Zen and Some Writing in Reverse

Currently, I'm reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and watching an excess of documentaries as I write my opus, and finding myself a great deal unable to separate myself from author. If I'm learning things as I write this story, do I have an obligation to adapt the story? I'm not sure if it would even benefit the characters, or even how much I would have to write before I found out for sure! Oh, I tell you, this writing thing is rubbish.

For the unaware, I have began yet another blog. It is called A Result of Reason, and this is where I'll be posting more bits like Awakening. This is where I will inflate. Lucky you, world.

Also, because I remembered it the other day, here is a fun little poem I wrote quite a while ago:

VERSE IN REVERSE

if how you read it does too
but the message will change
if you've not read it through
it may seem a bit strange
verse in reverse
you'll understand my
and read to the first
if you start at the last line

Awakening

Picture me yawning, stretching, and finally being awake. On ordinary Sundays, I would be at work right now, but due to this whole economic fiasco, my hours have been cut back. So today I slept in, catching up on what I didn't manage to do Friday night or Saturday morning. And in the period between waking up and making it out of bed, I finished the last few segments of a documentary called the Ring of Power.

As we wake up in the morning, there is a process that our mind takes. We move from being asleep to being fully aware through slow perceptions of reality. First, you may wonder whether or not your dream actually happened. You may wonder where you are, why you're so far on one side of the bed, why it's so cold in the room.

The world is asleep. There are mechanisms in place to keep it asleep. Things to eat, things to do, causes to support. We have just enough to keep us wanting nothing more. But this is all rationed out to us. While we sleep, our dreams are only what we are presented. Our dreams are limited by the irony of freedom. Freedom of speech is limited. Freedom of movement is limited. Freedom of autonomy is limited. Even freedom of self is limited. These are all pleasant, fanciful dreams that the world has, because although they are real in the sense that there is the possibility they could exist, truly, the dream is limited.

Like the process of waking up, individual by individual, the world looks at its dreams and begins to question. There are systems in place that make sense only because we are used to them, systems like finance, law, and government. When you look at these systems objectively, you wonder what they are, why they are used, where they came from. You start to realize that they only benefit a few people. And eventually you look at it all and know you're completely awake because you realize you're not one of those few people.

So. Picture me yawning, stretching, and finally being awake.

Oh My My

I am nearing the end of the outline for my Great Big Project. This is the third complete rewrite and for now its conclusion is bulleted. One thing I changed was its pacing. The way it was took longer to get to the snap of it, and now - perhaps at a fault - it snaps immediately. I also added a sub-narrative that weaves in and out from beginning to climax, helping to explain why and how the conflict happens as it does. Hopefully this is how a proper story should develop.

I have a great deal of apprehension about discussing certain things on this blog. My mind goes to different places than what I generally write about here. Which is why in the near future I'm going to begin yet another blog for yet another specific purpose. It's funny. I used to have about five consistently updated blogs, then managed to wittle it down to two. Now I'm back to four, with a fifth on the way - although The Nacho Connoisseur should hardly count, considering it has exactly one post before I was dentally unable to eat nachos. All this for an audience of perhaps a dozen. Thank you, all.

What Do I Do?

There are two ways to look at this.

1. I don't consider myself a writer, though I do write. This difference isn't a slight dissimilarity, it's the equivalent of calling myself a cook because I can make dinner. No, there is one thing that I do that allows me to live, and it is not writing.

2. I am a writer, because wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, I think about work. Actual work, that challenges and satisfies me equally, is constantly being creative. If it weren't for writing, I would have no shield from this world, and it would crush me.

How am I supposed to define myself in this way? Is this extension of identity reflected by what drives me or what helps me to drive?

Truth is, I don't care, I just want to be moving.

Time Running

This bit that I'm about to tell you is true, completely true, no matter what anyone else tells you, no matter what you see on your own clock.

