Four Things That Do Not Make You a Writer

[[A few jottings from the wee hours, saved in November and forgotten until now.]]


Shameless procrastination has reduced me to browsing the NaNoWriMo forums at two in the morning, skimming pointlessly-opened threads in lieu of wrestling with the contents of that first draft document that I would really rather pretend does not exist at this point in time. While I intended the forums to serve as a quick break before unwinding and going to bed, my plan were derailed as I clicked thread after thread, and by the time I opened "You know you're a writer when..." I was experiencing full-blown denial. All one needs to do in order to comprehend the truth of the accusation that writing has become a social fad is read through the NaNo boards, an act which can only lead to the crushing conclusion that the art of writing has indeed been reduced to a level so trivial that it can no longer be called an art, and must be categorised either as psychiatric therapy or happy-go-lucky dumping of word and fantasy for the purpose of impressing the world with self-perceived personal genius. At last I understand the state to which the role of writer has been diminished.

While many posts proved riling, none raised ire quite so much as the flippant comments on the "You know you're a writer when..." thread, and it is in response to some of the statements made there that I am rambling at this hour of the night.


•You talk about your novel constantly.
•You are angry when the people you talk to do not listen to you blabber about said novel.
                    ~ brambleclaw33

...when you tell everyone about your writings, not caring if they care or not.
                    ~ carmensakura07

To insist that writers speak incessantly of what they are writing, or have written, or plan to write, is to keep alive a significant misconception. If writing a novel is simply a platform for having one more thing regarding which to gab to the world at large, it is unlikely that writing is actually being done, or, if it is occurring, that it is producing anything of worth. "When you’re socially awkward," writes Criss Jami, "you’re isolated more than usual, and when you’re isolated more than usual, your creativity is less compromised by what has already been said and done. All your hope in life starts to depend on your craft, so you try to perfect it. One reason I stay isolated more than the average person is to keep my creativity as fierce as possible. Being the odd one out may have its temporary disadvantages, but more importantly, it has its permanent advantages." Novels are not found in an excess of chatter, but in the silent occupation of writing, and the dedication of revision.

Art as a whole involves a rich internal life, which is not fed by continual logorrhea; one may be guilty of prolixity, but it is unlikely that incessant rambling regarding a current project, to anyone and everyone who will listen and even to those who won't, is going to promote the inner environment necessary for truly artistic writing. For a writer, perhaps even more so than those less introspectively inclined, it is essential to have a life rich with experience. I do not care to ramble incessantly about my writing projects to those around me; instead, I watch them, learning from their habits and thought patterns and manners of speech in order to better know how to write of humanity. Instead of making my observations on life continually known to anyone within earshot, I live life, and retire in secrecy to put my findings onto paper. Writing is cathartic, self-developing, at once a way of coping with and understanding the world around me and the thoughts within me. Prattling to random friends and acquaintances about an intensely personal and occasionally even embarrassing process is more likely to freeze my pen than loosen it. I draw from life to write, and do not subtract from my writing in order to use it to create for myself a life.


•you ask your friends if they mind being in a book.
                    ~ SciWri

While the concept of being able to wreak vengeance on insulting persons by writing them into your novels and subsequently killing them is a charming one, this is not necessarily a trademark of the guild. As a joke, it works. As a reality, not so much. Writers will indubitably glean from their experiences, but just because they are crafting stories does not mean everyone and their mother's uncle is going to feature in the plot as a prominent and idiosyncratic character.



•you put all homeowkr on all to browse the nanowrimo forums.
                    ~ SciWri

Aha, nice try; NO. This is called a predilection for social networking. While an internet social life can be satisfyingly scintillant and intellectually beneficial, and a writer's main source of empathetic friendship, there is nothing regarding internet activity or message boards that has inherently to do with being a writer. In fact, it is likely that, the more time engaged online, the less time will be devoted towards the act of writing itself, which means that forums are actually detracting from "being a writer".

There is also such a thing — the awareness of which is generally promoted among writers, even more so than within the general public — called spelling.


you can't work with an empty coffee cup.
                    ~ cygwriter

Since when did caffeine addiction become a defining characteristic of a life? Medical students and professionals on rotation in the harsh environment of hospitals and their murderously-long shifts often consume copious amounts of coffee. Any number of people rely upon coffee to stimulate their brains in the morning, before they head to work, and there are plenty of talented, successful writers, even professionals, who do not need caffeine to function.



Fortunately, not all of the posts on that thread reflected the same trivial perspective of writing and art as the above comments. The following, between themselves, reflect both the humourous aspects of the craft and the fundamental reality of what it means to be a writer.


When you are 50 years old and you go off to write, and your 75 year old mother smiles and says, "Going off to be with your invisible friends, eh."

~ EmSaidSo


You mix up your love life with your protagonist's.

"How was your date on Friday?"

"Oh, awesome! My brother decapitated my boyfriend and now I'm betrothed to a wealthy count's son."

"Um...I thought you went to the mall."

~ Caterpillarstar


As ever, there's a simple rule to measure writers, no matter how many amusing and odd eccentricities a given example may exhibit:

Writers write.

Writers who want to be published write to completion and then edit the suck out of the story.

Really, that's it.

~ Kassil

Trivialities...

...because I can. The questions are taken from an image I encountered on WeHeartIt while browsing in search of a particular picture.

~*~

You sit in your towel after a shower because you are too lazy to get dressed.

I see no point in hogging the bathroom merely to be able to sit on the floor in nothing but my own skin, and there is no way I will be wandering around the house wrapped in a bath towel; there is not enough coverage in most towels for a person of my length, and flashing people has never been on my agenda. Also, showering is generally one task sandwiched between others. Once I am clean, it is time to cross it off and move on to the next thing on the list.


You and your best friend say just one word before cracking up.

There are those words, yes. Pie would be one of them.


You hate it when one string on your hoodie is longer than the other.

It drives my brain nuts. Like a dog trying to chase his tail and never catching it, because no matter how much I tug they will not stay even, and I despise unintentionally uneven clothing items.


You hate when people think you like someone who you clearly don't.

People are crush-happy and altogether too ready to pair couples, and a girl learns early that her best weapon against that tendency is diffidence. So, unless that misunderstanding means they attempt to interfere with my life in order to compel me to interact pointlessly with that person, or assume that taking liberties with my schedule in order to put me in company with that person is an awesome idea, I experience nothing but mild annoyance at the foolishness of popular opinion.


You hate when your favourite song comes on as you pull into the driveway.

Only if I have to get out of the vehicle immediately without finishing it; otherwise, it is not a big deal.


You feel as if turning on the lights will keep you safe.

Not at all. I prefer to turn them off and curl up in a corner; if the lights are on at two in the morning and I am not curled in a corner or lying on the floor behind something, I feel exposed.


You push the little buttons on the lids of fast food drinks.

Every time, until some time last year. Now I only do it when my hands want to fiddle, and when I have a lid handy.


You hate it when your parents get serious about something funny you said.

There are certainly more appropriate times to attempt to verbally convey a life lesson.


You pretend to sleep when your parents come in.

Who, me? Never. However, I have no ability to do so at this point, so the sarcasm of that answer is rendered rather otiose...


You hate when you're going somewhere and are stuck behind a slow walker.

