I want to be a cyborg

School has been out for a month now.  I have been writing, though not as much as I should.  I have been pretty lazy actually.  Though I don't think the laziness is actually what is contributing to the not writing.  I have hit a section of the draft that needs a lot of filling in the gaps.  And I am having a hard time getting those scenes to rise to the surface of my brain long enough to get them on paper (or computer screen, same difference).  So, as an avoidance technique, I have been playing video games.  Deus Ex currently, though I have jumped around from title to title quite a bit.  Deus Ex is really interesting though, open world, but not so open I get lost, and enough quests to keep me going but not so many that I feel overwhelmed with the different directions that I need to go.

Anyway, what seems to work best for the writing is if I leave the house to do it.  Starbucks or another coffee shop is the most comfortable place to go, because at a restaurant I always feel like I am taking up a table that they could use for someone else.  Which isn't the case, because most of the time when I go it isn't the busy times of day.  But getting away from the PS3 helps a lot.  Unfortunately, I still have the internet with me pretty much everywhere I could go, so that doesn't help very much.  Tumblr will be the death of me, I swear.

I haven't been reading either, which makes me sad.  I have tons of stuff I want to read that I didn't in the last year or so because I was always in school.  I have been carrying House of Leaves around with me, as well as me kindle, but I pull them out and look at them and then end up doing something on my phone for that space of empty time.  Usually either Draw Something or Pocket Frogs.

Playing Deus Ex has brought into my head the desire to be a cyborg.  Not a robot wrapped in human flesh like Terminator, and not some mostly mindless dude like Robocop, but a human who has computer and mechanical augmentations that increase the natural abilities.  I wouldn't mind having a computer with built in wifi in my brain.

Do or Do Not

I have had a realization.  I don't know if I would consider it an epiphany or not, simply because it didn't strike me all at once, it has been rolling in the back of my mind causing me guilt and shame for a while now, I just didn't want to formally acknowledge it.

I am failing at being a writer.  Mostly because I don't write.  Writers write, right?  And if you aren't writing, you aren't a writer, right right? (and school doesn't count)

Anyway, even though this realization was difficult for me to accept, it was also healthy, because it has kicked my ass in gear.

If I want to be a professional writer I have to stop thinking like an amateur.  I have to write every day, whether I want to or not, and I have to finish my shit and edit it so it isn't shit and then I have to do something with it.  Whether that is trying to go independent and toss it on amazon and/or barnes and noble, or if it means sending it to publishers/agents/magazines/etc trying to get my name out there.

I have to stop treating this like a hobby and starting treating it like my job, because that is what I want it to be.  I need to give myself hours (even if they are flexible on when, there needs to be a set number of them) and deadlines.

And I need to fucking write.

someone that I used to know

Discovered Gotye.  Why did no one tell me about him?  Actually, someone did try to tell me about him, and I just didn't go looking for him until after I heard the song on the radio.  (gotta say that I love The River)

Sometimes I wonder about the people I used to know.  Sometimes I wonder if I am one of those people that leaves behind a trail of abandoned friendships and broken bonds.  I have never been good at long distance anything.  My brain (I speak of him as if he is Other, and not really me, I wonder what that means) has a habit of focusing on the internal to the exclusion of pretty much anything else.  This means that if you aren't in my face and saying "PAY ATTENTION TO ME FOR ONE DAMNED MINUTE" I probably won't.  I left behind a group of friends every time we moved (which wasn't often, but it happened).  And I would promise that I would write, we would exchange phone numbers, and then I left, and didn't look back.  Friends from grade school that I lost touch with, so many of my friends from high school.  Those are the worst, I think, because I didn't want to lose them.  Best friends who between different schools and life choices have lost contact.  But we are friends on FACEBOOK, so we didn't lose anything.  Right?  Maybe it would have been different if we had been connected via social media right out of high school, instead of four or five years down the line.  Now, they simply feel like many of the rest of my high school peers who are my "friends" on facebook.  I watch them post pictures and status updates but don't really know what is going on in their lives.  And I don't know how to make the first step in attempting to reconnect.

I feel like I have been doing better recently.  I have managed to stay in contact with several friends from NNU and work, despite being separated from them in time and space.  I don't know how much of that is my doing, how much is theirs, and how much is the convenience of facebook.

