Summit

I think the best thing about this health care summit it that it forces the news media to start talking about the actual substance of the bill, and the wide-spread popularity of the of many of its provisions. Hopefully, once people realize how much they support it, it will be easier for the Democrats to finally pass it.

Running up that hill

So lately I have been trying to study up on Latin, as I have felt, in the midst of this my wilderness, starving artist years, that I needed to do something to keep up my image as a scholarly, didactic fellow.  To these ends, I have been reading aloud from Caesar's the Gallic War, in Latin, and revisiting my Wheelock.  I have found, however, that, after my time spent with Caesar, much of my knowledge of Latin is returning, albeit half-formed, and I don't have any great desire to slog through the lesson plans all over again.  Yes, I could learn the vocabulary, but learning the vocabulary is what I am least interested in at the moment, if only because the English translation of anything I will be reading for the foreseeable future will be in the opposing page.  No, I just want to relearn the grammar, and do it without having to read all the text of the sections I have already read.

So today, I read allowed each of the first three declensions, in each gender, over fourteen times each.  I figure, if I can slowly commit the entirety of the declensions to memory, that will make the going much easier.  Besides, as the writing has progressed further, I have found greater and greater enjoyment in acts of seemingly frivolous repetition, or trial and error, like whistling.  It thinks its just the opportunity to engage my brain in activities that have no greater meaning, of any sort.  It's relaxing, in a strange way. 

the Wake

I woke up this morning with the first sentence of Finnegans Wake running  over and over again through my head. 

It was part of some understanding I was having about the rhythm of sentences, and how important it is, and necessary for good writing.  It made me want to rewrite everything that I had ever written, but then I realized that wasn't really necessary.  My best writing already tends to have a sense of rhythm.

I think.

Book I

Well, not too much new writing, these last few days.  However, I did do a substantial edit on book I of SK, which took a fair amount of time tonight.  It was quite taxing, with lots of ping-ponging around to make sure I had all the continuity right and stuff.  But it's basically done, and, baring any missed continuity efforts, I think it is done.  It actually works quite well as a stand-alone story. It had motifs and an ending the references the beginning and everything.  Also, themes.  and an emotional arc.  I am quite proud of it.  It is probably, even on it's own, the best piece of writing I have completed yet.  There are parts that are poetic, and parts that are mostly dialogue, and parts that are just purely engrossing action sequences.  I still kind of find chapter one scary.

So yeah, feeling better about my abilities. 

I am not going to post this one on scribd at the moment, but if anyone wants to read it, (cough mom cough) send me an email or leave a comment.  At the least, if would be nice to have someone who can spot any of those continuity errors I missed.

dead weather

Not any writing lately.  I hit one of those bleak periods, where everything seems hard, the future is rearing up to scowl at me, and I am seriously doubting my abilities, or if I even have any, after reading or hearing something somewhere.  So basically, the emotional weather converged on a storm. 

But, not that bad a storm.  I feel like I am weathering it.  I think that, having gotten hit like this so many times before, I am starting to build up a defense to the feelings, and am able to just, ignore them, or rationalize them, or something.  Put them in context.  but I'm not there, all the way, yet.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I don't have anything special to say about this day that I didn't say one year ago.  So I am just going to link to that post and say, "read this!"

2974

That's how many words I wrote today, in one story, which basically means that book I of SK is done, except for the edits.  I have reached the end.  I was thinking that I was going to stop before I reached the dream sequence, and think it over, but then I just pressed on ahead and wrote it, off the top of my head, no planning, figuring the momentum would serve better.  And I think it did.  It had the quality I had wanted, where the images slowly over took and I didn't actually know which ones represented which event, but somehow the whole arc of the dream made it's own kind of musical sense.  I expect I will not need to be making very many changes to it. 

I felt good.  I just sat down and basically just started putting one word in front of the other, until it was done.  It had all been there, somehow, I had just had to actually write it.  Well, that and do some research on the folklore concerning trees, but mostly, just write the thing.  And now the first draft is done, and I can begin editing in earnest. 

Well, not right now.  I think I am going to rest on my triumph for a while. 