It makes things awkward, admittedly. "Should I speed up and go around you, or should I wait patiently and not call attention to the fact that you're just so stinkin' slow? Oh, it's a narrow hallway? Well, um, till the next open space... Oh, right. I hasten my step and you speed up too. This is working so well." Cue sweat drop. "Hang it all; I'll jog. See you later!"


You are always tired no matter how much sleep you get.

You mean there are other options? Like feeling rejuvenated when you wake? Wow, I couldn't have guessed.


You are obsessed with a certain celebrity or several celebrities.

Nope. Sorry. They bore me, taking themselves as seriously as they do and parading their lives before the world as if every foolish detail merited publishing to an idol-starved audience. Granted, the culture has created the problem, but the blame will still appear to fall first on the shoulders of those who allow the flaunting of even their intimacies for the greedy eyes of those who are too consumed with watching others to make decent effort at living their own lives.

However, when it comes to enjoying the screen presence and off-script wit of Tom Hiddleston... Obsessed, no. Fangirl? Unquestionably. He's good, very good, and I have yet to be disappointed by him.

~*~

Yes, this is a random post. No, I was not bored; I am never bored. This was merely a case of a whelming urge to answer idiotic questions in public and ramble a bit on meaningless topics, and now that I have satisfied the urge, I retire to pursue more beneficial occupation. If you actually took the time to read this post, then I do hope that it entertained you; if you did not, I applaud you for filtering your reading material so stringently. The rest of the world would benefit from your discipline and intellectual elitism.

Pre-holiday Travel Notes

Written while waiting for my train on the afternoon of November twenty-sixth.

Here I am in the train station, sitting cross-legged on the marbled floor with my backpack (Daisuke) and my laptop (Kokuyoku) to my left and a great support column at my back. To my right rests a folded-down Wendy's bag, in which are the nonedible remnants of my breakfast, consumed at four p.m.: a junior bacon cheeseburger and a small chocolate frosty. The frosty was an unpleasant indulgence, and its consumption inappropriately timed, and the cheeseburger had, upon my unwrapping of it, little to recommend itself beyond the two and a half sandwich length strips of bacon and its lingering warmth; the bun had been smushed by greasy fingers, and there was a large depression in the center of it, not to mention that the sandwich had been sloppily packaged and was falling apart before I even began eating it. Beside the bag rests my tiny Penguin 60s edition of four of Montaigne's essays; the Rabbit is presently located between pages sixty and sixty-one, marking my place. If I could obtain an internet connexion, I would most likely be catching up on emails that have been neglected for months, interspersing that task with the pointless browsing and rebrowsing of various social media sits; as it is, I cannot, at least not without relocating to another pillar, and as a result have been reading.

It is drafty here; the doors at the end of the station keep opening and closing, sending gusts of cool air my way. I am considering obtaining coffee, more of it, simply for the warmth and the excuse to settle myself at a corner table in a quieter side shop. The main station is like a gong, constantly reverberating with its own noise. Sounds become larger here — they grow, warble, expand into the cavernous room and return muffled to the undiscerning ears of its occupants. My watch tells me I have three hours and nine minutes remaining to spend in this place, but my head aches from the four hours and seven minutes I have already passed within its walls. There is a book store here, a little pseudo-convenience shop shoved up against a few shelves of erotica and cheap novels. Of course, cheap in this context means lame: when it comes to money, the store is primed for extortion; barring the classics shelf wedged in the back left corner between sports and biography and the children's shelf lining the right wall, it is primarily filled with outrageously priced trash. However, I was sorely tempted by two particular volumes in the classics collection, and a third in the biographies: a lovely gilt-edged hard cover edition of War and Peace first caught my eye, and after that, a hefty blue tome — paperback, but still attractive: Gone With the Wind, followed by Eric Metaxas's Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. For some time I vacillated between the three, but could not justify spending twenty-five dollars for a single book, for myself, without having entered the store intending to anything of the sort. The resulting resolution involved withdrawing my familiar little Montaigne from Daisuke and cracking its cover. Had I anticipated such a delay I certainly would have selected a few titles to carry along with me for perusal over the course of the afternoon; however, I am not without either reading or writing material and am thus without legitimate grounds for complaint.

My desire to read Gone With the Wind is whetted, though, and I am sleepy and uncomfortable enough that Montaigne is not entirely making sense. Hence the blog post, drafted first in the Logbook because I happen to like writing that way. Pens are at times more conducive to blogging than keyboards.

From the opposite wall a sultry blonde is looking up with a surprised expression and an open mouth from her oversized burger; she is clad in a sleeveless purple dress and is adorned with gaudy earings and a partial forearm's length of bangles. "Swarovski", the letters on the bottom of the right corner of the banner proclaim. The jewelry is presumably intended to look appealing. I think it looks like she was trying far too hard.

~*~

There are two hours and thirty-two minutes yet until departure time; I am still considering coffee, but have not ventured from my spot. Despite the people milling about and the obviously public nature of the station, something about the height of the ceiling and the quality of the ambient sound makes me feel acutely the sense of being small, alone, and overlooked. It is an interesting sensation, and every time I am here I savour it. The besetting loneliness (and, at the same time, liberty) of solitary travel is to be sometimes loathed, sometimes endured, and sometimes treasured; today I am doing all three at once.

~*~

A trip to the water closet and a delay in the line at Wendy's have shaved away approximately twenty minutes from the wait. My coffee is warm, not hot, and tastes unusually despicable — the cup was filled with the dregs of two pots, and the employees were so hassled by the customer volume that I had not the heart to demand fresh liquid and properly heated coffee. So now I am sitting by the window, enjoying the diminished noise and the table claimed all to myself, and enjoying equally my lack of enjoyment of the nauseating brew in front of me. It is the stuff of which small adventures are made, and it has me thinking again of travel, of the appeal of setting out with a bag and a notebook and a rolling ball pen, along with the requisite laptop, and running. Placelessness is addictive. The din of train stations, the loneliness of airports at three a.m., the rocking and clanking of train wheels and the sense of falling that accompanies the tilting of the plane after take-off, the sunrise viewed through bleary eyes and the filth-flecked window of a fast food joint and from over a parfait, collapsing on a station bench after three sleepless nights and a megadose of caffeine on an empty stomach, buying a hamburger to satiate rampant hunger and sitting on a low stone wall to eat, bite by satisfying bite, in the company of strangers, walking along a city street as dusk falls and realising that all direction has been lost...

Just now a heavyset black woman wearing a long quilted coat approached my table, pushing a wire grocery basket of candy bars, and asked if I would by one — "for a dollar," she said, without meeting my eyes, "cuz I'm tryin' to get somethin to eat." I hesitated, then traded a dollar bill for a bar; she laid her three varieties out on the table for me to choose from: caramel, almond, and rice crispy; I chose caramel. She left the restaurant as soon as the transaction had been made, rising from the chair opposite me and calling a thank you over her shoulder as she wheeled her basket out into the main station. I laid the candy bar on top of my bag and picked up my pen once again, contemplating all the while how that would make a delightful strategy for terrorists, selling explosives as candy bars to unsuspecting passengers, and debating whether I ought to check the contents of the wrapper just to be certain. The idea is nothing short of ridiculous, I know, but I would be distinctly amused — were I still alive to see the humour — if my bag exploded. However, it is likely that anything so extraordinary will happen, especially since she has returned to Wendy's holding a sandwich in a takeout container. I admit to some surprise, as I did not think she actually wanted the money for food.

