The World(s) Of Our Making

Stories within stories within still more stories, ad infinitum: This is the maze we actually live in, one we construct for ourselves.

For example . . . .

Also for example . . . .

When Computer ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Some people need to have the dishes done before they can get to work. I need the internet to run. When it's erratic, I can't leave it alone until it works. It's what I do between scribbles.

It's favorite trick these days is to, apparently, never load a full page. It looks like everything is there, but it hangs with that hourglass staring at me, saying "Any day now, we'll give you a turn . . . Oh, look! A butterfly!" While it flits around, I'm left drumming my fingers on the desk.

Writing as a project is different from my previous projects. While working on a math problem, I'd doodle while I thought and when I got an idea, I'd crank the wheels to see how it worked out. With bead work, I'd doodle with needle and thread until something interesting came along, and then, similarly, I'd crank the wheels to see how it worked out. Today I figured out that for writing, I also need doodling time. To do nothing but crank out sentences is not enough, even if those sentences are "not for the novel."

A little tip: don't draw a map from a bird's eye view. Draw it from the view of some character on the ground.

Currently reading Rachel Simon's Writing Guide. This is good material, along with much else on her writing tips page.

"The unexpected and the incredible belong in this world. Only then is life whole. For me the world has from the beginning been infinite and ungraspable."
- Carl Jung

via http://www.whiskeyriver.blogspot.com

"Please write a letter to the world and tell them to stop it."

Aimee Bender crafts a story experience here.

Everything you ever wanted to know about writing has already been written. It's all there in black and white, in novels and poems. And yet, none of it is on the page, because the words only seem to be opaque black on opaque white. In truth those words are leaves of grass and the soil they grow out of, every one of them.

I feel like writing a poem. But my latest most memorable dream involved John Boehner following a trysting couple under my trailer to make a three-some. It's a mess under there, and he really trashed his suit.

No poetic material to be had today. But I'm reading Jonathan Carroll's Bones of the Moon, and that might prompt better dreams, more poetic dreams.

Blogger stats tells me I have a reader from Russia.

Of course, I don't really have a reader from Russia. I have a reader who channels their blog reading through some proxy. The internet enables some rather weird stuff.

On The Tooting Of One's Own Horn

I toot mine occasionally, almost always to make the statement that it's more than okay for others to do so. What could be worse than muting the lot of us? Play on, I say. Play on.

Not Quite NaNoWriMo

The 500 words I started with to open my pretend novel has grown to 1800. I like how it starts, where it goes and how it lands. It's sparsely written; it feels drafty in more ways than one. But it's enough to carry some momentum into the next chapter. I feel intuitively that I have a pretty good handle on what a first chapter needs to do.

The writing sucks by any standard beyond middle-grade, and yet I seem to have written into the story just enough to learn more about what's going on. For the time being, I'm going to trust the writing will improve as my understanding of the story improves.

The characters amuse me, except for one who seems like some kind of necessary sore thumb, plotwise, and who has a strong surface, strong depth and vague middle-ground; sort of a split-personality. So far, the POV character seems to be a good choice, that he's the one to follow through the story.

I don't mind writing slowly. I'll go as slowly as needed to give myself time to imagine my way through.

It mystifies me that I can read authors such as Paul Ford (recently discovered), amongst others with such well-carved souls, respond with appreciation and understanding, and yet not find that same channel within myself from which to write as deeply.