This is MJ. Welcome to Story Over Everything episode 30.
I am excited to share with you my progress.
I got to write...
Well, I got to write. I made myself write a bunch this week or fairly consistently.
So I'm overall pleased with that and I did drawings.
I think every day I wrote, I drew. So that's good.
So all of the writing that I'm going to share with you is from my author's log from August
5th through 11th and it's all of it's me working on chapter 9 of Grow Bug Tales, which I've
been working on that for two or three weeks, but that's just all I'm going to be taking.
So you got to bear with me.
But I'll go ahead and read it to you. But after I read the author's log to you, I got
to talk to you about the Hivemind, which is a bait and switch clickbait title.
And I'll tell you what it's really about afterwards.
If you're looking at the show notes already as you're listening to this, then you know
exactly what I'm talking about. You can jump to the chapter if you're using a podcasting
2.0 platform like Fountain, which is where I happily have my podcast hosted.
So anyway, without further ado, I'll get right into my readings as soon as I pull up the
file because I went ahead and made my show notes before the episode, but I did not include
the daily writing in them, which I didn't do it this week because I didn't do it previous
weeks. But now I'm wondering, should I do that just so that I have it there at hand
very easily?
So August 5th, I did not write at all. I did not make time to write. I failed to make time
to write. So that's not great. But every day since then, I believe I did. So here we go.
I'm going to just say what the date is and then I'm going to keep reading what I have
written. And if you want the word count, you got to find on Saturday evening, I post my
weekly roundup and that tells you what I've done that week.
So with writing and beyond August 6th, 2023 on your show to cadets, the three answered
nearly in unison. Good. Now cadet splash, where are the best rations stored for grow
grubs? Splash stammered, but produced the right answer. Cadet quiver. What is the order
for the storage of seeds by class and season? Quiver paused to collect his thoughts, then
gave an incomplete but satisfactory answer whistle corrected him and had him repeat the
protocol cadet. Now, what is the highest duty of the grow bug? Now gave an answer. Whistle
did not respond. After a long time now gave another answer. Whistle said nothing. Now
gave answer after answer, filling the silence when whistle remained silent. August 7th whistle
finally responded. The highest duty of the grow bug is to help others. As I said, duty
is not dependent upon ability in any way. That is a clarification, an illustration of
a larger truth of this world. But there is another kind of duty. Splash snickered at
this whistle chuckled and continued. We have a duty to grow to push ourselves beyond our
limits. Though we are small in body, we have the capacity to be enormous in heart and spirit.
There is a balance to maintain to be concerned with everyone and everything in our lives
in the world and also with our every thought or indeed. Balance is found when we can honestly
be severe with ourselves and generous with others. When we see a thing in the world that
is distasteful to us, we must look inside ourselves to see where it is part of us. You
want to be your best self. You want to grow, but part of you is unsure, afraid, worried
it will fail, worried everyone will see you for how small and weak you are. So it tells
you to stay quiet, to step back, to not act. If you don't act, you can't fail. August
8. But refusing to act is an action. It is the act of withdrawal. It is the act of running
away. You can't help others if you only run away. I'm no guardian, so I can't speak on
tactics with much authority. But there is a difference between a strategic retreat and
fleeing. I would think you should never flee, but retreat is a valid choice. After all,
what else would you call this if not a form of retreat? Whistle gestured to the busy camp
around them, grow bugs working diligently to fortify the camp while making it blend
in with the rest of the wood as best as possible while staying habitable and functional for
all those who stayed behind. Splash squeak. So what are you saying, Keeper Whistle? Are
you saying we're all going to die and die without fighting like a bunch of cowards?
Whistle fluttered one wing, then the other, then answered. I am saying that I want all
of us to survive. None of you cadets are ready to fight. Is it true that you have lived in
this camp your whole life? Yes. Is it true that you have never had to fight for your
life? Splash admitted, yes. Did you know that the same could be said of me? No. August 9.