I've been off the grid illegally for over ten years now. I don't know how many others there are and I don't know how they survive. It's not easy. There are satellites and cameras and trackers everywhere. About 13 years ago - which is 46 standard annum years - I took my tracking chip out. It wasn't deep, so I guess I was lucky. If you've ever had surgery, your chip is much deeper. I carried mine with me for 3 years afterwards because I didn't know what to do. I thought that once it was out, so was I. It wasn't that easy. I didn't know where to go, how to build a home, grow food, generate electricity. And that was the hardest thing, the electricity, but that's what I needed most. That's how I kept my clocks running. That's how I learned about the end of the world.

This is what I think happened: in the early 20th century, scientists discovered that the sun's gravity was pulling Earth into itself as it was collapsing. Earth's rotation around the sun became faster and faster as it spiraled in, making our days shorter, and by the time it was noticeable, the Global Order of Democracy had already been established. One central, unified government. Everything was connected back to a single source; information, economy, and even time.

See, all clocks everywhere are relative to a single clock at Capital City, and as the days get shorter, they adjust that clock.

I suppose at first, people started to feel like there wasn't enough time in a day. Maybe they thought that modern medicine was keeping them alive longer. Not true. The human body only lasts for so many years, we just changed our unit of measurement.

Before I escaped, I tried telling this to people. Pointless, really. They always asked me what benefit the government would have for tricking everyone. The obvious answer is that they wanted to keep order right until the end. Of course, most people just said that if the world really was coming to an end - which, by my calculations, is in 70 or so standard annum years - why waste that time struggling to survive on your own?

I would ask them, "Don't you want to know what it feels like to be free?"

I said it poetically, romantically. Never with conviction. Free or not, the world is ending. I have the same fate as everyone. I'm not free, I'm alone.

Today is - by government records - March 20, 2489, which is 376 S.A. years later than it really is. Only 70 more to go.

So Much Waiting

As I was getting myself together Monday morning, still in pieces from the weekend, there was a spider sitting on the wall. It took me several minutes to get him outside and settled into his new home, the bush.

Last night I wrote two slam poems, both of a political nature. I must have had some inspiration left over from the other night, because they look wonderful in their first shape. I've never been a great fan of free verse poetry, but now I can see it as a method of writing an essay, but artistically, so that it can't be opposed, only disliked. Tonight, I continued work on my great big graphic novel project with Eric Gravel. Months ago, it was completely figured out; today, it's not. I found weaknesses that I am resolving, tweaking it at nearly every step.

And earlier today, I was in an area of the city that always makes me uncomfortable. Suspicious at every corner, always on alert. Ready, if ever I must, to just walk on by.

Another Dose of Ego

I just finished reading the short story by the first-place winner for the recent contest I've been agonizing about. And maybe I'm just a sore loser, because - roles reversed - that's how I'd see this, but seriously. How I managed to fall short of the first and second-place authors is beyond me. This is exactly what happened last year, how their story had the designated subject as an after-thought to the narrative. The wedding dress in this story could have been absolutely any object, and was as necessary to the plot as an elephant on a unicycle. There was even one part with three sentences immediately following one another describing a character all with exactly the same sentence structure! That's the literary equivalent of writing in elementary. I seriously don't get it.

But, hey. Different people like different stories, I suppose. The judges were clearly looking for something that they found in this story and not in mine. All I can do is sit back and wonder.

Breakfast of Champions

Finished reading this Vonnegut novel a couple weeks ago. It was brilliant. I especially enjoyed how the author brought himself in and out of the narrative, interacting with the characters as though he actually were. It felt as though the story itself was written for a single reason, a confession of shame in his existence. His mother's suicide, his own attempt, his fear of having the same bad chemicals in his brain that he gave to his main character. I wonder if he felt relief after it was written.

I hope so, but suspect not.

