![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatApt search depressed and stressed the hell out of me today and I realized it's time to scale back on the searching, after being bullied by agent to buy something. We fought a lot in the car. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that maybe I should hunt for apartments to rent that are either rent stablized or rent controlled (close to impossible to find). Or just stay put. See where the other things I've been pursuing take me.
Today was not what I expected. Or it, rather, brought to the forefront many issues I've been grappling with. But not quite sure how to break them down or discuss them. Words fail all of sudden. They've been failing me a lot lately, my blogging seems to be suffering as a result.
And my mind keeps jumping from topic to topic, the topics often having nothing in common with each other, or seemingly unrelated. It's like my creative writing - I have all these ideas, too many ideas, but none of them connect. So I feel a bit diffused or scattered?
Perhaps, should try doing jotting them down one by one, separated with a space, each thought numbered and neatly organized on the page.
1. Church this morning was interesting. One amazing spiritual gospel number that blew me away. It was called "Soon Ah Will Be Done" by William L. Dawson. It's not the words that blew me away but the sound. Music is often like that - it's the sound not the words that move us. But this is true in writing as well, sometimes a poem will move us more because of how it sounds, how the words rub together like sticks starting a spark deep inside, then what the words mean in of themselves. I've always loved how words sound against each other, the alliteration, perhaps it is the poet in me?
The sermon today moved me as well, it got the wheels inside my head turning. Asking questions.
What do I want? The minister asked if we had ever wanted anything really bad, fought for it, and got it - only to discover we had no clue what to do with it and to realize we didn't want it? Yes.
The idea of finding a way to connect to the moment, to the here and now, to be content with it, to find meaning in it. If you are an atheist - dealing with that empty hole where your belief in God may once have been, to know that this life is good, that salvation is here presently, and that you are loved. It's all in how you perceive it. To understand the meaning of that serenity prayer. To
know that the grass isn't greener, and the thing you think will make you happier and is out of your grasp wouldn't. I wish I could put down the words I heard this morning, sitting in the pew at the back of the mahogany church, with light streaming through the tiffany stained glass windows.
2. I worry sometimes, or rather I did this morning, if I come across online as a know-it-all? I hope not. Because I don't feel that way, not really. My knowledge has huge gaps in it. And I often spend my working days bouncing about asking questions, many many questions. For the little I know and understand, there's so much I do not. I remember an old friend (who is no longer one) stating to me once that I didn't need to know anything else, to not go learn more - I knew too much already (which is amongst the reasons we are no longer friends). I learn a lot interacting with my correspondence list on lj. My friends, most of which are academically inclined, know more than I do about things such as computers, history (particularly world history), language, philosophy, economics and politics. While I know quite a bit about business, literary analysis, negotiation, American legal system, railroads, public transportation, publishing, comic books, entertainment business, television, theater, social and psychology, and art. At times, I feel in the world as if I'm that rooster in the farmyard, who hasn't learned how to crow, while all the other animals are trying to teach him how - yet clearly know nothing about crowing themselves. And at other times, I feel like those animals trying to teach a rooster to crow - so he can get me up each morning on time, even if I know nothing about crowing.
3. I want to write creatively again. It's a constant itch in the back of my skull that won't leave me alone. It's that old Toni Morrison axiom - if you can't find a book that thrills you, write it yourself. Write your own stories. Do it the way you want to see it done.
But I have so many stories, I don't know what to pick. Should just focus on the one I've already written, get it out there. But it scares me a bit. There's so much of me wrapped up inside it - or rather me of five to six years ago. I finished it in 2006.
4. I've thought about contributing to now. Connecting to now, the world as it exists materially before me. Not retreating from it or hiding in cultural mediums and stories inside my head.
I think of my brother who loves to garden. To feel the earth between his finger tips. Nurturing a bulb, pushing it below the soil. A root. A bulb. Placing wire around it to protect from deer. Or his love of building things, cutting wood, the rough smell of sawdust tickling his nostrils as he bends over the saw. I see him in my minds eye, tall and lean, tossled copper hair, long fingers, bent double, shoveling and planting, always planting. On his little hilltop, mountain really, with his daughter, who comes up just past his knees aiding him in his efforts.
What is my art, I think, in comparison to that? How do I contribute? Weaving words? Or knitting thread into odd shapes - no clue what it will be if anything, a scarf, a hat, a shawl, too narrow for a blanket, too small to be a sweater, perhaps just a placemate made of yarn or a pillowcase, light blue, powderpuff blue and pink? Perhaps I too should get a piece of land and plant, buy a plot at our community garden, plant a tree or flowers. Sit and watch them grow. Except I kill plants. I killed a cactus - overwatered it. I'm not a caretaker or a gardner, not a flower either, which maybe why I can't garden - I don't like to be watered, so can't imagine why anyone else would want to be?
