The dangers of intuitive writing. . .and benefits

So, I'm banging my head against the creative tree. I've begun work on book three of the Writing Project and came up against a forest of blockades. First, I've incurred so many narrative debts in books one and two that I now have to start paying on them with, not only explanations, but also with the introduction and development of new characters. This is the part of intuitive writing that sucks for me. The reason is that I now have to pull away from the characters and scenarios that I've come to love and enter the psyche of others who I never took the time to really know except in passing. This, secondly, means getting into a totally different head space and tapping into personalities that are, as of yet, not quite as attractive to me.

But this is not all bad. By now being somewhat disciplined enough to force my pencil across the pages on a daily basis, my mind is also forced into thickly wooded spaces not yet explored and new things are just now beginning to sprout up and become interesting. And it's that which makes intuitive writing so fun for me as well. The unexpected happens and, while though being unexpected, such scenarios end up actually fitting into the grand scheme of things and making the whole story believable and, I hope, gripping.

So book three may be complete by the fourth month of next year, if not sooner. Knock on wood.

The Silver Screen

When this movie had first come out, I heard that it got bad reviews and those I'd spoken to all said that the movie sucked.

Well, I went to the pawn shop today after meeting a friend for coffee to pick up a couple movies, a habit I acquired since pawn shops sell them cheep. I got the "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull" and the "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow". I absolutely love the latter movie.

How on Earth did it get bad reviews? Are we so used to "realism" in cinema that we have forgotten how to let our imaginations fly free?

This movie wasn't at all about realism per say. It was about imagination that is rarely found these days in, not only movies, but in all of the art forms that make to the stage or big screen. It didn't try to be real and that is what makes it so good in the first place. Also, the story behind it was actually quite engaging. Cheesey, you say? But that's what made it so great. It was cheese done very, very well and it worked, and it would have received better reviews if people hadn't expected "realism".

Why can't we have more movies like Sky Captain that are fun, carefree and lively?

Brain Explosions

So, this solar flare pretty much depicts how my brain feels when the characters of the Writing Project take a unanimous vote, (without inviting me), to turn the project into a five-book series. It was arduous enough with four, but now five!?!?!? Gods above and below! Maybe I will become a serial killer if only to save my brain from such surprises.

Not really. I actually did suspect that this would happen when some of the important characters began their growth spurts on the late end. And this is to be expected when writing intuitively and allowing the characters to find their own ways rather than try to control them.

So, for those of you who may be curious as to what the books will be titled, here goes: Illusion, Presence of Mind, Sanctuary, Communion, Release. All under the series title, False Faces. Also, if any of you are wondering why those titles for a, (loosely defined), SciFi story, then think upon the Eastern forms of spiritual philosophy. Not all is as it seems and what seems to be all is, in fact, nothing while holding within everything.

How very Zen.

Character Assassination

Allow me to introduce myself.

I am a serial killer. There. It's out. It's told and announced that I am a killer.

But who are my victims? What is my Modus Operandi?

Both can be answered simply enough. Yet, my Ego demands a bit more attention than that. I must tell it slowly, delicately, descriptively and, most importantly, gently. There are those among you who may faint at what I will disclose.

Or not.

Let us see, shall we?

First of all, let's look at my motivation. Why am I driven to kill? What is it within me that must hunt, trap and eliminate those who catch my eye?

Well, I gave you the first clue. My Ego.

My Ego is such that it must never take second place. Its need to be first and foremost is paramount. There is no room for allowing anyone else to take the light. I am the one who must shine. My ideas are the important ones, not the ideas of others! Their lives and growth must never deviate from what I have planned for them! Never! I am the one in control! Not they!!!

I believe I have just given you the second clue as to who my victims are.

Characters. Entities within the Writing Project who dare think they are autonomous beings who have lives of their own and may go where they will without permission or even notification. Just who in the Pit do they think they are? It is my story! Not theirs! Mine!!!

I am a task-master and must not be disobeyed. So I kill.

One character had the audacity to be the nexus of a spiritual caste who possesses an important thing. She just popped up without even a hello in one, solitary chapter and acted as if she was really that important. As if it was all about her and no one else!

It made me angry. She thus died in the same chapter. Her brains were sucked out.

Another character would not stop whining about how much she was being left out of the political loop. She made me sick to my stomach with her pathetic ideas of a coup. She hung herself at my instigation.

Another one was, quite simply, ugly. Loud, demanding and very ugly. She got an arrow in the head.

Liking that particular image of an arrow in the head, due to my archery practice as well, another character went by that means. He was stupid. And ugly. And served no real purpose beyond carrying the conversations of the moment. Therefore, he had his soul sent elsewhere.

Maybe another writer will find him?

I doubt it. He isn't worth the trouble.

And a great trouble it is to work upon the Writing Project. All these characters demanding a slice of the pie, the lime light, the chance to actually live and do! How can I function in such a communal piece of work?!

I must kill. It is inevitable. Unavoidable. It must be done.

And now here is the dilemma. If I kill them all, there would be no Writing Project. There would be no entertainment and pleasant distractions to keep me sane. I would, in short, die.

Pain

What is pain? Many artists, whatever be their medium, attempt to express pain in all it's forms. But has it yet been defined? It has been categorized, surely. But actually defined?

