Agendalizing...

Time to get back to work. The unholiday has come and gone, and wreaked minimal havoc in its passing. My mighty efforts proved sufficient to blunt its terrible force.

I've got a story ready to go, called 'Busts'. I've just got to write the rest of it, but it seems readily available to my consciousness. I've got several dozen things of an administrative nature to take care of as well, and we know how irritating those are. My financial situation has kind of descended from dire to catastrophic somehow, and its really bugging me. Time to pull those last irons out of the fire. Too bad they're not very big irons.

My life needs some distilling again. I was opening up some of the dusty cobwebbed vaults of my soul, and the results were unsatisfactory. Work, eat, sleep. Work, eat, sleep. Slam those doors closed and throw some stronger chains on them, that's the ticket!

A friend of my sister's brought her kids over today. Children. Disturbingly fragile, but oddly indestructible at the same time. This kid is a trip. He has perfect memory recall of the times his mother drops the f-bomb, but can't seem to hear the simplest requests, no matter how loudly she shouts them at him. And the weirdest? He rips Oreos open and scrapes the cream out! (I know, but its weird to me... lol)

I feel the need to type something deep and meaningful, something that will stand for the ages. I can feel my titanic creative reserves shaping into a tidal wave of profundity. My mind swells with the incredible energy and I look down on the lesser mortals around me with scorn. Puny insects, crawling beneath me about the business of their inane, useless lives. My might will allow no challenges, the universe will quake at the uttering of my Words... Ah, screw it, I'm going to the store.

Jason

P.S. If I was a god, would my 'God Complex' be a 'Me Complex'?

Humbugology...

Another year is gone, and the global pestilence that is Christmas is upon us. It was once a solemn religious celebration of the birth of a religious leader worshipped by a large percentage of the world's population. Since then, its been corrupted into a shrine to the twin golden calves of capitalism and a man in a red suit. And what's with this Santa person? He's supposedly a fat old man who sneaks into people's houses and offers presents to children if they'll 'Be Good'. Does this sound scary to anyone else?
I find my love of Christmas travels in direct proportion to the amount of relationshippy happiness I have. When I'm with someone I love and am happy, I feel like kicking out the jams and letting the fun swell like a tide that can carry us all away. But now, given my long withdrawal from female companionship, Christmas feels like a dip in a burning lake of fire without marshmallows. And also without the nice pleasant warmth. And everyone is so absurdly happy it makes me want to pepper them with entry wounds. Then lets see how Christmassy they think the pool of their red and green blood is.

Bah humbug, and have a happy new year!

Jason

P.S. Do you think if Santa was accused of molestation, he'd have as many supporters as Michael Jackson?

Donkey Hotay-isms (not my creation, and phonetic to boot, but it fits)

I had one of those monumentally earth-shattering personal insights that make you look at yourself and your life, and consider things in a new way. I always pride myself on my ideas, on my ability to see things in a new, better light. My Making may not be up to my Dreaming, but that's more a path than a goal. But what if my ideas are an accident rather than a gift?

When I was young, after my mother died, I began to have severe sleeping problems. Always a voracious reader, I'd stay up until the wee hours chewing through volume after volume. But somewhere along the line, a strange thing started to happen. My vision would blur, and the voices would start shouting in my head. A thousand dark, angry, evil voices screaming into my mind's ears. I could never quite make out what they were berating me about, or even if it had anything to do with me. I tried so hard to decipher it all and was scared stiff of finding the answers. The tide of the voices would press against me, blocking out sight and sound and feeling, driving me out into the darkness. In those moments, years would pass for me in the void, deaf and dumb and blind. I never told anyone about it, as a child not knowing it wasn't normal and not wanting to be a bother. We found out later that I had petit mal epilepsy (the blank staring kind, not the twitching flopping kind). Drugs helped control it, and puberty basically killed it. I haven't been back to the void in almost 9 years.