Arthur Gets Lost

Screw it.  Here's the story I was talking about in the last post, after the jump.  Remember, it's five years old.  If you read it, tell me what you think of it in comments.

Report: Nothing to report

No writing yesterday. Just didn't feel like it, for a web of reasons too tied up to really get into. Some vague dissatisfaction haunts me, I think.

I was planning on posting a short story I had written long ago, just to put some more of my work up on the internet. I was amazed to see that it had last been modified in 2005. God, have I really been chipping away at this for that long? I read through it though, to check for spelling mistakes and such, and found that I really didn't like the story anymore. It seemed cloy somehow, like it thought to much of itself, or was trying to hard to impress. I feel it didn't really represent something that I wanted to present in anyway, even as an artifact. I made me wonder how much of the rest of my stories I don't feel proud. How much crap is floating around on my hard drives?

On the other hand, it was nice to have some sign that I am improving. After all, if it was as good as I was when I was 22, they last five years would have been kind of a waste, right?

But it is kind of frustrating that I don't have anything recent to post, which I would really like to, but everything, and I mean everything, is still in a state of flux, and just not fit to print, so to speak. I'm still world-building the world the stories are all set in, and the stories keep shifting under my feet. Then there's the sections that need to be expanded, because it turns out the way I wrote it before isn't complete, or doesn't fit the beat.

interupted

Closing shifts are the worst thing in the world in terms of writing. Usually, when I write, I write in burst of two to three hours, then either cool off and go back at it, or call it a day. I can write well into the night if I am on a roll. So theoretically, having two or three hours should be plenty of time to get in a writing shift.

But on closing shift days, I just can't do it. I have done it a couple of times in the past, and just when I am in the middle of something I have had to get ready to go. And when I get back to what I was working on, I can't remember where I was going. In fact, after that, it takes even longer to get back into the the swing of things, because, since I like what I was working on, I have to wait to "remember" what I wanted to come next in order to proceed. It's like how getting woken up in the middle of a sleep cycle actually leaves you feeling more tired than completing it, even if you actually get less sleep. So, I am so afraid to write, even though I want to write, that I basically just have to take a mulligan on the whole day. It sucks.

I kind of can't wait to go to work so I can get back and start writing.

On language, sort of

One thing I have noticed, as I continue working at writing, and refining my writing, is that my mind is starting to use words not by what they mean in modern, idiomatic speech, but by what they mean in terms of the roots of the words themselves. Their actual meaning, in a sense.

I just realized this as I was organizing my bookmarks, placing similar links next to similar links, and I thought about how I wanted to cluster together the bloggers who are "journalists." But I wasn't meaning the bloggers who, say, work for a newspaper, like Ezra Klein, or who report of the news online, like TPM, or even those unaffiliated individuals who nevertheless take it upon themselves who to relay or comment upon the news of the day, like say, Donkeylicious (Hi, Neil!). I mean those who, somewhat like me, although with more of a sense of discipline and order, are engaged in maintaining a journal. For the "-ist" implies one who engages in a particular activity or in the pursuit of a specific object. Thus, a "journalist" is one who keeps a journal, or one who journals. And "journalism" is the act, or art, of journal-keeping, or of journal-writing. I was thinking of people like Lance Mannion or Aylssa Rosenberg. People who use blogs as a method of relating or recording their thoughts, and through the wonders of the internet, presenting those thoughts with a public.

Of course, I still never bother to edit these bloody dispatches, so it's still possible that these things are full of error and nonsense, and don't come across the the workings of some clear and rarified mind. In fact, most of the stuff here is just bullshit I feel like getting out of my system so I don't have to deal with it bouncing around my head anymore, with phenomenon of the public dispensation being an almost beside the point. More of a viking funeral than voyage, this place, so I don't really worry about the quality of the construction, or the finish on the wood. It's really more an attempt to shove off.

Yeah. That all held to together. Yeah.

Ah, the economy

They canceled my shift at work today. I got woke up by a phone call this morning, saw it was something-thirty, assumed that I had overslept and missed work, found the phone, was freaked out to find out it was work, but I had missed the called. I called back so that I could apologize profusely and ask them what they wanted me to do. As the phone rang, I double-checked the clock and noticed that it was actually seven-thirty, and I wasn't supposed to come until nine-thirty. Spent the next several rings in a kind of fugue state of panic and confusion. Remember, I had woken up literally seconds beforehand.

