If it isn’t fate…

Well, I have to admit that I’ve been slacking a little bit lately.  So when I unintentionally brought myself back over to the old watering…err, I mean posting spot, I guess I figured that it’s time to get back into gear.

Recently (well, maybe not too recently) I’ve been accepted as a graduate student at James Madison University for English.  Yay, right?  One of the courses I’ve signed up for has since required a total of about 20 books to read and I’ve been getting a jump start.  Now, for most of my undergraduate career, I’ve been a bit of an oddball.  I specialized in writing courses since those are my main preference when it comes to studying English.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to read, but there’s something about  old prose that somewhat stifles me.

I mean, I’m a fantasy and science fiction reader by preference.  A few books from outside those genres have gone on to become personal favorites, but they’ve been few and far between.  Namely, To Kill a Mockingbird has been for a long time one of the few classic books that I can say left me reading it and wanting to know more.  After four years of undergraduate classwork, I can appreciate the fine craftsmanship of some of these pieces, but they’ve felt somewhat alien.  Until now, that is.

What is it about a great piece of literature that makes it great?  The books that stick out most in my mind are the ones that have left me somewhat uplifted.  The stuff I read can be loosely categorized as escapist, in that it typically involves other worlds or times than the present.  But even the best of these have all dealt with a similar theme: the growth of a person.  The great struggles of man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. machine, etc.  The ones I favor deal with the progression of a protagonist and the growth associated with facing various challenges.

So I found myself wondering what was so different about works of “literature” than works of genre fiction.  I had the chance to re-read Light in August, by William Faulkner.  By all means it is one of his more clearly written novels (I still shudder at thoughts of The Sound and the Fury), but for the first time I found myself appreciating it to a greater degree.  Suddenly I found that I was interested in the plight of Joe Christmas and the tragic events surrounding his life that would eventually lead to his fall.

But I guess this leads in a different direction as well, because characters such as Christmas don’t necessarily change for the better.  I guess it’s that the reader is forced to see through their perspective and try to understand the motivations they hold.  This personally astounds me on several levels.  I consider myself to be a writer, but as stated before I’ve always stuck to the path of my genre fiction and to be honest, most of those books follow a tried and true pattern (think the path of the hero, such as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars).

Before embarking upon this reading, I asked a friend (also of the graduate program) what he found in literature that made him love it.  He gave me the standard, but too true answers of the meanings behind the works  and the believable characterizations.  The masters of the craft are those who can peer into the soul of humanity and dredge up the darkest of souls and bring us to have compassion for them.  An example of another work I’ve since read is Larry Brown’s Father and Son.

It’s a good book by its own right, but the main character is a thoroughly despicable man.  A murderer, rapist, alcoholic, and more.  There were points in the story where I wished for nothing more than this character to be killed for his acts, but even in the depths of his dark acts, the author tried to show what triggered these actions and he shed some light on the traces of humanity left in this character’s soul.

The exploration of the human condition is hailed as one of the most beneficial products of the arts.  Even so, like most things in life (and philosophy) there are few clear answers.  There are those who feel that such expressions of the lowest of human actions are not fit to be deemed art.  Plato argued that art should support its society and that debasements of morality would merely corrupt those who were witness to it.  Aristotle viewed art’s darker shades as a way of releasing those dark ambitions from our own souls.  By seeing the vile actions of a character who eventually falls due to his flaws, we know ourselves that such a course in life should be avoided.

But is that what we draw from the literature we read?  Forgive my jumbled rant.  There is a certain quality to a well phrased passage of prose that can speak volumes beyond the words on the page.  I’ve had troubled myself at times finding these specific lines, but one that was pointed out to me comes from Faulkner.  “Memory believes before knowing remembers.”  It’s such a simple sentence, if a bit cryptic.  Although it’s meaning can also seem fairly clear.  In terms of childhood, you can believe something to be true before you’re old enough to know for certain that its occurred.  The blurry lines of recollection can deceive us all.  But the statement itself is almost poetic.  It contains so much within the space of five words.

So I find myself trying to grasp a greater appreciation for pieces of art which I’ve in the past thought “aren’t for me.”  Words are a powerful medium, and they can hide such significance that it’s no wonder scholars have been debating what works of literature have meant for ages.

For those of you that like to read regularly, what draws you into the page?

