Memory

She has awakened memory,

moments often burried out of haste,

out of regret and remorse.

Awakened, it shuffles through the mirrors

of my ever changing gazes

always outside looking in.

There is no shade, no blind

against it,

no amount of forgiveness or tolerance

gives it light for it is always the same,

a dark time,

a strong time when depths had been plumbed

and the inner light revealed.

Hopefully soon

I will forget again when I no longer

see her face in the sun.

So, life got in the way of writing. Life just gets in the way. But I'm happy to say that the Writing Project has not been entirely abandoned and that intuitive writing still works quite well for me. As for this blog spot thing, well, I found Facebook and have been using that to express and communicate things of import, or of little note. Just talkin' and soon back to writin'.

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. . .

Out of the fog. . .

Having finally come out of the fog of foolish despair, I've been energized anew for the Writing Project. Friends keeping note will be happy to know that I've begun book three full on. Chapter 1 is completed and 2 is not that far behind. Of course I realize that the rewriting of book one is not yet complete, nor is the finalization of book two any closer. But I'm very excited about the Project and so I feel strongly that it shouldn't be too much longer. I think that all I needed was an emotional kick in the ass to get me going again. It's also been helpful to finally realize that, yes, I can do two things at once in terms of going out to my favourite coffee shop to work on the rewrites and put myself out there for someone to possibly take an interest in, and then going home after a few hours to work on books three and four. That way, I'm not forever in my cave and my goals are being completed apace.

Chocolate and espresso helps too.

To be or not to be. . .

Or. . . the pros and cons of being single.

This time of year is a bit difficult because the sun is much farther south and so I suffer through a lack of light and I get lonely.

In every single relationship I've been in, there have been more cons than pros and so I've generated a list of what I do not want in a relationship. It is longer than what I do want and so I had come to the conclusion that being single is a hell of a lot easier.

Or so I thought.

Pros:

I have all the personal space and time I want, (minus the cats.) Chris, the co-dependant and Tracy and Lisa, the jealous types.

I don't have to keep my home white-glove spotless, just sanitary. Stephenie, the snob.

I don't have to tell where I'm going or how long I'll be gone. Lisa, Stephanie and Tracy, the jealous types.

I can spend time with friends without worrying about the jealous trip. Lisa, Stephenie and Tracy.

I do my own laundry. Stephenie, the snob.

I keep comfortably odd hours. Very, very odd hours. Tracy and Stephenie, the control freaks.

I watch the shows I like. Tracy, the idiot who doesn't understand Brittish humour.

I can eat what I want when I want. Tracy, the materialist control freak.

I don't have to deal with negative attitudes about everything. Tracy, the drenched wet blanket.

I am the only insecure person here. Stephenie, Tracy, Lisa. . .

I'm not self-conscious about having false teeth or hairy legs. Stephenie, the snob.

I don't have to change any aspect of myself just so the other person will shut up about what ever it is they want me to change. Stephenie and Tracy, the snob and the control freak.

I don't have to celebrate the holiday I hate most: Valantine's Day. (Icky poo mush, mush.) Tracy, the pathetic romantic who thinks that a chair full of useless gifts are the way to a person's heart.

And last but certainly the most important, I can work on my Writing Project without someone getting in its way and then getting jealous over it. Creativity keeps me sane, and every person I'd been with has always, always tried to pull me away from it. Each and every one of them. . .

Now, for the cons:

There is no one to come home to.

There is no one to be held by while watching a show.

There is no one to cook for.

There is no one to keep me sane after a bad day at work.

There is no one to look up to.

There is no one to share my creativity with.

And so, again, I have come to the conclusion that being single is best for me because there is no one out there who can or would even want to put up with me.

It's going to be a long winter.

Another dimension of the bizzare. . .

Once upon a time, my neice and I were strolling innocently through the Ross Creek Cedars when, suddenly we stepped into another forest that looked much like the one we had left. Whereas in the previous forest there were flora and fauna that kept to themselves, this grove had within it entities that did not. As we tred carefully past the giant trees that seemed to bend a long hard look to our presence, tree clams suddenly opened their maws and reached for our faces!

We ran and ran, looking for the exit but eventually finding none. So we took up fallen sticks with which to defend ourselves and proceeded with extreme caution.

