That's Writing
Here I am again, trying to write something else (an outline for a video in this case). Here I am again, stuck in my thoughts. I am not surprised, but it is amazing how clogged I can get my own brain. There are plenty of reasonable, healthy distractions. There are plenty of unreasonable, unhealthy distractions.
Good times.
In other news, I made videos! Fantastic boombastic! It was a barrier. Obviously, I only just finally found the perfect spaces, so that helps. Still, there was this pressure. Have you ever been reluctant to do a thing that you should be doing? It takes a while. It takes time to work up the gumption: sometimes days, sometimes weeks, sometimes months.
And then, have you had the sudden burst of gumption?! You stood on stage once or you played guitar once or you went dancing once or whatever it is that you've been avoiding, and, suddenly, it's so much easier?! Magic! Snap crackle pop! I miss Rice Krispies. But videos are fun. I have already learned so many things! And I already have so many things to correct. And I already have so many ideas sprouting in my tiny, little brain! Pow! I'm doing another one tomorrow. I don't feel like trimming my beard. Maybe I should. Maybe I needn't. Whatevs.
In other other news, it's chilly. I like chilly. I like bundling up and heavy blankets and hot tea and fireplaces. I like scarves and pipes and heavy blankets and movies and popcorn. I haven't had popcorn in a while.
Have you ever had movie theater popcorn? It's nasty stuff. If you're not paying attention, it tastes like heaven's banquet. If you are paying attention, it tastes like styrofoam covered in axle grease. I used to work at a movie theater. Free movies for the most part, and free popcorn. You could buy these wonderful hotdogs for a reduced cost, but "free" always sounds so much tastier — until you've eaten your fill on an empty stomach: styrofoam and axle grease.
I've never tasted axle grease, but I've smelled gasoline and motor oil, and I figure axle grease is in the same family.
I wish I knew taxonomy. Not really. I like the idea of knowing it, but, if I really wanted to know it, I'd have learned it by now. Kingdom, phylum, order, class, genus, species. There are seven levels. Lemme check...
"Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species." Dang it! I was close.
I've never eaten styrofoam for that matter, but the texture resembles it.
Stephen King: I've heard varying reports about him, but he seems like an honest chap. He seems like one more guy trying to get by. I've read none of his novels, so I don't intimately know the psychosis some describe, but I have read "On Writing," and he seems like the kind of uncle I would want: a little vulgar but sharp-witted and a straight shooter. He seems like the kind of guy that doesn't bullshit but doesn't take it personally when other people do. I strive toward those virtues, but I think I bullshit a bit and take a little bit of it personally. A work in progress I suppose.
I don't remember where I was trying to go originally, but I think I got where I need to be. That phenomenon happens a lot in my life. That's partially why I embrace my haphazard ways. I've gotten so many places by (as far as I could tell anyway) sheer accident. I cannot tell you how many worlds I discovered hiding behind the seemingly tiniest choices.
I feel like Michael the Traveler sometimes. (I posted his first chapter by the way!) I feel like I accidentally wander into these mystical worlds. I make some seemingly tiny choice, and, POOF, I'm in a new world with new people and new creatures and new dangers and new adventures.
I would venture to say that most of these tiny choices have led to the best worlds. I have made some of the dearest friends a bloke could imagine. I'm not sure how to express it. Again and again and again, I have undergone this smooth shift from greyscale to color, from two dimensions to three. Michael's story tells a bit of it. If you read his story (before I un-published them to make way for upcoming videos), you will have seen him feel crushed and small before being pulled out of his flat, grey world and into this terrifying but beautiful world of worlds.
I'm looking forward to sharing his stories with you. They are mostly fanciful exercises, but I have stumbled upon some beautiful scenes as I've ambled through his narrative.
Writing is beautiful — and terrible but again beautiful. It is once beautiful because of the dreams you can capture: I have captured dancing origami and entrancing settings and fiery ruby eyes. It is also terrible: I have captured destroyed landscapes and war and death and heartache. But again beautiful because pain is also real, and seeing it outside of ourselves (fiction or not) lets us know we are not insane.
When I see the heartbreak of loneliness in another, I know that I'm not insane — or at least not the only one. When I see the heartbreak of loneliness in everyone — everyone that's not bullshitting anyway — I know that we're in it together; we're hurting souls begging for the same Healer.