That being said, I think where this is leading is that I don't want to leave behind another set of abandoned friendships, despite the fledgling state of them, that I have started here in my stay at CWI.  If you feel like you might want to stay connected with me, in whatever meaningful or superficial way that might be, I plan on continuing to use this blog, as there is no sense wasting the "space" and I can also be found on:

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/riyirowe
tumblr: http://riyirowe.tumblr.com/

you can also find me on livejournal (not used much anymore), pinterest (used sporadically), or twitter (I am most recently more follower than contributor) under the same username, riyirowe, which is the name I use for pretty much everything.  Which reminds me of an interesting article I read once upon a time that talked about how netiquette and net ethics said we should remain the same "person" everywhere, and not continually change names and identities.  I don't know if I agree with that, but I unintentionally follow it, simply because the name riyirowe is mine (also found with slight variations i.e. daemon riyirowe, daemon riy, or dae riy--though those are mostly game identities, rather than anything else)

mindheart=blown

Countdown to the end...

Counting down to the end of the semester and to the end of my journey at CWI.  A bittersweet time that I don't seem to have the time to give it the pondering it deserves.

It is down to the end of the semester and my desk has become a paper covered graveyard for fast food cups (mostly) emptied of their caffeinated beverages.  Two weeks, less than, until the end of the semester.  Until I walk in the graduation ceremony.

I went to my orientation for BSU, which kinda felt like a waste of time, as I could have done everything there from home, but at least I was on campus, and got a bit of a feel for it.  It is definitely bigger than either of the other schools I have attended.  I did run into a snag with my account (for reasons relating to: being young and dumb, being depressed, and having an avoidance mentality towards problems rather than an attack), so I haven't been able to register for classes.  Hopefully I will be able to get into classes I need to be in once it gets straightened out.

I have been doing a lot of freewriting, intended for my Cover Essay/Revision Essay.  I am hoping that it comes off as artistic rather than just rambling.  Though, personally, I feel it is interesting rambling, so maybe it won't matter.  *shrugs*

Okay, so this is short, but I don't have much else to say.  My brain is wound so tight that I am having a hard time getting anything out of it, let alone words...

The Pretentious Book List

So, in my last post I pretty much spewed a bunch of books out at you, and said "I liked these, you might, too" and left it at that.  This list is not that list.  This is the list where I get to pretend that I am all pretentious like and say, "You have to read these book or you are a terrible human being and an ignoramus" and then leave it at that.  So, here goes.  (also, I am sure that there are books on your list of these books that I haven't read, which makes me a terrible human being and an ignoramus as well)

To Kill a Mockingbird--Harper Lee
I read this book in high school and could not put it down, even when our teacher told us not to read ahead.  I am having a hard time articulating why this book was so good, but I feel that it is very important that you read it.  Something about the struggle for justice, and how the world isn't always fair, and how the right thing isn't always the popular thing.

The Telling--Ursula K. LeGuin
About a human going to live among an alien race to decide whether they can join the cool species club by observing them and making sure they are actually as cool as they look from the outside.  It is about knowledge suppression and discrimination and abandoning your way of life because you think that someone else might want you to.  Fascinating and deep, if I ever teach a literature course on speculative fiction (which is one of my dreams should I actually become a college prof) this will be on one of my first choices.

The Chronicles of Narnia--C.S. Lewis
Because everyone should be able to dream about finding another world in the wardrobe.  Also, because it has influenced generations.  I also think it is important because it is fairly obvious as a biblical parallel, not for the inherent idea that it is biblical, but because that much allegory/symbolism is difficult to do and still be interesting and not overwhelming.

Harry Potter--J.K. Rowling
You might laugh, but I seriously think everyone should read these.  They are not just for children (actually, I feel they are mislabeled as children, and should be placed in the young adult section).  I feel that the Harry Potter series is very well written, the characters are well developed, and the world is meticulously built.  I also think that Rowling has some strong themes displaying what is right and wrong, the strength it takes to stand up for what is right, the power of sacrifice, and the importance of determination.  Harry can teach us a lot, even if we can't ever cast a single spell.