Then they told me my shift was canceled, and I was so relieved I wasn't in trouble I thanked them.

Then I slept for another five hours. I had actually gone to bed only like two hours before that. I had spent the last four days off, and didn't want to have to wake up and go to work. Today is five days in a row.

I close tomorrow, so I am pretty sure they won't be canceling on me again. But really, retail just slows to a crawl in winter, you know?

Fever breaking

Over three thousand words today. Over 1800 of them were me just writing out character backstory, but in a way that I may or may not use as part of the body of the text at some point in the future, and over 1300 was new words for the actual body of the text which, I think in subtle ways, changes the tone of the story, but in a necessary way. It makes it less ambiguous, and removes any sense of purposely withheld drama (which I always find is more cliched and irritating than page-turning). Also requires future edits to the rest of the text to accommodate the earlier dispensation of certain pieces of information, as well as the change in tone. One of the things I realized, after reviewing the text, that the story isn't really about withholding everything from the reader, it is about relating the world that Ermys sees in front of him, but with a bare minimum of commentary coming from him, since he is not a very commentative guy. Thus, lots of details can be left out, because the aren't how Emrys would experience the world, and many can be left back in, because they are. I kind of want to go on, because I feel like the world is very present in my mind right now, but I eyes hurt from staring at the screen, and I am exhausted, so I am cashing in my creative chips for the night. I've been writing for something like three, maybe four hours now.

Earlier in the night, I had not really written anything all day, and I was feeling restless, and unhappy, and I knew what the next thing I had to write was. So I just thought, well, then write it. Stop making yourself feel bad. And I did. Now I feel pretty good. I got through a really bad spell, and am back in the game. a whole bunch of edits and ideas are piling themselves up in me right now, and I can't wait.

Realize you want to do something, then do it, and feel better. Huh. Funny how that works.

Why haven't I thought of that before?

It's funny that Hollywood is so removed from the real world that they have no idea what makes a person sympathetic

This A.V. CluB list reminded me of this really amusing conversation I had with Anne once, as she was watching Sex in the City. I asked her what she enjoyed about the show, and what she thought about it, until eventually she stated that all four of the main characters are really terrible people.

Me: Do the writers know that?

Anne: I can't tell.

This whole post is really just an excuse to make use of the digital camera I bought

I altered my drum set two days ago. Here's a closer look:


I moved the second snare drum over to the side of the high-hat, then placed my crash cymbal besides my thin crash cymbal. This allows for easier access for the to the crash, since before I had placed it above and between the second mounted tom and the ride cymbal. Now it is much easier to alternate between the two, so I can create a sense of color in the cymbal crashes. the second snare drum also allows such alternation between the color of the instruments, as well as making it easier to move between the high-hat and snare drums.

Oh, yeah, and I stuck my conga over by the floor tom. Still trying to find a way to work that thing more easily into the kit.

And now for something much less depressing

Anyways, writing.

Not much on that front today either. Well, OK, not totally true. I resolved some issues of plot that needed to be resolved long ago, and also did some crucial editing. I am on track to return to the story, and make it itself. But then, my word count from probably like, less than 50. But a crucial set of fifty words! Lots of note-taking behind it, and reading and research. Oh, and pacing. Lots of pacing. I also went shopping and did the dishes, and that always feels like accomplishment.

One thing in general I feel is that the writing is slowly but surely becoming easier and more ingrained in my habits and desires. I really am, over a long period now, becoming more and more comfortable and effortless in the laying down of words and the organizing of ideas and the creation of plot. I consider my writing and am more cavalier in discarding or rearranging my ideas. I still have a ways to go, but it is coming. I even almost like editing now! That's a big thing for me!

I'm just counting down the minutes now.

Some years it hits harder than others. This year it's riding in on a wave of dread, or something like anticipation.

