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.