It's true. I'm no warrior, but I will fight if I have to. I will fight for what I have
to. For now, I do what I can. I hope we will all survive this attack. I hope we remain
hidden. I hope the Guardians repel these enemies before they get here. Hope is not now and
will never be a plan. That is why we do all we do. If they fail, if we are besieged, if
heaven forbid the camp is destroyed, we will rebuild by feeding ourselves from the stored
rations and we will work to raise up a new generation of grow grubs and to grow but cadets
and you cadets into keepers, guardians and seers. To succeed, we all need to do our part
as if our life depends on it because it just may. Whistle stared at the cadets. Any questions?
The three responded together. No. Good. Cadets to your tasks. Splash, I will shadow you to
start with. Quiver, Naa, be light of foot and swift of wing. I will catch up with you
too shortly. August 10th. Keeper Grunt dashed around a series of sticks, lashing them with
a luminous tendril and gave a mighty pull. The structure came crashing down, kicking
up dust and debris. He turned to Yon and Babel and asked, Any questions? August 11th. Yon
asked with a tremor of hope in her voice, Is that all we have to do? It is. Yes. For
step one. Oh, Yon wilted a bit. Babel jumped in. What's next? Are there a lot more steps?
Grunt answered. Since our objective is to make it look like we were never here, we don't
want to leave these mounds like this. Wind and other creatures would have spread them
out if they had time to do if they had time to. So we are going to do that now. Yon muttered
to herself. I was worried about that. Cadet Yon stiffened. Yes. Is that all? Yes. Babel
broken. So for step two, what is the best way to clear the mounds? Grunt continued.
Well, it really starts in step one. Dot dot dot. So that's the end of my writing for this
week. And I won't make any other comments on it. I will instead move on to the next
section of the episode. So now that the author's log is officially closed, I can talk to you
about the hive mind. And this is more of a personal anecdote just for funsies here. So
I have access to a yard and so do my children. And we have been getting stung over the last
week. Started with one of my daughters got stung. Then I think then who was it? Me or
my son? Anyway, then I think my son got stung and then I got stung. And we couldn't figure
out what was going on. Are these hornets, wasps, yellow jackets, bees? What exactly
was going on? So long story short, we found out that they're some sort of ground thing.
They're my somebody thinks the yellow jackets. I think they're I don't know what they are.
They could be hornets. They could be some sort of ground wasp. And apparently wasps
will frequently build their nests in holes. They'll build them in I looked it up. Apparently
they build them in abandoned animal holes, whether that's a rodent of some sort, or perhaps
a snake because we have snakes too. They'll build in theirs in those holes underground,
which is wild. And that kind of goes against not the laws of nature, but like the way we
think about, you know, nature. So we think about, oh, it's a it's a flying creature.
So it must be up in the sky. And I'm used to seeing like paper wasp nests up under the
eaves of houses or garages or whatever buildings, right? That's what I'm used to seeing. And
I know that those also they'll put those in trees, I believe. And you know, the classic
bee from media, the bees in the beehive in the tree, right? But they've you know, people
do be boxes and apparently, you know, bees will go into people's holes of houses to build
hives, which is crazy. Sorry, give me the heebie jeebies thinking about that. But it
also gives me the heebie jeebies to think about a whole huge nest of or, you know, swarm
within a nest of some sort of stinging insect under the ground. And anyway, this sort of
relates it doesn't really relate to writing, but just like the concept of hive mind is
interesting because these, you know, matriarchal insect, I don't know if you'd call them colonies
or what specifically you'd call them. I believe the way that well, I know more about bees
than I do about any of the others. But I think the general principle applies to them and
ants and other things like that, which by the way, if you've ever seen a furry ant or
a hairy ant that's actually a wasp apparently without wings, which kind of doesn't make
sense to me, but whatever. Anyway, so by the way, the primary scientific designation of
something being a wasp seems to be that it has a very skinny waist. So anyway, which
I guess these guys that I got stung by don't have a very skinny waist. So they must be
some other thing like a hornet or yellow jacket. So anyway, somebody told me because I was
telling them about this ground nest that we found and I thought I'll deal with it later.