~*~

In exactly one hour my train is scheduled to depart. My coffee is now cool; my back has joined my head in aching and is making breathing painful; the scruffy young man sitting several tables away is speaking loudly of vomit. I am thinking of baking projects and mulling over what will happen when I arrive at my family's housel when I look up, pressing my fingertips against the bridge of my nose in an attempt to relieve the headache, I see an overflowing waste can, and the coinciding of image and thought seems absurdly appropriate. It will be late when I arrive tonight, but I assume that some people will be awake all the same. Depending on what is in the pantry I may start a cooking enterprise in consideration of the following morning — they will have a proper breakfast when they wake, and not a one will have to lift a finger to work for it. I review my options: muffins, omelet, pancakes, cake, quiche, muesli. There are others, of course, but an assessment of the kitchen's contents must necessarily precede plans for action.

My train is not yet on the board in the main station; it is still displaying trains scheduled from the hour of five p.m. It is seven twenty-nine now. I hope my train is not late.

Alex Goot's cover of Taylor Swift's "22" is alternating in my head with Against the Current's cover of The 1975's "Chocolate". There are so many interesting people here, demanding observation, and there is something about the noisy and impersonal air of travel that makes me wish to impulsively strike up conversations with various strangers happening by. That boy is cute and looks reasonably intelligent, and his hat suits his face; those girls — what private joke has amused them so, that they are giggling together like that?; the older gentleman in the trench coat is short enough and dignified enough to set me wondering whether he is either a disguised leader who has been deposed from his position and become a wicked villain or if he is a respectable businessman who would make a worthy acquaintance; her sense of style is impeccable. Everyone is fair game in this crowded loneliness. People here are unknown factors, an afternoon's entertainment, subjects for social experimentation, or personalities with whom transient acquaintance might be made; they are books from which to learn lessons. There are no rules in this place but those a person imposes upon himself, no social standard, nothing but people, people, people, all thrust from their familiar bubble into one massive arena, and at times one has the feeling that anything is possible with anyone.

It is eight oh six, and in nine minutes my train boards.

From Among Books

I do not consider myself an accomplished reader, or even a good one; indeed, I have wondered more than once if claiming to be a bibliophile is not too much a stretch of the truth. After all, my range of familiarity is limited; I have little knowledge of the classics, those volumes which have played formidable roles in the development of intellectualized cultures; I possess no inherent lust for particular editions of a certain author's works, or irresistible urge to set out in search of ancient and rare books; my love affair with books stems from a kindergarten addiction to Nancy Drew novels and my subsequent immersion in all the Trixie Belden and Hardy Boy books I could locate in the seemingly vast shelves of my grandmother. Serious, thoughtful reading did not come until much later, and then I sought only the thrill of transportation, of adventure, of mystery and sparkling talent and a life so far removed from mine as to be wholly fanciful and at the same time completely gratifying. Even in ninth grade, when I deliberately — and, it must be said, with substantial and unfounded pride — hefted Tolstoy's War and Peace from the library shelf ("I am going to read the whole thing, yes, thank you for asking."), I was still indulging in indiscriminate consumption, devouring everything on which I could lay my hands, without imposition of taste, criticism, or purpose. To be sure, my preferences have matured considerably since then, and I would no sooner pick up and read anything than I would neglect to select the foods that I place in my body. That, at least, is a vast improvement. However, there is much yet lacking.

I am a child of the digital age, only rudimentarily competent among electronics, to be sure, but still shaped in habit and philosophy by the presence of technology and the constant influx of unsought and superficial information that it brings. Passion for books and all, my brain, trained by practice and environment, is loathe to subject itself to the steady pacing and quieting demands of the printed page, and now, more than ever before, I am realizing how far I have drifted from even that early, incompetent readership, in which nothing mattered but the gobbling of as many literary candies as I could in as short of a time as possible. David Ulin, author of, among other works, The Lost Art of Reading, accurately identifies books as being all-engrossing, linearly-structured narratives in an era where our minds have been accustomed to the urgency of simultaneous, rapidly-evolving presentations, fragmented attention, and cluttered, disconnected facts. There is little surprise in this dawning acknowledgement of a readjustment of interpretation; far from it; however, it is this understanding which, more than anything, raises question of personal failure as a bibliophile. To be a reader means, at least in some sense, to engage in depth of thought, making associations, allowing the words to leave the page and enter you and resonate there. Such an act requires a certain tranquility of contemplation, an ability to, while engaging in the material being read, disengage from the multiplicity of distractions demanding attention from both without and within. It is an act which is innately opposed to the fragmented modes of interpretation with which our minds are used to utilizing in cognition, and I have, as it were, been absorbed by perceiving the world through a fractured lens of frenzied and quickly-forgotten information, discarded almost as soon as it enters my thoughts. This, naturally, interferes with reading.

In the process of truly engaged reading, in which the reader both comprehends and internalises the contents of the page (or pages) before him, there is an exchange taking place, an active conversation in which the writer speaks and the reader responds. This response may be resonance, identification, or empathy, or it may be argument, a ponderously conducted debate in which the opinion of the writer and the opinion of the reader collide, forcing either reconsideration on the part of the reader or the decisive and, hopefully, thoughtful and logical construction or solidification of an opposing viewpoint. Or perhaps it may inspire further exploration of a matter to which there is no right or wrong, triggering the sounding of greater depths than had been previously investigated. Regardless of whether a writer's work meets with the agreement or appreciation of the reader, comprehension and internalisation still take place; the narrative is understood and, as it is understood, absorbed, disassembled, and interwoven with the conscious and subconscious mind, subtly affecting that person's perception of the world on both an intimate and a broad level. This adjustment of vision, adjustment of being, is, in my opinion, one of the most sacred elements of reading and a defining factor in the relationship of a true bibliophile to books, and it is this which has so often been lacking in my own readership. For in order for this process inherent to concentrated reading — true reading, and not merely what E. D. Hirsch, Jr, defines as decoding — to take place, a certain singularity of focus must be directed towards the written work in question. In this era of splintered attention and kaleidoscoped action, this is a difficult feat indeed, and one which I, born and raised in this era and self-cultivated to the oblivion of clamour, fail far too often to accomplish.

There are too many tasks to perform, too many options, too many channels serving as ready providers of entertainment and fact and opinion, addicting in their superficiality, that are as distracting as the garish sight of flashing neon lights against a midnight sky. I am guilty many times over of seating myself, book in hand, and proceeding to read half a page without absorbing a word of it before turning back to my laptop to run through a pointless, absent-minded routine: check email, refresh any tabs that have the potential to have been updated in my momentary absence, click shiny links, play a game of solitaire (and another, if I don't win the first), look up a word or two or five on my dictionary tab, jot a line of input to add to the ever-growing assortment of digital conversations. And while the internet is admittedly the most prominent and absorbing distraction presenting itself, pointless diversion and mental clutter is not limited to that presented by technology. Focus can be all too swiftly redirected by household tasks, conversation, wandering thoughts, hobbies close at hand, or anything else that, by nature of its intrinsic appeal, manages to serve as a wedge between my mind and the written word. If reading requires a certain mental clarity and stillness, that is certainly not something that can be assumed at whim when one is long accustomed to unwavering frenzy of both internal and external environments.

