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Hurry up with the next part Mike *is not inclined to have patience*
Leeds Festival, 06
Manchester MEN 10th, 06
Manchester MEN 11th, 06
Nottingham Arena, 06
Wemberleeeey  , 07
Marlay Park, Dublin, 08
V Festival 08
Chris and Moz you guys are awesome!!!
Melissa... 
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haha, I gave you two parts in two days, I'll get some more done soon though, promise *crosses heart* although I'm not sure whether I'm going to go onto MOTP or go back and do Starlight
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Fan bloody tastic!
*don`t be afrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidd*
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Quote
zvexmanson :
haha, I gave you two parts in two days, I'll get some more done soon though, promise *crosses heart* although I'm not sure whether I'm going to go onto MOTP or go back and do Starlight
Hence you have a reputation to live up to!
I suggest you go back and do Starlight as well (that way we get more story!)
I'd love to read books on this kind of concept but wouldn't possibly know where to start. Any ideas? 
Leeds Festival, 06
Manchester MEN 10th, 06
Manchester MEN 11th, 06
Nottingham Arena, 06
Wemberleeeey , 07
Marlay Park, Dublin, 08
V Festival 08
Chris and Moz you guys are awesome!!!
Melissa...
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try 1984 and Paradise Lost - they're also about systems of control. The main difference between them and my novellette are probably that I put corporations at the centre of the problem rather than an actual government - this reflects my own political views, the aim being to get the reader simpy to question how much trust they put in the world thats presented to them by media (owned by companies) and the governments (most probably influenced by companies) while at the same time exploring the concept of freedom and hopefully inducing the reader to draw parrallels between our own world and the story.
I wrote another short that is available on request (it got taken down from muselive due to its non-museness and quite dark, graphic nature) that deals with existential themes as well as the nature of good and evil - a good starting point for literature exploring these ideas would probably be the outsider, nausea and perfume (some of my favourtie books).
And I think Starlight will be next, hopefully it won't be too confusing having the 2nd chapter being presented after the third
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Thanks for that, I've got quite a list now of the books I'd like to get
About the Starlight thing, unless you've already written/writing it, you could do a flashback, maybe?
About your suggestion of Perfume, was a film made recently of that? I seem to remember seeing an advert or something.
Leeds Festival, 06
Manchester MEN 10th, 06
Manchester MEN 11th, 06
Nottingham Arena, 06
Wemberleeeey , 07
Marlay Park, Dublin, 08
V Festival 08
Chris and Moz you guys are awesome!!!
Melissa...
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Well the starlight chapter would come between TaB and SMBH - I want to follow the song order and chronologically it fits between the two anyway, to you guys I guess it might be like reading a flashback though.
And yeah, perfume has been made into a film, the film's brilliant in my opinion but I think it helps if you're armed with knowledge of the book, so read it first perhaps.
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I definitely wouldn't watch the film first. In my opinion the books are always better than the films
Leeds Festival, 06
Manchester MEN 10th, 06
Manchester MEN 11th, 06
Nottingham Arena, 06
Wemberleeeey , 07
Marlay Park, Dublin, 08
V Festival 08
Chris and Moz you guys are awesome!!!
Melissa...
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in my opinion the film is absolutely perfect, it is completely faithful to the book and is truly beautiful, anyway, I better get writing so we can get back on topic 
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wow, this is great stuff, Mike! loving it so far, and looking forward to the next installment
and the book should always come before the film :P in my opinion anyway.
16/06/07, 5/9/09, 13/11/09, 10/9/10, 11/9/10
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yay! someone new, I always get excited when i see someone I don't recognise has posted here .
Anyway, I started Starlight earlier and I've been adding to it as I think of stuff, I'm writing about the characters journey to work and using it as an opportunity to explore the colony and its history, partly because I find it interesting, but more so I can hint at locales that might pay a key part later on, or to explain various features that might crop up. Anyway, I'm about half way through part 1 and I hope to have it up here by the end of the night (although if it does take that long I'm going to be worried  )
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Quote
zvexmanson :
yay! someone new, I always get excited when i see someone I don't recognise has posted here .
