What to write about what to write about? That is my current question. Anybody got an answer? I didn't really think so. That is kinda the frustrating part of being a writer, and now looking at it as a career it seems to get even worse.
See unlike with other jobs there is no way for someone to cover for me. I have to do my work here, true i could get someone to say, post a guest blog. But for that to work i kinda need a constant theme here instead of just "i am saying what i feel like saying".
It amuses as someone who considers himself always a full time student and also a full time slacker i am drawn to a job where the only person who can do the work is me and i cannot be a slacker or else. I would actually need to do my work, need to focus on it. And the question i keep asking is "can i really do that?", i keep trying to take my own measure but the fact is i don't know.
I mean look at MWBN, i want to have five chapters finished and ready to edit by the end of this month. I have yet to finish one, though without summer courses i defiantly have a lot more time. The question is how will i put it to use? There are a lot of things i need to take care of, and you all will get to hear about
Showing posts with label MWBN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MWBN. Show all posts
1.8.10
9.7.10
Art for Writing's Sake
So i have been thinking about writing a lot lately if you can't tell. As such one of the things i have been thinking about is criticism and editing. See i haven't written a lot of things, a few sure, but compared to "real" writers i am nothing but a flash in the pan so far, just a brief beginning of my writing experience. I mean compared to some writers i might as well have only written this paragraph so far. There is still so much left to develop in my own style and choice in writing.
So thinking about this and really, about art in general cause even though my paintings and pictures suck i love em, even though i can't play music i am passionate about it, and even though at times my singing is epically bad i still do it. Why? Because i have an "artistic soul" some might say, because i love expression others might say. My reply? Because i do.
I don't know why, i can't really explain why. I love understanding and knowledge and expression. If that makes my soul artistic than fine, if i love expression that's fine to. Personally what know it is that it doesn't matter why, what matters is that i do.
And i know people who consider themselves artists, consider themselves writers, and they see this as a grand expression. Art is seen as some kind of connection to the divine, as if in creating the artist is becoming more than themselves, becoming something greater. And to be honest now i disagree with this thought.
It might be because of the fact that i am currently trying to read the bible from cover to cover (only 730 pages in mine but still hard to force yourself to do) or because i have just finished reading a book about encounters with famous and brilliant authors who offered great works to the world. Artists are no different than regular people. To paraphrase a line from the movie Julie and Julia so that the meaning comes through a little easier, she wasn't always famous, she wasn't born a great chef.
Have you ever met those people who create art for "art's sake" and then get upset when someone criticizes it? If it truly is art for art's sake then it doesn't matter if someone doesn't get it, it doesn't matter what someone thinks of it, because in the creating its purpose is served. This blog is my art for art's sake, but not completely. My journal, that private space, is my writing for writing's sake, the paintings i create and don't bother to show people are examples of art for art's sake.
I don't care if you don't like them, i do. That is what art for art's sake means. The moment you intend to let someone judge your work and that opinion matters enough for you to argue it is not longer simply being created "for the art", it has become for the people. And like all public works it is offered up to all the cynics out there to tear down.
Does it make your work less valid? Less special? Fuck no. Your work is as special as the effort you put into it. If you lock yourself in a shed for 8 months working on a novel, a painting, a song, and then come out of your seclusion only to find someone else has already made it, it doesn't make it any less of yours unless you were trying to copy their work.
Y'all know i am attempting to write a novel (and so far seem to be failing because i simply don't sit down and write it) and that i have edited my work thus far a little bit. What you don't know is that there is a friend of mine who is the best and worst editor in the world. Best in that her editing doesn't pull any punches because you are a friend, and the worst for the same reason.
Am i letting her edit my stuff yet? No, not yet. Yes i have posted it here for anyone who wants to, to read it and judge it. Yes you can comment all you want about it and most likely i will let said comments go up. But no, i probably wont make changes on anything you say as of yet (unless you find a REALLY obvious mistake, like putting hedgehog instead of duck). Why? Because though some day i dream of publishing this story that is cooking inside my head, right now it is still a work for me.
One day it wont be, one day i will be a little less selfish and let other people help me shape it. But not yet, for now it is still mine.
So thinking about this and really, about art in general cause even though my paintings and pictures suck i love em, even though i can't play music i am passionate about it, and even though at times my singing is epically bad i still do it. Why? Because i have an "artistic soul" some might say, because i love expression others might say. My reply? Because i do.
