11.26.2009

Today is a beautiful day full of mist and drizzle. The streets are nearly empty, devoid of the usual hustle and bustle of people getting from here to there. Businesses are dark inside, their parking lots empty. Even the shelter has less people in front of it.

I wonder if that's because some of the street dwellers have gone home today. Perhaps to homes they felt they could not return to. Tomorrow, they will be back again. Which means that they were right. It's a terrible side of our society.

I have seen two adverts in the last day that have made my stomach wrench. Both were telling you how right you are to be a selfish asshole, and if only everyone else would be a selfish asshole, too. I wonder who even notices?

Our society is dark and selfish and thankless. The day meant to think on such things has turned into a self-engorging feast about how much I love to eat.
I'd like to correct this one symptom, but I fear that the disease is too deep to fix.
We'd have to exhume the affected tissue entirely, and that would mean an overhaul of this society.

Soon, a new decade will begin and we'll be right where we were before.
I suppose it is time for a revolution. But how to begin it?

Stirred Up

I'm beginning to find that my narration style is the sort of cracked out, jittery hands and anxious feet, waggling ever so slightly from side to side spew of words that comes from a few various sources.

One is the most apparent: the abrupt influx of far too much caffeine.
The second is slightly less obvious, while still being predictable: the over-stimulation of a sleep deprived mind either by necessity or fever dreams.
The third is the most obscure, really:

Sometime, the most inspirational thing an artist can do is to simply overhear life happening.

If one were to ask me what drew me to the passions I have, later in my life, found, I would have to answer that it was the people. Of course, I would be meaning the interactions with others, the face-to-face contact of total strangers that I experience everyday. Strangers becoming common faces, becoming aquaintences, becoming friends. Deep spiritual rivers that have continued to feed me.

And yet, that would not be all. I have found that there is a deep well of inspiration burrowed deep under that river that I am in touch with everyday. A wellspring of voices, of conversations, of snippets of others lives that have led me to have eyes that can see and hears that can hear.

I have always struggled with creating realistic characters. Namely, because I was always pulling together hodge-podge pieces of constructs and urging them to live. There is no soul in such things. But the spirits that have traveled to me, the pieces of real persons that have influenced the creation - or more accurately, the finding of real characters have littered themselves into my art: those are the essence of what I do.

If only I can find the right pieces of life to inspire change and instill real values, then I have done all I can do.

I am trying, Saul. I have to admit that I have not tried hard enough. But, from today on, I am trying.

Progress Report:

The climax has occurred, the bad guy is being revealed, and the novel is a little over half done.

Hurrah.

from this point of view

In simply just writing, I have come to remember how, when I write, my spirit goes somewhere else and my mind focuses on some distant point and I become a different type of being.

I become a mind, a soul sparked with life, traveling and moving in the rivers of tales that have been told and retold for centuries. I become a part of that flow, a piece of that river where the only thing that matters is that you are water and you are flowing with it and in it and of it.

As a writer, I have never understood the art of writing. Many people have asked me how I can write or how I can craft stories or how I can find just the right words for the right sentence. How poetry can flow from fingertips to words in a language that humans have created to express their exact ideas. And the answer is, I have no idea.

Something within me flares like a flame and something unravels itself, spreading out a world of transparency and beauty that my brain could not tap into. Something opens and the eyes refocus to find a place that no physical thing can look into.

And, for lack of another word, something spiritual happens there. Something artistic.
It's a strange place, with strange currents that are - sometimes - extremely hard to follow. But I have always yearned to see where they go, and so whenever I am tapped into them, I chase them frantically, expending every ounce of energy I have within me, just to see what they have to show.

There, I have seen a million things, been a million things, known a million things. I have met people there and heard their stories. I have seen worlds arise and fall. I have been witness to death and rebirth. I have experienced pain and joy and frustration. I have trusted and I have been betrayed. I have seen the sun rise in space and seen stars supernova. I have felt the rush of the wind and been submerged in a river of ice cold water. I have held my breath under waterfalls and sank my feet into mud, ankle deep. I have traveled with the insane and the depressed and the naive. I have walked through walls and listened to lover's quarrel. I have flown like a bird and traveled faster than the speed of sound or light.

But, the place is strange and while everything happens, nothing happens at all, and I am still sitting in a cafe in front of my computer or bent over my notebook, cold coffee sitting - as it often does - off to my left, half-drunken. And, eventually, the muscles in my back and legs and arms will call me to rise and I will go home.

But I will never forget where I have been.
The only danger is to forget to go there, at all.

Progress: Week One

The truth of the matter was that things were beginning to get serious, both around the Council members and around town. The rumors that had been spread about a faction of Mages attempting to get some absurd sort of revolution going were beginning to gain some steam. It might only be hysteria or people followning a rumor for the rumor's sake, but Jared hadn't liked the way things were shaping up. During the last Council of Mages meeting, where typically school agenda and community activies were discussed, several members had felt compelled to urge the Council to address the rumors. Jared shook his head and he slowed to another stoplight, tapping his foot as he waited for the green. It was never a good policy to begin responding to such rumors. It only gave people more reason to believe there truly was something going on.

But, the problem that had been troubling Jared all throughout the day was the question of whether there was something going on at all. Was it possible that a group fo Changers had decided they were genetically advanced and ought to bring a dictator before the world of previously peaceable and ungoverned mages? It was something Jared would have to chew over. In the meantime, he was glad to be a part of the dream research Lunah had offered him. If nothing else, he would be mindful of any growing war or attack metaphors and symobls. Jared had always been rather good at reading dreams, despite the fact that he was clearly a much more natural Will-Weaver.

The honking of a horn distracted Jared from his silent reverie, and he pushed the gas and gave his little scooter enough gusto to practically hop into the intersection. Paying more attention to the road, Jared resolved that tomorrow morning he would certainly have to pop in on Oswold to find out a good time for the dream interviews.

Watching the streets pass, Jared stuck his arm out to the left and banked around the turn when he appraoch 3rd Avenue. For the third time, he reminded himself to ask one of the more mechanically inclined Mason-Casters to take look at the loose connection of the blinker wire. It wouldn't take much to reconnect it to the main power flow of the scooter, but he'd rather the connection be solid crafted metal rather than the mickeymouse job he'd do with a soldering gun. Judging by he time on Lunah's wall clock, Stumptown would still be open for another fifteen minutes by the time he arrived. Although the tea had been delicious, it would most likely not hold him over through the rest of the paperwork he had yet to set in on. Not to mention the fact that it was almost certain that the caterer would be just about ready for a few shots herself. As he drew closer, he could judge by the looks of the coffeeshop lights, he had been correct.