Dr Yes: Are you a heroic sidekick?
I’ve written a new kind of personality test – whether a person is a hero type or a heroic sidekick. I’m in the beginning stages of designing a much more interactive web site for my stories, and this is part of it. I need test monkeys… and that’s where YOU come in.
Please answer the questions with true or false, then put your results in the comments (along with any actual comments about the test and what you think of it). I’ll give you your personality breakdown shortly.
Hero or Heroic Sidekick?
True or False (or Neither)
1. Life without a purpose is not worth living.
2. If no-one tells me what to do, nothing much gets done.
3. I don’t mind letting someone else make the decisions.
4. I love motivating people.
5. I can handle a tough boss more easily than a tough employee.
6. I don’t like being given responsibility.
7. I make life interesting.
8. I enjoy life for what it is.
9. When my friends want something unusual, I make it happen.
10. People enjoy having me around.
11. If a job isn’t meaningful to me, I resign.
12. I struggle with my boss/es regularly.
13. I almost always get on with people. It’s not hard for me.
14. I don’t suffer fools gladly.
15. I am a natural leader.
16. I will fight to the death for something I believe in.
17. I don’t worry about the future.
18. I’m easily satisfied.
19. I am brave (or possibly stupid).
20. I am a peaceful person (or possibly lazy).
21. I suspect I’m difficult to live with.
22. If I was any more laid back, I’d be dead.
Dr Yes: Real-Life Military Lairs
I’ve talked about lairs before, and today at Steff Metal I discovered a link to a number of stunningly beautiful star-shaped military fortresses. This kind of fortress was invented around the same time as the cannonball, which explains the “why” (even the moats are genuinely useful). Or you could just look at them, and drool.
http://weburbanist.com/2010/03/11/starry-knights-14-stellar-star-shaped-fortresses/
Resolution?
My challenge, should I choose to stop messing about and do it, is to finish draft #3 of my NaNo novel (aka the empath book, aka “Justice is Blind”) today.
It’s truly weird, but the faster I write a book the less major structural editing it seems to need. This one is especially odd since it definitely has no plot. . . not exactly. Now I finally know what it’s like to write action.
The plot is pretty much: Run! Fight! Arg! Fight again! Oh no! Time for a slightly different fight! Biff! Pow! New more bigger-er fight! The End.
Not sure if it’s up there with the fart book, but it’s pretty darn good.
Ae Good Dae
Today was a great day. I’ve barely written at all this week (it’s been a little too exciting for my liking), but I found myself seated in front of the computer within an hour of waking up – and I kept writing for four hours (coming perilously close to finishing the third draft of my NaNo novel). Plus it was what I call “real” writing – as opposed to finding markets, or researching. Yay!
I also vacuumed the whole house, brushed the cat, took out the rubbish (and the recycling, and the bin), studied advanced mathematics, organised bills, and ate a whole lot of candy.
At about that point I could feel myself starting to freak out over the student (of maths) that I had this afternoon (for subjects that I’m woefully unqualified to teach – which they know, but don’t mind). I had a lie down, and tried to stay calm. That took two hours.
On the edge of tears, I went to work (she has a maths test tomorrow). Other than the hours of crippling fear, this was all good news. The family always pays me cash on the day, and this was a much-needed extra lesson. Despite how “exact” (shall we say) our finances are for the next 48 hours, I DID go and get petrol on the way, instead of running out somewhere along the 25-minute route.
The maths lesson went astonishingly well, and also much longer than expected. So I was able to (a) put the petrol money back in the bank ready for tomorrow’s bill, (b) buy nice food for dinner, (c) buy me more chocolate.
And I was still home in plenty of time to watch “V”, “The Good Wife”, “House”, “Bones” and “Castle”. Mmmm. . . Sunday TV.
I also didn’t wake up feeling sick this morning. That was pretty darn exciting. Wacky side effect of the day: green urine.
Dr Yes: Steampunk Party
Here’s another stellar example of a steampunk birthday party. The first picture is me.
Dr Yes: Freaky Flatmates
I discovered a very new, very funny blog today, and decided reading someone’s blog is SORT OF like spying. . . so it’ll suffice for today’s spy-related blog entry. I’d rate it PG (thus far) for mention of sex. Given that it’s about unusual flatmates, that rating is likely to go up. . .
