Saturday, October 20, 2007

FUCK ME

Sorry for the vulgar title, but it's early morning on a Saturday, I'm drunk on a glass of 4 dollar wine that is turning my spit purple, and I feel a need to vent, now. Shit, I feel the need for a typographic enema (is that an appropriate adjective?).

My second to last post is about a new story, and how I did it so fast. Well, I haven't done shit since writing that story, just typed it up, edited it one and a half times, (I went over the first half twice, having made an aborted edit) and printed it out just today. That's fucking it.

Oh, and I wrote a page of a third draft of some thing that I am keeping on the back burner, and only thought to revisit because it was evoked by Pattern Recognition, the latest Gibson novel I have read (It's very good, maybe his best; I liked it better than Spook Country, I think, though I only listened to that on Audiobook. I think Gibson is at his best when using a single focalized character. His ensemble pieces aren't as hooking).

Since then, I have gotten bogged down in a laborious job search, characterized more my procrastination than actual searching, during which I tried to get a job as an insurance salesman, succeeded, then decided I didn't want to do it. That makes two jobs that I have gotten and turned down, no jobs that I have actually gotten. Meanwhile, I failed somehow to make it through the initial interview stage for a online application at Best Buy, thought that might have been a computer fuckup, maybe, on my part, and the application didn't go through. And I haven't gotten any callbacks on the shitjobs I applied for last Friday.

In short, I have been feeling depressed, useless, and lazy for the last 20 days or so. I have gotten nothing done. My jobsearch has gone from a lazy procrastination to a selfhating freakout. I have no interest in getting a job. I have no interest in getting fucked by the system, or fucking others with the system. The entire American economy has, for a long time, felt like a series of commutations of exploiting and being exploited, and I don't want anything to do with any of it. I am unhappy, feel useless, uninspired, frightened, and angry. I hate this entire fucking economy and want nothing to do with it, feel both uninspired and disinterested in trying to have anything to do with it, guilty, and wanting to, if anything, be exploited by it, just so as not to be past of the monster, and horribly depressed and frightened and angry that, in twenty days of not getting a job, I have managed to do fuck all in terms of writing.

Now, I am listening to Sinead O'Connor, enjoying feeling properly drunk for the first time in ages. It's good, I think, to get drunk every so often. Let the demons out to fly and around and access the decorating, give it their honest opinion, break anything that doesn't seem to be doing much good.

My friends visited last weekend. Sunday night Boyle and Craig inexplicably, in an act of spur-of-the-moment initiative, drove all the way out to Iowa City, harassed me, and took me out for breakfast at eleven at night, then drove back. Boyle now has a shit-paying job with possibility for advancement. Craig is dating the Hot Polish Chick at Follett. All they did was harass me, probably because I am in an pitiable shit state, and such was obvious. I haven't gotten a job in nearly three fucking months. They questioned why I moved out here. Like most point blank questions, I stuttered and gave answers that felt like fake justifications.

I feel like my entire life has been a waste. I have no idea why I am doing anything that I am doing. I feel that every day I am sinking deeper and deeper into depression and melancholy. I feel alone and frightened. The entire world, all of my surroundings, feel like a foreign country, transplanted to an alien world with odd, idiosyncratic customs. I want out. I don't like it here. I keep waiting for it all to make sense and it never does, just feels more and more alien. Why can't I get on something that feels like that right track. Is it me? It is the rest? Do I even want to?

I don't want to sell insurance. I don't want to be here. I don't want to fake being a person. I just want to be a fucking writer.

So why can't I even manage that?

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Johnny Mnemonic

I was pleased recently to find out that William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic is posted online in it's entirety, here, since this gave me the chance to read the story from the comfort of my chair without paying money, or sitting in a bookstore or something.


I was pleased, reading it, because it's really not all that great. The movie might actually be a better story, minus the fact that it doesn't have Molly. I mean, it's very creative, laying out many, if not most, of the ideas and concepts and social commentary that would pop up in Neuromancer (except for cyberspace). But the story is just not that engaging. There's really no sense of building tension, it's kind of disjointed.

That said, Gibson is pretty good at the basic mechanics of writing. The final fight between Molly and the vatgrown Yakuza assassin is really well told. It's just that Gibson took the concept of "start as late in the story as possible" to its extreme, and as a result there is really no connection with the main character. I read the entire story not giving a shit that I knew the narrator was going to get offed shortly after the narration closes. That's bad.

Still, better than Pynchon's early short fiction. I think I just like novels better than short stories.

Also, I just wanted to point out that the story is really good if one is a Molly fan. It think this is the most ass-kicking she does in any story. Which is funny, because while this is Molly at her most consistently ass-kicking, she is less badass than she is in either Neuromancer or Mona Lisa Overdrive. Just not as scary and psychopathic.

Bullshit

I think this blog might actually be helping me with the writing process, to a degree. Composing short bits where I try to express my point as quickly as possible and move on, has, I think, helped cut out the bullshit from my writing. Which really, there is no need for, because there is always someone who will spot a piece of bullshit if it's there.

Best just to get an idea out there as quick as possible and move on.

New Story!

You see that post, down below? Where I tell myself I should get some writing done. Well, it worked, and I did. This weekend, I have written an entire short story. Whole cloth. First draft. Okay, it's not finished, yet, in the sense that it's not typed yet. It's about 16 or 17 pages in a notebook. Still, that's in incredible feat of writing to get done in one weekend. And it's good. I like it. The changes that need to be made are very minor, almost nonexistent. And also, it the first peice done of my wider Life's Work piece that I am always off -and-on thinking about. It feels like just to have a part of it committed to paper. There is a warm feeling of contentment infusing my body (that might be beer).