5. I'm reading a new book now - Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, having finally grown weary of hunting for something that I thought was there (a small tiny spark) and isn't in Harrison's novels after all - the writer mislead me. I got all excited about it, too. In much the same way I got all excited about the Whedonverse and obsessed with Buffy. Only to discover it was a tease. An illusion. And from the writer's own spoilers - it's clear she's going off in another direction completely. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, just disappointing is all. I think, writer's shouldn't tease. You lose readers that way. The relationship between reader and writer is a shaky one at best, the reader is trusting the writer and the writer the reader...misleading or teasing the reader can lead to a breakage of trust and the reader will leave, to tell their own tales or to read another tale. Writer's should remember that readers are fickle creatures...
Off to make dinner and prepare for another day. Moment by moment, or so my Granny used to say. Each day at a time. Think no further. You know not what that day will bring. And be thankful for it.
Be that day. Only that day. Not tomorrow or yesterday. Today.
Today was not what I expected. Or it, rather, brought to the forefront many issues I've been grappling with. But not quite sure how to break them down or discuss them. Words fail all of sudden. They've been failing me a lot lately, my blogging seems to be suffering as a result.
And my mind keeps jumping from topic to topic, the topics often having nothing in common with each other, or seemingly unrelated. It's like my creative writing - I have all these ideas, too many ideas, but none of them connect. So I feel a bit diffused or scattered?
Perhaps, should try doing jotting them down one by one, separated with a space, each thought numbered and neatly organized on the page.
1. Church this morning was interesting. One amazing spiritual gospel number that blew me away. It was called "Soon Ah Will Be Done" by William L. Dawson. It's not the words that blew me away but the sound. Music is often like that - it's the sound not the words that move us. But this is true in writing as well, sometimes a poem will move us more because of how it sounds, how the words rub together like sticks starting a spark deep inside, then what the words mean in of themselves. I've always loved how words sound against each other, the alliteration, perhaps it is the poet in me?
The sermon today moved me as well, it got the wheels inside my head turning. Asking questions.
What do I want? The minister asked if we had ever wanted anything really bad, fought for it, and got it - only to discover we had no clue what to do with it and to realize we didn't want it? Yes.
The idea of finding a way to connect to the moment, to the here and now, to be content with it, to find meaning in it. If you are an atheist - dealing with that empty hole where your belief in God may once have been, to know that this life is good, that salvation is here presently, and that you are loved. It's all in how you perceive it. To understand the meaning of that serenity prayer. To
know that the grass isn't greener, and the thing you think will make you happier and is out of your grasp wouldn't. I wish I could put down the words I heard this morning, sitting in the pew at the back of the mahogany church, with light streaming through the tiffany stained glass windows.
2. I worry sometimes, or rather I did this morning, if I come across online as a know-it-all? I hope not. Because I don't feel that way, not really. My knowledge has huge gaps in it. And I often spend my working days bouncing about asking questions, many many questions. For the little I know and understand, there's so much I do not. I remember an old friend (who is no longer one) stating to me once that I didn't need to know anything else, to not go learn more - I knew too much already (which is amongst the reasons we are no longer friends). I learn a lot interacting with my correspondence list on lj. My friends, most of which are academically inclined, know more than I do about things such as computers, history (particularly world history), language, philosophy, economics and politics. While I know quite a bit about business, literary analysis, negotiation, American legal system, railroads, public transportation, publishing, comic books, entertainment business, television, theater, social and psychology, and art. At times, I feel in the world as if I'm that rooster in the farmyard, who hasn't learned how to crow, while all the other animals are trying to teach him how - yet clearly know nothing about crowing themselves. And at other times, I feel like those animals trying to teach a rooster to crow - so he can get me up each morning on time, even if I know nothing about crowing.
3. I want to write creatively again. It's a constant itch in the back of my skull that won't leave me alone. It's that old Toni Morrison axiom - if you can't find a book that thrills you, write it yourself. Write your own stories. Do it the way you want to see it done.
But I have so many stories, I don't know what to pick. Should just focus on the one I've already written, get it out there. But it scares me a bit. There's so much of me wrapped up inside it - or rather me of five to six years ago. I finished it in 2006.
4. I've thought about contributing to now. Connecting to now, the world as it exists materially before me. Not retreating from it or hiding in cultural mediums and stories inside my head.
I think of my brother who loves to garden. To feel the earth between his finger tips. Nurturing a bulb, pushing it below the soil. A root. A bulb. Placing wire around it to protect from deer. Or his love of building things, cutting wood, the rough smell of sawdust tickling his nostrils as he bends over the saw. I see him in my minds eye, tall and lean, tossled copper hair, long fingers, bent double, shoveling and planting, always planting. On his little hilltop, mountain really, with his daughter, who comes up just past his knees aiding him in his efforts.