A Separate Peace--I don't remember and I am too lazy to look it up
It has been such a long time since I read this one that I don't remember who wrote it.  It is another that I read in high school and couldn't put down.  The struggles of the boys in this story to deal with competing, living, accepting, and growing up caught me.  Maybe it was just that I read it at the right time of my life, but it has stuck with me.

On Writing--Stephen King
Anyone who reads or writes should read this.  It is a book about writing that is unlike any other book about writing I have ever read (and I have read quite a few).  It is half biography and half tips and tricks and half this is what works for me.  And yes, that means there is one and a half books in this one book.  You get that much out of it.  King is a master, and even if what he does won't work for everyone, it wouldn't hurt to take a look at what it is that he does to succeed.

Bel Canto--Ann Patchett
Not because it has some great universal theme (though it kinda does) but simply because it is written so well, so tight and smooth, not a word out of place.  I started reading it because the blurb sounded interesting, I kept reading it because the language was gorgeous, I finished reading because I had fallen in love with the characters and had to see them through to the inevitable end.  The setting is a birthday party for a very successful Japanese businessman thrown by a small probably South American country.  The story begins when the party is taken hostage by a group of guerrilla rebels.  It ends the only way it could possibly end, but nevertheless leaves you breathless.  Go read it, I can pretty much promise that you won't regret it.

That's it.  (also, on the last list I left off A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin, which is a bunch of fun, and I love it).

Books and Stuff

So, we were talking about books and writing and reading in class today, and the idea of book lists/recommendations came up, so I decided that I would take a look at my book list.  The first thing that told me this could be an issue was when had to dig into a folder of files that were transferred from an old computer and never converted into the updated formats.  Definitely it has been six years since I updated the list, and I can definitely tell.  It is very much a younger reader, and while many of the books are ones that I still love, it is the love of nostalgia, not the love that says this book is super important and everyone needs to read it.  So, the list you are going to see here is spontaneous and hopefully interesting to you.  Genres range from science fiction to fantasy to young adult to horror to literary to mystery.  I tend toward fantasy and sci fic, both "adult" and YA, but I branch out when something catches my attention.

(Note: These are recommendations mostly because I really liked them and I hope that others will like them, too, not based on books I feel are "important" because of what they have to say, though some of these fall into both categories.  Also, they are in no particular order.)

On Writing--Stephen King
Contact--Carl Sagan
Catch Trap--Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Dark Tower series--Stephen King
The Telling--Ursula K. LeGuin
pretty much anything by Patricia McKillip, but The Riddle-Master of Hed is one of my absolute favorites
Dune--Frank Herbert
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--Stieg Larsson
Ender's Game--Orson Scott Card (the rest of the books in this series are good, too)
His Dark Materials trilogy (starts with The Golden Compass)--Philip Pullman
Harry Potter (because I can't not put it on a rec list)--J.K. Rowling
Abhorsen trilogy (begins with Sabriel)--Garth Nix
The Word and the Void trilogy (begins with Running with the Demon)--Terry Brooks
The Mists of Avalon--Marion Zimmer Bradley
If I Pay Thee Not In Gold--Mercedes Lackey and Piers Anthony
Possession--A.S. Byatt (mystery/romance/literary all rolled into one!)
The Giver--Lois Lowry
The Farthest Away Mountain--Lynne Reid Banks
Bel Canto--Ann Patchett
American Gods--Neil Gaiman
Anansi Boys--Neil Gaiman
Brokeback Mountain--Annie Proulx (short story--much better than the movie, if you were wondering)
Sphere--Michael Crichton
Dracula--Bram Stoker
Pride and Prejudice--Jane Austen
A Madness of Angels--Kate Griffin
Memnoch the Devil--Anne Rice (this comes in the middle of the series, but is my favorite of the Vampire Chronicles)
Hannibal trilogy--Thomas Harris
Practical Magic--Alice Hoffman
Fight Club--Chuck Palahniuk
Jumper--Steven Gould (yes, the movie was based on this, but very very very very loosely)
The Old Man and the Sea--Ernest Hemingway
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies--Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Darkly Dreaming Dexter--Jeff Lindsay (the first Dexter book, a bit darker than the show, which I liked)
The Road--Cormac McCarthy
Hero--Perry Moore
Good Omens--Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Stardust--Neil Gaiman
Imajica--Clive Barker (sometimes found as two volumes)

Okay, that's it for now.  Hopefully you find something you like on there, or maybe you disagree with me on some of them, either way, let me know if you read (or have read) any of these, I would love to hear what you think of them.