I don't know why, i can't really explain why. I love understanding and knowledge and expression. If that makes my soul artistic than fine, if i love expression that's fine to. Personally what know it is that it doesn't matter why, what matters is that i do.
And i know people who consider themselves artists, consider themselves writers, and they see this as a grand expression. Art is seen as some kind of connection to the divine, as if in creating the artist is becoming more than themselves, becoming something greater. And to be honest now i disagree with this thought.
It might be because of the fact that i am currently trying to read the bible from cover to cover (only 730 pages in mine but still hard to force yourself to do) or because i have just finished reading a book about encounters with famous and brilliant authors who offered great works to the world. Artists are no different than regular people. To paraphrase a line from the movie Julie and Julia so that the meaning comes through a little easier, she wasn't always famous, she wasn't born a great chef.
Have you ever met those people who create art for "art's sake" and then get upset when someone criticizes it? If it truly is art for art's sake then it doesn't matter if someone doesn't get it, it doesn't matter what someone thinks of it, because in the creating its purpose is served. This blog is my art for art's sake, but not completely. My journal, that private space, is my writing for writing's sake, the paintings i create and don't bother to show people are examples of art for art's sake.
I don't care if you don't like them, i do. That is what art for art's sake means. The moment you intend to let someone judge your work and that opinion matters enough for you to argue it is not longer simply being created "for the art", it has become for the people. And like all public works it is offered up to all the cynics out there to tear down.
Does it make your work less valid? Less special? Fuck no. Your work is as special as the effort you put into it. If you lock yourself in a shed for 8 months working on a novel, a painting, a song, and then come out of your seclusion only to find someone else has already made it, it doesn't make it any less of yours unless you were trying to copy their work.
Y'all know i am attempting to write a novel (and so far seem to be failing because i simply don't sit down and write it) and that i have edited my work thus far a little bit. What you don't know is that there is a friend of mine who is the best and worst editor in the world. Best in that her editing doesn't pull any punches because you are a friend, and the worst for the same reason.
Am i letting her edit my stuff yet? No, not yet. Yes i have posted it here for anyone who wants to, to read it and judge it. Yes you can comment all you want about it and most likely i will let said comments go up. But no, i probably wont make changes on anything you say as of yet (unless you find a REALLY obvious mistake, like putting hedgehog instead of duck). Why? Because though some day i dream of publishing this story that is cooking inside my head, right now it is still a work for me.
One day it wont be, one day i will be a little less selfish and let other people help me shape it. But not yet, for now it is still mine.
7.7.10
Way Back Before the MWBN
Ok, gonna try something different here. I am going to write what comes to me instead of one of the pre-thought-of-topics of the past several posts. Ya, i am going back to classes blog style for me here instead of new blog style. How is it gonna go? No clue.
The main thing right now is the freaking sweltering heat which is attempting to melt my house down around my ears apparently. Well that and the song Tell Her This by Del Amitri, loving this song currently.
But yes what else is going through my mind? What else can i write about? hmmm.... If it was a radio show i would tell somebody to call in a request but i can't really do that...
Instead i think i will talk a little bit about my relationship with writing, aka the love-lust-mindfuck that is my relationship with it. (and be for warned, i am slowly becoming as cocky as a few people in my life have always been, meaning i don't really introduce myself as "hi, I'm awesome", or at least not yet)
Do you all out there remember when you were forced to write those little short stories for school, it would be about some kind of theme and you would just be expected to write something in some way, like say a story about the pioneers newly in Canada... Sometimes you would be lucky enough to get to write whatever you wanted but this wasn't a frequent occurrence.
Well i forget exactly when but sometime when i was home after the winter semester of university ended i found one of my old stories and it got me thinking back about what it was like to write then. And to be honest it was a colossal pain in the keester. I hate writing stories back then, so instead of really writing stories i took some stuff that i had taught myself about animals or the area or something and wrote about that.
Those stories we also quite clearly the work of a little boy, fights and battles without the idea of loss or emotion. They were not great, in fact they were far from it. But, considering my age, and how much i disliked the activity at the time they actually were kinda good... In my eyes, and no one out there is a harder critic of me than me (why do you think none of these posts gets edited more than the firefox spell check? nothing would ever get posted if i tried).