With that in mind, I have been striving to make such contemplative, engaged reading possible. In elementary school there was no question of involvement in the books I consumed — they were thrill-oriented and absorbing, and slipping into the worlds in which their stories took place was not only easy but unavoidable. Now, however, even with inherently appealing books, I find myself plodding absently through each page, or skipping glassy-eyed and at random through the book, seeing much and registering nothing, and I do not like it. I miss the powerful engagement of the written word, miss that sense of intellectual and sometimes physical merging; the number of titles I may claim to have read provides me no pleasure if each has no meaning to me.

My efforts to correct this personal tendency are paltry, but I cannot help but think that they are, in some minuscule way, helping. One strategy for facilitating focus has been to abandon my faithful companion (also known as Kokuyoku, my laptop) when picking up a book, sometimes by the mere act of flopping onto my stomach on the floor and leaving him on the table, and sometimes by leaving the room entirely to lay claim to an empty corner or a comfortable couch. I make a point of reading slowly, taking each sentence with conscious deliberation and pausing for contemplation when the narrative induces thought that builds from the content to form independent conclusions instead of simply allowing for the reception of clearly delineated ideas. If an interlude brings awareness of wandering attention, I return to where I first diverged from the text and began decoding instead of reading, and resume from there. Then, too, I have taken to keeping a pen and notebook close at hand, for the sake of recording those lines or passages that seem particularly inspiring or profound, for the jotting of words or ideas which I should like to investigate later, without interrupting my reading to do so, and even for the purpose of reacting on paper to what the author has presented (responses which, incidentally, usually take the form of disputation; I maintain the same practice when sitting through a sermon, keeping paper close at hand for the sake of silent quarrel with those things which prove themselves objectionable). Many a person has described literature — specifically classics — as being a progression of conversation, a conversation that spans all the long ages of history. What better way to understand that it is indeed a continuation of interconnected thought and communing ideas than to engage personally in a semblance of that interaction, tracing the threads of debate with interest and formulating opinions — even if expressed only in silence, to oneself, especially when expressed in silence — in response to the substance found therein?

Apart from those adjustments to those habits that relate directly to the act of reading, I am also attempting to make mental clarity a habit, by means of consciously directing attention and vigour to tasks as I am performing them and seeking to realize in small ways, in infrequent bursts of comprehension, what it means to be fully present in any given situation, to be acutely aware of that place which I am occupying in space and time at once. An experience is most richly remembered when felt keenly, and I would have that fresh, piercing recollection more often available, and less slipping behind a clouded haze of obscured awareness. At the very least, even if it does not enable me to drastically improve my capacity to engage with books, it will allow for growth as a writer, and, if that too fails, a human who lives.

Tenatively Updated

There is another post in the works, also inspired by Hannah Nicole, entitled "Quotidian Life in Twenty-Eight Verbs", and it will be up before the end of the month if my to-do list behaves itself and refrains from flinging any obnoxiously time-consuming task in my lap at the last possible moment. However, that must wait, as I am taking advantage of a day planned in exclusion of science (barring a bit of homework from the previous day's chapter) and venturing to scribble out a slapped-together post for the sake of those readers who fall into the category of 'family', and therefore merit the time even if I had not originally begun with much to say. Indeed, I have little of substance to relate: daily occupation is falling into the presumably disinteresting categories of study, chores, entertainment, and frivolousness. The last is not strictly pointless, as it pertains to far more than a twiddling of thumbs and gazing blankly at the wall in pretended thought, but I shall address the items on the list chronologically and avoid premature explanation.

 

Study:

 

Despite my original trepidation regarding the detraction study would prove from preparation for November's writing project, I did set out after all to crack open the Human Biology textbook so generously provided for me, and have been, for several days, steadily working through the first several chapters. While the factual material appears to be accurate enough, I was quite disappointed to find that the caliber of the study questions and the clarity of the text had been compromised by an unanticipated infiltration of intellectual stupidity. The number of ambiguous pronouns used is enough to induce a peremptory attack of red ink in hopes of rendering the material clear enough to actually facilitate learning instead of producing a panicked grammatical confusion—it does make all the difference in the world if that "it" refers to human beings instead of a particular chemical process; it changes the answer entirely, and by so doing alters my grade! Not that the grade has any bearing on my performance, which is one of the nice things about studying on one's own time, with no obligation to school or teacher or certification intended for achievement. There is no one but myself to care how many study questions I answer correctly, or how well I grasp the criteria for determining whether something is a living organism or an inorganic object. Not only am I free to select whatever topics I wish to master, I am also at liberty to determine what constitutes a satisfactory level of achievement in those areas, and such power is refreshing after being imposed upon by the regulations of formal education for so long.

 

While not actually assigning myself any work from the textbook today, homework did make the agenda: the reviewing of cellular reproduction by the process of mitosis. This afternoon, equipped with pen, notebook, and anatomy and physiology colouring book, I set out to accomplish the monumental task of grasping mitosis. And, much to my surprise (and—be assured—glee), I did just that. The occasion required celebration, two hours later, with a five-o'clock lunch of honey nut cheerios. After how many courses of science with the process cogently explained how many times, and I, in post-high school study, finally, for the first time, comprehend an overview of what takes place? That is either tribute to my mental density or a poor case for the effectiveness of science curriculum in general; I leave it to you to decide the answer.

 

Chores:

 

Sweeping the kitchen floor is a remarkably effective method for relieving stress. So is folding laundry. However, to be properly relaxing, both tasks require a bubble akin to that which is necessary for engaged writing, and that bubble has recently been punctured. Because of this, considerably less attention is being paid to such tasks; sedentary employment is proving more appealing.

 

Entertainment:

 

Recent indulgence in reading a slew of children's books is bringing about acquaintance with such necessary childhood classics as Harold and the Purple Crayon, Mrs. Pepperpot and the Magic Wood, and the ever charming Winnie-the-Pooh, which, I am ashamed to admit, I am reading for the very first time. Children's stories are not the only reading that has occupied my time lately, though; just today I finished Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a delightful and informal read on the casual usage of punctuation in these contemporary times, as well as another non-fiction book that had been sitting on my metaphorical shelf for some time: Letters to Barbara, by Leo Meter; both books had been in my possession for far too long, and both were in sore need of reading, being volumes of considerable worth. The former has imbued in me a fresh zeal for punctuation and a renewed awareness of those small marks of clarity, which means I shall, from now on, be making considerably more conscious use of the semi-colon and deliberately employing hyphens, commas, and colons for emphasis, not to mention keeping careful watch over apostrophes lest I, through careless scribbling, misplace a one. The latter, having whetted again my long-held interest in the intimate history of World War Two and the individuals who walked upon this earth during that time, has given me immediate reason to pick up The Diary of Anne Frank sooner than I had anticipated, to read and savour once again; it has also romanticized the idea of pictorial correspondence, so that all of my little friends and correspondents may be certain of receiving letters with poorly-drawn sketches done in ink over the margins. Leo Meter took lessons in drawing from his early teens. I, on the other hand, lack skill enough to even draw a decent representation of a cell nucleus's nucleolus.