A War in Heaven

As I have been reading Paradise Lost for my lit class instead of grabbing interesting bits and pieces to store in my brain for the paper I have to write about it I keep fixating on the interesting ways it meshes and adds to my own mythology that I have created for The City 'verse.  I don't want to go into specifics, but have to say that I really appreciate Milton's vision of Hell.  I don't know if I will ever need to write a description of "my" Hell in one of my novels, but I do have Angels and Fallen Angels, and the War of Heaven is a crucial part of this world's secret history.  Having a picture in my head of both Hell and Heaven is probably a good idea, even if it is backstory that never makes it into a published draft of anything.

So, I feel like I have been talking and talking about writing, and not showing anything, so I am going to give you an excerpt of something I wrote.  Since we were talking about Angels and Demons, I will give you the prologue from a novel I have tentatively called To the Edge of the Earth.  Written during National Novel Month 2010, it isn't finished, which frustrates me, but I did get over fifty thousand words of it done.

Fiction and Reality

I have been flexing my writing muscles a lot in the last few months and I think they are getting tired. I don't want them to be tired. And I also can't afford for them to be tired. I feel like I am at a crucial crossroads in the planning of the serial killer story, only I can't see anything else in front of me. Probably I just need to start writing it. And I might if I didn't need to reserve writing time for other things. Like school. So I just keep making notes in my moleskine.
Speaking of my moleskine, I had a revelation the other day. I keep a notebook. I always keep a pen with me and I jot down things that come to mind, but I don't keep a notebook the way Joan didion does. When I read through old notebooks real life is peripheral. What I am reading is a progression of the way my ideas have formed and developed. This is fascinating, at least to me, and potentially to others if I chose to share. And this is where my revelation comes in. If I develop alzheimer or dementia in my old age, not unlikely given family history, I am going to be well and truly effed in the head. I already have what I call a reality crisis and I have a (mostly) sound mind. I can't imagine what it will be like when I don’t.
Reality crisis. It makes me sound crazy. There are occasions when my brain will momentarily be convinced that fiction is reality. On the flip side of this are the moments when I am convinced that if I believe hard enough fiction will be reality. That magic will be real and superheroes will exist. And I am always a little disappointed when they don't.

You want to know one of my deepest fears?

That I am a muggle.

(this got super personal, but here goes)

A Serial Killer in The City

I am feeling overwhelmed by this story idea that has been building in me.  It has, as most new ideas do, consumed my brain.  I have been taking notes and dreaming and imagining almost constantly.  Which doesn't do wonders for my homework, let me tell you.  However, it is different than pretty much anything I have written before, and I am realizing--well, not just now--I have been building to this realization for a while now--I don't write my characters with the devotion to individuality that each of them deserves.  A lot of what they end up doing in my stories is going through the motions.  I am pretty good at plot, and getting better all the time, and I feel I am damn good at world building (you should see the places that exist only in my head!), I am okay with dialogue (I can write fairly natural sounding speech, but it doesn't always do anything, which is important).  I have mixed feelings about action.  I feel like I do it well at times, other times not so much.  I think it is a case of sometimes being able to see it in my head, and sometimes not.

Anyway.  Character building isn't too difficult for me.  I like to know where they have been and what they have done before the first scene breaks.  The hard part is writing personality without each character sounding like they are me, or each other.  The last two NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month--look it up if you don't know what it is...or I guess you could wait until I decide to talk about it) challenges I have participated in have ended up with rather similar characters.  NaNoWriMo is a hard time to judge, because the words are coming out of your brain so fast you don't have time to think, which is kind the point, but as other characters, both written and still living in my head, flit through my mind, I am realizing that so many of them share similar qualities.  I have to wonder if I am writing myself, or if I am writing what I want to be.  In the end who I am writing doesn't matter.  What matters is that I can make them different enough to be interesting.  What is important is that I let them act on their own, rather than simply have them do what the outline (well, if I used one generally) dictates.  They need personality, and that is something that I have a lot of trouble with.