Did i at the time have a clear and bright talent for writing, was i suddenly going to discover this talent, this hope and instantly know how to write wonderful thoughts and pen down every feeling that crossed my mind? Fuck no. I wrote for school only when i had to, i tried to keep a journal at a couple points but it failed. (currently i am actually managing to write in one on a semi regular basis)
So why am i going on about this period? Because i wasn't gifted at it, i wasn't brilliant at it, but i was good. Yes there were people better, there still are, in fact off the top of my head i can think of 3 blogs put out by people i know that give me a serious run for my money if don't flat out blow by me and leave me eating their dust. The fact that i wasn't the best writer, the smartest, the most talented doesn't matter. There was something then that a teacher could have worked with or at least slightly encouraged.
And currently thinking about it, it is slowly pissing me off just a bit. Not that lack of encouragement, well ya that is, but more so those stupid contests for speeches and stories that they have through grade school. Yes, i get it, you want all of us to get over being shy and be comfortable in front of everyone else. Fine, but lacking giving encouragement to kids who are developing and then ranking them by your own standards is just wrong.
If you want to give a kid a prize for doing well at it fine, but to then say "X's was worse" and furthermore to not even include some kids is a great way to squash the joy out of people. So ya, i went through grade school and over half of high school without writing a lot, i read people's works, i devoured books every single free second i could. But i never really wrote anything myself because to me, at that point, i didn't have the talent so what was the point?
I didn't understand that writing can be so very much a form of release and a way to vent. I have to wonder, if i wrote in a journal then as i do now, without any censor or block from what i think, would it have changed who i am? Would i be as hard line as i am about some things? Would i trust a little easier? I don't know. It is entirely possible that i would be harsher, that i would trust less.
But back to this story of how i started writing, like most stories told by a guy, there is a girl. It wasn't romantic, she was dating a very good friend of mine, we sat side by side in chemistry (grade 11, totally failed the course and couldn't have cared less). She lent me a book by the author Garth Nix called Sabriel. I don't know why or what is it about this book, but every time i read it i have to write. Not want to, have to.
I think it might have been that i enjoyed it so much that time and it had been such a long since i had bothered to read something in this genre. Anyways, me being as picky as me, i didn't know if i would be able to find something i would like and i guess the thought occurred "why don't i write it". I can't tell you what the date was, but i can tell you that i got up, crossed the room, sat down and started writing at my desk. I can tell you that i sat there for somewhere between a half an hour and 2 hours. I can tell you i wrote the entire prologue in its first draft. I can tell you it was that moment that i fell into the mad love-lust relationship with writing.
(to my parents, that means if you don't like me being a writing blame that author and that girl)
Ever since then i have written a little bit, be it blogs, journal entries, or starts of stories. I haven't ever actually managed to finish any of them. Journals and blogs don't end, and as for my stories, i tend to play with an idea until it occurs to me to write a different one and then i jump ship asap and start the new one.
And that is changing, i am planning and working out a novel like a real writer or something, i am reading the "great works" to get perspective, reading new authors to remind myself that it isn't all as bad as the old stuff, and when all else fails and i don't manage to work on MWBN i still do some work for this place or in my journal. I'm a writer, the bug took a while to work its way under my skin but now i have one in my brain and one in my heart. And neither of them are going anywhere. This is gonna sound monumentally cheesy, and it is, and i don't care i am writing it here anyways.
I don't believe in soul mates, i don't believe that there is that one person out there for you, the universe just isn't that simple. But i do believe there is something that is in you to do above and beyond everything else you do. For me that thing is writing. If i do have a soul mate it isn't a person, it is this activity, when i get to write something that truly expresses how i feel. That is the one thing i could never willingly give up.
P.S. Next two posts will be the original prologue for MWBN and the new one once it is edited.
The main thing right now is the freaking sweltering heat which is attempting to melt my house down around my ears apparently. Well that and the song Tell Her This by Del Amitri, loving this song currently.
But yes what else is going through my mind? What else can i write about? hmmm.... If it was a radio show i would tell somebody to call in a request but i can't really do that...
Instead i think i will talk a little bit about my relationship with writing, aka the love-lust-mindfuck that is my relationship with it. (and be for warned, i am slowly becoming as cocky as a few people in my life have always been, meaning i don't really introduce myself as "hi, I'm awesome", or at least not yet)
Do you all out there remember when you were forced to write those little short stories for school, it would be about some kind of theme and you would just be expected to write something in some way, like say a story about the pioneers newly in Canada... Sometimes you would be lucky enough to get to write whatever you wanted but this wasn't a frequent occurrence.
