Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for August 16, 2009

Knowing where you’re going… interesting concept.

Odd, that’s what I always do: start from the ending and work to the beginning.

Oops?

Well that’s one way to spoil the fun, ‘fanged companion’.

Wolf Girl should learn a lesson from Spaceman Spiff (from Calvin and Hobbs). Make it an ongoing saga.

Oh, the irony!

Try the olfactory distress signal, 150 decibels should do.

durtclaw you want Wolf-Girl to raise a stink? Perhaps you meant “ultra high frequency” distress signal.

Start with a story outline, then flesh out the details.

That would ruin the fun of creation!

…this would be a great time to start the ‘Wolf for Clunkers’ program….

Uh Oh! Looks like it’s time for the Captain Eddie BELCH again.

Wolf-Girl and her trusty companion Cave Dog leap off the log even as the Cave Bear and Ravenous Raptorsaur charge each other, float past the Ugly Cave Marauders (boys) who shake their fists in frustration, then she swims downstream chased by giant crocodiles and races through the venomous snake and man-eating-plant filled jungle to warn the village just in time.

Only to find everyone in the village has mysteriously disappeared.

kate?

Kate has a wonderful imagination! Danae’s imagination….ummm is kind of terrible but that is the way she has.

BinaryWiener said

durtclaw you want Wolf-Girl to raise a stink? Perhaps you meant “ultra high frequency” distress signal.

Perhaps a reference to today’s B.C.

He must be talking about the health care issue

Lurah, I agree. Sometimes when I write a story I’m surprised at where it ends up. Sometimes a Muse takes control and writes it the way it wants too, with or without your help!.

Stephen King never plans his stories, he writes ‘em straight out of imagination. It seems to have worked out well for him.

J.K. Rowling, on the other hand, meticulously planned everything.

Different people work different ways…

I’ve been working on a novel for years and still haven’t come up with an ending.

Wiley: While you are waiting for Steve’s eye, you can clip a book light to the top of the notebook for that modern lighted keyboard effect.

My backspace key is worn out trying to change the future.

JUMP FOR YOUR LIVES QUICK!!!!!

Hey, who actually plans out their endings? I always just write like crazy and then look back to see what I actually did. Of course, that’s also why I have stacks of unfinished stories…

With wolf-girls ability to control time and gravity this should be easy

Wouldn’t you know it! i get up this morning turn on my computer and some of my friends tell me to check out Non Sequitur, because it is so totally me they said.

LOL crazy !

wahahahahahahahahahh.

I’ve heard that back in the days of the weekly cliffhanger serials they would alternate writers from week to week. Each week the writer would try to create a totally impossible situation, then leave it to the next writer to figure out how the characters would get out of it.

hey cleo: i’ve been working on an ending for years, and still haven’t come up with a novel!

@Wiley: I’m liking these “repeats” (which aren’t to me). i thought this strip was mainly Danae and Co., but now see that it’s actually so much more. Thanks for being so creative.

Jump! and land on tha gang members.

“Wolf-Girl and her trusty companion Cave Dog leap off the log even as the Cave Bear and Ravenous Raptorsaur charge each other, float past the Ugly Cave Marauders (boys) who shake their fists in frustration, then she swims downstream chased by giant crocodiles and races through the venomous snake and man-eating-plant filled jungle to warn the village just in time.” (Cabrobst)

“Only to find everyone in the village has mysteriously disappeared.” (Birthday Suit)

However, there are giant footprints leading into, and out of, the village. They are too large for cave bear but too small for raptorsaur. There are dark streaks in the dirt which Wolf-Girl’s wolf assures her are indeed blood.

There was only one thing to do….

NEXT!

Aww, come on. Tell me. I don’t want to wait to find out the ending.

Hey, cleo, I’ve been writing the story of my life for years, now, and I STILL don’t know how it ends…….

How did you know this is just what I’ve done with my story http://www.squidoo.com/calamarikid. I have written three episodes and I have no idea where I’m going. You even have my Apple laptop right!

Robert A. Heinlein once gave a commencement address at Annapolis; it was summarized in an Analog editorial, but you can find the thing elsewhere (Google’s your friend). It’s also quoted as a 1947 essay titled “On the Writing of Speculative Fiction” in several places.

These five steps each cut the wannabe writing population by IIRC about half, and that’s why there are, of the ~250m population of the US at the time, only a couple thousand full-time writers. (Paraphrasing):

Write it down. Finish it. DON’T change, except by an editor’s request. Actually be brave and send it out; you’ll get rejections. KEEP sending it out until it sells. Then you’re a writer.

I hope I’ve given a clue somewhere as to how much I enjoyed today’s strip…

The people who read Non Sequitur are definitely the most interesting of all….Wiley, you rock.

I read that Douglas Adams invented the “Infinite Improbability Drive” that powered the Heart of Gold because he needed a way to rescue Arthur and Ford after being pushed out of an airlock:

“Adams realized that he had worked the story into a dead end, thinking in frustration that the only solutions would be ‘infinitely improbable.’ In a flash of insight and what Adams called ‘mental jujitsu’, the Infinite Improbability Drive was born.”

I think it is great that Wiley actually participates in this website. Wiley, I think you are a creative individual. Please keep up the good work.

This message brought to you by a proud CONSERVATIVE.

Hintzy: the IPD is a fine example of Deus Ex machina.. For another fine example, watch Olive the other reindeer.