The reason that this is coming up is because the story that is brewing right now involves an extremely complex man as homicide detective with some serious trauma built up from his childhood.  And a schizophrenic serial killer.  In a modern city with a hidden magical underworld.  It is better than it sounds, promise!  Or maybe it sounds better than it is.  I'm not the most impartial judge.

This is not the magical underworld you read about in Harry Potter  Or twilight, if you read that one.  This is a city (aptly called The City) that I have been building for several years now.  Think...Anita Blake and Merry Gentry by Laurell K. Hamilton mixed with The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher mixed with the movie Underworld mixed with the movie the Covenant with a healthy dose of myth and fairy tale.  Several not really connected stories are building out of this world.  But I am going to stop there, because I don't want to go on about it, because I could fill several pages (actually, I have a moleskine dedicated to this world) of information about it.

Anyway, as I said earlier, I haven't ever written any sort of murder/police/mystery/crime/psychological thriller before.  And with as complex as both the antagonist and the protagonist are becoming this is going to require a lot of research.  It is probably going to be my summer project.  (when I am graduated!  with an associate's degree!  in english!  and will have nothing to do until I start at BSU in the fall!)  Except I have to finish editing the last draft of the Mad Queen so I can possibly have a thing published.  But that shouldn't take too long, a week of working at it hard should get it done, unless I follow through on my promise to add another thirty thousand words to it...

Anyway, this blog has gotten way too long, and probably boring to everyone but me...so, to reward you for reading, go read this blog by Neil Gaiman, who is much more famous and awesome than I am: thoughts on writing and driving in fog by Neil Gaiman

My Brain Decided to Vomit, and I Saved It For You

I am currently avoiding doing homework.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe because I know it involves writing, and I don't particularly want to write anything but this fantastic new idea that I have floating around in my head.  I figured out backstory for the main character today.  It made me happy.

Another thing that made me happy in the oh-my-god-this-is-actually-going-to-happen kind of way came in the mail today.  The graduation review people reviewed my credits and I am eligible for graduation this semester.  It kinda freaks me the fuck out.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe because it means I have to move on to the next step, and that means making decisions, and I hate making decisions about my life?  Or maybe because I have begun to be comfortable here, and now I can't stay?  Or maybe because I hate change, even though I crave it?

Speaking of cravings, I have been having a weird anti-craving recently.  Yes, I just made that up.  But seriously, I don't want to eat anything.  Obviously, I have been, or else I would be passed out right now from lack of blood sugar, but nothing sounds good, nothing really tastes good.

So, this character that I have been working on.  He is very complex.  I like him a lot, because he is broken, so very broken, and I am hoping that I get to put him back together before the end of his story, but he is so broken, that I may only get to put a couple pieces back together.  But he is interesting enough that he could probably get a sequel.  But that means finishing this one.  And I have no time to write for pleasure, unfortunately.  What I would love to do is take a novel writing class.  Don't get me wrong, I loved writing the short stores in cw: fiction, and I learned more than I could have thought possible.  Okay, so I don't really want to take a novel writing class.  I want to be able to sit down and write my novel, and have someone sitting behind me for moral support and to say every once in a while, that is brilliant, or that is piece of shit, rewrite that scene.

I have gotten out of the habit of using swear words in my for public consumption writing.  My facebook and my twitter are inundated with much younger cousins and other family members who would be all judgy of me.  And I just don't want to deal with that.  So, I keep my mouth clean, and try not to talk about things uber controversial.  Mostly because I despise confrontation.  And also, I have a deep-seated fear of rejection, and even though the most logical part of my brain says, they won't stop loving you if they see more of the real you, the emotional part, which I think I can safely say reigns on high most of the time, is like the lizard brain in the first animorphs book:  runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun at the first sign of disapproval.  I hate that part of my brain sometimes.

I think I have decided that I am willing to turn the assignment in late.  I will try to read the thing when I get up in the morning, and if I have time, I will write about it, too.  If not, oh well...

Miyazaki!

So, I decided to do my paper about the films of Hayao Miyazaki.  Not all of them, though I plan on watching them all within the next week, to make sure I know which ones I want to write about.  I am almost definitely planning on My Neighbor Totoro and Ponyo, though that might change.  I think i want to do Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind as well.  I watched it last night, and it is fantastic, and as the first film from his Studio Ghibli I can see a lot of the seeds for his later films.