Anyway, I started Starlight earlier and I've been adding to it as I think of stuff, I'm writing about the characters journey to work and using it as an opportunity to explore the colony and its history, partly because I find it interesting, but more so I can hint at locales that might pay a key part later on, or to explain various features that might crop up. Anyway, I'm about half way through part 1 and I hope to have it up here by the end of the night (although if it does take that long I'm going to be worried )
Pssh! I feel unappreciated! 
And stop hinting!
And if you're reading this... you shouldn't be. Get writing.
Leeds Festival, 06
Manchester MEN 10th, 06
Manchester MEN 11th, 06
Nottingham Arena, 06
Wemberleeeey , 07
Marlay Park, Dublin, 08
V Festival 08
Chris and Moz you guys are awesome!!!
Melissa...
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You're not unappreciated at all, you're the main person who reads this thread, so with that in mind, and since you've been asking for this for a while (:P) here is part 1 of starlight.
2. Starlight pt1
I made my way towards the tube station. The tube would take me from the habitation complex straight to the central district which housed the headquarters of the various companies and their agencies – including that of my own employer: the Cydonia Excavation Cooperative. The journey would take barely 30 seconds to cover the two miles between the two sections of the city.
I passed many large posters of the prime minister – one on every corner, each accompanied with slogans promising more boosts to the economy, improved education and lower taxes – basically what people wanted to hear. I had no idea how they managed to deliver on their promises – you can’t offer people better services while cutting taxes can you? But somehow the figures kept showing that they were good to their word. I suspected that the figures themselves were falsified – I had never trusted the government or the companies and of late my mistrust had been growing.
Perhaps it was just that I was growing more cynical as I aged, or maybe just more aware. I was always very conscious of how we were surrounded by propaganda whether it came from the government, the companies or the Faction. They all wanted our trust, our devotion and blind obedience from us. The propaganda was there to make us close our eyes to the world around us, to have us simply label the companies with their mission statements, the government with its faces and the Faction with its cause. With those labels they hoped to define themselves and put distance between them and the things they actually did – the companies from their controlling contracts, the Faction from its attacks and the government from its policies.
There was no sense in supporting any of them – but we had to go along with the companies because one’s livelihood depended on it, as did ultimately one’s survival.
The city itself is probably about eighty years old now if you go right back to the first structures to be placed where it is. Originally it was a group of small research bases run by various governmental agencies. These areas later developed into the four quarters of the city when private organisations grew interested in Mar’s potential for mining. They funded in particular the development of the Central Complex and the original Habitation quarter (known as Old Town due to it being one of the oldest parts of the city) for the purposes of housing their headquarters and their workers. As ordinary people began to colonise the city the new habitation quarter developed as well as a thriving commercial district. Like most of the population of the Cydonia I lived in New Town and had to walk through its winding streets and over and under the criss-cross pattern of bridges that connected the different levels as I made my way to the tube station that was a necessity to get to the other parts of the city.
In a few minutes I reached the tube station and descended the stairs into the station. The tube network hadn’t always been under ground. It used to run above the city – huge glass tubes above our heads with the cars flying through them at high speed. But after the accident in the old habitation quarter (where Mars’ high winds caused sections of the tracks to fall to the ground demolishing several buildings and crushing the people inside), it was decided that the system needed redesigning so that was when the underground infrastructure was built.
I walked down the tunnel, passing a group of beggars, prostitutes and layabouts – residents of Old Town no doubt, which since the accident had been almost exclusively populated by the unemployed. They were a perfect example of how breaking your contract would reduce you to nothing. The companies no longer controlled the old quarter so it was an ideal place for these people to live. Besides even before the accident it had been the main area of unemployment. The employment rates had shot up after those tubes came crashing down – conveniently fulfilling the government’s promise to cut unemployment.
It was written into my contract that I had to make an effort to escort these people back to their homes - they were considered an unsavoury site and weren’t permitted in New Town under company laws. However New Town was where the money was and money seemed to draw the beggars, pickpockets and whores in so it took much enforcing and it wasn’t unusual to find large groups that had congregated over the night when there were fewer officers to keep them away.
