Commas

If you are writing a sentence with a lot of commas, a lot of defendant clauses, a lot of lists, maybe a lot just a lot or steps or sections, and for whatever reason you do not feel it useful to cross over into using semi-colons as a part of sentence construction, I would hang back on the use of commas, because the using of commas to divide up each, particular, phrase, is just headache-inducing, and brevity and clarity would be greatly enhanced by fluency.

bits

Been doing lots of random writing today. Working on bits and parts of stories, mostly in outline form, trying to summarize and rework old legends. Has been slow going, as I haven't wanted to put steps down unless they fit, so lots of pacing about and circling around and typing when the spirit moves me. Also much reading of the sources and sublimating that information.

Also been doing laundry and reading The Left Hand of Darkness. It's much better than I remember it. Not really slow like I felt it was before. I think maybe I was just still miffed about the Doctorow kerfluffle, and the rhetorical device she begins with (the narrator explains why they are writing the story), still a pet peeve of mine, is less obnoxious then I remember it being. It's funny, the book is most often sighted for it's treatment of gender, but the wintry setting and alien and pangalactic cultures seem to play a much larger role in my impression of the book than the biology of the "aliens." Also, Le Guin really does seem to have a thing for making her characters not white. Not bad, of course, but quite uncommon.

Living Robot

Apropos this post, this is fucking awesome.

Seek and ye shall find.

Running

I think I may have been over thinking this writing thing or perhaps I am right about getting the faucet running. For awhile, I have been convinced that writing needs to work orally, but this means I have tried to write slow and deliberately, thinking carefully over words. But if good writing sounds like good speech, then perhaps my best voice is the voice in my head, and that means that the best voice to write towards is the voice in my head. Worry about things like perfect punctuation later, for now I need to get the raw sound of me when I speak, or more purely, the sound, the cadence, of me when I think, the tumbling snickering of my mind unwinding. Perhaps that is what I need, what I should unleash. Perhaps that is how it should sound, should read. I don't know. But it is nice not to overthink it for a bit, and to write something down, because I don't think I can do writing as careful arbitration. I don't have a mind for contracts and stipulations, but for spontaneity and effulgence. Or not, I don't know. Maybe I will end up somehwere else, somewhere that seems careful and deliberate. It is new to try to write steadily. I hope it holds up. I hope I keep it up.

I know it makes me happy though. I know it is easier, and that makes it better. The progress makes it better.

I can't believe

that it is snowing today. It's March! Hare's are supposed to out! I have been hot when out driving around wearing my spring jacket! I rode my bike comfortably to work earlier this month!

Weather.