Also, I think I am getting closer and closer to my voice. When writing this, I felt like I was learning to turn off my critical voice, my second-guessing voice, and just write the story, knowing what was important, what would have to come. And it worked. I would say that 95 % of the things I thought had to be in there have ended up there. I mean, this thing will need like two edits only, probably. One when I type it and one when I proofread. And it's shorter than the long ass crap that I am writing the rest of the time. Which is nice.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Today is a Game Day.

My car is stuck in the driveway, another car parked behind. I am trapped here.

I should probably get some writing done.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

New Story

I have just started working on the third story, and it is slow going. I wrote an earlier draft, but I am not happy with it, and am starting over from scratch, trying to get the tone and voice right. The printed copy of the last draft lies on the desk next to my notebook. I'm a little over half a handwritten page into the thing, and I have little need to do more than glance at the thing. But it is slow. The voice is taking work to do, and I feel like I am fighting against a mountain right now, trying to get as much of it right without really knowing what it is going towards. I just know that I like what is down so far, and I am trying to take my time, so I don't mess it up and have to start over. No end in sight though. I hate starting new stuff. It's so...consuming.

Last story almost done

Last night and this morning—okay, early this morning and early this afternoon—I rererereedited my latest story. I think it is getting pretty good now. Yes indeedy, polished to a sheen, almost. Maybe just a few bits of dirt stuck along the edges.

Some books I like, in no particular order

Neuromancer

Man, I have just not been able to put this down lately, for some reason. I just really like the asymmetry of it, I think. The way it starts off as a tense chase sequence short story, then shifts into a film noir set up. The episodic second section, the character and atmospheric sequences from the third. And then the almost real time focus of the fourth section. Also, I just love love love Molly. One of the best characters ever.

Slaughterhouse Five

I was just thinking recently about this book, that its basically just super reliable. I really can't so anyone not liking this book for anything other than political purposes. Its storytelling is almost objectively good.

Gravity's Rainbow

Been rereading this, slowly, off and on recently. And I do mean slowly, as in that's the pace I read at. It's bizarrely become easy to read for me recently, when before could only get about 10% of what was going on. But now I am actually following it. It has the lit fiction tendency of more describing characters a states and showing them ruminating and reminiscing than just showing the fucking action already, which is the approach I prefer, but one it's terms its remarkably good at sucking me in. And the vitality of the prose is nice too. I think the main reason I picked this back up is I read a shitload of Gibson interviews and—surprise!—he's a fan too!

Neverwhere

Just the best villains ever really. Up there with Molly. I like to fantasize sticking Croup and Vandemar in other stories/mediums, delight in the damage they cause. Unstoppable Inhuman Common Thugs. Why didn't someone think of that sooner? "I'm afraid we have no redeeming qualities." Sweet.

Crying of Lot 49

What a nice compact, short, sweet little book. And not that much Navel-gazing. Well, more navel-gazing than V. but nothing interesting ever happens in V. and at least here interesting things happen in the navel-gazing. And the plot is excellent: off-kilter and of ambiguous import. I feel like I hold myself back from rereading this one, just because I know it would be over so soon, and I have other stuff I am trying to read. Or something. I don't really know why I deny myself. Maybe I am afraid I will just assimilate it into my being, and just know it my memory. I bet if I gave myself the chance, it could happen.

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

The most reliable of all my childhood fantasy literature. The ones I keep rereading. Because they are so much fun.

Ulysses

I think I have read Part I four or five times. Only book where I don't mind starting over, though I got through it all once. There is a lot in this book, and I am still trying to get my head around it, every so often, but whatever is there is really interesting. I think Joyce is the only author I have read, in fact, is the only author, who is the objectively good. If you don't like it, you're wrong. Doesn't mean he isn't frustrating, or that I don't kind of wish we had three more Ulysses instead of one Finnegan's Wake, but still, the guy is good, there is no way around that. I mean, other writers are maybe arguably better, from a certain perspective, but they all have faults. Joyce is completely in control, and unlike, say, Nabokov, he also has heart. Only writer with both technical and thematic perfection. Little hard to get, though.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Where to?

I've handed off a copy of my latest story to Anne, and am awaiting her opinion of it as is. This means I should probably either start working on my next story, or go back and work on the first, cleaning up the ending. I am leaning towards the latter. I don't feel like I am allowed to move on yet, somehow, and I kind of don't feel like working on that particular story. On the other hand, I do kind of feel like working on the fourth story, but I don't really want to jump the gun.

I started readings some of the what's been written so far of the third story. I don't know what to make of it. I have this sneaking dread that I might have to completely rewrite it, start over, that the story is tonally all wrong, or at least the method of telling it, the diction, is wrong for the character. On the other hand, I kind of like the tone of it, whether it fits the character or not. There are a lot of errors. Perhaps if I clean up the errors, iron out the sentences, it might become closer to the piece that I envision.

I need to come up with better titles for these blog posts. Maybe a system or something. Or just dates.

Finally!

Well, I finally got around to editing that last thing, which I had been putting off for a while. I am not sure if it is completely done, but I think I have reached a point where I want feedback before I go any further. I guess this means I need to go back and do the edits on the last story that I know I need to do. Still, maybe tomorrow I will just dust off that third story and start working on that instead, or at least get the juices flowing on it again. I really hate editing. And typing things I write in notebooks. Still, I really do need to go back and edit that last thing. Humbug.