 

Frivolousness:

 

This category of assorted activities would include anything from browsing suspicious websites for paper dolls to running through Mozart's "Rondo alla Turca" on the keyboard, something which involves far less skill than enjoyment, and is this procrastinating dilettante's method of musical education, along with roaming YouTube in order to unearth new and appreciable artists and songs. Compulsively keeping tabs on my own Goodreads statistics and browsing my friends' shelves to collect new titles for my 'to read' pile is a guilty pleasure; also, for some odd reason, an urge to journal has been nudging its way into my life, much like a dog shoving its nose into a bystander's hand in hopes of petting: while I have no designated journal, the Logbook is reclaiming its identity as a scribbler, and does receive the occasional confidence. As of today, the newest task on this particular to-do list is the watching of the latest The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for the sake of showing it as it truly is, in all its flawed pathos. While I had never intended to see that movie again, necessity requires it of me, and exposing it for the cheap sensationalism that it is will more than do justice the time spent watching it.

In Honour of Accomplishment Despite Procrastination: A List

(inspired by Hannah Nicole @ You Are Here)

things that catch my eye:
 black-and-white photographs
 new words
 Ryrie scampering around the corner into the hall
 steam rising from a mug
 leaves turning over in the wind
 hefty tomes, especially ones devoid of contemporized covers and equally-modern one word titles
 non-descript corners
 failure to employ the Oxford comma
 exceptional dance covers (J-pop and K-pop) posted on Youtube

books I'm reading:
 Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage, by Madeleine L'Engle
 You Can Get Arrested for That, by Rich Smith
 The Mark of Zorro, by Johnston McCulley [online]
 The Borrowers Aloft, by Mary Norton
 Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

books I will be reading (or attempting to read) in the next several weeks:
 Eat My Words: Reading Women's Lives Through the Cookbooks They Wrote, by Janet Theophano
 New Worlds, Lost Worlds, by Susan Brigden
 Murder In The Cathedral, by T.S. Elliot
 Wordwatching: Field Notes from an Amateur Philologist, by Julian Burnside
 For the Time Being, by Annie Dillard

a (few) songs I could hear over and over again:
 "Hello", by Evanescence
 "Everything at Once" and "Sad Song", by Lenka
 "Knock, Knock", also by Lenka, because there are days when I know acutely the need
 "Top Secret", by Miku Hatsune, and "No Thank You", and "Liar's World"
 "May It Be", by Enya—there is no forgetting Frodo
 "I Wouldn't Mind" and "Pour Me Out", by He Is We
 "Say Your Name", by Plumb, and Nightcored

book reviews awaiting writing:
 Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
 The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton

things I don't want to purchase (but need to anyways):
 peppermint-flavoured fluoride-free toothpaste, Tom's of Maine
 a train ticket
 postage and materials for a birthday package

what I want to get better at this year:
 writing
 speaking in both Japanese and English
 remembering birthdays, giving Christmas presents
 keeping up with correspondence
 smiling at people instead of hiding (because maybe they need it)
 greeting people with enthusiasm
 courtesy: saying thank-you, listening to people, leaving the bathroom cleaner than I found it, rinsing the plates when stacking them after dinner, paying closer attention to the moods of those around me, hearing what is left unsaid
 telling the truth

some things I'm excited about:
 seeing Rye's reaction to unwrapping The Poky Little Puppy
 scrubbing the accumulation of green grime off of the deck siding
 posting a reply to Susan's note
 reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to the girls
 browsing the library shelves
 giving Princess her very own envelope with her very own letter
 evening conversations with the girls
 going home

some sources of anxiety, however de minimus:
 not being ready for NaNoWriMo
 telling foolish stories
 making the mistake—again—of using "good" where "well" should be employed
 inability to pay income tax
 the need to find a job

plans for the rest of the week:
 teach Shadow parts of speech: prepositions, subjects, predicates, adjectives, and adverbs
 drink more water than I do coffee
 play the piano at least once
 enlist Kokuyoku's aid in preserving Ryrie's narrative of her plays
 move my boxes to the furnace room, so they are out of the family's way
 read most of my library books
 send a newsy note to my grandmother

outside my window:
 a cool breeze
 one lonely stinkbug sojourning across the window screen
 the cornfield across the street stripped by harvest
 two boys on horseback, the rider in the lead looking towards our house
 the crisp scent of imminent autumn (at last!)

Facts of Life

It is already two a.m., and this post ought to have been written a week ago. Unfortunately, my pathetic lack of self discipline stepped directly into the path of that intention and kept up interference until now, when discipline and caffeine (my first in over a month) has shouldered past it.

 

With relatively unlimited ingredients at hand, I have given into the temptation to indulge my need to de-stress by baking, which means I have been on a near-irresponsible carbohydrate binge for the last week. The first project ended up being cinnamon rolls, my very first attempt at making such a thing, and despite the fact that they were slightly overdone I liked the recipe enough to copy it into my everything notebook along with the oat pan rolls. Next I tackled Melt-In-Your-Mouth Biscuits, which, while they did not live up to the promise of delectable goodness, did turn out to be a rather nice basic biscuit for accompanying a meal.

 

Following the rolls and biscuits was a blueberry buttermilk cake that involved both blueberries and strawberries, as well as buttermilk and a bundt cake pan. While the cake itself turned out decently enough, I found both the icing and the blueberries rather disgusting. (Blueberries baked into cakes are not good, period, and I don't know what it is about confectioner's sugar in butter, but it is almost enough to merit the term 'gross'.) As the projects in close succession were resulting in an overdose of sugar and carbohydrates, I resolved to abandon baking for another, less sickening form of stress relief, only to capitulate on Saturday to my urgent need to pound something into the counter; having sworn off sweets I settled for experimenting with an old favourite that had turned out badly last time I tried it—Taste of Home's delicious Oat Pan Rolls. While the rolls themselves proved tasty, the pan size and disproportionate oven heat resulted in rolls that rose too high and overcooked on top while leaving the bottom a soft mass of dough. However, they were quite edible, and I intend to repeat the recipe once or twice more so I can get it exactly right.

 

I had gone slightly less than one day without baking and was faring none the worse for the deprivation until this past evening, when I at last capitulated to an urge to caffeinate and brewed myself a strong cup of black coffee. While it scarcely had the desired effect, it did provide an infusion of antsiness that resulted in an hour or two of obsessive cleaning. As the tasks I could assume diminished, I ran to the bread cookbook for consolation; the recipes found therein offered none, so I turned to Google-san and consulted with him on the making and baking of soft pretzels.

 

The pretzels, while simple to prepare, turned out to be disappointing in flavour and texture, ruling out that recipe for future use in the kitchen. However, during my internet search, I had come across links to a number of deserts that looked impossibly delectable, one of those being a Triple Chocolate Layer Cake from a blog entitled Sally's Baking Addiction. I knew the moment I saw the picture that, banning of sweets or no, I simply had to make it. Hence, after the pretzels came out of the oven in went the nine-inch circular pans of chocolate cake; those very layers are now cooling on the stove top while I type, and the frosting is in the fridge.

 

Speaking of frosting, I should go take it out right now, because once this post is finished I am going to frost the cake and the butter should not be solidified when I do that.

 

~ ~ ~

 

I was going to tell about the ball jointed dolls and the sewing project; however, you must excuse me until the next post as it is four forty-eight in the morning, and I have a cake to frost.