Engineering My Nightmares
Sometimes I have nightmares. Often, they’re pretty good stories (one inspired me to write a full-size young adult book – in two weeks). Other times they come with real emotions, and that’s not good. I’ve had more nightmares than usual lately – the kind where I wake up frightened and/or grieving – which is either part of my Flagyl allergy, or a more direct side effect of simply being sick for so long. That, and being a mental.
But lately I’ve developed bizarre strategies for “solving” my nightmares.
I recently dreamed I was somewhere in Africa, doing charity work, when a natural disaster destroyed the whole area and everyone had to flee for their lives. I was already emotionally close to a number of children, and had a vehicle big enough to (just) fit them all. Everything was chaos as the nearby lake flooded, and people were so desperate to survive they didn’t care for anything but themselves. Many of the children I cared for went into shock, and no-one was looking after them. I wasted a lot of time searching for a particular girl who was wearing a faded floral dress (the kind someone would have thrown into an op-shop bin in Australia twenty years earlier). She was so terrified she hid inside an abandoned (and doomed) house.
Finally I found her, loaded my vehicle with all the children (all extremely docile, and unable to even understand me yelling for them to move across the seats inside the car so they’d all fit), and was about to drive away. All around me people yelled at one another in a desperate traffic jam as everyone but me drove uphill to safety. As I grabbed the last of the children, the girl in the floral dress snapped and jumped out of the car. She ran back down the road to her swamped village. I’ve never seen someone so frightened. She was like an animal. The other children simply stared, not even understanding what was happening.
Then I woke up – filled with horror, grief, and an overwhelming sense of futility and failure. It was about 2:00am.
That’s when a brilliant thing happened. I came up with a cunning plan. The emotions were with me because I wasn’t truly awake. Rationality wouldn’t help. But I could use my non-waking state to manipulate my subjective reality.
So I physically got out of bed and walked to the door – telling myself I was chasing the girl. Then I told myself I was carrying her back to the car, getting in, and holding her on my lap – as I went back into bed. I wrapped my arm around my husband’s real-life warmth and closed my eyes, telling myself the warmth was the rescued girl. She didn’t escape to drown: she was right here, in my arms.
And I fell back into sleep and drove all the children to safety.
It worked.
A few nights later I had what I think of as an anime-style nightmare, in which a black amorphous evil mass threatened to KILL EVERYTHING. This also, in my addled 3am state, was truly frightening. So once again, I used the real world to defeat the problem.
“You’re nothing but an amorphous mass,” I said – aloud. “You’re not even written well.”
This worked just fine. It also made my husband laugh in his sleep (not that he remembered anything later).
I like to think of this skill as a new-found superpower.
Dr Yes: Story So Far
1.
I unclipped Yen’s handcuffs and went down on one knee under the tropical sun of her prison-island home. “My darling, will you marry me?”
*
“’Kay,” she said.
I stood and kissed her tenderly, then ran for the chaplain. When he was ready to go, I decided to freshen up.
* (3 hour gap)
I emerged resplendent to find the priest knocked out, my ornithopter gone, and my fiancé. . . well, she was obviously still doing her hair.
2.
The love of my life, gone! She may still be cross that I killed her power-mad mum. But surely she doesn’t STILL want to destroy the world?
*
Time to be a super-handsome super-spy again. Thank goodness for plastic surgery. Yen was born in Beijing, so I got a flight there at once.
*
I was met at the airport by a strangely attractive nun who took me deep underground before telling me the horrible truth: “Yen’s my cousin.”
3.
In laws! They’re always so tetchy. I let the nun torture me a few hours and then knocked her out with a high-kick to the face. Then I fled.
4.
I searched for Yen in the shopping district. As I tried on an especially snazzy shirt in the back, I heard the nun’s nasal tones.
*
The evil nun was apparently in league with my shopkeeper! A deadly pair! I duct-taped shut the mouths of the other patrons and listened in.
*
“Yen’s in Beijing – and so’s that British superspy,” said the nun.
The shopkeeper said, “We’ll kill them both!”
“Perfect. Hey, nice shirts!”
5.
I bought hundreds of TV and streetside ads warning Yen of her mortal danger – and asking her to pretty please return my ornithopter.
*
As I returned to my hotel after another day of searching, I found a single long-stemmed black rose on my pillow. She still loved me!