I'm rereading Neuromancer, by William Gibson, right now. Molly's awesome. I bought a copy of Mona Lisa Overdrive, which I am putting off starting until I finish this one. I can't wait. Been reading a lot of Gibson interviews lately too. Interesting talker. Lots of interesting takes on things. I like him. It's always nice to think that an author isn't a prick.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Collaging in the future

Shit, what is it today, Wednesday? Tuesday? Anyways, yesterday morning and the night before that I wrote a whole bunch of stream of consciousness notes in my notebook that I need to edit out and cut and past and collage into a version of the main character's thoughts in the most recent story. So, I have that to do, typing, and then grueling editing to do.

Also, I rewrote a portion of the ending from the story before that, taking into account the criticisms from Anne and Boyle and the ideas about changing it that Anne and I hammered out. I got stuck though, as I think that the remaining edits will be some combination of the old material cut and pasted and collaged, and some new material, including a mention of certain integral character who shows up at the beginning, leaves and then is never mentioned again.

So, basically it seems what I have to do next is a bunch of grunt work, which I have been putting off, on account of being a lazy bastard, and this post is a way for me to expunge all that grumpy layaboutism and get off my ass. So.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Weekend Update

Today I have written, quickly, the last two sections of the story that I am working on. They are far from finished, but they give me a good idea of the direction I need to move in with the story, and a cursory idea of the structural direction of the last two sections. I think that more fleshing out is necessary, so I think my next step is to print up a copy of the story to read, and see what I feel is lacking from the conclusion, what I need to do to punch it up, and what I need to do to fit the story more strongly into the narrative pattern of the story so far.

Also, yesterday I talked with Anne extensively about the ending of the last story, and the changes I need to make to that one's ending to give it a more fitting conclusion. I basically have to rewrite that section, expanding it, and changing the main character's response to his situation to make the ending less heavy handed than it could be. the basic idea is that, in stead of a shocking realization that isn't that shocking, I need to go for a sense of creeping unease, which will be more effective at making the point of the story, and will also work better to maintain the reader's sympathy. I think. I don't know if I want to make those changes now, or in the future. I think I should finish the present story before going back to make revisions, just so I'm not flitting around too much, but I should doo the revisions before moving on to the next story.

Friday, September 7, 2007

Literary vs. Genre

One of the things I spend a lot of my time thinking about/wanting to read about is the topic of genre fiction vs. literary fiction, what the terms means, their artistic worth, and so on. Most of this relates to the perception of the artistic merits of fiction, and whether fiction needs to have pretty words to count as great art or not. This eventually turns into a debate about what qualifies as literary fiction and what qualifies as genre fiction, and it lierary fiction is just another genre or not.

The way I see it, the difference between genre fiction and literary fiction is this. Genre fiction—it's various genres, sci-fi, fantasy, western, mystery, crime, thriller, horror, romance, etc.—is interested in the tropes of it's particular genre, and literary fiction is more interested in the use of literary devices—foreshadowing, symbolism, character, imagery, structure, etc. Its basically two different approaches to relating themes, which is what all fiction is ultimately about.

Hence the difference in the readers interest. Readers of literary fiction want to read something that is, let's say, well-written. Readers of science fiction want something that involves science fiction. This does not mean that a science fiction book can't be well-written, or literary fiction piece involve genre element. Both occur. It's a question of emphasis.

For example, lots of Thomas Pynchon novels include genre tropes, like robotic men, ninjas, walking dead people. But the emphasis is more on the prose style and postmodern plotting and structure techniques. Hence, literary fiction. Also, most of those tropes are pretty derivative. Then there is someone like Philip K. Dick, who apparently, writes like crap, but has visionary, genius science fiction concepts. Hence, he's considered a major science fiction writer. In fact, it's often the case that some genre writers who are not really good "writers" are still considered very good writers because of the content of their ideas. Most of the pulp writers whose names we still know, like Lovecraft and Howard are known because of their ideas, the Cthulu mythos and the Hyperborian Age, respectively. Meanwhile, literary writers usually become well known for their innovation of technique, like Faulkner or Hemingway or Joyce. (Although I often feel like Joyce is his own form in an of itself, as he seems to be more a writer of ideas than form, and thus became the master of form as he was the master of ideas. Or something.)

In brief, genre fiction is about ideas, literary fiction is about technique. And both forms have both ideas and technique.

Madeleine L'Engle, 1918-2007

Via the Onion A.V. club, I see that Madeleine L'Engle had died. Guess I feel I should point that out, since I wrote this post about her work not too long ago. Now I feel bad about not finishing A Swiftly Tilting Planet. So it goes.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on her.

Got nothing done yesterday.

I spent most of my night finishing my A Familiar Dragon book. It collects the first three books in a series of five, so I ordered the last two online from Amazon. it's sad that the books are out of print. I hope the author, Daniel Hood, is doing all right.

The books should be here by September 10th. It will be nice to get something in the mail. Something to make this place feel a little more like home.

And hey, it's the weekend. Hopefully the writing juices will kick back in. I feel like of thrown off my game by that long weekend. Think I need to just bite the bullet and start pouring over my notes again, get back in the mindset. Any time now.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Well, that didn't go as planned.

Got nothing done this past week or so. Last Friday got a call from mom: basement flooded. Had to drive there and help move stuff to garage, throw stuff out. This went on through Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Spent Tuesday recuperating and drove back around noon on Wednesday. This seems to have become the standard process of my weekend visits.