(also, can I just say that the newly redubbed English version of My Neighbor Totoro with the Fanning sisters really kinda drives me nuts...I don't know why)

I think that it is going to be a good and interesting paper.  Still a little worried about the interview requirement, though.  Hmmm, maybe I could interview Sesson Sensei...I don't know what kind of insights she would have though, she did her Mission in Japan quite some time ago.  She does like Totoro, so maybe she would be able to give me an idea about how that kind of film represents something in Japanese culture, though I don't really want to go that direction in my paper, it might be a good introduction topic.  Or I could get in touch with the other Japanese professors at CWI or BSU.

The Gap

Not much to say, but I wanted to share this:

I don't know what you are talking about

So, I may have mentioned that I am in multiple reading and writing classes this semester.  As in all of them except for yoga.  No, I am not taking all the reading and writing classes (nor is yoga a writing class), all of the classes I am taking (except for yoga) are reading and writing classes.  One should probably be considered more reading, one more writing, and the third is pretty balanced between reading and writing.  But they all decided to have essays due the same week.  Within a couple days of each other, actually.

I am going to stop, because that isn't what this post was going to be about.  I will save it for posterity, but you may ignore the above paragraph.

I have another essay that was assigned.  I have several weeks to work on it, but it is a heavily researched essay, rather than the light to no research required for the ones that were due this week.

I want to do something fun.  Which is not as difficult as it might sound to some people.  I honestly love writing.  I don't always love academic style writing, but I can get behind it if the topic can hold me.  Hence the need for something fun.  I had initially thought about doing a sort of research project on a book.  Maybe American Gods by Neil Gaiman or The Dark Tower series by Stephen King.  Both would be fascinating topics to delve into the mythology and the lack thereof of America or "The Child Roland to the Dark Tower came" or is it went?  I can't remember now, it has been a while since I read it.  That reminds me, that poem/epic thing is on my kindle and I need to read it.  I don't think it is very long, relatively speaking.  But I got House of Leaves today, and that is going to be my next read.  It got put at the top of the list, replacing Miss Peregrine's House for(of?) Unusual Children.  I find that my stack of "to read" books never gets smaller, and often has the same books in it for along time.  The problem is that I often read from the top, which are the books that I have purchased/collected most recently, instead of reading from the bottom, and getting out the ones that have been there longest.

Anyway, back to the essay topic.  I haven't completely ruled a book out, but because my other two classes are a lit class and a literary analysis class, I think that I shouldn't overwhelm myself with that kind of a project.  Then I thought about maybe doing something along the lines of the merits (or insert some other word there) of speculative fiction.  It sounds vague, but I could narrow it down with some research, I think.

Then I thought about doing a movie.  The first one that popped into my head (probably because I have a stack of his movies on the bookshelf in front of my desk) is some sort of study on the themes of Miyazaki's films (My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, etc.).  It could be fun.  The other movie that could be amazing would be Donnie Darko.  One of the greatest movies ever.

Oh, or an idea that just popped into my head could be some sort of thing about fan fiction and published works, fan fic writers vs "real" authors, and maybe include something about how so many published authors began writing fan fiction, whether it was something that they shared with others, or did simply for themselves.  Also the negative and positive views of publishers, authors, and other fans.  That one could be really interesting, if I wanted to take the time to do it, and would it start to get boring after a while.  Essentially I am  just thinking with my fingers now...

There is a part of me that really wants to write about writing.  Simply because I love meta.

stress and writing correlations

I have been extremely stressed out the last week or so.  Four essays due this week, three of which needed to be at least four pages.  The need to be writing, and only having a vague idea of what I should be writing about made for a difficult time.  I'm still not home free, but I was able to get an extension on the two more difficult ones, and the others are done.  This semester is chock full of reading and writing classes, and it is a bit of a struggle for me (a chronic procrastinator) to get myself scheduled to get all the readings done and all the writings done on time and with the amount of thought that I prefer to put into them.

