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shadowkatEnd of another sluggish work week. We took one of our co-workers to lunch, the guy who took me to the hospital and stayed with me when I got mugged by the sidewalk a few years ago. Lovely Portugese restaurant, with table-cloths and everything. A rarity in Jamaica (NY). Had sirloin steak on a rock (hot rock), with dipping sauces, and french fries. Very good. But my teeth aren't what they once were, they hurt afterwards. Did a light dinner tonight - spinach salad with hard boiled eggs and cucumber soup, with Jaques Torres chocolates for dessert.
It hits me...again, that the internet in so many ways is crack for writers. Writing in of itself is a lonely profession. Even letter writing. I remember spending hours writing letters in multi-colored ink, sending it off, and waiting for a response...often never getting one, sometimes getting one many months later. Friends and family weren't the best at letter writing. Not everyone is. Then came the internet, and email. Instant gratification. It's not surprising to me in the least that so many professional and published B list and cult writers blog or have blogs to interact with fans and readers, troll as it were for comments. The line between the professional writer and the fanfic non-published writer is razor thin - the only true difference is one makes money at it, the other does not. And money nice as it is - tends to be cold reward. It doesn't necessarily tell you that what you wrote was any good or well-received. Also, criticism feels at times like sandpaper against raw skin, bracing. At others instructive. We're all critical, some more than others...and those of us that are - tend to be ironically enough the most critical of ourselves. I know I am. My last public post - I edited six times, while I was writing it, and periodically after it. And I'm still not satisfied with it. Did I go too far with the snark there? Not enough here? Is the balance right? I knew what I was trying to do - which was to share an experience or my experience reading the work I reviewed in full - not just a review, but to take the reader inside my head and experience what I did and what I was thinking while reading it. To share and then discuss. This is easier often through writing than oral speech, for often we listen better as we read then when we hear. Because our eyes can scan back again and again, while we can't exactly rewind what we hear - unless it's taped of course. We can re-read. Letters unlike the net in a way force you to do a closer read...to ponder longer before a reply. But the net provides a way to connect to people who would never read you otherwise or know you exist. Been pondering it at any rate.
Listened to a song this week by Guy Forsyth entitled Long Long Time from the Album Love Songs for & Against, the following lyric jumped out and smacked me across the face the way good lyrics often do.
Self-medicated, pacifated, trying our best to stay distracted, living life according to the TV set.
Corporations owning nations, telling us "don't change the station, it's the only safe way to win the human race."
I wonder how the world sees us. Rich beyond compare, powerful without equal, a spoiled, drunk, 15-year-old waving a gun in their face.
It worries me at times - that the world's perception of the US is based so much on the onslaught of violent commercial media, news and otherwise, that we shove in their face. But my correspondence tells me otherwise. It's easy to make generalizations I think. Too easy. But that lyric still haunts.
Other lines that strike a chord...
Last night, in our nightly phone chat, Momster talked about her book club - which she is struggling with. Last year they insisted on doing Atlas Shrugged. This year, one of the ladies has decided to read all the Stephanie Meyer Twilight novels because she has heard how incredibly well written they are and what a great moral message they provide. I asked if she was the same one who wanted to read Atlas Shrugged and enjoyed it? Yep. But that's beside the point and so not what I wanted to discuss.
Another woman in the club questioned the point of discussing fictionalized works, they are just fiction, what's the point, the characters aren't real, why does it even matter? And Momster stated that while she does see the difference, fictional characters if written well - do become real in a way, they exist if only in our minds and imaginations. Their motivations, their development is vital. And their journeys are as interesting as real one's. You still have to see if the story was constructed well, if the writer had a theme in mind, if the character evolved. And I find myself wondering or thinking once again of that Star Trek the Next Generation Episode where Jean-Luc Picard wonders aloud are we, his crew and himself, merely characters of someone else's imagination inside a box - entertainment, as their virtual reality is entertainment for them, and if so, what's to say the characters in the virtual reality cannot become real? It reminds me of another quote that stood out for me this week, this one by Walter Mosley, author of Devil in a Red Dress...and other mysteries,
stating that the only way we know the world is not flat is by what we see from videos and tv screens.