In between boxes I managed to read some of my A Familiar Dragon omnibus, and watch the first season of Heroes with mom, which was very good. For a show with that title, there is a surprising amount of moral ambiguity on display. Most of the characters are neither wholly good or wholly bad, except for maybe Peter and Hiro, who both still have their flaws (Peter's unconditional caring for his family often leads him to trust the wrong people, and Hiro's idealistic notions of heroism are vaguely self-centered). The characters are often depicted as people stuck in situations with no easy solutions, and having to struggle through, or making wrong but basically understandable decisions that there is no way to get out of within the system. Even the villainous mastermind, Linderman, a vaguely justifiable reasons for his actions, if you're a far out Utilitarian, and serial killer Sylar is given nuance and sympathy (a choice which actually makes him even scarier).

I had some minor squabbles: the evil masterplan is stolen wholecloth from Watchmen, and I think some of the character development is a little quick for a five week period, especially that involving the Nikki/Jessica plotline, but other than that, the show is pretty awesome. There are people with super powers in it, after all. Can't wait for the next season to start.

Unfortunately, this means I now have to get a dvd player and tv, so I can watch all the commentaries and special features. Hurm.

Hopefully, I will get back to writing my story tonight. I hope to finish it by the the end of the week. Which is what I planned last week, but, hey, flooded basement, right.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Almost...there...

Today and yesterday I worked on an finished (with the exception of minor edits and additions) the sixth section of that last thing that I mentioned. I think I am going to jump back in and trying outlining out section seven, so I am still in the breach, or at least about to go once more into it, but I just wanted to stop and take a moment to record the occasion.

I am thinking now that maybe it isn't such a bad idea to do this writing blogging. Sure, I can't really use it as a place to sketch out my ideas and talk through what I am working on, but that's what my notebooks are for anyways. I think just using this a a place to record that I am writing, in a basic recording-what-you-did-during-the-day type of journal, is a useful tool. If I get in the habit of posting a progress report, maybe I will keep up my momentum. Just taking the time to verbalize it in a pseudo-public way exerts a little bit of pressure, which is good for me.

Still, I think I should get on posting some thoughts on, you know, stuff, at some point. This blog will be pretty disappointing if there is absolutely no substance on it.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Not much going on here.

Writing is such an elusive process. Today, I haven't really done anything, (well, yesterday, that is) by which I mean I haven't typed anything out, or written in my notebook(s), but I have still been mulling and mulling over ideas and issues. Does that count?

Also, today I read the Telemachy from Ulysses—that is, the first three episodes that constitute that constitute book I—partially for inspiration, partially just to read something really good. I feel I have been reading a lot of crap lately, and a lot of the time I can't actually tell what's good and what's crap. And what I mean by crap, I don't mean books or stories that are objectively good, I am referring more to the quality of the prose. What what I mean by "can't actually tell what's good and what's crap," I don't just mean that I can really tell what people out there in the world consider good writing and what they consider bad—although that too is a problem I have—I mean that I often feel like I don't know if the writers that are considered to have "good" prose, that is the people who unquestionably qualify as literary fiction, even qualify. I recently read some comments online bashing David Foster Wallace as being a know-it-all twit when it comes to language, which I enjoyed for the shadenfruede, and he is usually considered one of those "literary," types. I mean, are the literary types even that good. I mean, I like my Thomas Pynchon, but even there I see the tendency to disappear up his own asshole. And what's it say that my favorite book of his is the really really short one he dismissed as lightweight? Joyce is really the only writer that I can really think of as objectively good. Despite being hard to understand, that's usually due to the level of complexity behind the ideas he is trying to get across, and he always plays fair. He never ties to be wordy just to be wordy; when a simple word will do, he uses it, a habit that a lot of postmodern lit types seem to avoid. It's only when dealing with very specific concepts, like the "ineluctable modality of the visible," that he breaks out the truly strange words. The rest of the time he is just being very specific, and that makes me feel like I can trust him, in a way I often don't feel I can trust Pynchon, and that makes me feel complete disinterest when I read any sentence by Wallace.

By the way, Joyce takes the prize for my favorite use of Carlin's Fourth Dirty Word, as well as the neatest description I have ever heard of the Middle East, when he has Leo Bloom describe the latter as the "grey sunken cunt of the world." Think about that one.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Progress?

Yesterday, I edited and reworked the third section of an eight section story that I am working on in conjunction with the one in the 'reading' stage to give it a better construction, finished the fourth section, and wrote all of the fifth section. Today I kind of took the day off, but the next section, I don' t really have a feel for yet, and am still debating things within my head. Perhaps progress will be shortly forthcoming. I just took a nap, a result, I think of not having enough caffeine today, so I think it very likely I will be doing some nightowl writing in the near future. Good. I like the nightowl approach; it's like I'm completely alone in all the world, just me and the thing I am working on.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Ummm...

Haven't posted anything in a while. Figured that it's kind of hard to write about what I am writing, since, since it would seen wrong to give away all the nifty ideas I have when I am trying to, you know, maintain the niftiness of the ideas. And if doing so, any post that I could make would lapse into such shattering levels of vagueness as to be a waste of time both to write and to read. So I haven't.

Anyways, in the meantime of not writing anything hear, I have managed to complete a draft of a story. I've passed it on to my two Readers, so let's see what they have to say. Also, I am starting work on my next story, like the last project something that has been in limbo forever, and that I am now firmly committing to getting fucking done already.