Nine years ago, some time right about now, as I type, my sister Anne and I were getting in the Zeiger's car to drive to some hospital around Chicago. Colleen and Dave and Laura were there. I remember that Laura apologized for coming along, but neither Anne nor I would have none of that. I remember sleeping along the way, then waking up when we were almost there. We walked through a long stream of hospital corridors, going from one section to another. I don't remember feeling anything. It was just like, we were doing what we were doing. Then we got in an elevator, and went up. It all seemed so labyrinthine.

And the elevator doors opened, and they were all right there. Mom and his brothers and their families, and she cried "Oh, kids, he's dead!"

And Anne screamed "No!" and started crying, and I sat down in the chair that was right next to the elevator, where I stared off into space. Someone tried to take me along to see the body, practically carrying me, and all I said was "No, no," and I don't know that there was anything specific thing I was rejecting to: that I was going to see the corpse, that he was gone, that this could actually be some kind of reality, because nothing about what was going on seemed real. And then, I got one brief look at the body and turned around screaming. It was dark in the room and the was a sheet over him and his face wasn't moving, nor his chest, and you could already tell that whatever had been there that was actually him was gone and what was there on that table or that bed was just what remained. There was no point in seeing it, because he wasn't there. And he would never be there again.

After that, It's all more feeling than event. I remember that I was sitting most of the time in a chair on the opposite side of the elevator room from the elevator. I remember that Laura was crying, and I remember, in some weird way, feeling grateful for that. I remember either Danny or Rick worrying about how "Stan," their father, would take it (this would be the third of his five children he would have to watch go into the ground). I remember that he used his given name, as if the moment had stripped away the importance of honorifics. I remember driving back, home, saying I would go to the model UN the next day. I couldn't tell why, really, then or now. Part of it was the weird fear of grades and odd belief that such things would not be considered when calculating grades. Another was that dad had said expressed remorse over dinner, on the night before he left for the procedure, that he would not get to go to it, it being one of those things parents attended, and I wanted there to be an actual thing for him to miss, like he thought there would be. Another, is that I didn't want to go back the next day and see the body, and I just needed something to get the fucking lance out of brain, just to try to get away with it, though I really couldn't. When I go home, I screamed and collapsed on my bookshelf and slid to the ground. Eventually I was so exhausted from the emotional tension, that I actually slept for about three hours.

Then I woke up and went to UN. I told everybody I knew that my father had died. John Rudolph hugged me, and that was the most anybody was ever able to do to comfort me.

After that, I hung out with my friends from Drama, and they were determined to cheer me up. We made plans to go out at night. I went home, and Greg P from Dad's work was cooking Spaghetti sauce, with meatballs, and as I entered he shook my hand. There were a lot more people there, from all over the place, and I was happy to see all of them. But I went straight upstairs and took off the red tie I had been wearing, which was one of Dad's, and tied it about the baseball-bat-shaped tied rack that dad had made me when I was a kid, and started crying again.

I went out with the guys that night. We went to a mall that had a used records store, and I bought my first Butthold Surfers album, Independent Worm Saloon. I got to ride with Alex in his Corvette on the way home, and we listened to it and laughed, it was so weird. And then I went home.

I sometimes wonder about who I would be if that hadn't happened. I am pretty sure I never would have picked drumming back up, because that was very definitely a some kind of unexplainable response. I think I would have eventually started writing though, since I already had the stories bouncing around inside me. I think I would have been more stable, settled, by this point, not still an entry level lifer trying to turn into a person, but somebody with some sense of stability. But maybe not. I've always been fucked up. Maybe I would have been fucked up with Dad too.

It's been nine years. I turn twenty seven in five months. My father has been gone for over a third of my life. Most of the people I know don't know him.

Tomorrow will also be Groundhog Day, and St. Brigit's Day, and James Joyces' and Sir Charles' birthdays. Its the halfway point between the Solstice and the Equinox. Hell of a Day to Die. Still doesn't make sense.

The Pogues

Holy living Fuck do I love the sound of the tin whistle. It's like a bag pipe, but pretty and mournful instead of blaring and mournful. I want one. If anyone is wondering what obscure gift to get me for a birthday or Christmas that would convince me you love me, well, there you go.