SAMUEL RATNAM

freewriting

“i don’t like the look of your collar bone” the grumpy old lady said to the man on the chair.

but it looks so beautiful, the man replied

well, i don’t know about that.

i don’t know what’s going on. only that i must emit the words from my brain and let nothing escape. for nothing good can come from one who has escaped.

i guess it’s like an llm when you turn the temperature real high.

except the interesting thing is that my thoughts occur faster than the speed of my typing. there was a long pause middle of that sentence. but anyway, this gives me room for editing thoughts as they occur in my brain before they are jotted onto the page. however, it is not much time.

let’s see.

what is the hour on the clock?

it seems to be 1:52am.

the crow caws.

caw.

side eye.

i don’t know.

beatles. they are pretty.

maybe perhaps.

either or i don’t know

leopard prints and printers atop the crowded caucus.

i don’t quite know what a caucus is only that it is something vaguely political.

but there he goes again. that damned spaniard. always eating behind the curtain. but never quite showing what it is that he is eating. for he is ashamed. ashamed to be known. to be known as the one who eats behind the curtain.

anyway.

underneath the spiral staircase lies a bookcase made of precious metals.

and underneath the precious metals lies another precious metal.

hierarchies. i don’t like them i guess. i do like trees though.

how dare you do that to my deepest depths.

slowly, the man raised a hand. he trembled.

short stories 2

some ideas for sci fi short stories:

  • the tiktoks get banned cause they are too addictive - become like illegal drugs
  • liquid democracy - highly democratic but authoritarian state
  • the death of human - human social interaction?
  • many worlds style multiversal communication
  • the post agi revolutionary groups

short stories 1

who are the characters?

what is the main plot?

what is the form?

these are 3 questions i do not have the answer to. today, I discovered that i’m terrified of writing a short story. perhaps i’m going to regret yesterday’s commitment. perhaps i already am regretting it.

however I have read a few shorts stories today and tried to figure out what it’s all about. some thoughts:

  • good short stories are surprisingly similar to good poems. i’m not sure how.
  • the most compelling stories are probably grounded in real world experience - write what you know? it’s harder for me to imagine a scenario that is very alien from my daily life than one grounded in my experience. good short stories contain random details and descriptions that immerse you in another world.
  • somewhat relatedly, the most compelling characters and dialogue is also probably grounded in your experience
  • in order to be a good writer, you need to be good at noticing. describe the mundane with new eyes
  • because they are so short, a lot of short stories tend to begin in media res, what is going on in the story only unfolding as the story progresses
zone of chaosnormalcy