I'm thinking about reinventing this blog as a repository for all my rants and opinions on non-writing related issues. Lord knows I need a place to vent my frustration with the world at the world. Stay tuned.

Actually, don't stay tuned. Who the hell knows when the next post on this godammed thing will come. Just, you know, flip back to the channel, every so infrequently.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

My Liberal Male Guilt Complex

Earlier, tonight, which is to say, late yesterday, I talked to my sister Mary, on the phone. (Hi, Mary!) It went very well. We have a wide ranging discussion where I got to air out a lot of my problems without having to directly come out and whine about them. We kind of more shifted from casual conversation into discussing them, without explicitly stating that we were going to discuss them, like a dance, except hard to know who was leading.

I got to air many of the problems, that have been vexing me, and Mary suggested a reason for it that seemed to described exactly one of my pocket theories for my lack of direction, which I think about be called the Liberal Male Guilt Complex, or in my specific case, the Liberal White-Middle-Class-Male Guilt Complex. In brief, the basic idea behind it is that certain men in this day and age, aware of the injustices done against other groups throughout human history, feel bad about those things, do not desire to be part of the problem, and thus are going about sabotaging their ambitions. It's not that they don't want to succeed, it's that they don't feel they deserve to succeed, so they go about making sure they don't. At the same time, the revolutions in the structure of modern society that have been going on for the last couple of decades haven't come up with a new role for men in society that conforms to those changing values, which really only leaves the traditional model in place, or no model at all. Which means, of course, that men who agree with the values that have come about in the last couple of decades are left not really knowing what to do with themselves, hence the need for sabotage. Who can you succeed in society if your success hurts society? I mean, if (white) men are disproportionately and unfairly filling the job ranks, then isn't your success, if you seek it, a way of keeping the disadvantaged down? Never mind that it makes your the capitalist oppressor of the lower classes. The result is mindbending identity crisis issues. Mary's advice is to just get over it and try to succeed anyways, I think.

Women, in this New Era, are faced with a slightly different problem. It's not so much a question of not having any role to fill, its not knowing which role to fill, that of stereotypical housewife/mother, or that of go-getter. That is the "typical" male and female roles, which are impossible to perform at once which driving yourself to the point of exhaustion. Short of completely changing the way labor is performed in this country, and I think it will take a socialist revolution to change our labor paradigm this much, women are stuck making a choice that is going to cut off one of those things that society is pushing them to be. Now, they have the option of just going completely in one direction, but there will be blowback for this from some circles, no matter what they do. Of course some people manage to find jobs that allow them to fulfill all their desires, but that's usually circumstantial to the requirements of the job, and not applicable to wider society.

Oh, also, Mary was quite and constant to point out, and I agree with here, that all this is bullshit and hearsay, and I agree with her. This could be totally wrong and just based on anecdotal evidence. But still, it felt nice to hear someone else say this, someone who wasn't me. Usually, arguments of this nature come from the right, and are basically made to argue that everyone should just go back to the way things were. The left, or liberals, especially those of the identity politics crowd, tend to dismiss such arguments on the ground of there point of origin. Hearing Mary say such things gives me confidence such concerns aren't just my Inner Conservative piping up, but are, maybe, actual concerns. In fact, I think liberals ignore these things at their peril, since i think it is the fact that these problems exist might account for a certain amount of the traction that that conservative values hold in our society. It social liberalism doesn't offer people a new way to live, they won't even bother to consider that arguments about how it it is more just and stuff like that.

Anyways, another thing Mary said is that I probably need to start journaling my thoughts, to try to work through these issues that are hanging me up. Once I get them aired out, shaped into written form, it will be easier for me to observe them, put some distance between me and them. This is as good a place for that as any, I guess. So expect more complaining in the future.

Such complaints are, of course, actually related to the whole Blogging About Writing Thing, which is the actual purpose of this job, since my various mental hangups, which have gotten me stuck in my shit job, living at home, and basically feeling miserable and directionless, are also the reasons for my Not Writing, so getting over all that crap is actually instrumental to the actual purpose of this blog. What a circumlocutory path this is.

Ahoy, Mateys!

This weekend I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, twice. All through the week, I had been watching, nigh continuously, the first two movies, getting ready for the third one, and making sure that all the in-jokes, subplots, mysteries and motivations were fresh in my mind. Nevertheless, it took me two viewings to feel like I had a proper grasp on it, and I feel sure that I will go to see it again, soon.

Now, since I saw it twice, I think it is safe to say that I liked it. I thought the ending was nifty. Besides serving as a rather fitting conclusion to the series, it also leaves almost limitless potential if they decide to make any more. (Spoilers Ahoy!) All of the characters are completely separate, which means that they could be brought back in any combination.

First off, they completely wrapped up the story of a Elizabeth and Will, meaning those actors don't have to return for any possible sequels, since it could be assumed neither character runs into any of the other characters ever again. Though on the other hand, since Elizabeth is still Pirate King, and Will is Davy Jones/Charon, so it's conceivable that Jack could run into either of them at some point, go on an adventure with one, or just bump into one on the way to some other adventure. (Jack gets hauled before the Pirate Court! Jack dies and makes a deal with Will Turner to return to the land of the living!) Still, I doubt this could happen, as Knightley and Bloom are probably the two actors who desire most to move on from the movies.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Black Pearl has deserted Jack, and there seems to possibly be a mutiny dwelling, which means that they could conceivably bring back the Black Pearl, and depending on whether they can get Geoffrey Rush back or not, they can say that there has been a mutiny against him between the movies, and the crew could seek out Jack to resume his command. Or, hunt him down under Barbossa's command to regain the map.