Threads of Fate

120960 Words

416 pages doublespaced

Taking a moment to reflect on its completion. My god, it’s done.

What’s next? Revision. Then? Tapestry of Souls.

The End Is Near!

It’s kind of funny. I started this topic much earlier in the day and then decided to just close out the window without saving. Now that WordPress keeps reminding me that the damn thing is there in my drafts, I realize that it now works more than ever. And no, the apocalypse will not be taking place tomorrow at 3:23pm EDT, although your guess is as good as mine.

I guess I’ll make this a little bit of everything kind of post. First for some amateur photography.

Now what did I learn from this experimentation? Well, pretty simply that if you want to take pictures of the stars at night, make sure you’re using a camera that can do exposures that are longer than 15 seconds. Otherwise you end up with a good deal of blackness and some white spots. I might as well just go into photoshop and make little white dots on a black background.

But again, I can’t be too bitter. I got to go outside at 2a.m. after the rather irritating moon set and wonder whether it was a deer, groundhog, or bear that was trudging around and making a crapload of noise. I’m hedging on deer. But really it was pretty nice. It’s dead silent around here (except for choking owls), and the stars are always nice to just look at.

On the writing front, I’m closer than ever to completing Threads of Fate. I feel safe enough to even use its name now instead of merely referring to it as the project. When I said earlier that my muse returned, it was a bit of an understatement. I mean the dang thing flew in guns blazing. It’s hard to remember the last day I wrote so much, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t just flowing like there’s no end. I know better than to waste such a rare opportunity.

So, by the end of tomorrow or Sunday I’ll have my rough draft. For the thousandth time I’ll remind myself that it isn’t too coherent in current form without some heavy editing. The basic story is there in full, but a lot of the details changed with time and grew in complexity. So now I face the fun prospect of going through systematically and essentially adding in a whole bunch of crap. Then I get to cut what isn’t working right.

The Makings of a Muse

Today I found my muse again. It was as if my story suddenly regained all of it’s life and the characters began to breathe again. I can’t really explain it better than that, but it feels like it’s been gone for a long time. For the past year my tale has been cut into disjointed parts just waiting to be connected, and with the advent of a few more chapters, all the connections will be in place.

Over the past few days as I wrote, I was feeling fairly discouraged. Not much I wrote came naturally and it had to be forced out. I know that there are times when you can’t really expect any different, but nothing felt like it really fit and I had a hard time finding my voice for the story. Yet today something wonderful happened and it even led to a pretty decent section of background development. The story as a whole is still in a very rough form, but it is a large work written over an even larger span of time, and so one must expect some coarse edges.

Nevertheless, I’d say that 4 or less chapters remain to be written out. It’s hard to imagine that the thing is so close to a preliminary finish, and finally seeds of interesting plot are beginning to sprout. I feel fairly happy with the impact that the final few chapters will hold. It seems like the proper place to take a pause and wonder at what will happen next. I’ve been disallowing myself to travel that path for a long time but for the smallest inkling of storyline after the close of this book.

Yet, now I simply ache to finish the thing. The distractions of the night are just beginning, but I might try to pull a late night of writing to make use of a fully functional muse. Here’s hoping to write those big two words in the next few days.

The End.

God that will feel so good.

Worst? Maybe…but then…

Worst Analogies Ever Written in a High School Essay

I just happened to stumble upon this gem from some humor page, and it made me stop for a minute. As I was looking through the list, I was confused to find some analogies that actually seemed a bit clever to me. Albeit there are some notably bad ones as well and even the good ones may be out of context in the place of a high school essay, but some of these genuinely made me laugh just by the unique viewpoint they express. Let’s look.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

Yeah, this one is pretty bad in itself. Long winded, run on variety. Not too much redemption to be found here.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

This one is perhaps my favorite of them all. It reminds me of the exact kind of thing that you’d likely find in one of Douglas Adam’s books. As with all of the entries, the context is unknown, but damn, this one had me laughing.

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.

I could definitely see Chuck Palahniuk’s main character from Survivor making an observation such as that.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and “Jeopardy” comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.

Not the best of the selection, but I must confess to smiling a little at this one. It is faintly odd when you go on vacation and the programming you expect at a certain time pops up in a different slot.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

Yeah…I can’t find much to say about this grouping. They are pretty bad, except maybe the hacker one…if the reader understands what the hell they’re talking about.