As we continued slowly on our trek, we encountered cave-like openings within some of the trees. Cautiously, we peered inside and found to our horror several people who had been taken in and wrapped in thick webs, and who were fiercely guarded by more tree clams who giggled diabolically and had short little legs.

Again we ran and frantically searched for a way out, yet still found none.

We then decided to make a small camp as night was encroaching across the sky. A small fire going, (made with wood not related to the animated trees), we sat around it and listened to the night.

It was very quiet. Too quiet, and we began to fear for our very lives. Would the tree clams hunt after us while we slept? Would the trees gather our slumbering bodies with their crawling roots? These and other questions kept our eyes wide open and our hearts drumming.

But it remained very quiet within this dark place and we had no way of knowing what was planned for us.

Then hunger overcame our fear and so we cooked up a little meal and ate in silence, all the while clutching our meagre defence of sticks.

Suddenly, something landed with a thump in the fire, and when we looked, we saw a large pinecone. Knowing what happens to pinecones in fire, we jumped up and stepped back a fair distance for safety.

Nothing happened. We looked at each other and decided to wait it out a little more. But still, nothing happened in the quiet of the forest night.

Then we heard it. Faint at first, there was what sounded like laughter, a high chirping sound that echoed all around. It grew louder, and then louder still until, suddenly, we were surrounded by ninja squirrels with light sabres. They circled us in a dance-like formation, waving those terrible wands at us and laughing maniacally. Then more pinecones fell from above, each one aimed at our heads with uncanny precision until, finally wearied by the onslaught, we succumbed and fell to these horrible entities.

"Dinner's ready!" says my brother.

My neice and I shut down the game and thankfully took our normal seats around the normal table and ate our fill of good food within the safety of our home.

We then lived happily everafter.

The end.

Uh oh. Religion.

Now that Thanksgiving is over and the "holidays" have officially begun, I thought I'd take a moment to share my recent ideas about religion.

This is a thing that has been on my mind for the last few weeks and, quite frankly, I am disgusted by what I've discovered.

What is religion? Rather, what is the purpose of religion?

Mysterium Tremendum. That which is beyond explaination.

A friend of mine and I were discussing this recently. She is a pastor at a local church and so understands what religion is supposed to provide in the way of self-betterment, enlightenment and Humanity's evolution toward these goals.

But that's not what is really happening. Bureaucracy has taken hold and thus compartmentalized religions all over the world to the point where there is separation, (to the extreme of violence), of Humanity and of the very nature of the Myterium Tremendum. Religion was never to be used as a means of social control, information hoarding or discemination, to put one's self above others, to condemn those who think and feel differently, to use as a rallying point for war, or to do anything else that infringes upon free will.

I am not against religion. But I am very much against the orginization of it. Bureaucracy is very, very bad and should have never attempted the task of controllong how religion works. Mysterium Tremendum is way beyond the materialistic and should remain so. Enlightenment cannot happen otherwise.

Coffee in Hand

I have only three types of companions when writing: music, cats and coffee. . . A lot of coffee. I do not like it black and I use soy milk for creamer. The Cats? Not much of a choice there. They don't like coffee, especially when they "accidentally" knock mine over and it gets all over them. The faces they make while licking their fur are a bundle of laughs, their vocal protests jarring with the Steve Roach music in the background.

Seriously. . . I think most artists have an addiction or two, and one of those addictions happens to be of coffee. So what is it about coffee that makes the creative world go round? Is it the actual taste? But coffee, I hear, is an acquired taste. And there are many different blends, beans and roasts to choose from. I personally like the so-called French Roast. Sumatra is good too, especially on rainy days.

But honestly, I think it's the idea of coffee. The warm, rich and mild or bold taste only enhances the coffee experience when coupled with the artistic moment. It's the idea of something just outside the accepted realm of general society, eccentric, classic, artsy. . .and my personal favourite, sophisticated. Or rather, it used to be slightly outside the norm. . .

An instructer from long ago had opened up a coffee shop called Brew HaHa. I remember how proud she was of having this tiny cafe in the middle of downtown Spokane because there were, at the time, so few of such places. I also remember how she had become a bit cocky with the notion and often likened the cafe-owning experience to something foriegn to this country. I think she actually tried to Frenchify it, thus revealing she had been in love with the idea rather than the actuality. (She too was an artist.)