But if you go out to a parking lot and put a level on the ground - it will prove otherwise. Tangiable vs. intangible. Circumstantial evidence. But if you question it - see past it, realize that your senses are limited and experience even more so...you accept, yes, the world most likely is a sphere moving rapidly around a sun in space. To see beyond what appears to be true...to imagine.
And finally this quote which haunts on so many levels fictional, non-fictional, and personal - so obvious, yet often ignored.
I'm sorry, but I can't take it back. It happened. Let's all agree to stop whining about it.
This quote in the work in which I discovered it has a triple meaning - it refers to the character, someone who has done horrifically bad things and is trying to be better, to the writer's own struggles online with his fans and not!fans and no doubt his regrets regarding it, and to the struggle to let go of a nasty disappointment.
It's not about forgiveness. It's about learning from the past. And moving on. I remember years ago,
a wise man told me once, that everyone makes mistakes. We all screw up. Royally sometimes. It is inevitable. The trick is to learn from the mistake and not do it again. Try really hard not to repeat it. We can't really control whether others forgive us for it or not. That is out of our hands. But we can try to learn from it, forgive ourselves, and not do it again. Although I think we are or at least I am doomed to, until I do finally learn not to. Going on and on and on about it, ripping the wound open repeatedly, helps no one. Ranting and raving...just makes you ill. You give the person or persons that hurt you power. And if it is something you've done - you make that mistake define you and become doomed to repeat it. Learn and then let it go. I'm not very good at this, I don't think. My Granny once accused me of having a memory like an Elephant. So it's something I keep working on.
It hits me...again, that the internet in so many ways is crack for writers. Writing in of itself is a lonely profession. Even letter writing. I remember spending hours writing letters in multi-colored ink, sending it off, and waiting for a response...often never getting one, sometimes getting one many months later. Friends and family weren't the best at letter writing. Not everyone is. Then came the internet, and email. Instant gratification. It's not surprising to me in the least that so many professional and published B list and cult writers blog or have blogs to interact with fans and readers, troll as it were for comments. The line between the professional writer and the fanfic non-published writer is razor thin - the only true difference is one makes money at it, the other does not. And money nice as it is - tends to be cold reward. It doesn't necessarily tell you that what you wrote was any good or well-received. Also, criticism feels at times like sandpaper against raw skin, bracing. At others instructive. We're all critical, some more than others...and those of us that are - tend to be ironically enough the most critical of ourselves. I know I am. My last public post - I edited six times, while I was writing it, and periodically after it. And I'm still not satisfied with it. Did I go too far with the snark there? Not enough here? Is the balance right? I knew what I was trying to do - which was to share an experience or my experience reading the work I reviewed in full - not just a review, but to take the reader inside my head and experience what I did and what I was thinking while reading it. To share and then discuss. This is easier often through writing than oral speech, for often we listen better as we read then when we hear. Because our eyes can scan back again and again, while we can't exactly rewind what we hear - unless it's taped of course. We can re-read. Letters unlike the net in a way force you to do a closer read...to ponder longer before a reply. But the net provides a way to connect to people who would never read you otherwise or know you exist. Been pondering it at any rate.
Listened to a song this week by Guy Forsyth entitled Long Long Time from the Album Love Songs for & Against, the following lyric jumped out and smacked me across the face the way good lyrics often do.
Self-medicated, pacifated, trying our best to stay distracted, living life according to the TV set.
Corporations owning nations, telling us "don't change the station, it's the only safe way to win the human race."
I wonder how the world sees us. Rich beyond compare, powerful without equal, a spoiled, drunk, 15-year-old waving a gun in their face.