It's not a big deal. You know, I got stung on my elbow and you know, I think my son got
stung at the same time, but we're okay. Thank God nobody's, you know, swelling or allergic
or anything like that. So that's really good. And I was kind of taking my time dealing with
it because I thought, well, I don't know where the thing I know where the nest is and we're
gonna have to eventually find it. I know they're in this area, they're congregating here. So
the nest is probably somewhere near there, but I didn't know where it was. So somebody
mentioned to me, oh yeah, those ground wasp nests and that's what they call them. So I
was calling them and thinking of them as wasps. Sometimes the soil will get weak around where
they have their area. I'm assuming from like them hollowing it out, there is something
called a great golden digger wasp that does dig into the ground. And so I thought, well,
perhaps other types of wasps burrow or maybe them attaching their nests, their cells to
the dirt, which is above them, which is below the ground, right? Might weaken it and whatever.
And somebody said, yeah, if you're not careful, you could step into and sink into the nest
and they're going to attack you because they're defending themselves. And I was really angry
with these things. And then I really, cause I thought I didn't do anything to them. I
just walked by to go check on something and I happened to walk by where they were and
I didn't notice that they were there. And I realized that when I finally found the hole
where the nest was, and I say was because it's there no more, it's a graveyard now.
I realized, oh, I am, I walked right by. I probably step foot, put my heel right next
to the entrance to their hole and disturbed them and made them scared and think, Hey,
someone's coming after us. We got to protect the babies. We got to, you know, deal with
this threat. And they came out and stung me possibly multiple times in my elbow. Um, you
see, it was sitting there for a long time before I got somebody to help me with it.
So, uh, anyway, I realized there is a justification for why I got stung. This, you know, these
bugs were not acting ridiculously. They were acting via the hive mind, the queen mother,
um, you know, has her select number of drones. Again, this is specifically for bees, but
I've assumed it's similar for these yellow jackets or hornets, whatever they were. And
you know, she mates with a couple of them and somehow, uh, one session of mating has
enough seed in it that she can just have like baby after baby after baby. But the whole
objective of the nest of the hive is to keep the queen alive and the babies to care for
the babies, to raise them up so they can go out and collect pole, uh, pollen or wood pulp
or whatever it is that they're using, bring those resources back to the hive and use that
to feed like to support, basically to keep the hive alive. And when the one queen dies,
I know something like a pheromone is released and then another, uh, one of the, you know,
their majority female colonies, right? One of them awakens or she's triggered into becoming
the queen and taking on those aspects of herself. So the sexual dimorphism in creatures where
a male animal looks different from a female animal, one of the best instances of this
is like a peacock or any of the, um, the birds that do the dancing mating ritual, like the
males, the females are drab looking brown and gray and things like that. Whereas the
males will be very colorful. You see this in, in, uh, drakes of ducks, uh, in peacocks,
uh, I guess P hens, peacock for the, you know, cock rooster type thing. And then P hen, I
think is what you'd call the females specifically if you were breaking it down like that. Uh,
but the drakes for ducks and then the female duck is just called a duck, I guess. Um, and
anyway, that sexual dimorphism sets them apart. And then it's interesting in these insect
colonies, you have the queen, she, I think the queen grows extra big and, uh, like her
body shifts so that she can be prepared to just like lay egg after egg after egg. And
I don't know how it works as far as like, does she really like, does she literally think
there's a threat I need you to go attack it? Or they are all her drone. Well, the males
who drones, the females, the workers are all her workers operating off of like a base level
of instinct where, okay, there's a threat. We're going to attack it. Oh, uh, you know,
somebody got, you know, something got stuck outside the nest. Uh, a smell is a scent is
released based upon that. That signal hits me. I'm going to swarm over there and I'm
also going to attack because whatever my sister is fighting, uh, if it's not stopped, it's
going to come here and kill the rest of us potentially. So I got to stop that threat.