But it is the idea fitting so well with the artistic circumstance that makes it so very intriguing, almost other-worldly, perhaps even magical.

Until you find a few cat hairs in a full cup. . .

Writing Rightly. . .again

One of my bosses, a co-worker and I were talking about writing and how we make notes for large projects such as college papers or stories. The co-worker does the spider web type of notating where as the boss and I are linear, either to the side or down below or both. The co-worker informed us that Microsoft Office has a new notating program that employs something like the spider web bubble type. I made the comment that I can't do such a thing on the computer and that all my notes have to be hand-written, along with everything else. Knowing that I'm writing a book series, the boss asked if I write out everything. I said yes, and then explained that because I wasn't exposed to computers until I was in highschool, I hadn't become reliant upon them and so the creative process melded to pens and pencils. (Though now I use only pencil.) She also knows that I write very, very, very small. The running joke at work is: "Don't let Mary write anything by hand because we can't read it without a magnifying glass."

Seriously though: The skill of hand-writing is a dying art. And though I see that computers, like the word processors and type-writers of before, are tools and that we can do nifty things, such as blogging, with them, I fear that we may have become too reliant upon them. I run into kids now that have only a two to three-week training on cursive. I remember learning it in forth grade and being required to use it for the rest of my school carreer. And when encountering these young people who text rather than write, I feel very much like the ghost ship above.

Swine Flu (part two)

Need I really say more?

Actually I probably should so as to warn anyone who reads this about the wonderful anti-viral medication called Tamaflu. It has the propensity to excite the oracular centres of the mind in such a way as to show alterier dimensions in the space-time continuum and elsewhere.

As if delerium wasn't exciting enough.

However, I will admit that, despite the entertaining side effects, had it not been for Tamaflu I would have ended up in the hospital in critical condition due to a very, very high fever. I have not been this ill for over twenty years. So I now consider myself very lucky to have caught the symptoms in time and taken action to get through it without a hospital trip. (Though the other trips were quite fun. . .)

Today is actually the first day without a fever, and, if cleared by the good doctor, I should be able to return to work this coming week, for which I know my supervisor will be very, very glad. . .I hope.

Swine Flu

Whenever the flu season hits, I hardly ever get it. If I get it, then it's usually just a mild cold that lasts a couple days. When working in a shelter this seemingly strong immune system is a very good thing.

But now there is this swine flu to which I have fallen without much grace. It has been at least two decades since I had run a temperature above 101 and so I had forgotten what it's like to be a bit delerious. (By the way, my normal body temperature is about 97, so a 101 for me is like a 103 to others.) The closest analogy I can come up with is that it's a lot like being drunk under water. (Don't ask.) Also, all one can do is sit and watch TV while wondering why the cats do nothing to help which then leads to some pretty wild notions of bio-technology for the cats so they can be of assistance. Then this train of thought begins to include what is occurring on the TV, which happens to be the SciFi channel, with the heroes going to other worlds through the stargate with the cats. The cats return, seemingly unaffected until their eyes glow and they begin talking with really deep voices about how I too must become host to a symbiote.

The good doctor stuck me in a kind of quarrantine where I cannot go to work for at least seven days, (which really sucks on the financial end and especially for my supervisor who has to fill the shifts), then prescribed Tamaflu and a lot of water and juice. So, once I could gain some semblance of reality, I went out to get it before I experienced more alien abductions of cats. (But the cars, on the other hand, were driving on air.) Now, thankfully, the Tamaflu is cutting the symptoms in half and so only one cat has been abducted instead of both of them.

Writing rightly, part two. . .

I have just completed the first draft of book two of the Writing Project and then decided that, since it is a four-book project, I will be working on all books at once. I came to this decision because I recently found that writing, for me, is very much like working on a visual piece where all parts are worked on simultaniously. Some writers can do a series in succession and it works. Not me. The story that I'm relating is very much like the ghost in the above image. It cannot be picked apart bit by bit nor written like a school paper because the story is an entire entity. It comes to me in flashes, vague or solid, and then begins to fit itself together as other aspects are glimpsed over time. This adds time to the Project, but I also have come to accept that, because Time itself is relative and cannot be hurried.