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.”

Not the most original, but I’d call this one funny. Maybe a better credit listing would save it.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

If this were a story about a math teacher who loved word problems (such as the one teacher from The Adventures of Pete and Pete), then it would be a slice of fried gold, baby.

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.

All I have to say for this one is wow. I never did notice that the period was missing.

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

I can just imagine a teacher reading this thinking, at the time, “Ouch, too soon.”

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

Eh, these entries really are a bit dry and unimaginative (at least from my perspective, maybe you disagree). Maybe they could be saved by a little reworking, but it would probably all depend upon the context.

 

But, let’s end this on at least a slightly good note.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

It may be that alliances isn’t quite the right word to use, but with a little reworking, this could be a wonderful little analogy. In any case, the examples shown here might not be the best fit for a high school essay on any topic. However, if any of the authors of these sentences (assuming there are authors and it isn’t just another made up bunch of junk) are considering livelihoods as writers of comedic stories, then they have my best wishes, and I think a few of them might just make it.

Ah, just like a bowling ball wouldn’t. I might just need to steal that one.

Wayward Threads

I finished a chapter. Albeit a short one, but it’s enough for celebration at the moment. I think I’ve realized exactly what the rest of this project is going to entail. This is the first story I’ve written of this magnitude that had an ending in sight. Albeit an..open ending, but an ending nonetheless. But as I read back over what I’ve written I keep finding ways of saying what I want to say. Through this whole process, it’s been a matter of development of style and technique and working out just what works for myself.

So once the next two-three chapters are finished comes the hard part. Then comes the additions and the careful second draft in which the material is for the most part known, and mainly needs to be expanded and prettified. Namely I need to work on descriptions I think and to make the world come truly alive. First drafts have always been rather rough for me, and going back to tighten it up will probably do wonders for the story. Just knowing where I’m going will be a saving grace though.

Letting the characters follow their own desires right now is the toughest part, but I’ve known them for years now and so I have a good idea of the choices they would make. I’m forcing myself to have faith in this story, that it will shine through after it’s finally polished up. It’s no great American novel, but as I’ve said before, I owe it to the story to finish this tale. Just to have something done will be a spectacular feeling.

Idle Hands…

You might remember my mentioning that I was going to try to take some nighttime photography. Evidently that task is a tad bit beyond the capabilities of my camera, but I managed to capture some interesting daytime/twilight pictures and I got a good bit of starwatching out of the mix, so it wasn’t really a loss.

It’s strange looking at the difference between personal pictures and art pictures (by no means saying what I’ve managed to take is really art). But, the last upload I managed had both scenic photographs of my backyard and the sky mixed in with photos of friends from a somewhat recent fraternity event. They serve such different functions and are completely different stylistically, although I have to say that a couple of the photos I took during snowboarding have both friends and an artistic touch to them. I don’t really know if I had a point in mentioning that, but it’s interesting, and I wish I could have more of a mix of the two styles.

On the novel front, I’ve made some decent headway. After a bout of initial mass discouragement, I uncovered several “lost” chapters that managed to point me back in the correct direction. While there is more than a wealth of proofreading to go, this first story should be finished in about another 4 or 5 chapters. That’s pretty exciting to me, at least. I’ve never really reached that mass revision stage yet and it seems somewhat daunting. But even if this story just sits away in a drawer for the rest of its life, I want it finished.

There’s a certain debt that I feel I owe towards it. This thing has literally had four incarnations utilizing different styles and different characters. Through each iteration, some aspect of the writing or story in general has been improved upon and I feel that it has climbed from the midst of high school caliber writing into something at least a little more (although heavy revisions on the earlier parts is definitely required). I think writing about writing helps to inspire me a little bit, at least. It’s too easy to become discouraged sitting in front of a page typing words and wondering secretly if they’re worth anything. I know that one needs to write for the sake of writing, but sometimes it just feels so inadequate. But this is a first, and I need to impose more self control over myself than ever before.

Too many things are changing, and that’s not to say that it’s a bad thing. My undergraduate career is over and past and I was merely inhabiting the shell of it for the past few years. I faired well, but I need to do more. New starts don’t have to be signaled by a change of location or the passage of time, but I’m hoping to start changing things now so that when I do move on to the next stage of schooling I’m readily prepared to start seeking out opportunities.

