Archive for the ‘random thoughts’ Category
It’s the Journal, Not the Destination
Written by John Erianne on January 5, 2009 – 11:39 am -I’m going to make a confession to you: I’m a writer who hasn’t kept a regular journal in years. I think I probably stopped keeping a regular journal right around the time they started using the word “journal” as a verb as in, “Sasha has been spending her free time journaling.” Writer or not, who the hell wants to be associated with that activity? It’s just so unmanly, ya know? But seriously, I think my regular use of the computer ultimately led to me putting down my regular daily journal. There is just something about the immediacy of the almighty keyboard that made the act of keeping a journal all but irrelevant for me.
Which is not to say, I don’t occasionally jot things down in a notebook when I can’t otherwise access a computer. There was a time when I tried to replace my little black notebook with a handheld device, but for me that proved more trouble than it was worth. My sister gave me a PDA one year for my birthday and I did use it for a time, but I kept forgetting to charge the thing and everytime the battery went dead, I’d lose everything I had stored on it.
I lost the little black notebook a few years ago and hadn’t seen it since — that is until the other day when it turned up while I was cleaning out a closet.
It’s funny to see some of the odd bits scribbled on it’s pages. Stupid little notes like:
“I just stepped on a Jujube —
Jujube (the candy, not to be confused with the fruit or the Ju Ju Be line of diaper bags)”
or
“Beginnings are the hardest thing about creating a novel.
It’s hard to know when a story truly begins. Does it begin with an insult or the first thoughts of revenge? Maybe it begins with a bullet or the indignity of dying on the bathroom floor of a public restroom in a pool of blood and filth.
It seems to me to be a matter of trusting one’s instincts as there isn’t a universal rule that works in every situation . . .”
How about this note about Paua Fox’s novel Desperate Characters:
“I suppose what astonishes me about DC is how it reminds me of the old Bogart film Desperate Hours. Whereas Deparate Hours concerns a middle class family being held hostage by an escaped convict, the couple in DC are similarly held hostage, albeit of their own device.”
Here’s another notation about Sol Stein’s book, How to Grow a Novel:
“. . . a pragmatic guide to evaluating a first draft for revision, but I find his tendency to boast about his own accomplishments irritating. I lost track of how many times he mentioned his own novel “The Magician” or the fact that he’s a well-known book editor/publisher. Give it a rest, buddy!”
There’s lots of crap in this little black book (hell, there’s probably a couple a dozen ideas for new blog posts alone) — bits of stories and poems, some completed and since published and others best fed to an open garbage can, letters to friends, lists, recipies, schedules, figures (I’m terrible at math).
Reading through those old bits, I was reminded why it’s important for writers to keep a journal — not so much because it’s a direct path to creating that masterpiece, but because it’s like applying grease to the machinery of the imagination. A way to keep all the gears moving and also remain accountable for one’s own thoughts. There’s something about the effect of pushing a pen on actual paper that beating a keyboard, for all of it’s expediancy and productivity, cannot be replicated. Reading those bits, I kept thinking: This is me, my thoughts, as stupid and/or as brilliant as I could be at that moment in time. No denying it. No delete button. No plausible deniability. Just what it is.
So, I don’t know, maybe keeping a journal isn’t quite so irrelavent after all. Maybe I should give it a whirl once again.
I Resolve to Resolve These Resolutions
Written by John Erianne on January 3, 2009 – 10:36 am -Okay . . . New Year’s Day is over — back to the subject of New Year’s Resolutions. My own resolutions for 2009 consist mainly of resolutions I didn’t keep in 2008, plus one new one that wasn’t an issue for me in January 2008, but is in January of 2009.
Of the stuff that I didn’t achieve in 2008, the most pressing has to be updating/redesigning all my websites including this blog. In theory, I can build my own websites from scratch, but haven’t actually done so in almost 3 years. During that time, I’ve been either relying on pre-made templates or making do with an old design. In 2006, things started to get away from me. My health situtation dominated most of my time and concern throughout 2006 and 2007 so I just didn’t maintain any of my websites. And, in 2008, despite my best intentions, I was too broke, too lazy and too distracted to do much upkeep so, again, nothing got done. In 2009, I really want to change that. The problem with using pre-made templates designed by someone else is that they don’t really meet a publisher’s needs 100% because they aren’t specifically designed for you. I’m not saying that I’ll stop using templates altogether because I have a bunch of websites and I don’t have the time to redesign all of them from scratch, but a few of them need some tender loving care that only a complete and personal overhaul can solve. I can’t say I’m not intimidated by this. I don’t consider myself to be a great web designer. I’m completely self-taught. I’ve learned things through trial and error (mostly error) over the last decade and the thought of spending hours and hours working with source code when I’d rather be writing other things bugs the shit out of me. On the other hand, being as it would likely cost me between $1500-$2000 to hire someone to design just one website/blog (and with me being broke and in debt with an army of empty suits demanding their pound of flesh) my only option besides using templates is to do it myself. And really, it’s true, the only way to get things done the exact way you want them is to do it yourself.
The second big resolution is to submit more of my own writing to publishers. I submitted very little of my writing in 2008. This blog has taken up a lot of my time lately. It’s not that I haven’t written other things. I have. I just haven’t gone to much effort, once I’ve written them, to see that someone publishes them. There’s only so many hours in a day to write, write this blog, promote this blog, read stuff submitted to me by others, partake in the endless cycle of sleep/eat/shit/etc. — who has time to research markets and target submissions hither and yon? It’d be great if I could make submissions telepathically. That’d be a real time saver (although, I suspect, those same bastards who don’t accept email submissions probably wouldn’t be too keen on telepathy, ya think?).
The third big thing to address is my weight (no pun intended). A year ago, gaining weight was one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2008. After cancer, treatments for cancer and going for so long without being able to eat solid food, I looked like a concentration camp survivor. Last year, I was, therefore, on a 3500 calorie a day, high protein diet. Unfortunately, once I got back to my normal wight in June 2008, I just couldn’t stop eating (and I don’t even want to tell you about all the crap I was eating during the holidays!). So, my resolution for 2009 is to lose weight. One of my Christmas gifts was a gym membership (a hint and a half for my fat ass, I guess) and I resolve to use it.
There you have it: my resolutions for 2008: 1) redesign websites 2) make more effort to get writing published 3) lost weight
Pretty simple and straight forward. No impossible superhuman multi-page list signed in blood this year. Just something plausible. My lazy, dumb ass’s fault if I don’t even manage one of these items.
New Year’s Resolutions are for Suckers
Written by John Erianne on December 31, 2008 – 12:10 am -I suppose it’s true that practically everyone is bad at keeping New Year’s resolutions. I’m terrible at keeping them. Well . . . maybe not that terrible. I usually keep about a third of them. Every year I make a list of things I want to accomplish during the year. I always start-out gung ho but then I get lazy, distracted, diverted in my purpose and I’m left with a list of unfulfilled promises. On one hand, this inability to meet some fundamental goals disturbs me. On the other hand, had I spent more of my energy on my list this past year, I probably would have spent less time on this blog, and I like spending time on this blog. But that’s the thing isn’t it? Resolutions are for people who think they can control their universe — more than that, they are for people who think they should control it.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last couple of years is that we don’t control the universe and the more we try, the more the universe will bend us to it’s will. And those diversions that sidetrack us from our goals? Well, that’s what life is all about isn’t it? Being open to discovery. So yeah, I’ve made a list of New Year’s resolutions because I’m a sucker for making lists but I know I won’t be crossing off too many items off that list. And that’s okay. Fuck it, and Happy New Year.