Gibbs is hanging out at Tortuga, which means he can return, whether or not the Pearl and the rest of it's crew does.

And of course, Jack is off in a dingy, searching for the fountain of youth. Now, the series at this point basically is Captain Jack Sparrow, and—what fortuitous circumstance be this!—Depp seems to be the actor most interested in possibly returning to this world (minus the character actors, I bet, who would appreciate the work), so I think it is safe to say that any possible sequel will be based around this character's exploits. But because all the other characters are off away from him, it's quite possible for him to run into any of the characters, for any conceivable plotline. And of course, because he is last seen searching for the fountain of youth, he could easily be thrown forward in time—let's say he found it, aye?

One other thing I thought of was, I really have to give the screenwriters credit for the Davy Jones mythology. Jones serves as a pretty apt example of the nature of most devil characters in mythology. He begins as kind of lord of the underworld, ferrying souls lost at sea to the other world. Then, he gives up his role, and takes to terrorizing mankind and forcing them to make deals in exchange for their souls, either making them demons, like himself, or consigning him to the locker, or hell. Historically, most depictions of demons are based on old pagan masters of the underworld, or lords of natural elements—Hades, Pan, Cernunnos—shift and become images of evil as new cultures take over. As the Elemental forces, represented by Kalypso, are debased by Man, they view the things represented by the old Pagan gods and evil. Thus, as Kalypso is bound by Man, that is brought low and debased, her consort, the ferryman, becomes a monster, a skeleton, or an agent of evil. The mythology that the screenwriters have cobbled together is an excellent work of, as Joseph Campbell would say, creative mythology, and pretty accurately mythologizes just what the end period that Pirates movies is set in—a Once Upon the Age of Enlightenment—represents, when, as Cutler Beckett said, the "immaterial is now immaterial."

It was, of course, right after this period, that the Romantic Period set in, which brought about the Gothic Novel, and the Horror Novel. And the screenwriters, on the DVD commentary for the first Pirates movie, said that these stories where intended as a Romance. The Pirate Genre can be understood as a nostalgic genre searching for that time right before modernization, when people could have the freedom to just set out on adventure, of live in their own, idealized worlds, exactly the way Captain Jack Sparrow does. And the movies know this. They are a post-modern work, commenting upon why people like pirate movies, or pirate stories. Because, there is a part of all of us, or at least most of us, that longs for that kind of freedom, the freedom that is represented by the sea, by adventure, and they, in the world of multinational corporations, and governments with social security numbers, and the Internal Revenue Service and industrialization, longs to just Set Out, and Get Away From It All. As Captain Jack says in the first Pirates, while stranded on a beach—a situation that bears a striking resemblance to two wildly popular televisions shows, and accurately encapsulates the drawbacks and pulls of those very desired freedoms—"What a ship really is, what the Black Pearl really is, is freedom."

This is probably why the movies are so wildly popular, and why not matter how often reviewers talk about the confusing plots or muddled characterizations or the loud sense-numbing action sequences, people will still want to see these movies. I still want to see these movies. Because we all want to be Pirates, whether they sailed the Seven Seas or not.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Dammit.

Ah.

Well, more non-posting from me during the past week. See, just after finishing my rather long last post, I got all jazzed, and started writing something new. But, I then failed to do any writing for the last week and a half. Didn't write anything. I got two pages in, then stopped, and the result was that I didn't bother writing anything at all during that time. I was saving the post until after I finished the thing I was working on, but then I didn't do any more work on it, until at this point, I figure it is just necessary to write a post on my lack of work on that piece. Here it is.

Funny thing about that thing I wrote. I tried writing it in a word document, but I couldn't get anywhere, so I gave up and started typing it in the posting section of this blog, and was quickly able to get underway writing. (I cut and pasted the story into a word file every couple of paragraphs.) It's as if I have a mental block on writing when I am doing it outside of a blog post, which I attribute to my past history of running a Deadjournal, and all the carefree typing I used to do in there. Typing in a Word file always seems to be something I did for papers, so I must associate it mentally with strenuous, careful thought, which oftentimes makes it hard to get the creative juices flying. Just now, I was trying to edit and start writing the story again in the word file, and it just wasn't working. Am I stuck in doing all my writing in small text boxes?

Friday, May 11, 2007

On Rap Music, A Wrinkle in Time, and Great Children's Literature: some random thoughts

I don't like most rap music. Most of it concerns a cultural milieu, that, not being my own, I find hard to relate to and uninteresting; it's not that I have anything against black-inner-city-urban-whatever-the-hell-it-is called culture, its just that it is not where my head is at, and thus, being as I see culture as a subjective, relative socially constructed phenomenon with no intrinsic value outside of it's own sphere of interrelationships, I just have no desire to listen to song lyrics—or "raps"—concerning values foreign to my own. I mean, it is not as if there are not certain aspects of it I like, such as the beats—sister Mary is astonished that I have not been lured in by the beats—but all the things that I like are found in ample supply in other musical formats, and the raps—that is, the spoken, rhythmic, delivery of poetry resting somewhere between verse and free verse—while fine bits of rhythm (what a weird word, rhythm, what with being pronounced with two syllables yet having only one vowel with is y of all letters; how Old English) often stand or fall before my tastes based on their content, which, as I said, I usually find either uninteresting, disturbing, or offensive.