I knew that when I went away, I came back changed some, my spirit altered from the way it was molded. What if that was the stories going in? I feel them all there, thousands of them waiting to come out, pleading for me to Dream them, crying for me to Make them. What if that's what put them in there, some accident of aberrant brain biochemistry? Not a comforting thought...

Jason

P.S. "Solving a riddle is only an excuse to torture someone else with it." Um... Me?

Connectorcism...

Ahhh, I feel slightly spring-like. Its interesting how a connection with someone can totally switch on parts of yourself that you thought long buried, repressed, and better off gone. New subject, not gonna jinx it.

My hell week is just about done, and I am so looking forward to relaxing. Yeah, right. As if I wouldn't take my unstructured free time and add a task list, projects to work on, and an insane drive to crush my spirit. Hmmm, so what project to choose? There's the video game synopsis to finish, but that's such a long term deal that it seems kind of pointless now. Maybe another of the 4 or 5 dozen stories floating around up there in my noggin. Or the dictionary of my own made up words. I've only got about 150, does that seem like enough? I don't know... maybe.

I finally got my Wingman revision done. Here it is - Wingman Revision
I've got a couple places to send it out. Guess we'll see what the big bad world has for me. I have about 100 places to send it to if those don't work out, and a set of folders to store rejection slips. Ready, set...let those rejections fly!

Jason

P.S. Do you think its possible for sex muscles to atrophy? }:)

Squeezure...

Its pedal to the metal time, and it feels damned good. Those who saw my bitching about my classes before deserve an update. I was slacking off badly, and now have to make a heroic last-ditch effort to get everything done. It makes me feel alive to have a full plate for once.
I had to reschedule some exams around the upcoming Virginia trip. I'm hoping to do all the things (in two days) that I was too busy or jaded to do while I was living there.

Along with getting prepared for the trip, and all the schoolwork, I've been having an ideavalanche. In the past week I've gone from 70 ideas pending/working up to 85! I've started doing a refresh sweep through my idea book to make sure I still remember what my notes mean. Some of them from like #12 were getting a little hazy. The other thought I had was how screwed I would be if I lost the book. I know some of my favorite ideas would be lost forever, and that would be cataclysmic to my motivation.

I've got to go get some more work done. Talk at you when I get back.

Jason

P.S. If too many cooks spoil the soup, and a stitch in time saves nine, would a stich in nine cooks spoil time? }:)

Technipeeking...

The answer to most problems in life is to just go with your gut. Do what feels right. Go with your first answer. Feel the force flow.

In 'Writing Down the Bones', an extremely flowery and scattered treatise on writing, the author definitely espouses this philosophy. She even talks about running a poetry booth at a country fair. People came in, gave her a subject and a dollar, and she wrote them a poem on the spot. That was all it consisted of, just handing it to them and gone, never to be seen again. It seems an exhilarating and terrifying idea. But she said that it opens the mind up so much, not worrying about it and just letting your hand guide you.

In various discussions (private, and in Creative Writing class), there are suggestions flying around about how to change your work. Now, given the law of averages, a good percentage of these suggestions will be unproductive, cancel each other out, or simply be bad. The remainder consist of comments, observations, and tangents.
The comments are often vague, especially with family or close friends. 'That was nice.' is the worst example. How about, 'It needs...something.'? What is that supposed to mean?
Observations range from nitpicking to severe continuity problems. 'That comma shouldn't be there.' and 'Didn't that lady speaking now just get beheaded?' are the respective examples.

And then the tangents. These are advice on taking the story in a whole new direction. Very dangerous. Some suggestions can help uncover more of the story than you were exposing before. While others can make you push your story in unnatural directions, destroying a lot of the original inspiration.
The decision of what tangents to use is fraught with peril. We've discussed before the different types of creative processes. I believe that the stories are complete as soon as you have the idea. The writer just has to discover it. Others believe that the story is like a living component of your mind, growing and evolving constantly. But the main thought I have on tangents applies to both styles. When someone makes the suggestion, think about it, and then ask yourself, "Is that what happens?" You'll be surprised at how much this clears up.