Because It Really Has Been a While

Public Announcement: Having at last learned how to type an em dash—the code is alt 0151—Donny is almost as pleased as the day she figured out that she could indeed create a faint snap if she used her middle finger instead of her index finger. Honour for both these discoveries is due Ema-nee.

 

~ ~ ~

 

This is my letter to the world

   That never wrote to me—

 

After the close of Sunday's service I remained in my seat as the sanctuary emptied, head bent low to avoid unwanted attention from any who might be searching for an unoccupied person to pounce; as the rush for the door subsided I returned to scribbling in my notebook, continuing to expand upon the thought interrupted by the ending of the sermon. The place had for the most part emptied when an older man, imposing in height and carrying a cane, came shuffling along in the row before me. As he passed directly in front of my seat he bobbed towards me slightly, as if peeking at the book on my lap, and said, "So you're a note taker, are you?"

 

Somewhat taken aback by the uninvited address, I glanced up at him and replied, "Not officially."

 

He continued on his way, explaining as he went that some people liked to take notes during the sermon and he simply wondered if I would perhaps be one of those and so on and so fort; I, meanwhile, stared down at the two ink-laden pages to which the notebook lay open in my lap and shook my head wryly. On the left-hand page unfolded a sketchy outline of the points I planned to use in making reply to a recently begun online debate; on the right, notes for a one-shot between two minor characters in this year's CleanPlace ECP project filled a neat square, then extended backwards into two lengthy paragraphs of exposition on the newly-discovered back story of one of those characters. The upper and lower halves of the right page had been divided by a heavy line of ink, beneath which I had continued both the argument from the left and diverged from those notes in order to write a journal entry that began with a question and resulted in the comparison of the Almighty God to Fitzwilliam Darcy. Beneath the entry I had reconstructed a passage from Romans in order to try my hand at adjusting the punctuation so the thought actually made sense.

 

All in all, I had made two notes from the sermon itself. One read simply, "chump?" and had three lines beneath it to distinguish it from the rest of the scribbled margin. The other, a number, noted the statistics proposed by the pastor to be the odds of Jesus actually fulfilling all the prophecies He made about Himself. Do they make me a note taker? I think not.

 

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

While browsing a linguist's blog I happened upon a link to the Perseus Digital Library, an online collection of historical resources that includes Germanic, Arabic, early American, and Renaissance texts, and proceeded to poke around a bit to determine whether I should bookmark the page or let it go by the wayside. Seeing that it contained a number of journals from civilians during the War between the States as well as five years of a Richmond newspaper from the 1860's, I added it to favourites before proceeding to fribble away more time on the site and procrastinate my tasks further (one of those tasks being the completion of this blog post before the evening's end).

 

After opening the first issue of the Richmond Times (The Daily Dispatch: November 1, 1860. [Electronic resource].), my glance lands upon the table of contents; instinctively I skim them before coming back up to click the first thing that attracts my attention: Killed. There is one entry, reading as follows: James Brooks, baggage master on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, was killed near Murfreesburo', Tenn., on the 26th ult. He was standing on top of a car as the train passed beneath a bridge, when his head struck the lower beam of the bridge, and he was killed instantly.

 

Moving from that grammatically and realistically painful entry, I continue on to a promising entry partway through the the list—Overworked Women, written by one Dr. O. W. Helmes, a name which a cursory Google search reveals to be present only in that particular Perseus document. (Might it have been a pen name, ironically assumed to match the acronym of the title?) He has much to say on the general state of the female sex and her toils.

An over-worked woman is always a sad sight; sadder a great deal than an over-worked man, because she is so much more fertile in capacities of suffering than a man. [An interesting observation indeed, Dr. Helmes, and an interesting use of your semi-colon. I do wonder whether the people uploading your text to the server were typing late at night and are therefore to be excused for any errors or if copy editors in the eighteen-hundreds were as careless as they are today. While I am at it I shall applaud your interesting expression of the emotional depth of females in comparison to males and then cease interrupting your paragraph, saving further comment until after you are finished.] She has so many varieties of headache, sometimes as if Joal were driving the nail that killed Sisera into her temples, sometimes letting her work fall with half her brain, while the other half throbs as if it would go to pieces; sometimes tightening round the brows as if her cap bands were Luke's iron crown; and then her neuralgias, and her back aches, and her fits of depression, in which she thinks she is nothing, and less than nothing, and those paroxysms which men speak slightingly of as hysterical convulsions, that is all, only not commonly fatal ones; so many trials which belong to her fine and mobile structure, that she is always entitled to pity when she is placed in conditions which develops her nervous tendencies.

 

The latter paragraph when slimmed to its barest structure reads as follows: She has so many varieties of headache that she is always entitled to pity when she is placed in conditions which develops her nervous tendencies. (I admit that sentence entitles me to pity, because I am now distracted from my original point to writhe over the agreement of verb tense with subject—Koala, can you spot the error in that final dependant clause?—and longing to fix the paragraph in general.) Of course, keeping to that puny statement could not be tolerated, so the good Dr. Helmes cleft the sentence in two and wedged it full of ailments, in which he summarizes most amusingly the misery of women.

 

First comes the many varieties of headache, which include the nail driven by Jael into the temple of the mighty Sisera, the tension headache behind the eyes, and the mental suffocation by way of iron cap. Then come the neuralgias (which a quick jaunt to Google reveals to include shingles), the back aches, and the depression. The last I found to be the most humorous of the three, especially when imagining it uttered by Rex Harrison in the manner of his infamous "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?", with particular emphasis on "nothing" and "less than nothing". And that conclusion to the discussion of depression, that passing mention of hysterics and the thoughtful observation that they are "not commonly fatal ones", is impressive in all its detached, absurd realism. Yes, this ought to have been included in My Fair Lady.

 

~ ~ ~

 

This afternoon, being unflaggingly grouchy (digusted at the life in general), I decided to set about writing out a list of things for which I was joyful. To adequately understand the depth of the funk which rendered me sprawling useless in my bedroom you must realize that, not only had I been relishing quiet solitude for at least a full hour, I had turned down sweeping the kitchen, dismissed the offer of doing another puzzle, and brushed away a suggestion to engage in making a set of graphics. I had even been reduced to tantruming at WeHeartIt, and writing, fiction or journaling, proved impossible. Obviously it was time to attempt some drastic intervention; hence the list, in which I sought to follow popular recommendation and help myself out of the mood.

 

First I pulled up Helen Jane Long's album Intervention on YouTube, then I flipped to a clean page in my notebook and jotted at the top both my intention and the reason for it. I even fetched Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts calendar from aholyexperience.com and set it up so I could see the prompts for the month of July, and from there I waited, pen hovering over the page.

 

And waited.

 

And waited.

 

And wandered back to WeHeartIt and poked through a few more photos before rage-quitting and closing my windows.

 

And rubbed my face.

 

And flopped backwards on the bed.

 

And started to write and crossed it out and scribbled something else and scribbled that out.

 

And waited.

 

At last I decided that the exercise was entirely pointless and threw the notebook aside with a groan. Then it occurred to me. I couldn't write the list? I was too tired and cross and ornery? Well, why not let someone else make use of my hand for a little while, someone inside my head? Why not slip into Katerina's mind for a while and let her do the writing?