Contested

My head don't feel like no kinda right lately. Not sure why, other than the many possible factors it could be. My sleep has been irregular, but then, it's been irregular for years. I don't eat properly, likely not nearly as much of the nutrition my nervous system needs. Winter here isn't what I've become used to for the past 27 years, so it could be the climate and my maladjustment to it. Or maybe it's this weight on my conscience, which is heavy and untenable.

My ghost story has been judged, and once again I did not make the second round. In fact, I did not make the top 5. I sent e-mails to the top two for copies of their stories, and so far after reading the second-place story, I'm once again bitter.

Listen, I'm well aware that I've a fluctuating ego. That other people won't think my writing is as good as I do. Well aware. This said, her story neither was spectacular. Now I'm wondering if the judges in this contest are looking for something utterly specific, something familiar. I await the judge's reviews and criticism of my story, which should come within a few months. Maybe they'll give me the same contradictory and unhelpful advice that I got last year.

A Resounding Chorus of Vaginas

I went with some friends this evening to Café Deux Soleils for the Sistahood Invitational Poetry night. An all-empowered line-up of women putting their prose where their mouths are, with a lively MC between them whose catch-phrase for the event involved having the crowd cheer responsively: "vagina!"

For example:

MC: "I love..."
Audience: "VAGINA!"

MC: "Barack Obama loves..."
Audience: "VAGINA!"

Mickie the Trigger loves...

Wholly Sunday

I had a strange dream immediately before I woke this morning, involving someone I know, someone I do not know, and a place I've never been. And when my alarm went off, an hour earlier than it would have on any non-daylight savings day, I hit snooze until I'd properly made up that lost hour.

The bus that drops me off in front of work doesn't run until much later on Sundays, so I walked up to Broadway, took one bus so far, bought a coffee, then took another bus to somewhere near work and walked the rest. All in all, this saved me about ten minutes than if I'd simply slept longer and took my usual bus.

Oh yes, I am an efficient machine.

Pilots

Months and months ago, I found the love of my literary life in a pen. Pilot's Green Tecpoint pen, which I bought at London Drugs. When I got it home, it left the trace that I'd been looking for my whole writing life. Non-smearing, extra fine, consistent. Since that day, I haven't seen this pen shelved anywhere. Supposedly, as it says on the casing, it's refillable, which is utterly useless when you also can't buy the specifically-sized refills. Grumble, grumble.

Today I found a similar line by Pilot, and I bought an excessive amount of them. Penmanship is important.

Scatterdesked

Somewhere under a mass of papers and binders and recording equipment is my new desk. Finally. It's been a while since I first mentioned it, but one trip to Canadian Tire and a few days for delivery later, I now have a solid surface upon which to write. That is to say, once it's all cleaned off and unscattered; presently, it's much like my mind. A quote occurs to me, from Gustave Flaubert: “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

And, to close, I am dancing again.

Quid Pro Quo

(Contains movie spoilers for a movie that you probably won't see anyway.)

I just finished watching Quid Pro Quo. It's about a paralyzed reporter who investigates a subculture group of able-bodied people who want to be disabled themselves. Some people in the group have gone to some lengths to try and become disabled, like paying doctors to amputate healthy legs. This shock element was used up in the first four minutes of the movie and then never developed. There were some twists near the end, like the main character regaining the ability to walk; but while the twists weren't expected, they also weren't interesting, especially the ending, how it explained something I wasn't concerned with at all. It was a poor everything.

Just my opinion, of course.

The Caustic Habits of the Earth-bound Human

A strange coincidence happened yesterday as I was walking home. I was thinking about something I'd mentioned to a friend, that sometimes I wonder if I'll ever reach a point in life when I stop moving from mistake to mistake. There was a lyric going over and over in my mind, one written by Sage Francis, that goes:

"I do my best to reject patterns 'til it hurts, every second making bad turns for the worse."

That was about when the song came on through my earphones, glittering my mind with a sensational moment in time.

Strange, as I was on my way home, after doing something I hadn't done in a while, hadn't wanted to do until recently, hadn't even considered until I'd arrived there.