Thoughts on Riding the Bus, PAX 2011, and Chibi-Thulu

It certainly has been a few days since either myself or Katie posted some memoirs. With her being evacuated and me being in Seattle, we've definitely not had a lot of time on our hands. But fear not! While hanging in the press room waiting for it to close, I jotted some things down from Saturday. Hopefully I can read them and organise them into a post for you to enjoy!

For the weekend, I took the bus into Seattle in the morning and back home each night. It's fairly simple, as long as you know which stop you need to listen for. Thankfully I wasn't the only one on the bus that needed that stop - and this time I could actually hear the driver call out the stops too.

But for once, I was met with a strange happening. You see, I was waiting at the bus stop, about 20 minutes early because I wanted to be sure I was there on time. And this woman comes across the street and checks the schedule before inquiring about how much the bus fare is. I say $2.50, which was the amount I paid last summer. So I was pretty certain it hadn't changed. She shuffled through her wallet, trying to see if she had $2.50. When it didn't seem she did, she inquired about if I had change for a five. Unfortunately I only had enough for my fare for the morning and evening. But then an idea struck both of us. I give her my 2.50 and she uses her five for both of us. There, problem solved.

Well, since we were now fare buddies, we got to talking about the reason she was wanting to take the bus and what brought her to town. She explained that her company's headquarters were located here, and she was flying back to Brussels, Belgium in the afternoon. Her jaunt into Seattle was for a few hours to see the city. She'd been unable to since she was mostly working indoors or sleeping from her jetlag. We finally got to talking about places she could go in a few hours; which brought up Pike Place Market - the Space Needle was too far, and the bus couldn't get her there.

It's a great tourist location right near the water. It's an indoor farmers' market where the legendary Gum Wall, Market Street Theatre, the original Starbucks, and the Seattle Ghost tours are located. Definitely a great place to send her. Not to mention the Pike Place fish throwers. Yes. Fish throwing. You order fish, they throw it and get it wrapped up for you. Quite the sight to see.

We get on the bus - after a bit of trouble with the fare machine - and take our seats. Several other stops are made along the way, and it's not too long before we've hit our last stop and are taking the express the rest of the way into downtown. A family of three just got on the bus, and with it being busy, there's limited seating for three. With the dad carrying his daughter, he takes a seat next to a guy. His wife lugging the stroller goes to take a seat across from him after he gestures for her to sit there, that way they're close. The man by the window realises this and politely gets up and switches seats with the wife so that the family is all sitting together - daughter in their lap.

"Brussels" - as I've dubbed her since we didn't exchange names - smiled and whispered "That was sweet of him to do." And it's true. It was a very nice, polite gesture that sometimes you just don't see in this day and age. She and I talked for a time - as the main bridge was closed so we had to use an alternate route. But it wasn't long after the silence that we were both dozing from the gentle rocking of the bus.

I kept my ears peeled for our stop, and got out with her. Together, we walked to the street she would need to get her straight to Pike Place. She thanked me, which it truly was no problem, and we bid farewell. I wished her a safe flight to Brussels and she wished me good luck and that she hoped I could get into publishing.

Overall, it was a great bus trip. She was a cool woman to meet and talk to, while it was also nice to see that there is still some good in humanity.

Thoughts on Alternate Realities, Self-Publishing, and Pottermore

I've always wondered... what would life be like if certain things didn't happen? I know I've talked about this before, but I recently started mulling over the idea further.

A friend and I had been trying to decide what to roleplay over instant messenger. For several years we've been using the same family/universe of characters, and slowly expanding on them. We have three generations of this family, and were running out of possible plot ideas. A thought had struck me the other day, about what would have happened to our characters had we not chosen the storylines we did.

For example, my character Casey almost loses his wife when she's giving birth. We originally planned it that his wife would survive. But thinking back, I wonder where he and his daughter would be if his wife didn't survive. Sure, he's my character, and I can write him a happy ending if I want; but that doesn't provide any amount of growth or depth. It just ties up loose ends. I'd rather like to see the struggles he goes through as a widowed father; how he copes with this sudden loss and sole responsibility; what he does when his daughter starts inquiring about her deceased mother. And what he does when he starts wading into the mess of dating when having a child.

There were other alternate universe/plot turns we came up with that gave us very interesting roads to eventually travel down. So, we've decided to go back and play these out, just to see where we would take them.