 

So that is precisely what I did—I grabbed her elbow, pulled her away from what she was doing, and dragged her over to work on the list for July until she had finished all ninety items. While she was not entirely pleased at being interrupted, she quickly took up the task, and that persistently white paper darkened quickly as her fingers drew pen over in quick strokes. It was amazing to realize the amount of trivia which I learned about her in the course of the activity.

 

Despite my own reclusive tendencies, she is quite the social butterfly, and it amazes me to have someone that unfailingly cheerful and friendly in my head, especially when facing her elation over social events and [pink] frilly clothes and listening in on her simplistic, congenial perspective of the world. I can only ask myself, parent-like, How did she become so independent? as I tap my head and consider that there really is a different world inside that place. ... Anyway. At least I know what to do next time I need a bit of list therapy; I shall set a character straightaway to making one for me.
 

Items from her list are included below.
 

the breeze in my hair and through my sweater as I walked the last few blocks to work

finally getting ahold of Darcy after the third phone call

persuading Lizzy not to dye her hair just yet

the rain pattering on my bedroom window

the potpourri in the employee bathroom at work

citrus kombucha Mom picked up at [Bent&Bent]

fresh cold-frame veggies served on our table

Lifestyle Changes: Random Notes from an Insomniac

Today I picked up a nail clippers to trim my fingernails, and while it is rather embarrassing to be so excited about such a mundane thing, I am pleased. After all, cessation of nail biting is a momentous occasion of itself, and the cutting of nails a month later -- for the first time in years -- is a repetition of the celebration. (Now I merely gnaw the skin off of my fingers instead of chewing the nails themselves; decide for yourself whether that is improvement.)

~ ~

Tonight, in lieu of cannibalizing my hands, I am making an impromptu one a.m. dinner (or is it an unsually early breakfast?) of breadstick and yogurt. Hopefully that will soothe my cranky stomach. After yesterday morning's mad dash to the water closet, pursued from bed to loo by intestinal convulsions, I have no desire to incur the further wrath of my digestive system; however, if this peace offering of food is not favourably received, I shall throw a tantrum and indulge in a week of spiteful starvation.

~ ~

Some time during the remainder of this summer I am going to undertake the venture (or, as nee-chan aptly described it, lifestyle change) of getting my hair cut. While the thought of shoulder-length hair has boasted varying degrees of appeal over all those months of consideration, sticking with the base of my shoulder blades is probably the wiser idea; the truly drastic lopping can wait for a braver year.

~ ~

In other news, hard studying is to be commenced, as I have made off with a stack of music books and my anatomy text, not to mention my Japanese course and notebook. The materials are at hand; let the action begin. There is much that requires learning, and at last -- at last! -- there is drive to accomplish it. It's about time.

Log of a Day

[[There you go, Koala, Maman. Have a peek at my Monday, incomplete as it is, and enjoy.]]

Something rather unexpected occured last night as I huddled over a Tumblr blog, gaze fixed upon the lovely notebook images I had discovered: Katerina hooked her chin over my shoulder and peered around me to the screen, then proceeded to spaz out over a certain image that she appreciated. I'd given the photo passing glance myself, then started to sweep on down the screen, so her showing up in such a matter startled me quite badly. "What? What? You've never done that before and I'm not working on your story and for heaven's sakes I didn't even think of having you in my head right now." But there she stayed, as coolly as if she belonged, commenting on a few more pictures before retiring for the night, and after the initial start I could scarcely contain my delight, as sharing your mind with a character, however brief the span of time may be, is a privilege indeed.

I have set myself a goal for the morning, and made breakfast the incentive; one thousand words must be entered into the document for The Sapor of Ink before I may go scavenge in the kitchen. I am already hungry, but not terribly so; this lack of urgency is of course why I am meandering lazily through Tumblr and scribbling in Blogger. The continued scene involves Marlowe Higginson encountering a ghost for the first time in her life, and it will be an interesting thing to observe, especially as he is so matter-of-fact about his lack of substance in the world. Really, I am fond of that boy. Ghost-hood and a tragic romance was the very best I could give him by way of reward for being so enchanting.

After the thousand words have been written and breakfast obtained and consumed, I shall crack the cover of the thirteenth volume of Fruits Basket (Rin, as it happens), and resume the story, hopefully getting through that and the fourteenth volume by the end of the day. At some point in the afternoon or evening I should set myself goals for at least two more stints of a thousand words apiece, because I have much catching up to do. Eventually playing with the story will be less of an option and sitting down to churn out four thousand words at a time will be a necessity; until that happens, I shall continue enjoying Marlowe's weird preoccupation with the process of fermentation. What ever do you do with characters who insist on being geeks?

~ ~ ~ ~

And now, forty minutes later -- hair braided, teeth brushed, face washed, loveseat straightened, VM read, laptop cord plugged into the outlet, the plate from my one a.m. supper relocated from the living room bookshelf to the kitchen counter -- I pull up Ellie Goulding on YouTube and begin writing. Such is life.

~ ~ ~ ~

Half an hour has passed, and the required words written. I go now to eat breakfast at one twenty-five in the afternoon, leaving Gallix to flail in excitement because Marlowe insulted him by calling him a quidnunc. He is so very fond of humans who make use of archaic words, especially if they happen to be directed at him, and even more so if they are intended derisively. He has a curious obsession with self-deprecating humour, and a fondness for taking verbal jabs; I do wonder if this makes him British. It would explain a few things, anyway, though I can't have him running around in my head with a British accent just now. It wouldn't serve either of us one bit. The American accent must remain intact for the time being.

~ ~ ~ ~

Another half hour has passed (minus breakfast), one which included a conversation about HelloKitty hair clips and another thousand words, because I kept telling myself "I'll stop after another hundred. Just one more paragraph. Well, maybe another sixty-seven words to even out the word count..." Marlowe has just been informed that she is carrying on a less-than-casual conversation with a ghost; I shall discover her reaction to his announcement after breakfast and a volume of Fruits Basket. Two thousand words has earned me that, at least, or so I like to imagine.

~ ~ ~ ~

At two forty-three in the afternoon I return to the living room, having thoroughly swept the kitchen floor and made and eaten a tasty breakfast involving beef strips laid out on a hamburger bun and toasted with mozzarella cheese. It proved a worthy reward for those two thousand words, and a satisfactory precursor for reading volume thirteen of the Fruits Basket series. On to Rin I go, after indulging for the tiniest bit in the further Tumblr archives of The Written Road.

~ ~ ~ ~

The adjective "finifugal" belongs to the Doctor, as he is one who attempts to prolong relationships and books in futile attempts to thwart endings. It is going into my "Words" document for further investigation and employment.

It is a bad thing that I must make myself drop the pen, turn away from the keyboard, and stop writing to begin reading a story I love. Perhaps it has something to do with what T. Coraghessan Boyle astutely observed, that "Writing is an obsessive-compulsive disorder." It certainly seems to be so, at least today when I cannot seem to get enough of it.

~ ~ ~ ~

Three fifty-three p.m. and volume thirteen is finished. All I want to do at the moment is go to sleep. Perhaps I will fetch a bowl of cheerios instead, or keep working on The Sapor of Ink. Only nine thousand, two hundred and fifty-one words to go to make up the difference between what I have today and what I should have today -- this goal feels so doable. But first, back to Tumblr.