It's just, it's very interesting to think about how that structure works. And like you
can think about that with, you know, villain organizations in your superhero story or your
fantasy story where, you know, you're escalating and trying to get to the dragon who's behind
the evil wizard or whatever, uh, that you need to stop to save the day. Um, like that's
interesting, but also just like, you know, there's as much as I was mad about it, there's
a logic to it. And I can appreciate what I was doing to those bugs. And, uh, last night
and then this morning I followed up, uh, making sure that I, I killed that entire nest and
I feel badly about it, but I'm protecting my hive. I'm protecting my nest. They attacked
me and they've attacked me. Like they, I went out there with my son. Uh, I got stung in
the leg. He got stung twice either through his shirt or under his shirt. They crawled
up and got under his arm and on his back. And that's where he was stung. And I feel
really badly for him because my stings on, on my elbow were hurting me really badly.
Um, again, thank God within like 24, you know, 36 hours, they were, uh, like much better.
And I think I must've gotten, gotten stung multiple times on my elbow because it really,
it puffed up so badly, but my leg is fine. Uh, but then later, a couple hours after I
was stung and my son and I came back inside, I was reading, I was sitting down with him
and we were going to read before, you know, before bedtime. And I thought, I heard a buzz.
Is that a, is there a fly inside it? I hear that, but where did that buzz come from? And
I thought, you know, don't worry about it. You guys are here. Just take the opportunity
to relax and enjoy. So he ends up going to bed. I lay him down in bed. I flopped down
on the couch to read or actually to write. And I feel this pain and I am shocked by the
pain because it's, it's in my clothes. I'm feeling pain from in my clothes hours after
like an hour or two after getting stung by these yellow jackets or whatever it was. And
I was honestly, I was shocked and scared. I acted like a man, but on the inside I was
shaking. Um, and I stood up and I said, I think I just got stung. My wife was there
sitting down. She was writing something too. And I said, can you help me look? And I showed,
I said, look, you see anything? No, I don't. And I said, okay, well I feel pain. I know
there's something there. So I maneuvered my clothes a little bit more and sure enough,
a yellow jacket had been inside of my clothes and it stung me. And I thought, could that
have happened to my son too? What about the rest of us? Who else is going to, how many
more times can we afford to get stung? And so I looked it up and I decided it was time
for me to kill that nest. And I'm going to let you know, soapy water did the work. It
basically drowns them in their own skin because they breathe through their skin. Cause that's
insect Sue. And uh, yeah, it was, I mean, I didn't like doing it. It was sad. I went
out there at night when it was cool. Um, cause I thought we were going out when it was night
and cool enough and dark enough that they would be retired for the night, but they weren't.
And uh, but they're just in such a place where they, like I constantly, we would constantly
be walking by them to attend to things in the yard that I, I felt like I had to do this.
And uh, we have a broken window screen and I laid it over their hole and I put cinder
blocks on to keep it tamped down. And I'm glad I did because before I was messing around
with some other stuff and then I came back a couple of minutes later and I saw all these
insects, all these hornets, yellow jackets crawling around on the other side of the screen.
And fortunately I already, I prepared all my stuff. So I just grabbed my bucket. I dumped
it on them and I booked it cause I was not wanting to deal with the hive, but apparently
soapy water kills them within like 15 seconds or so. And then I went out this morning, it
was dark. Um, and I wanted to do this before anybody else could be out there. And I, I
hosed them down again and I, it looks like the dirt is filled in and where the hole was,
um, like I collapsed it and it filled in on itself. So anyway, that was a harrowing experience
and I dealt with that. But if you've got wasps or hornets or ground, uh, something or others
that can sting you, uh, soapy water is going to take care of that. I'll apparently also
you can put soapy water in a spray bottle and just squirted them and it'll kill them.