Now, you would think that the thought of writing more would send me running, but over the last few days I have had an idea percolating in my mind for a piece of fiction, length as of yet undetermined.  I would prefer it to be novel length, or maybe novella, but I guess I wouldn't say no to a short story, though a lot of the development I have in mind wouldn't fit into that length.  And letting this idea sit in the back of my head gathering strands of character and plot from bits of conversation and music (a lot from music, this time) has actually been relaxing for me.  I haven't been doing anything on purpose, as it is still at a stage where it can't be forced, not just yet.  So, I will sit and listen to Florence + the Machine for a while and let her lyrics catch on the bare grasping branches of the story and write notes down on scratch paper that I can shove into my notebook for later compilation.

For your viewing and listening pleasure, I give you the seed of this story (though you probably wouldn't recognize it even if I told you what it was), "Bedroom Hymns" by Florence + the Machine:

count down

I have seven days until I have two four-six page lit papers due.  I have six days until my final draft personal essay is due.  I have four days until a second draft of my personal essay needs to be done.  I have three days until I have a short literary analysis due.  I feel like I have been reading The Canterbury Tales in Middle English forever.  I also feel like I have been saying "I feel like I have been reading the Canterbury Tales in Middle English forever" forever.  But I am over the hump.  The Wife of Bath and her ginormous prologue is done.  Two more (much) smaller tales, and I can start that essay (if I can decide what I am going to write about).  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is longer, but it isn't in Middle English, and I have read it before, once upon a time, so it should take as long to read.

I am worried about my personal essay.  It started off in my head really cool, and what came out in the first draft was pretty much crap.  Some good ideas, I think, but it ended up being more personal than I intended.  Maybe more personal than I am comfortable with.  The problem is that my readers say they want more of something that I'm not sure is there.  The original purpose of the essay was to show, in sort of snapshots, how books have been not necessarily instrumental in the way I have developed as a person, but present in the way I think and see the world.  If I focus on the couple of aspects that my readers seem to like, I feel like it will be making a correlation that I don't believe in, which would be misleading the readers, and I don't like that idea, not in this essay.  One major problem that I will have to fix regardless is that there is no common thread other than books.  It was noted, and accurately, that each couple of paragraphs felt like entirely new essays.  But I am not sure how I am going to fix that...

when is it copying and when is it being inspired?

Just a super quick post as I put off going to bed.  (for some strange reason the word "super" has begun to creep back into my vocabulary...)

I am a writer.  But I am also a reader.  I probably read more than I write.  I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing, and that isn't the point of this post anyway.  Sometimes when I am reading I see or notice something that I am just like "holy shit, that is amazing!"  and then I wait to beats and say "I wish that I had thought of it first."  A specific example would include the daemons from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass).  Because there are some ideas that done once are genius, but done even one more time by someone else makes you look like what you are.  A copier.  The book that brought this up is one that I haven't actually read, though I ordered it today.  House of Leaves by some dude that I can't remember right now.  I was flipping through the book and just the layout is incredibly...messed up.  One story in the main text, a second story happening in the footnotes, then pages where the text goes vertical or around the edge, or just a single word in the middle of the page, or footnotes, but no text, or...you get the picture.  And just looking at it makes me want to do something like that, but I feel like I can't because this guy got there first.  Does that make any sense?  Or am I being too sensitive about it?

Taking My Breath Away

I have been thinking a lot about my favorite books recently.  Partially because the essay I am writing right now is trying to analyze the effect that books have had on some of the pivotal moments in my life.  I don't know how well the essay is working, but at least it is making me think, right?

Anyway, back to my favorite books.  I started a list the other day, not of books that I like, or even love, but of the books that while I was reading gave me shivers, made my breathing ragged, with excitement, with anticipation.  Books that made my chest feel light and hollow, like bubbles of some intangible thing was trying to make me expand with the sheer amazement that the books provided.

(these are in no particular order)

1.  I have to start my list with Contact by Carl Sagan.  Not because it was the first, but because it is one that is important to me.  I already discussed this book in a previous post, so I won't go much more into it.

2.  Bel Canto by Ann Patchett.  This book thrilled me.  Not because of the plot or the setting, nor for the characters, though they were all very well done.  The opening is a high class birthday party for a Japanese business man in the house of the vice president of a small unnamed South American country that wants to cater his favor.  The action is a hostile takeover by a group of guerrilla rebels.  The plot is the two groups, captors and captives, blending until lines are being forgotten.  This book thrilled me because of the language.  Possibly the first novel I have ever read where it was the language that I love more than anything else.  Don't get me wrong, I love these characters, their plight entrances me, and the ideas entrance me.  But I have a feeling that I love them because the language is gorgeous.  The language is simple and yet lush, at the same time.  It was like the beautiful song of the title, every word soars higher, until the unpredictable and yet inevitable end.