Also, I think most of the backing noise is really just electronica by another name, and I prefer live instruments.

This is not to say I dislike all rap. Just that the rap that I do like I like on a case-by-case basis.

The one rap song, which stands above all others for me, is "I Against I" by Mos Def and Massive Attack.

I first heard this song in Blade II. It's the song on the soundtrack when Blade and all the Vampires are marching, all bad-ass and Reservoir Dogs-style, into the vampire club. There's a lot I like about this song. For one thing, there is none of that stupid intro crap that plague's most rap songs. I tried to listen to other Mos Def stuff afterwards, but almost all of this song's start off with the ridiculous "Hey. Yo. What's up? I'm starting this song now. Here's the producer's name. Did I state the year? Uh, yeah, well the year is [year]. Which is good. Oh, and uh, vague political statement, meant to sound important, and to show my Depth As An Artist, but, being a stock phrase, just sounds hackneyed. Yo."

None of that is this song. It starts with a metallic, menacing beat, then a clicking rhythm comes in, then the (fake) bass drum, then more white noise, which, oddly, produces a melody. then Mos Def comes in, and this weird, haunting melody that seems to float along ethereally in the background, enters. the whole song, while really just fading elements in and out, seems to be building continuously to some kind of confrontation. Which, of course, the lyrics seem to be about. On some level, the song is just your standard "battle rap," with Mos Def saying "Do not mess with me. I am very tough and can hurt you very badly. I will win if any altercation occurs." But the language of it is so epic, that it seems to move beyond "battle rap" to some kind of surreal Plane of Constant Battle. (Massive Attack definitely deserves a good share of credit for this effect.)

I against I
Flesh of of my flesh and mind of my mind
Two of a kind but one will survive
My image is reflected in my enemy's eye
And his image is reflected in mine at the same time.

Something like that. It seems to almost be more a psychological battle than physical one; is his opponent really himself, the battle between him and his divided self?

Anyways, the reasons I being all this up is that, for some unfathomable reason, this song reminds me of A Wrinkle in Time. Whenever the song starts playing, I think, "Yep, A Wrinkle in Time." It's kind of like how whenever I listen to Our Lady Peace's Clumsy, I get images in my head of old Batman strips from Archives Volume One, and Hellboy comics, since I read those two things while listening to the album over and over again (back when it was my only non-Beatles album). But this is different, because I hadn't read A Wrinkle in Time in ages when it first started happening. Just for some reason listening to it made me think of the book, and I couldn't figure out why. I think it had something to do with the the archetypal, near-abstract nature of the Conflict in the song being similar to the Conflict in the book. In fact, I ended up rereading A Wrinkle in Time recently, just to see what about the book made me remember it.

A couple of days ago, I picked a copy of A Wrinkle in Time at work that had the best cover art of any copy of the book I had ever seen. Charles Wallace, Meg, and Calvin O'Keefe are standing one behind another staring off into the distance. Standing behind them is Mrs Whatsit in winged-male-centaur form. The background is full of alien terrain, and hovering in the upper right, in the sort of surreal manner of poster art and book covers (this is where Darth Vader usually is in the old Star Wars posters), is the man with the red eyes.

Now this is all pretty standard book cover tropes, but what I liked about this cover was the way the characters where drawn (painted?). Each one of the characters is realistically drawn, as if from photographic models, but looks exactly as they are described in the book. Most book covers don't get this right; the models look like models, and not like the characters at all, or they look like the characters, but they are drawn as cartoons, so reading the books you end up picturing cartoons (this is a big problem for me with the Harry Potter books).

But on this cover they get the details right. Calvin is a tall, thin red-haired boy; attractive, but not in a cover model way, and so as it's believable he might have an attraction to Meg, who is shy and awkward looked, with glasses and bushy brown hair. the kind of girl who could be construed by others as Not Pretty, but could also believably be the daughter of Mrs. Murry, who is consistently described throughout the book as being almost achingly beautiful. Then there is Charles Wallace, a small child, yet with the look of oceanic intelligence in his eyes, which gives him a slightly eerie quality. Oh, and Mrs Whatsit looks like a properly beautiful angelic creature, and the man with the red eyes looks like a nightmare vision: surreal, inhuman, a little out of focus.

The book cover made something occur to me, an answer to a question that I hadn't known until then to formulate, which is the question of how one makes Great Children's Literature. Now, Great Literature, as we know, usually has encombant upon it's title, a certain elegance, or masterful use of prose (a word I am starting to hate; it always seems to pop up in a highfalutin context). Great books read like the author knows how to put words on the page. This means the language has to be complex, polished, to perfectly convey the precise meaning. Yet how can Children's Literature, which, by definition, requires simple, uncomplex language, and no big words, ever hope to be considered Great Literature? Are young readers simply condemned to read bad literature, and there is no way around this?

I suppose one of the reasons I started thinking about this is that I wondered if A Wrinkle in Time would be considered Great Literature by the people who decide such things. Probably not, I thought. The writing is too plain. It is meant to be read by children, after all. But then, I thought, the book's been around for, like, fifty years. Damn right it's Great! So how is it Great, if it doesn't quite meet the qualifications of Great Literature?

And what the cover made me realize is that it is all in the images. Great Children's Literature is, think often based around the use of great images. Not luridly described prose trying to convey things, but the way things are shown in relation to one another. I remember reading a C.S. Lewis quote somewhere about how Narnia started for him without plot but by a bunch of images, such as the lamplight standing on the edge of the forest. Something like that you don't need to describe in detail, and it is still vivid in the mind. What's great in great children's literature is the way is that it can arrange images in a way that imparts something to the reader, hints at deeper depths of feeling without having to beat them over the head.