It worries me at times - that the world's perception of the US is based so much on the onslaught of violent commercial media, news and otherwise, that we shove in their face. But my correspondence tells me otherwise. It's easy to make generalizations I think. Too easy. But that lyric still haunts.
Other lines that strike a chord...
Last night, in our nightly phone chat, Momster talked about her book club - which she is struggling with. Last year they insisted on doing Atlas Shrugged. This year, one of the ladies has decided to read all the Stephanie Meyer Twilight novels because she has heard how incredibly well written they are and what a great moral message they provide. I asked if she was the same one who wanted to read Atlas Shrugged and enjoyed it? Yep. But that's beside the point and so not what I wanted to discuss.
Another woman in the club questioned the point of discussing fictionalized works, they are just fiction, what's the point, the characters aren't real, why does it even matter? And Momster stated that while she does see the difference, fictional characters if written well - do become real in a way, they exist if only in our minds and imaginations. Their motivations, their development is vital. And their journeys are as interesting as real one's. You still have to see if the story was constructed well, if the writer had a theme in mind, if the character evolved. And I find myself wondering or thinking once again of that Star Trek the Next Generation Episode where Jean-Luc Picard wonders aloud are we, his crew and himself, merely characters of someone else's imagination inside a box - entertainment, as their virtual reality is entertainment for them, and if so, what's to say the characters in the virtual reality cannot become real? It reminds me of another quote that stood out for me this week, this one by Walter Mosley, author of Devil in a Red Dress...and other mysteries,
stating that the only way we know the world is not flat is by what we see from videos and tv screens.
But if you go out to a parking lot and put a level on the ground - it will prove otherwise. Tangiable vs. intangible. Circumstantial evidence. But if you question it - see past it, realize that your senses are limited and experience even more so...you accept, yes, the world most likely is a sphere moving rapidly around a sun in space. To see beyond what appears to be true...to imagine.
And finally this quote which haunts on so many levels fictional, non-fictional, and personal - so obvious, yet often ignored.
I'm sorry, but I can't take it back. It happened. Let's all agree to stop whining about it.
This quote in the work in which I discovered it has a triple meaning - it refers to the character, someone who has done horrifically bad things and is trying to be better, to the writer's own struggles online with his fans and not!fans and no doubt his regrets regarding it, and to the struggle to let go of a nasty disappointment.
It's not about forgiveness. It's about learning from the past. And moving on. I remember years ago,
a wise man told me once, that everyone makes mistakes. We all screw up. Royally sometimes. It is inevitable. The trick is to learn from the mistake and not do it again. Try really hard not to repeat it. We can't really control whether others forgive us for it or not. That is out of our hands. But we can try to learn from it, forgive ourselves, and not do it again. Although I think we are or at least I am doomed to, until I do finally learn not to. Going on and on and on about it, ripping the wound open repeatedly, helps no one. Ranting and raving...just makes you ill. You give the person or persons that hurt you power. And if it is something you've done - you make that mistake define you and become doomed to repeat it. Learn and then let it go. I'm not very good at this, I don't think. My Granny once accused me of having a memory like an Elephant. So it's something I keep working on.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 11:46 am (UTC)But am currently reviewing a book on women in myth and legend which I think problematically mixes up stories about women from folk-tales, myth, literary creations (e.g. Hans Andersen characters) and real life, e.g. Joan of Arc.
So - it's all more complicated....
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 02:14 pm (UTC)The story of Joan of Arc for example - is a bit like the stories of King Arthur and even Jesus - where the historical record gets blurred with embellishments and folklore and religious beliefs, until it is impossible to distinguish what is "real" from what may well have been imagined.
I've always thought fiction writers were more honest than non-fiction writers, because the fiction writer admits up front that this is a story they imagined or their interpretation of imagined reality, it's not true. While the non-fiction writer promotes and presents their tale is being real and absolute truth, when in reality it can never be more than an interpretation often their own, sometimes multiple interpretations of a reality, with only shades of truth entwined. Non-fiction writers are better liars than fiction writers are, because they believe their own lies to be true.