And so writing is beautiful and terrible and beautiful. Stephen King calls it a fossil: some preexisting artifact that you unbury as carefully as you can. In other words, writing is not creating a new thing so much as doing your best to articulate the thing you found.
You can find it anywhere, but God "has put eternity into man's heart" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). That is where you can find the most material.
I am amazed at all the practical people, those ones who shun the idea of feelings and hearts and hopes and dreams and emotions. Those are all well and good for children. Those are all well and good for the people out there ("the whack-jobs"). But if you're any kind of scientist, you know that humanity is a soft science: the heart is a squishy, unpredictable thing. If you're any kind of religious, you know that the heart is a big deal. If you don't know that, well, then I say you have much to worry about: with neither science nor religion in your hands, you're probably living the American dream. (I couldn't resist the jab.)
Back to writing! The heart has the most material. "Where do you get your ideas?" some people like to ask. I don't know about you, but I just reach into my heart and put today's words to what comes out. In other words, if I'm writing about a march in Meadowvale, by gum, the characters are marching, but they're marching glumly or cheerfully or resolutely or irritably — depending on how I'm marching that day.
If I am angry, then Michael is going to have an angry day. If I am wistful, Brigadier Shu is going to remember the good old days. If my heart has been stretched thinner than usual, I write a made-up letter to a made-up creature. If I am feeling trapped inside bureaucracy, I write about Kaz the promulgator combating the academy.
That's where I get my ideas: day-to-day thoughts occasionally but, much more often, day-to-day feelings. That's where poetic license comes in: it's not a matter of writing crappy because you think that fiction excuses every literary misdemeanor.
Poetic license is dressing up your heartache as fountains of blood flowing out from a man. Poetic license is dressing up your infatuation as a flirtatious chat between two characters. Poetic license is dressing up your trapped feelings as a two-dimensional world. Poetic license is saying something figuratively because saying it literally wouldn't be nearly as close to truth.
It is creating what your heart always dreamed and always feared in fictional worlds. Sometimes, it's just to get it out. Sometimes, it's to figure out how you should deal with an issue. Sometimes, you just wanted to see how it would look. Sometimes, you need to tell someone. Too many options.
But that's writing: just reach into the bloody mess known as your heart and slap a bloody mess onto a page.
Good times.
In other news, I made videos! Fantastic boombastic! It was a barrier. Obviously, I only just finally found the perfect spaces, so that helps. Still, there was this pressure. Have you ever been reluctant to do a thing that you should be doing? It takes a while. It takes time to work up the gumption: sometimes days, sometimes weeks, sometimes months.
And then, have you had the sudden burst of gumption?! You stood on stage once or you played guitar once or you went dancing once or whatever it is that you've been avoiding, and, suddenly, it's so much easier?! Magic! Snap crackle pop! I miss Rice Krispies. But videos are fun. I have already learned so many things! And I already have so many things to correct. And I already have so many ideas sprouting in my tiny, little brain! Pow! I'm doing another one tomorrow. I don't feel like trimming my beard. Maybe I should. Maybe I needn't. Whatevs.
In other other news, it's chilly. I like chilly. I like bundling up and heavy blankets and hot tea and fireplaces. I like scarves and pipes and heavy blankets and movies and popcorn. I haven't had popcorn in a while.
Have you ever had movie theater popcorn? It's nasty stuff. If you're not paying attention, it tastes like heaven's banquet. If you are paying attention, it tastes like styrofoam covered in axle grease. I used to work at a movie theater. Free movies for the most part, and free popcorn. You could buy these wonderful hotdogs for a reduced cost, but "free" always sounds so much tastier — until you've eaten your fill on an empty stomach: styrofoam and axle grease.
I've never tasted axle grease, but I've smelled gasoline and motor oil, and I figure axle grease is in the same family.
I wish I knew taxonomy. Not really. I like the idea of knowing it, but, if I really wanted to know it, I'd have learned it by now. Kingdom, phylum, order, class, genus, species. There are seven levels. Lemme check...
"Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species." Dang it! I was close.
I've never eaten styrofoam for that matter, but the texture resembles it.