Well i forget exactly when but sometime when i was home after the winter semester of university ended i found one of my old stories and it got me thinking back about what it was like to write then. And to be honest it was a colossal pain in the keester. I hate writing stories back then, so instead of really writing stories i took some stuff that i had taught myself about animals or the area or something and wrote about that.
Those stories we also quite clearly the work of a little boy, fights and battles without the idea of loss or emotion. They were not great, in fact they were far from it. But, considering my age, and how much i disliked the activity at the time they actually were kinda good... In my eyes, and no one out there is a harder critic of me than me (why do you think none of these posts gets edited more than the firefox spell check? nothing would ever get posted if i tried).
Did i at the time have a clear and bright talent for writing, was i suddenly going to discover this talent, this hope and instantly know how to write wonderful thoughts and pen down every feeling that crossed my mind? Fuck no. I wrote for school only when i had to, i tried to keep a journal at a couple points but it failed. (currently i am actually managing to write in one on a semi regular basis)
So why am i going on about this period? Because i wasn't gifted at it, i wasn't brilliant at it, but i was good. Yes there were people better, there still are, in fact off the top of my head i can think of 3 blogs put out by people i know that give me a serious run for my money if don't flat out blow by me and leave me eating their dust. The fact that i wasn't the best writer, the smartest, the most talented doesn't matter. There was something then that a teacher could have worked with or at least slightly encouraged.
And currently thinking about it, it is slowly pissing me off just a bit. Not that lack of encouragement, well ya that is, but more so those stupid contests for speeches and stories that they have through grade school. Yes, i get it, you want all of us to get over being shy and be comfortable in front of everyone else. Fine, but lacking giving encouragement to kids who are developing and then ranking them by your own standards is just wrong.
If you want to give a kid a prize for doing well at it fine, but to then say "X's was worse" and furthermore to not even include some kids is a great way to squash the joy out of people. So ya, i went through grade school and over half of high school without writing a lot, i read people's works, i devoured books every single free second i could. But i never really wrote anything myself because to me, at that point, i didn't have the talent so what was the point?
I didn't understand that writing can be so very much a form of release and a way to vent. I have to wonder, if i wrote in a journal then as i do now, without any censor or block from what i think, would it have changed who i am? Would i be as hard line as i am about some things? Would i trust a little easier? I don't know. It is entirely possible that i would be harsher, that i would trust less.
But back to this story of how i started writing, like most stories told by a guy, there is a girl. It wasn't romantic, she was dating a very good friend of mine, we sat side by side in chemistry (grade 11, totally failed the course and couldn't have cared less). She lent me a book by the author Garth Nix called Sabriel. I don't know why or what is it about this book, but every time i read it i have to write. Not want to, have to.
I think it might have been that i enjoyed it so much that time and it had been such a long since i had bothered to read something in this genre. Anyways, me being as picky as me, i didn't know if i would be able to find something i would like and i guess the thought occurred "why don't i write it". I can't tell you what the date was, but i can tell you that i got up, crossed the room, sat down and started writing at my desk. I can tell you that i sat there for somewhere between a half an hour and 2 hours. I can tell you i wrote the entire prologue in its first draft. I can tell you it was that moment that i fell into the mad love-lust relationship with writing.
(to my parents, that means if you don't like me being a writing blame that author and that girl)
Ever since then i have written a little bit, be it blogs, journal entries, or starts of stories. I haven't ever actually managed to finish any of them. Journals and blogs don't end, and as for my stories, i tend to play with an idea until it occurs to me to write a different one and then i jump ship asap and start the new one.
And that is changing, i am planning and working out a novel like a real writer or something, i am reading the "great works" to get perspective, reading new authors to remind myself that it isn't all as bad as the old stuff, and when all else fails and i don't manage to work on MWBN i still do some work for this place or in my journal. I'm a writer, the bug took a while to work its way under my skin but now i have one in my brain and one in my heart. And neither of them are going anywhere. This is gonna sound monumentally cheesy, and it is, and i don't care i am writing it here anyways.
I don't believe in soul mates, i don't believe that there is that one person out there for you, the universe just isn't that simple. But i do believe there is something that is in you to do above and beyond everything else you do. For me that thing is writing. If i do have a soul mate it isn't a person, it is this activity, when i get to write something that truly expresses how i feel. That is the one thing i could never willingly give up.