I don't advocate killing them one off. I did definitely like we leave the bees alone. We've
got bees all over the yard and we walk through where they're sipping from the flowers and
they leave us alone and we leave them alone. And it's great. Even though we will get close
to them and watch them on the plant, but we don't like touch them or anything like that.
And they leave, like I said, they leave us alone. Uh, I think it's only these more aggressive
hornets or wasps or whatever yellow jackets, potentially that were getting us. And I felt
like I had to do it, but I feel bad about it too. Um, but I had to protect my family.
So it's just kind of interesting. What does it have to do with writing? I'm not really
sure just kind of a PSA, but it did kind of make me think about stories and like, you
know, who's evil here. Am I evil for, you know, massacring this hive or, uh, am I being
very perfectly reasonable for killing them all? I also just happened to watch attack
of the clones the other day and it made me think about it. Uh, you know, Anakin's line
after, you know, massacring the sand people. And I do feel badly. I wish I hadn't had to,
I wish I didn't feel like I had to do that, but just the location they were in was no
good for me. Maybe there's a better non-lethal way to, to deal with them. I saw somebody
mentioned something about like bees specifically get somebody to move their hive for you. Cause
beekeepers will do that. They want to pull in, I don't know if it's so that they have
like, um, genetic diversity, they'll pull in a hive onto their property, um, from somewhere
else so that they, well, they benefit somehow. You know, they have more bees, um, that they
didn't have before they can make more honey, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't know that
anybody does that with, you know, yellow jackets, wasps, hornets, that kind of thing.
So anyway, um, there's always another, there are alternatives to fighting, right? Since
I'm in a Star Wars mood. Um, and there's always another way to do things, but, uh, you know,
I did what I felt I had to and, uh, it's just kind of interesting. Again, I'm not like crying
or losing sleep over it. I just, I feel badly. I hate having to kill things. Um, but, uh,
I felt like it was justified in this case and it gives me something interesting to think
about. And, um, I don't know if you've ever thought about that with your writing, like,
how do you, how do you make villains and heroes and how do you deal with evil enemies? And
like in my grow bug stories there for children, I'm making them very simple. Like there are
evil things in the night that exist specifically to harm children and the grow bugs specifically
exist to combat them. Now I do have other ideas for stuff relating to, I have these
dread bugs for this other story that I want to do where it's not that they want to hurt
people. It's that they're in a foreign environment. They're outside of their natural ecosystem
so the way that they operate in their natural ecosystem is beneficial or at least not harmful
versus here in our world or in the world of my stories. It takes on like a predatory parasitic
character and they do end up harming people. And I think that's really an interesting idea
to play with. Um, cause I like, I'll, I enjoy evil characters sometimes, but I also don't
enjoy like evil races and like, you know, it is fair to say that the, you know, the
wasps were in the right for attacking us. Um, but I think I was in the right for attacking
them too. So anyway, it's just, it's just interesting food for thought. I think it,
thinking about the real world and observing the real world and how it functions can help
us to be better writers and better creatives. And, uh, yeah, I just felt like sharing that.
So with that, I'm going to go ahead and wrap up this session of story over everything and
I encourage you to go to the website and check out everything I'm doing. I'm not doing all
the analysis that I want to do. I'm being consistent in doing the artwork and doing
the writing that I want to do. So that's good. And, uh, you know, I'm imperfect and I'm working
towards being better and more consistent. And it's just, it's hard road to be, uh,
well, it's a hard road to do whatever you want to do. And when you want to do things
very ambitiously and at a wide scope, it makes it even a harder road, but with time and dedication
and effort, you can push through and make it happen. I think so. Uh, that's what I'm
hoping for myself and that's what I keep working towards. So anyway, I thank you for your time
and attention folks until next time. Uh, take care, be well, stay away from wasps. This
is MJ signing out. I hope you enjoyed that. Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions,
comments, or other feedback you might have. There you can find all of my analysis, art
and fiction. I cover books, tokusatsu, comic books, anime, and more. Look around. You're
sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well. This has been a story over everything
production.