we?
(1:47 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010)
When we left Baldy on Thursday night (novel time, last night novelling time or real time) he had done his little dog spin and laid his body down and gone to sleep to wait for Zevelyn's return.
Just for your information, gentle reader, if you want to see roughly where Zevelyn's tree is you can check this link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=24.987337,-77.381537&spn=0.002874,0.003664&t=h&z=18
This is about 24.9872 degrees North and 77.3815 degrees West.
This reminds me, I need to go back and add in such information for some of the other places we have visited with out characters so far in the story. Of course, this will throw off the word counts but they are mostly approximate in any case. Oh they are accurate enough when I enter them but they get thrown off by minor edits when I catch errors relating to my wonky space bar for instance. I often hit the bar but the space does not register in the text. I don't always catch this as I am typing and so when I do the word cound, it counts those two words as one. I put the count in. At the end of the day when I go to post the days effort to http://baldynovel.blogspot.com/ I often catch such mistakes and some spelling mistakes and what not. So the word counts get thrown off. Just thought you might like to know.
(2:03 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010) 11365
OK, so when Baldy woke up in the morning, Zevelyn was in the tree. Almost perfectly still. Baldy had not heard Zevelyn return even though he was generally a light sleeper. This was not too surprising though as he was a bit tuckered out as I say from going all supersonic and also due to the fact that owls are basically silent fliers. They are not the turbo jets of the bird world.
Baldy cleared his throat and the owl opened his eyes and looked right at him. To Baldy it almost felt like the owl was looking right through him. "Um, are you Zevelyn?"
"Whoo, wants to know?"
"Um, I'm Baldy, a friend of Cooper the gull's, he sent me to see you. If you are indeed Zevelyn that is."
"Good morning Baldy, what can I do for you. And yes, I am Zevelyn."
"Well, I need this treasure and I need help figuring out from the map where to find it and I thought, well Cooper thought that you might be able to help figure out the map. It is not too easy to decipher."
"Ah, Baldy, we shall see shall we not. Show me the map please."
So Baldy took the map out and unfolded it and held it for Zevelyn to see. He did not hand it over as he was not sure he trusted the owl. What was to stop him from flying off with it and grabbing the treasure for himself?
(2:15 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010)
Yv yj'i jhuqikhu jxqj oek iuua.
Oek ckij qffbo q byjjbu xuqj.
Dej je cksx eh Y cqo rkhd.
Jxud oekh tuiyhui Y mybb ifkhd.
"Hmmm. Yes, yes. It must be some sort of code."
"Well we know that, can you tell me what it says?"
"I can't say yet. I may be able to help, I may not be. Is this everything? Is there anything on the other side?"
"Well, not on the other side no, but there is some invisible writing on this side that comes out with heat."
"Ah, I see, show it to me please."
"Well, I don't have anything with me to heat it up. Do you have a lamp or a lighter or something?"
"No, but if we take it over to the road there it may be hot enough by now to bring our the writing if we lay the map down on it in the sun."
(2:25 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010)
Baldy trotted over to the road and Zevelyn flew over. It spooked Baldy a bit how silent the big bird was while flying. You wouldn't want him sneaking up behind you in a fight or in a game of war.
"Just rest it right down here and use those rocks to keep it from blowing away," said Zevelyn.
So Baldy put the map down flat on the blacktop and weighed the corners down with some rocks that were sitting by the side of the road. Soon, the heat from the road brought out the hidden writing.
Wisdom before treasure.
Je vydt jxyi jhuqikhu
Oek ckij vyhij vydu myitec
Jxud myitec qdt jxu dehjx ijqh
Mybb wylu oek oekh vyhij sbku
The teacher says too look for important information below the door of my house.
"'Wisdom before treasure.' Very interesting. Yes, very interesting. Hmmm, 'The teacher says to look for important information below the door of my house.' I see, well, this might be a profitable starting place."
Now Baldy was already somewhat impressed by Zevelyn for figuring out that they should use the road to bring out the hidden writing. That was cool. If he could make a profitable start...
"Yes, a treasure. The teacher. Does that bring anything to your mind Baldy?"
"Well no, not really. I was hoping that it was a pirate's treasure map. I mean, teachers don't normally have treasures do they?"
(2:37 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010) 12021
"You may have something there Baldy! You are brilliant you know."
"What? What did I say?"
"Yes, yes... Tell me Baldy, do you know of any local pirates who might be considered teachers?"
"Well no, not really. Was either Anne Bonney or Mary Reade a teacher before taking up life as a pirate?" said Baldy.
"Don't be so sexist. It isn't only women who are teachers Baldy. But no, I know of not information that wither of those women were teachers. Do think so literally. Think, pirate... teach..er." said Zevelyn.
"What? Pirate... teach..er?" said Baldy.
"Exactly. I think you have the key right there. Like I say, you are simply brilliant." said Zevelyn.
"Brilliant? How? What did I say?" said Baldy.
"Blackbeard! Baldy, Blackbeard!" said Zevelyn.
"Blackbeard?" said Baldy.
"Yes, Blackbeard. Edward Teach. Blackbeard the teach..er... Brilliant." said Zevelyn.
(2:58 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010)
(4:37 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010)
And just like that gentle reader, I have let almost two hours slip away. Two precious hours. The precious hours that cannot be recovered. Why do I do this? Why this lack of self control? Why this lack of focus?
