sayewhat.com releasing fresh new science fiction into the world

About The Author

The latest image of me from Dailybooth.com

I turn everything into a story. There are times in your life when you do the right, and sensible thing, times when you bring home the bacon to pay all the bills with, walk the cat, and take your pet fish in for his annual rabies shot, but then again there are times when you have to follow your dreams. This is one of those times. This website, for me, is my window into the rest of the world. It's my intention to bring you the best of the best of the stories, even if they are just snippets of flash fiction that come into my mind. I have always seen myself as a mad fire-side story teller, with a large gnarled staff and a headdress made from the bleached bones of a ram. Maybe with a large and scraggly beard to go with it all. In truth, I think I'll stick to a trimmed beard, and a Safari Hat, but you see the point. Stories well up and fight their way out of me all the time.

I have to give them a place to thrive so I can release the pressure up there, so that is the plan for this site. Sayewhat.com, where I release fresh new science fiction into the world, about 500 words at a time. Subscribe via RSS, and listen to me rant and rave, and tell stories of the strange and unusual. After a short ramp-up I may get going fast enough down the hill, that you'll never know quite where you'll end up.

My love of story structure

I also have some strange stories to tell, and some general observations about life in general, but I really love to talk about story structure. I remember the moment very well, I was sitting there for the first time, watching an episode of Inspector Gadget as a kid, and I realized how the story worked. The chief always got blown up by the self-destructing message, Penny and Brain were always left behind in order to keep them safe, and then they would sneak up and tag along anyway and be the real detectives, solving the mystery as the Inspector carried on doing one silly thing after another, with no clue as to what he was doing. I used to have it all charted, down to the moment that Brain saves everyone.

Every writer knows they have that moment when they think, "Hey, I could do all this just as well or better." That was my first one, and there were many more over the years. I went on to dissect the rest of my cartoon favorites (G.I. Joe, Transformers, Etc.) all the while seeing how the story structure worked. Hand me a season of a television show where each show contained an arc, but then the entire season had an arc to follow as well, and that was heaven, everything from Doctor Who (Most notibly and obviously the Key to Time series) to Babylon 5 and between are a delight to watch. I'm always wondering what the next series I'll get hooked on is going to be.

My brush with stardom and acting

My Foot makes it into the movies, in Love Potion #9. Mine is the one in the blue Jeans and pair of dirty bucks. I'm visible in the movie for less than a second.

In the early '90s, I got onto the set of a movie, Love Potion #9 as an extra. I was very excited. In the film, simply speaking to someone after taking the potion will arouse serious desire in the opposite sex, and cause harmful, violent reactions in the same sex. There's a scene that happens in the end where one of the characters, Marisa has taken too much of the potion and now has a large crowd of over three hundred chasing after her. I was there, I got the T-Shirt, and rampaged up and down the streets of Atlanta over and over and over again in a hot pair of Blue Jeans and a pair of Hush Puppies. A friend of mine from High School and I went to it, and tore our feet up running all day long.

It was the day I learned what it means when a director says "Back to one." We were supposed to run back and forth in the same pattern all day. I would have none of that. My intention, if I was going to be an extra in this film, was to get absolutely in front of the camera as often as humanly possible, so I did. Every chance I got, I jumped in front of the camera instead of staying where I was.

In the end, I managed to get myself into the picture. You can't see my face, but for just a fraction of a second, you can see my shoe drop into frame in slow motion, and then it's gone, my brush with stardom as an actor was over.

Great fun, maybe one day I'll do it again, maybe as a cameo in something based on what I've done? It was my first taste of being on a live set. It wasn't the last. Looking forward to that moment when I can call the story being filmed my own. I want to be that writer on the set. You know the one. His part is all but finished, and he's just there because whoever bought the rights to make the film wants him there. He's there to hang out with the actors and see what their thoughts are on things that could happen to their characters in the sequel. Yeah, I want to be that guy.

Here's the full clip if you are interested:

Recent Snaps I've taken on Flickr

www.flickr.com Go to gaariel's photostream

For anyone who wonders about the bean

I've got a little logo down in the bottom of the left column on this site, and yes it's a bean. I might change it over the years, but the gist of it is that it's a magic bean, and anytime I plant it at the bottom of a website, the magic takes over and it begins to grow out of control. Let's see how wild and crazy I can grow this site.


Further thoughts

Woo, you've gotten this far down in my about the author page. I commend you! I think I thought you might give up, looking for my foot to land in that video clip or something. I'll conclude for the moment by dropping in a couple of contact links. One for if you should decide to email me, or something ludicrous like that, and another should you decide you'd like to follow me on Twitter. (Also a bonus!) These links are all over the page anyway, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to drop them in here again. If you like what I'm doing, send me a private message or otherwise drop me a line.

Contact info

• john@sayewhat.com
• @jsaye