Jason

P.S. From the hall of unmentionable metaphor, "His car smelled like a hot sack of skunks."

Frenzitronic...

Time flies no matter what you're having. Fun, boredom, excrutiating agony, it's all the same. At least that's my feeling. There must be some alien force that sucks at our time reserves and then (just for amusement's sake) crams 800 things in for us to do at once. I got involved in a political discussion in the cafeteria today, which those of you who have been in the Tunxis cafeteria know are as rare as a poor Republican. We were talking for maybe 15-20 minutes tops, and then I looked up and an hour hour and a half had gone by. Who is responsible for this time destruction?! We must find this person, being, what have you, and make them suffer for their impertinence in thinking they can interfere with our lives! {shaking his fist} I'll get you!!!

}:)

Murphaswitchism...

My mind has turned to the mysteries of the universe today. Not the big stuff, meaning of life dreckola and the like, but the real nitty-gritty everyday enigmas. Life is filled with them. I notice them everywhere.
An example? How about light switches? I've seen so many ridiculous contradictions and paradoxes surrounding light switches its, well...ridiculous. In the house I grew up in, (a circa 1910-1920 big old monstrosity) the paranoid amateur farmer who lived there before us had rigged lights up everywhere around the house. If you turned them all on at night, it looked like a Presidential compound under super Secret Service probation. Not to mention the gruntin and groanin that must have been coming from the fuse box. Pretty much every square foot of our 3/4 of an acre was lit up so the farmer could catch people stealing his fruits and vegetables at night. Which means switches. Inside that house, there had to be 50 freakin switches. On one wall, there was a switch for the hall light, a switch to turn on the electric outlet underneath it, and two banks of switches with at least a dozen on each.
And still there were more! Sometimes in my wanderings, I'd find a previously unknown one just lurking behind a seldom closed door, or in a shady corner. I once was nearly electrocuted when I decided to flip one of my new discoveries. My fingers were black with soot, and I had a monster bruise on one ass cheek from when I was thrown across the room by the discharge. I guess that was why that electrical tape was covering it...

The quest for the solution of a mystery can be a tricky thing. And in my case, it can even result in a mild charbroiling. What would I have missed if that happened?
I wouldn't have broken all the bones that I have.
I wouldn't have nearly drunk myself to death in college (the first time, not my current community college days).
I wouldn't have had the actual bone structure of my foot change from all the marching in my ill-fitting Army boots.
I wouldn't have broken 3 fingers of an anonymous drunk in Alabama during a bar fight that I (stupidly) started.
I wouldn't have gotten to see two crank-called delivery men arrive at my friend's neighbor's house at the same time.
I wouldn't have learned to drive at 15 by taking my Grandmother's car out every night that summer.
I wouldn't have become a slut, then got married, then relapsed to sluthood, then had two pseudo-marriages in a row (one emotional, one not), and then entered into this long hermitage.
I wouldn't have climbed on top of my elementary school, or realized what racism is, or explored my yuckaphobia, or learned how to shoot a rifle, or helped defraud the banking industry (loan officer, car salesman, etc.), or gone pool-hopping at 3 in the morning at 12 years old, or broken a heart, or been the bad guy, or been the good guy, or learned how to drive a stick, or finally hit a wiffleball over the roof at Enzo's, or any of a thousand memories that fill my thoughts.
So was it worth it? I don't know. We'll see what comes next.

Jason

P.S. This may be dating my comic book reading a little, but here goes: 'Until George W. and Hillary Clinton get caught doing the hibbity-jibbity, Make Mine Marvel!'

A new beginning...

I decided on Thursday to start this new journal. My Blurty one worked for a while, but without the ability to put links up and so forth, it just doesn't keep up. So I made a much niftier blogspot one, as evidenced by you reading it.

I have quite a bit to talk about, but after doing the set-up, tweaking it to my taste, and reading the other blogs around, my fingers are a little typed out. So, I'll try again tomorrow.

Jason