"Wow, Blackbeard! One of my favourite pirates when I was a pup. Cool, so his house would be his..."
"Tower, right," said Zevelyn.
"Below the door of his house, I gotta go up east and dig under the door to the tower. That's gotta be where the treasure is!" exclaimed Baldy.
"Well, no, I don't think so. It says to look for important information there. It doesn't say we will find the treasure there. If that were the clue to where the treasure was, why have this coded information on the map at all?" queried Zevelyn.
"Good point, but I gotta go up there now and see what I find. Catch you later."
(4:46 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010) 12332
Baldy high tailed it out of there without even saying thank you to Zevelyn. Heading for the Eastern Road. He just grabbed up the map and was gone.
Zevelyn smiled. Oh to be young and excitable again. Baldy didn't know it, but Zevelyn had committed the words of the map to memory, the uncoded and the coded parts. His mind just sort of made things like that easy for him. The drawings might prove more difficult to remember and Baldy may yet end up having to show him the map again if he was to help fully in finding whatever the map pointed to.
Wisdom before treasure indeed. Zevelyn thought it odd that Edward would pen such a remark.
Just for your information, gentle reader, if you want to see roughly where Baldy was headed you can check this link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=25.052212,-77.286597&spn=0.002872,0.003664&t=h&z=18
This is about 25.0522 degrees North and 77.2866 degrees West. Unfortunately that is a big guess right now as it is somewhere up under that cloud I think and I don't remember which house on the Easter Road it is across from exactly. Come on Google, give us folks in the islands some love and give us better resolution images with no cloud cover please. Anyway, gentle reader, if I get motivated and can scrounge up some extra time, I may take a drive later and pin it down more exactly for you.
(5:09 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010)
(5:48 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010)
Again gentle reader, again. Come on! How can this happen again and again. Focus. Control. Crank it. get the words out.
After Baldy left, Zevelyn picked up the phone...
"Hello?"
"Yes, this is Zevelyn calling for Cooper."
"Zevelyn! This is Cooper. What's happening, did Baldy find you?"
"He's been here yes."
"Did you help him? Did you send him on?"
"I think I may have helped him some, I didn't have to send him on. Once we figured out one possible clue he was out of here like a bolt of lightning. Didn't even say thank you."
"Well, I don't know him well enough yet to know if that is out of character for him or not. Anyway, I will say thank you for him and for me. It was good of you to see him for me."
"Oh, think nothing of it, I enjoyed it."
"So, you were able to break the code?"
"No, we worked out a possible answer to one of the uncoded clues. I will try working on the coded stuff later. Perhaps I should say encrypted stuff."
"Cool, listen, have you seen that new Kung Fu movie yet, "Knockin Duh Conch Style" with Kent Bazard, Gino Bowe, Onike Archer, Taneka Thompson, Ray Morrison, Kermit Miller, Santerrio Johnson, and Devron Pinder. I saw it the other night, you should go see it. Do you know any of those peeps? I know a couple of them a little bit."
"No, I didn't see it Cooper. Where did you see it? On TV?"
"No, it was showing at Galleria Cinemas West on JFK Boulevard. It is supposed to be showing again this coming Thursday at eight pm. You should go check it out."
(6:40 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010) 12870
(7:07 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010)
Almost saw history there but not quite, gentle reader, not quite. And who is to Blame?
OK, so Baldy made it up east to Blackbeard's Tower and was all ready to start digging when he heard some voices approaching. He quickly ducked behind a bush and waited.
Some guys came by and climbed to the top of the walls and basically just hung out for the day up there. Smoking and joking. Baldy just couldn't figure why people still smoked but they did. He hated the smell. And his nose was a dogs nose. He set his mind though and hunkered down to wait them out. No way could he go digging up the place while someone was around.
So the rest of the day passed. And a good part of the night. There were fireworks going off and after dark one of the boys climbed down and left for a while. He came back about a half an hour later with what looked like a dead man but there was no dead smell to him that Badly could detect.
The boys up top lowered a rope and the boy wrapped it under the arms of the dead one and tied it. Then the dead one was hauled about a halfway up the tower.
Baldy did not see how they did it but they lit the dead guy on fire and whooped and hollered as he burned. When he had finished burning, they lit off some sky rockets from the top of the walls and then left.
Baldy waited for about thirty five minutes to see if they would come back but all remained silent and calm. He was stiff after being immobile for so long after his long run to get to the tower. He groaned and went over to the doorway and began to dig. It was rock and rocky but Baldy knew a few digging tricks and besides, he was motivated. Seriously motivated. It took him most of the rest of the night but he finally dug down to a small metal chest. He carefully lifted it out and then filled in the whole as best as he could and tried to make his digging activities unnoticeable. He put the chest into a brown paper bag that he had with him and headed home just as the sun began to rise.
(7:55 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010)
OK, gentle reader. I have us back to being synced day wise but not time wise. I am at the beginning of the novel day and I want to be at the end of my novelling day. I did not come any where near my goal for four thousand words for the day but I did cross two thousand and I want an early night of it tonight. Sorry. Perhaps I will just take a break now and perhaps I will find the motivation and the energy and the inspiration to write some more later. We shall see.
(7:58 pm Sat Nov 06, 2010) 13381
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