Also on the writing front, I wrote a good bit of material that I ended up simply deleting. I’ve heard that it’s a common thing to have happen, but it’s the first time I’ve just reread what I wrote and ended up closing the window without saving.

Random thoughts, that pretty much summarizes this thing. I don’t really know who’d be interested in reading any of this, but, hey, sometimes one just needs to type for the sake of typing. The written word remains beautiful.

Insignificance

Each of us thinks of ourselves as the center of the universe. It’s been awhile since I’ve read “The Guide” but I remember about how Zaphod was forced to step into the worst torture imaginable: Seeing exactly where you stand in the universe and how truly insignificant and individual is.

It just makes me wonder how often someone else is sharing the same thoughts as myself. Originality is still out there, but it’s damned hard to find. How are you supposed to combat that?

Staring up at the sky makes you really question where you stand in the world. Most people try to count the stars at some point in their life, but I’ve never really gone in for that. Lack of attention, and all that. But all the stars you see up there, in their uncountable masses, yeah, they don’t even equal the population of North America…well, I guess it depends upon where you live.

I wouldn’t say that my town is anything noteworthy in the annals of Pennsylvania, but it sure throws up a lot of light. Kate always asks why I even bother going outside to watch, and I just shrug and know that I have to. When I was a kid…well, a younger kid than this, I got into those alien abduction videos a little too much and started hiding under the covers of my bed at night since my parents always said that sleeping with a nightlight had bad side effects.

So by the time that I was old enough to be outside when all traces of the sun vanished, I made sure to go out every night and sit there in the dark to prove that there was nothing to be scared of. But it was right about then that I started realizing how bright it stayed with all the streetlights burning all night long. After a few nights of wondering how I’d even be able to see the mothership when it came, I figured I’d try ducking off into the glade.

You see, I live in a town, but not really in the center, more of on the lopsided edge that leads up into the mountains. Well, I guess most people would consider them gentle hills, but they became mountains to me whenever I had to hike up them. It wasn’t really all that deserted there either, there were just more trees.

Kate and I actually met back there one night. She said that she’d seen my outline in the trees for a few nights and she got curious. Whereas the dark was enough to send me fleeing from aliens from another galaxy, nothing seemed to really scare Kate. Well, maybe it did, but I think she liked to be that girl. You know, the one who won’t get shown up by any of the guys. Don’t let her hear that I said that, though. Even today I think she’d still be able to kick my butt if she wanted.

She didn’t meet me out there every night, but she came often enough. And yeah, you might be wondering what kinds of things we got into back in the day, but she was 3 years older than me and usually had more “adult” concerns on her mind. Usually I just wanted to see the sky and prove to myself that I wouldn’t wake up some night to find myself floating upward out of my bed and toward the cold metal end of a probe. Sometimes I still wonder what kind of fun she found in venturing out there in the night. While I pride myself on being a bit mature for my age, I doubt that she would have agreed. Maybe she just wanted out of her house for a bit.

Everything went along like that through my years in high school. I won’t claim that as we both grew up I never gave a thought toward the romantic side of things. In fact, it occupied my mind for about an entire two weeks before she made it clear that there would be none of that back in the glade. Better for the both of us, I’d imagine. After she graduated of course, I only rarely saw her when she came back in for breaks from university. But only twice did I ever miss my nightly pilgrimage to the “woods.” Once because of the flu, and again because of a forgotten history paper.

When I look back at those years, a lot of things happened. But those belong to a different story, one that you’d find in my diary; if I kept one. Looking out from the fogged window of adolescent immortality, it felt like all that mattered was the night, the stars, and occasionally seeing Kate. My world was bound to that place and the days dreamed onward as if they would never end.

Until they did, of course.

How do I combat it? I write. And I pray that I write worth a damn. The above was freewriting. I can’t even begin to understand where it came from, but strangely, I do want to continue it. And perhaps I will. Just need to await a direction.

Ah, but that felt good. Sometimes wordcraft is like bludgeoning yourself in the head while your stomach keeps trying to implode; and others it feels as if the words and the story and the emotions are all there for the taking. Certain moments in life just beg for stories.

But god, if it isn’t time to start actually doing something. As a writer, I hereby vow (and you’d all better slap me if I don’t) to write every day and to send god damned “Cherry, Please” off to a magazine sometime soon. Amen. Or whatever it is that is prudent to be said.