A Wrinkle in Time is almost wholly revolves around the images and how those images cause a reaction in the reader. The appearances of the Murray's. The abandoned house. The three old women. The alien planet, where Mrs Whatsit shows the children the dark cloud. The inhuman precision of Camazotz (echoed in The Giver, I feel). The man with red eyes. The evil disembodied brain that is IT.

It helps that there are ideas. Great, big interesting ideas, like tesseracts and Evil and Love. Any Great Book needs stuff like that. But the way they are used, and commented on, is all in the things shown, not in the way they are described. That is, while most Great Literature is about trying to capture experience with descriptive words, the human condition can also be captured through the things that represent that experience. The fact that the man with red eyes has red eyes evokes his innate evil just was well as some long elegant description of the way his mind works.

Images also allow the reader to learn a lot about characters through inference without having to explicitly state anything, or even comment on it at all. The fact that Meg is consistently described as plain and awkward, while her mother is described at incredibly beautiful, over and over again, allows you to infer a whole lot into Meg's relation to her her family without the author (who is Madeleine L'Engle, by the way) ever needing to go into Meg's mind. We the readers can fill in for ourselves how this contributes to Meg's inferiority complex (though there are other sources for it as well, of course).

I suppose it's the visual nature of A Wrinkle in Time that made it occur to me while listening to "I against I." The song's mood just fits the images of A Wrinkle in Time so well for me.

****************

I haven't been writing much lately. Mostly, it's been random scribbles in notebooks, all crossed out; random thoughts not committed to paper, left floating in the ether. I need to get those out, man, but it has been a no go lately, hence the light posting. The New Job, which is a kind of thrilling psychological test for mice combined with someone's personal private version of hell, possibly mine, has been consuming most of my energy, so that I never feel like committing my self to the bashing, aggravating process of writing. Also it splits up my freetime; I am awake for about three hours after work and four or five before, and I never want to write just then. After work I am too tired to think, and before work, it's like I have the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head; I am in a state of constant state of agitation which makes committing time to writing feel like wasting time. On the other hand, I am gaining lots of material from the job that is helping develop a story that I have been thinking through was stuck on (this is all plot-talk here, I haven't written anything yet). However, I am now starting to get used to my weir,d unhealthy schedule, and am adjusting to it, getting to know how to use it. Hell, half the point of this post is just to show to myself that I can sit down and write something if I commit to it.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Some Things To Keep In Mind

Make sure all the sentences are pretty.

Makes sure all the paragraphs have a point.

Make sure all the paragraphs add up to something.

Always write keeping in mind where the story is going. Or At least find out early on where the story is going.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

The First Post

Awhile back, I had a conversation with my sister, Mary, concerning her blogging, specifically her running blog, where she stated that one of the benefits of having the running blog was that it kept her disciplined about running. Because she had a blog to maintain, she said, it forced her to continue running, if only to have material to post. It was as if she had an audience, even if she didn't actually have an audience, that she didn't want to disappoint. So she kept running, which of course, was the real upside of the whole process, since running has all kinds of benefits besides giving a person words to throw out into cyberspace.

This led Mary, quite naturally, as we had been discussing it earlier in the conversation, to the conclusion that I should start a blog about writing. That earlier part of the discussion had concerned itself partly with my lack of discipline in writing, and how I was never getting around to writing the stories I wanted to write, even though I had lots of ideas for stories. The imagination was willing, but the spirit was weak. "What I great suggestion," I thought, and told Mary as much. Perhaps, someday I would do that.

After all, there was all kinds of benefits from undertaking such a project. Not only would it have the whole disciplinary angle that Mary suggested, but on the spare occasions where I have attempted to write fiction lately, I have felt like my ability to put words together in interesting ways has atrophied. Writing about writing would give me the opportunity to strengthen some of the very skills necessary to the the fulfillment of the main project. Not all of them, of course. In fiction writing, there is things like characterization and plotting and imagery to consider, which I doubt will be put to much use here. But crafting sentences, putting sentences together in a meaningful and constructive manner, and making use of the more dusty sections of my vocabulary are skills that are useful in either format. Which gives it all an extra benefit for my project over Mary's. Instead of blogging about running, it is like doing leg stretches about running, or various other cardiovascular exercises about running.

Well, as I said, the spirit was weak, and that conversation was a while back. Mary has been to Rome and back again since that conversation, and I have written nary a thing. I suppose part of me just kept putting off the beginning of this project, and part of me just didn't really think it would be necessary, that I could write fiction without bothering to write about writing fiction. But, as all this time has passed, and I haven't gotten any farther along at the whole writing thing, I think it is time to face up to the fact that really do need some kind of disciplinary measure to get myself going.

So here goes. This is my new blog, or web log, what have you, called Demon's Dreaming. It will be my account of my attempts at writing fiction, where I will discuss what I am working on at the moment, what I hope to accomplish, and the problems I am having achieving those goals. I will also likely be including other posts about a variety of topics related in some way to my main topic. You know, philosophical or social issues that I am thinking through and might in some way be grappling with in a story or that I am hoping to grapple with in a story.

At some point soon I will include a post explaining the title of the blog, and hopefully I will have something to post soon about something I am working on. Until then, let's just say, hope this works, right?