3. The Riddle Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip is a fantasy trilogy.  McKillip is a master of describing things without you even noticing.  You are reading, and suddenly realize that you know what everything looks like, but you aren't quite sure how.  She also amazes me with the fact that her plots move slowly, but she somehow still holds interest.  I attribute this to her incredibly complex characters.  Riddle-Master is my favorite of hers, though it is hard to define why.  Part of it is probably the way that magic, rather than being portrayed as something otherworldly and strange, is like water, air, or fire.  It is simply a part of the world that though not always taken for granted, is generally just there.  It can be simple, for instance, a character learns to transform himself into a tree.  But there is no magic words, no hand or wand waving.  The magic is simple.  If you can think like a tree, you can become a tree.  Stand in one place, let your thoughts reach to the sky and your feet into the earth, and one moment you are a man, and the next you are a tree.  And the magic of the story is all like that.  Simple ideas that blossom into awesome from one word to the next.

4.  The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley.  Those familiar with Bradley probably won't recognize much of her in this novel, though there are some themes that might carry over.  It is not fantasy, it is not science fiction.  This is a novel that consumes me because of the characters.  I fell in love with them, and I felt everything that they did.  And it wasn't just because of the two main characters.  The novel centers around Mario and Tommy, two circus performers in the time at the beginning of the end of the age of the traveling circus.  They are trapeze artists, and they fall in love.  The two main characters are compelling, but they are surrounded by a large family of smaller, yet also complex and interesting side characters.  You feel that each one of them has their own story, and it is a fascinating story, if only the "camera" angle was a little different you might be able to have an entirely different novel.

That is all I am going to do for now, I will revisit this subject later though, with some more of those books that took my breath away. :-)

Why the numinous?

"Why numinous?" you may ask. In order to explain that, I have to talk about one of my favorite books. Contact by Carl Sagan. I read this book several times during high school and my early twenties, but it wasn't until a year or two ago that it suddenly hit me. Even though it is fiction and written as such, that doesn't mean it doesn't offer truth. And the case of this particular story it offers more truth than I realized at first. It changed the way I think about life, science, religion, god, and the universe.
Without going too far into my struggles with faith and organized religion, this book made me realize that god, whichever one you choose to believe in, isn't limited to one tiny planet in one insignificant corner of a inconsequential galaxy of the universe. It is just another version of the geocentric theory (the one that said the earth was the center of the solar system, and the center of everything else, too), to think that humans are the most important creature, out even the only intelligent creature, out there.
Anyway, at one point the main character of Contact is taking with her lover and they are talking about the difference between science and religion. I can't remember the exact quote, but to some effect she days that if worship is standing in awe of something, then she doss it every day at her telescope looking at far distant stars and listening to radio waves from other galaxies. And that those things are numinous.
One of the definitions of numinous is as follows: surpassing comprehension or understanding; mysterious. That is what I am looking for. Those things that come upon you, and are amazing and brilliant, and utterly beyond what can be imagined or described.

First!

First!  Ha!  I win!
...
Wait, I'm the only one here...

That's okay.  Still first!

There, now that we have that out of the way, I guess on to introductions?

Hi, my name is Rob, and I am a word-aholic.  Seriously, words make me very happy.  And so does putting them together in new and exciting ways that hopefully make sense.  I am a writer, mostly of genre fiction, though I dabble in other things as well.  One of the goals of my life is to somehow combine the realms of fantasy and literary fiction into amazing stories.  Don't know how well that is going to work out, but at least I have a goal, right?  When it comes to my personal writing, I am have adopted the philosophy that says to keep it secret, keep it safe.  In other words, I tend to not talk about stories until after they are at least mostly written, because if I do, I begin to lose the drive to continue writing them.  Someone famous (for writing even) once wrote that we are writing to tell the story, and if we tell the story before we write it, then we won't need to tell it anymore.  I wish I could remember who said that...ah, well.  It may come to me, it may not.