6.
I spotted Yen trying on shoes and gave chase. She was too quick, but I taped my two high-tech matchbox cars to my feet for more speed.
*
Matchbox-car skating requires the perfect balance that only MI6 training can give. Unfortunately it’s been a while and I crashed into Yen.
*
I clicked my sleeping-gas pen in her face and carried her over the threshold into my – our – hotel room until she regained consciousness.
7.
Yen awoke, but didn’t seem to appreciate the scattered rose petals or the scented candles surrounding her. Then she peeled off her mask!
*
I gasped, “Mrs Fu!”
“In the flesh!”
“But. . . I threw you into a volcano. I think your daughter may still be miffed.”
“Mums are made tough.”
8.
After we’d caught up on the latest in international spy goss, Mrs Fu and I tested one another with tea. I gave her just a pinch of arsenic.
*
I tasted my own tea cautiously. Cyanide, yes. But only a token amount. Mrs Fu and I understood one another perfectly: no death – for now.
*
Mrs Fu said she knew exactly where Yen was hiding. We caught a train to the Great Wall. “Um, isn’t the Great Wall rather. . . long?” I said.
9.
We searched all night and day. Suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by Shaolin monks. “He’s with me,” said Mrs Fu.
They said, “We’re not.”
*
I grabbed my trusty blow-up gum but the monks wore titanium robes. No fair! They whipped out pens – strangely familiar pens. Noooo!!!
*
10.
Regained consciousness briefly while having a dream about killer mushrooms. One of the monks hit me on the head, and the mushrooms returned.
11.
I awoke strapped to the Great Wall with my own duct tape. Had intense déjà vu. Mrs Fu was taped beside me, and so was a black rose.
*
“It’s all right Mrs Fu – Yen must be safe if she’s given me a rose.”
“Great. End of story then. I’m afraid Yen no longer needs our help.”
*
I said, “But. . . it can’t be the end. I haven’t done anything heroic yet.”
“Why don’t you heroically help me down, then?” said Mrs Fu.
12.
Mrs Fu and I walked back along the wall while she tried to explain something about my relationship with Yen. I’m sure it wasn’t important.
*
My shoe phone rang. I answered, “Bind. Jimmy Bind.”
“HQ here. We need you to track the fugitive Yen Fu. Naturally she’s been microchipped.”
*
Mrs Fu and I followed the beeps back to a cunningly disguised lair beneath the Great Wall. We hid ourselves outside and waited.
Blurk
I’ve seen the doctor again, and they want to retest me for Giardia (the first test was inconclusive). I don’t have to take any more Flagyl pills (since I’m allergic) but I was meant to go straight onto Imodium and anti-nausea pills (which I didn’t, because the habit of putting off any unexpected expense is too strong – I’ll get some tomorrow).
I improved overall since I stopped taking Flagyl, but I’ve now regressed to being roughly as sick as I was before going to the doctor (plus the still-fading allergic side effects). Sidebar: I also have small sores at the edges of my mouth, which usually indicates malnutrition. I remember I had them in early February, too. My diet’s not THAT bad.
Today is the 11th, which means it’s exactly a month since I was told the children’s deparment heads are discussing “Stormhunter”. I estimate they’ll reply 1-2 months from now. (Last time this happened it took two weeks, but that was a different company.)
I had another look at my records and realised that the company (a different one to the above two) that has “Farting my ABCs” once took eight months to reply to just the first three chapters of a book of mine. If they take the same amount of time on this book, they’ll reply in late April.
I think the main reasons creative types are so much more prone to mental illness are:
1. They’re alone a lot.
2. They don’t have regular pay.
3. They know their pay depends on luck more than it should.
I can combat this by seeing friends, by living off my husband’s regular-as-clockwork wage, and by giving myself as many solid and reliable things to look forward to as possible. (Instead of the airy-fairy waiting for publishers, which will probably end in tears anyway.) Tomorrow I’m going to see a movie, and on Saturday me and mine are going out to dinner for a friend’s birthday party. So yay for that.
And I’ll buy chocolate with my medicine tomorrow. A shovel-full of sugar makes the medicine go down.
Dr Yes: Spy Vs Spy
The “tea” bit of “Dr Yes” was clearly inspired by these guys (more stuff on them at www.ybcw.com/strip1.php – this is their first appearance in print):