Within the Writing Project, I struggle with the concept of pain in all of its manifestations, emotional, physical, spiritual, mental, (not to be confused with the emotional which I will explain in a bit.) But what is it?

Or should I ask: What is it not?

In the emotional category, pain is usually likened to an absence of someting such as love. (I will not dare to define love just yet. Let a braver soul take that on.) The absence of something is not limited to love, but it encompasses the loss of a loved one, a loss of an interest, loss of a thing, loss of an idea and more loss. Very painful. A hole. ( Such a cliche there.)

Then there is rage. Rage is very painful since it errupts from the emotional loss. But there is another kind of rage. A bestial dichotomy that tears at the spirit which then leads to spiritual pain. "Who and what am I?" are the questions asked in this moment. It is sickening, entrapping, making one want to crawl into a corner because to emerge into the light would reveal the true nature of our "natural" existance. And that is both illegal and immoral.

Physical pain is never fun, and if it is, then it's the emotional pain that one strives to escape through the physical. Masochism is a serious business.

Voices and delusions in an otherwise "normal" mind bring about the mental turmoil. Again, one is trapped with no "rational" way out except through either medication or masochism, medication leading to the pain of loss of one's true self.

A circular and twisted motion, pain is. And it is a motion that traverses through the emotional, mental, spiritual and physical in such a way as to create the illusion of no seperation.

Pain is then illusion and one which is the most insidious because we all feel it and therefore believe that it is very, very real.

What a pain in the ass, that is.

Music and the Mind

Has anyone really took notice of just how much music there is in the world? If one were to record all of it into a computer, it would be countless terabytes and none of us could live long enought to listen to it all.

That's quite a bit.

So why is there so much music? Why do we, when doing some manual project such as tree-house building, gardening, writing and other creative or practical tasks, seem to have a need for auditory stimulis? Are we seeking to block out our minds' attempts to cycle through our various concerns? Is it to establish a rhythm to match our work? A mood setter?

I think all of the above apply, and then some.

I have music playing while working on the Writing Project. Sometimes there are soundtracks to good movies, like "Batman Begins" and the "Dark Knight". Other times it's the music of Steve Roach, (a link to his site is right to the right of this blog.)

But it's always music that sets the tone, environment and attitude for the situations in the story. Each character has a theme music piece as does each social group. Obviously, I use music for inspiration.

And here's another thing about me and the Writing Project: I do not like music with english lyrics. They're distracting and cause a jarring sensation between the need to suddenly write tons of poetry and the story within the Project. However, music with lyrics done in a different language do not affect me so much because then the voices are just another instrument.

I know that none of what I had just written does not answer the original question so much. Perhaps it's a mystery to be solved by the individual for the individual rather than a collective and generalizing explaination.

What do any of you think?

Though computers are handy. . .

Though I do not have Human skulls on my writing desk, I can relate to this picture due to the mix of the archaic and the mordern. How many young people of today know how to look through a phone book?

I've been having some serious difficulties with my computer, upon which is the Writing Project, and I can say with confidence that when the machine gives up its last gasp, I will have lost nothing important. Remember, I hand write everything, (except these blogs.) I also have all the CDs of my music and a sterio on which to play them.

However, without a computer my time on the web writing these blogs and E-mailing friends will be cut out completely. . . until I get a new machine.

For anyone familiar with the Dune series written by the late Frank Herbert, you will understand the term, "hydrolic dependancy." The Chinese came up with it a thousand years before the Romans. Build conduits where running water is distributed to the populace in such a fashion as to make going to the well or stream or river on a daily basis for water no longer necessary. After only one generation, going to the well, stream or river is considered "out-moded" and a waste of time. When the Goths, led by Aleric, sacked Rome, one of the things they did was destroy the conduits of free-flowing water. There was a marked social collapse. It is the same with electricity and all of the neat little gadgets our society has become reliant upon.

I will be upset if the computer dies before I get a new one, but I won't kill myself over it.

Character characteristics

Though the above picture may seem a bit disturbing, I thought that it best describes the characteristics of the characters of the Writing Project.

Earlier this week, I finally had the breakthrough that I've been long awaiting with a couple of the characters. (And about bloody time too. . .) These particular characters had appeared out of the creative ether a couple years agao, but were never fully formed. I found that I was writing around them rather than through and thus the story began to take shape based on that path. But when it came time to review other characters, the main ones, it seemed there was a bit of a block and I couldn't really figure it out. Knowing that main characters depend upon supportive or antagonistic ones, I had been blinded by the illusion that that was the only way to go.

Obviously, I was wrong.

Supportive and antagonistic characters also have a reliance upon the main, thus creating a symbiotic relationship that is one of the paramount basics of story-telling. (I think I had been sleeping through that class session way back when in school. . .)

As I had writen about before, my style of writing takes the wholistic approach rather than the linear, and yet while understanding that, I still had been linear with the characters.

Well, not now.

The characters, be they main, supportive or antagonistic, grow out of each other necessarily and naturally. To not recognize that would be the death of the Writing Project, and that, I know, would make some people very unhappy since they've been waiting and waiting and waiting. . .for the rewrite of book one, the completion of book two and the rest to follow shortly thereafter.

Oh, by the way, Bo, my dear and very patient friend, the title of the first book has changed. And it's not my fault. Maya made me do it. . .