P.S. Next two posts will be the original prologue for MWBN and the new one once it is edited.
6.7.10
Happy Happy Un-Birthday
So one of the many many many ideas that floated through my head to write about but i didn't get the time to do so until now is a simple one, one that people in most places where they can read thing would be able to appropriate and have some sort of opinion on (even if it is the kind of opinion that has no thought or focus). And that subject, the subject that i am going to expound upon right now is the subject of birthdays.
Yes, i am going to try and write about birthdays, despite the fact that mine is months away. Why do i feel like writing about birthdays and all that they entail? I have no clue, except that they seem to be popping up in conversation again and again. So here i go. Writing about birthdays... what really is there to say?
Well for starters, everyone has one, if you don't then... well frankly i am quite concerned, but also quite curious so please explain... Anyways birthdays, well what happens at birthdays? Parties, that's what!
Depending on the person depends on the type of party. If your someone who wants to get drunk, and go around pulling stupid stunts then you can do so, if you want to spend a night in a jazz bar quietly sipping on some fine wine you can. For that matter if you want to go sky diving that also is allowed.
People gather together and celebrate that X number of years ago you came crying and screaming into the world if you were lucky. And we celebrate that you survived another year and aged another year and get to start a whole new year. There are as many different ways to spend that day as there are people who have them.
And that brings me to the idea of how would i like to spend my birthday. My birthday is located at the start of the school year, and as i am someone who spent a lot of their life without making friends with a bunch of people that quickly and as such my birthday has been something more in line of quiet contemplation of the past year and looking forward to the new year.
It gives me a different perspective on it, and thinking about this up coming year, thinking about my birthday in a few months and wondering with the number of people i know now how would i really like to spend it? Just the other night driving home i felt a... kind of pulse in the city, an urge to go out to a bar and have some fun.
Would i want to do that? I have had fun with a lot of different people in bars and parties over the past 2 years. I have had a lot of fun, expanded who i am, so is that something i would want to do for my own? No. Not at all.
Rather i want to spend a simple night at my house, maybe have a beer or two, write some, and enjoy not doing anything more than simply feeling comfortable in my skin. The night before or the night after, the weekend that is closest, sure. But that day? I would much rather simply relax and write as much as i could before it became distasteful.
Side note: MWBN (my wanna-be novel), i have set 2 deadlines for it. By August 29th i want to have the first 5 chapters done, and by October 31st have 6-10 done.
Yes, i am going to try and write about birthdays, despite the fact that mine is months away. Why do i feel like writing about birthdays and all that they entail? I have no clue, except that they seem to be popping up in conversation again and again. So here i go. Writing about birthdays... what really is there to say?
Well for starters, everyone has one, if you don't then... well frankly i am quite concerned, but also quite curious so please explain... Anyways birthdays, well what happens at birthdays? Parties, that's what!
Depending on the person depends on the type of party. If your someone who wants to get drunk, and go around pulling stupid stunts then you can do so, if you want to spend a night in a jazz bar quietly sipping on some fine wine you can. For that matter if you want to go sky diving that also is allowed.
People gather together and celebrate that X number of years ago you came crying and screaming into the world if you were lucky. And we celebrate that you survived another year and aged another year and get to start a whole new year. There are as many different ways to spend that day as there are people who have them.
And that brings me to the idea of how would i like to spend my birthday. My birthday is located at the start of the school year, and as i am someone who spent a lot of their life without making friends with a bunch of people that quickly and as such my birthday has been something more in line of quiet contemplation of the past year and looking forward to the new year.
It gives me a different perspective on it, and thinking about this up coming year, thinking about my birthday in a few months and wondering with the number of people i know now how would i really like to spend it? Just the other night driving home i felt a... kind of pulse in the city, an urge to go out to a bar and have some fun.
Would i want to do that? I have had fun with a lot of different people in bars and parties over the past 2 years. I have had a lot of fun, expanded who i am, so is that something i would want to do for my own? No. Not at all.
Rather i want to spend a simple night at my house, maybe have a beer or two, write some, and enjoy not doing anything more than simply feeling comfortable in my skin. The night before or the night after, the weekend that is closest, sure. But that day? I would much rather simply relax and write as much as i could before it became distasteful.
Side note: MWBN (my wanna-be novel), i have set 2 deadlines for it. By August 29th i want to have the first 5 chapters done, and by October 31st have 6-10 done.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)