What is my art, I think, in comparison to that? How do I contribute? Weaving words? Or knitting thread into odd shapes - no clue what it will be if anything, a scarf, a hat, a shawl, too narrow for a blanket, too small to be a sweater, perhaps just a placemate made of yarn or a pillowcase, light blue, powderpuff blue and pink? Perhaps I too should get a piece of land and plant, buy a plot at our community garden, plant a tree or flowers. Sit and watch them grow. Except I kill plants. I killed a cactus - overwatered it. I'm not a caretaker or a gardner, not a flower either, which maybe why I can't garden - I don't like to be watered, so can't imagine why anyone else would want to be?
5. I'm reading a new book now - Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, having finally grown weary of hunting for something that I thought was there (a small tiny spark) and isn't in Harrison's novels after all - the writer mislead me. I got all excited about it, too. In much the same way I got all excited about the Whedonverse and obsessed with Buffy. Only to discover it was a tease. An illusion. And from the writer's own spoilers - it's clear she's going off in another direction completely. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, just disappointing is all. I think, writer's shouldn't tease. You lose readers that way. The relationship between reader and writer is a shaky one at best, the reader is trusting the writer and the writer the reader...misleading or teasing the reader can lead to a breakage of trust and the reader will leave, to tell their own tales or to read another tale. Writer's should remember that readers are fickle creatures...
Off to make dinner and prepare for another day. Moment by moment, or so my Granny used to say. Each day at a time. Think no further. You know not what that day will bring. And be thankful for it.
Be that day. Only that day. Not tomorrow or yesterday. Today.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-03-28 04:28 pm (UTC)Re. writers and expectations etc, then part of me worries a fair bit about this when it comes to my own fic, since I generally have it all planned out, and although I put down clues that are clear to me, I don't know that they're clear to others, and they might be expecting something else. Not that people *complain* mind you, but I wonder.
About writers, then I generally don't mind all that much (it's their story - if it happens to go my way, then I'm happy - this is a rather complex issue that I don't have time to develop fully right now, might be back). But my mind immediately jumped to Moffat, because if something's there, we can be sure that it's there on purpose. F.ex. episode 1 of S5 ended with a shot of Amy's wedding dress, and when Rory was killed and erased, this was one of the things I clung onto - that wedding dress was important. In some way or other, surely the season would come back to this? And lo and behold, I was right. :)
(That's all for now. Must run. But it's an interesting subject!)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 01:05 am (UTC)I agree on Stephen Moffat - he is very good at following up on story-threads, better than most. (Not to harp on the S8 comics again, but it's too good an example to waste and since you'll understand the reference.., part of my problem with the comics...was the writers didn't follow up on existing story-threads. I felt as if the writer had forgotten what came before or hadn't paid any attention to it, when I was convinced prior to the comics that he was paying close attention to everything in that series. Rather disappointing to discover he really wasn't paying any attention at all and just making it up as he went, often forgetting what happened and/or too lazy/busy/distracted to go back and check. Which happens with writers who are writing too many stories at once and being pushed to create more story with characters that they've lost interest in or no longer feel inside their guts.)
I don't really care if the author goes in a direction that isn't where I'd take it, it's when I feel like they are dropping a story-thread which they've appeared to carefully build bit by bit. Or when they suddenly start adding characters...which make no sense and do not further the story, except as a romantic love interest. If your protagonist already has five characters drooling over them, adding a sixth - and having them fall head over heels in love with this person is a bit of annoyance. Particularly if the character didn't exist before now and you haven't well, explored or tied up the other threads. Example: Adding Riley in Buffy S4 worked, if he'd been added in S7 or S6, I would have been annoyed. Or in Doctor Who - they sent Rose to another dimension prior to introducing Martha Jones, and then they went back and resolved that arc - that plot thread, romantic or otherwise wasn't left hanging, nor was Martha's arc or Donna's. They did resolve each arc before adding a new companion.
IT's the dropping of threads that bugs me. And well juggling more characters than you can handle. Some writers can do this - George RR Martin and Jim Butcher are examples, as is Jane Austen who brilliantly juggles multiple characters in both Emma and Pride and Prejudice, but other's lose track of characters when they have too many. Also with a first person narrative voice it can get rather dicey, I think.
Anyhow, thanks for the response. Understand the difficulty with replying, am much the same way - I'm afraid. ;-)
And I love your icon. Quite expressive.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-28 04:46 pm (UTC)I wanted to thank you for recommending Kim Harrison. I enjoyed what I read and hopefully will still. If not, there are so many others.
btw, I would rec the Three Pines/Andre Gamache series by Louise Penny They are much more than mysteries. I have finished her sixth novel, "Bury Your Dead".
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 12:49 am (UTC)Eh, I ruined my love for Harrison by re-reading/scanning her books and reading her blog. VERY bad idea. Must not do that in the future. The good news? I'll probably forget it all by the time the next book pops up and will like it fine. Some writers do not bear up well to in-depth analysis - Harrison is one of them.
If it helps? I can't garden - I kill plants. And am really bad at sewing, can't sew at all. Tried once - ended up with a shirt that had one long sleeve, one short sleeve and half of it was shorter than the other half. Rather funky looking mess. I remember being really upset about it.