Stephen King: I've heard varying reports about him, but he seems like an honest chap. He seems like one more guy trying to get by. I've read none of his novels, so I don't intimately know the psychosis some describe, but I have read "On Writing," and he seems like the kind of uncle I would want: a little vulgar but sharp-witted and a straight shooter. He seems like the kind of guy that doesn't bullshit but doesn't take it personally when other people do. I strive toward those virtues, but I think I bullshit a bit and take a little bit of it personally. A work in progress I suppose.
I don't remember where I was trying to go originally, but I think I got where I need to be. That phenomenon happens a lot in my life. That's partially why I embrace my haphazard ways. I've gotten so many places by (as far as I could tell anyway) sheer accident. I cannot tell you how many worlds I discovered hiding behind the seemingly tiniest choices.
I feel like Michael the Traveler sometimes. (I posted his first chapter by the way!) I feel like I accidentally wander into these mystical worlds. I make some seemingly tiny choice, and, POOF, I'm in a new world with new people and new creatures and new dangers and new adventures.
I would venture to say that most of these tiny choices have led to the best worlds. I have made some of the dearest friends a bloke could imagine. I'm not sure how to express it. Again and again and again, I have undergone this smooth shift from greyscale to color, from two dimensions to three. Michael's story tells a bit of it. If you read his story (before I un-published them to make way for upcoming videos), you will have seen him feel crushed and small before being pulled out of his flat, grey world and into this terrifying but beautiful world of worlds.
I'm looking forward to sharing his stories with you. They are mostly fanciful exercises, but I have stumbled upon some beautiful scenes as I've ambled through his narrative.
Writing is beautiful — and terrible but again beautiful. It is once beautiful because of the dreams you can capture: I have captured dancing origami and entrancing settings and fiery ruby eyes. It is also terrible: I have captured destroyed landscapes and war and death and heartache. But again beautiful because pain is also real, and seeing it outside of ourselves (fiction or not) lets us know we are not insane.
When I see the heartbreak of loneliness in another, I know that I'm not insane — or at least not the only one. When I see the heartbreak of loneliness in everyone — everyone that's not bullshitting anyway — I know that we're in it together; we're hurting souls begging for the same Healer.
And so writing is beautiful and terrible and beautiful. Stephen King calls it a fossil: some preexisting artifact that you unbury as carefully as you can. In other words, writing is not creating a new thing so much as doing your best to articulate the thing you found.
You can find it anywhere, but God "has put eternity into man's heart" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). That is where you can find the most material.
I am amazed at all the practical people, those ones who shun the idea of feelings and hearts and hopes and dreams and emotions. Those are all well and good for children. Those are all well and good for the people out there ("the whack-jobs"). But if you're any kind of scientist, you know that humanity is a soft science: the heart is a squishy, unpredictable thing. If you're any kind of religious, you know that the heart is a big deal. If you don't know that, well, then I say you have much to worry about: with neither science nor religion in your hands, you're probably living the American dream. (I couldn't resist the jab.)
Back to writing! The heart has the most material. "Where do you get your ideas?" some people like to ask. I don't know about you, but I just reach into my heart and put today's words to what comes out. In other words, if I'm writing about a march in Meadowvale, by gum, the characters are marching, but they're marching glumly or cheerfully or resolutely or irritably — depending on how I'm marching that day.
If I am angry, then Michael is going to have an angry day. If I am wistful, Brigadier Shu is going to remember the good old days. If my heart has been stretched thinner than usual, I write a made-up letter to a made-up creature. If I am feeling trapped inside bureaucracy, I write about Kaz the promulgator combating the academy.
That's where I get my ideas: day-to-day thoughts occasionally but, much more often, day-to-day feelings. That's where poetic license comes in: it's not a matter of writing crappy because you think that fiction excuses every literary misdemeanor.
Poetic license is dressing up your heartache as fountains of blood flowing out from a man. Poetic license is dressing up your infatuation as a flirtatious chat between two characters. Poetic license is dressing up your trapped feelings as a two-dimensional world. Poetic license is saying something figuratively because saying it literally wouldn't be nearly as close to truth.
It is creating what your heart always dreamed and always feared in fictional worlds. Sometimes, it's just to get it out. Sometimes, it's to figure out how you should deal with an issue. Sometimes, you just wanted to see how it would look. Sometimes, you need to tell someone. Too many options.
But that's writing: just reach into the bloody mess known as your heart and slap a bloody mess onto a page.
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