Taking them back to their homes had become an almost standard part of my daily routine so I always left home an hour early to give me plenty of time to do it, I approached the group, presenting my identification and badge. “Right, I’m going to need to see your papers,” I spoke loudly to get their attention, they turned to face me, one or two glared menacingly but I knew it was just a show – I’d done this enough times before and so had they, they weren’t going to give me any trouble. I inspected the few documents they were able to hand me – most of them didn’t carry their papers, which technically meant I had to arrest them but I’d taken them home so many times I knew exactly where they lived so I preferred to just get them home and keep it between me and them. Besides, arresting them meant too much paper work.
“Ok, guys, it looks like I’ve got to take you lot back to Old Town, you know the rules, get on the train,” they did as they were told and soon we were rushing through the tube to the oldest part of the city. As the car started to move I took out my infomobile to send a message into the office to explain what I was doing, just in case for some reason I was late. I looked at the screen and sighed: the battery had ran down. I’d just have to charge it up when I got into work, it was a pain, although more importantly it meant I was invisible to the company’s computers, I could get into trouble if I didn’t get it sorted quick. I looked around to see if there was a socket available nearby but there wasn’t. There was nothing I could do about it, I’d just have to try and explain my way out of trouble. At least I had a group of witnesses who would vouch for me – those ‘regulars’, as I thought of them, had become casual friends and most of them owed me favours of some sort so would be happy to back up my story.
The journey was very short, and in less than a minute we were stepping out of the carriage into Old Town Station.
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maybe tomorrow, I haven't got time to do it tonight (damn physics tutorial work to hand in) but I'll try and get it written and put out as soon as possible
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Well good look with that. Wow... weird. I just had a moment where I thought every word I typed didn't make sense...
Moving on, look forward to the next part, good look with the physics, and good night, I'm off *waves*
Leeds Festival, 06
Manchester MEN 10th, 06
Manchester MEN 11th, 06
Nottingham Arena, 06
Wemberleeeey , 07
Marlay Park, Dublin, 08
V Festival 08
Chris and Moz you guys are awesome!!!
Melissa...
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bye, take care, sleep well and watch out for more dreams about playing poker with matt
[edit] right, for anyone new to the forum I've added files to the first post so you can just download the completed chapters, save you searching through the whole thread to get to each little part. They seem to work ok at the moment, as long as pfs doesn't need taking down they're there for download.
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Despite wanting to follow the album order, it might be a good idea to reveal what actually happened on the way to work till after he gets banged up. It was so awful in the dungeony bit you wonder what he could have done to deserve it - there's a hint in that chapter which piques the interest.
Part 1 that's just been posted would be good to set the scene, then he cops it at work, then we find out why when the journey is fully described.
Your story though, and a jolly good one too 
Keep up the onslaught!
*don`t be afrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidd*
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I completely understand your point but what I want the reader to be feeling when he's in the blackhole is not "what could he have done to deserve this?" but "how can they do this to him? no way does he deserve this!" - the point of the blackhole is the brutality of the companies, at least thats the starting point, I'm sure you can find your own ideas in there
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Yep, get your point completely.
This book writing is heavy stuff, the whole thing could end up being miles away from your original plan if you don't keep an iron grip. Top marks to you.
Now go and write more please please please.....
*don`t be afrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidd*
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Enjoying this alot. Very well written, in my humble opinion.
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Thanks a lot, like I said earlier I hope to get more done tonight so hopefully part 2 will appear in the early hours of the morning
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We're the ones keeping him up! He should be the one complaining, haha
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I do not allow him to complain
EDIT, several hours later: I hope this is up by the morning!!! *shakes fist*
Leeds Festival, 06
Manchester MEN 10th, 06
Manchester MEN 11th, 06
Nottingham Arena, 06
Wemberleeeey , 07
Marlay Park, Dublin, 08
V Festival 08
Chris and Moz you guys are awesome!!!
Melissa...
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