~ ~ ~ ~

Four forty-one p.m. Ghost has been introduced to human, and the two are getting acquainted. Marlowe is handling this remarkably well; I suppose her capacity to take these things in stride has something to do with her curious interest in zymology and her lack of imagination. If she had significant ability to fantasize she would probably have much more difficulty taking Gallix at face value. I'd worried at first that she would prove difficult and insist on being the sort of person who could not have a ghost as a companion, given her detachment and her [mostly] scientific attitude, but she is turning out to be much more appropriate than the dreamy girl with whom I had originally intended to play spook.

I now have eight thousand, six hundred and ninety-three words to go to meet par for Day Eight. Back to writing [a.k.a. scribbling a paragraph here and there between any number of jaunts to YouTube, Tumblr, email, and Quotable Quotes, not to mention the occasional 'wander' into the kitchen for a drink of water. That bowl of cheerios is still waiting. I think I shall have it for lunch instead of second breakfast after all].

~ ~ ~ ~

Five oh-two p.m.; I have just consulted with Google-san to determine the appropriate usage of "effect" and "affect" in this particular instance. How gratifying to know that my grammatical instincts led me correctly.

~ ~ ~ ~

Five ten p.m. A flying ant has been effectively smashed between the body and wing of a handily situated paper airplane; what an inspiring experience. I return to my OpenOffice document refreshed by my daily dose of murder.

~ ~ ~ ~

Five thirty-one p.m. Seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty-one words to go. No, I am not intending to finish it all tonight. There are other, better things to be done today, and those need attention as well. Such as eating a few bites of cheerios out of a blue plastic cup for lunch, something that one does not get to do every day of one's life. I am indeed a privileged human.

~ ~ ~ ~

Six twenty-two p.m. Six thousand, nine hundred and two words stand between The Sapor of Ink's total and the par for the day. Eventually Marlowe will have to face the fact that Gallix is not an underdone potato and she is not Scrooge, but until then, they make a delightful pair. She does take conversation with a supposed figment of her imagination in stride; I suppose it helps that she gets to insult him and he gets to look offended. She's been alone too long, that girl. Rather spoiled the shock of talking to a ghost, since she, being her practical self, had to take it in stride and decide that she is merely suffering from a brief lapse in synapse continuity. Realizing that she is not the only one who sees him will come as a bit of a surprise, I think, but by that time she will be so accustomed to his presence and personality that it will seem quite obvious that her narrow minded little brain could not come up with such a pleasing companion.

Gallix, on the other hand, has just informed me that he has an unpleasant back-story, and that I did not expect: discovery is ahead.

~ ~ ~ ~

Eleven ten p.m. The kitchen has been helped along to rights, the string has been wound, and the floor swept. Back to scribbling it is, unless the night has other plans, and after scribbling... dinner. I am having difficulty deciding between a bowl of cheerios and a compilation of leftovers. Fortunately, there will be at least another hour between now and that decision.

~ ~ ~ ~

One oh-six a.m. Two hours between the quondam "now" and that decision, apparently; I have just been into the kitchen to place a piece of chicken between two halves of a bun before holing up in the living room, and that is dinner. I rather wish I had gone with the cheerios, as poultry at night is hard pressed to sit well with me, but with cereal the milk would have induced a transient sore throat. Can't win for losing, it seems, at least not when it comes to the digestive system. However, I have reached seven thousand and eight words, and that is a pleasant feeling. Even more pleasing is the fact that, in seven thousand words of NaNo, I have used "was" three times, and that only in dialogue. Yes, the writing is trash, and no, I have no delusions of grandeur in prose, but to so naturally and thoroughly avoid "was" in the first draft gives a true sense of accomplishment.

In The Sapor of Ink, Marlowe is attempting to understand why her perceived bit of underdone potato is so ornery. It would make much more sense if she would relinquish the stubborn belief that she is hallucinating and simply accept the ghost for what and who he is. Perhaps another thousand words tonight will usher in better mutual understanding for the two of them. I shall see.

~ ~ ~ ~

Two eighteen a.m. That final thousand words has been written, and I am signing off for the night, as it is about time to sleep. Marlowe is that much closer to making friends with Gallix, and I am that much closer to an intimate relationship with my pillow.

Inventing Foolishness

In a fit of venturesome inspiration I have done something exceptionally stupid: on the sixth of the month, I have signed up to write fifty thousand words by the end of July. Yes, I am now officially a participant in Camp NaNoWriMo, stowed safely in a cabin with a number of strangers who, at this hour of the night, are sound asleep and shall not be encountered until morning. It is probably a good thing they are occupied by staring at the back of their eyelids, as it may have been rather off-putting to watch me stumble into the cabin lugging my growing file of ideas in one hand and brandishing a partially-drained can of Canada Dry ginger ale in the other. Would have been, that is, had I been tottering into an actual cabin; as is, I merely sit back and await the assigning of cabin mates by morning. While I have no significant expectations regarding other camp members, it shall be amusing to see who exactly is assigned where, and to peruse their novel summaries to see what sort of stories they are venturing to write.

 

Yes, it is pure idiocy to take up a fifty thousand word writing challenge six days into a very strange and synchytic month of life, especially when one must come up with plot and characters approximately twenty-five minutes before delving into the inky act of production. It is certainly one of my more absurd ventures, but I think it will be well worth my while, if only as a fluffy little distraction during a chaotic time in life. The writing quality will suffer from speed and lack of focus, and the plot will be lame, and the characters will fall flat, but hey. When the alternative is doing nothing in particular, why not engage in some form of useful activity? If I am to become a writer I must first develop that curious habit of writing, and what better way to develop it than to do it.

 

In a few short minutes I have scrawled the first two paragraphs into my graph paper notepad, the same one which is functioning as writing journal and scribble sheet in lieu of a proper journal (this I mean to rectify shortly, as I have reason to believe I will be able to pick up a few select items from home). However, instead of proceeding with Marlowe's adventures after finding the notebook I am wandering through WeHeartIt and Google images, looking for a specific cloth-bound journal to use as visual reference beside the prose. The cover is pale blue and a bit tattered, Gallix tells me, and he insists that it must look just so. I ought to banish him from my head for the time being, the scampish imp, and tell him to go scrounge for it himself if he wants to give me such unbending specifications; already we have encountered two blue, cloth-bound journals and both times he has refused them, batting them away without so much as a second glance. In the future I shall suggest that he go searching for pictures before he tells me how the books are supposed to appear; this way, we shall avoid much confusion and delay, as Sir Topham Hat loves to announce.

 

Writing from Marlowe's mind is going to prove most enlightening, as I have never really engaged with such a narrow minded, idiosyncratic character on my own. There is much about her that aligns with ordinary girlhood, but the number of her more exotic characteristics exceeds her normalcy. After all, what sort of girl finishes high school early, skims through college in two years instead of the standard four to five, then completes her graduate thesis in the field of zymology? I am afraid Gallix was not at all impressed, something that did not stand him in good stead with his fellow character; while she did not expect him to be thrilled about her study of the process of fermentation, she rather disliked the mockery he made of her chosen studies.

 

To be quite honest, I side with Gallix in this dispute. While he should not have ridiculed her so relentlessly, she should have thought through the implications of using all her time in the lab to observe the clabbering of milk and the effects of white vinegar on non-acidic edible substances. Her lab partners would have laughed a great deal more had she not been so frugal in her experimentation; almost every new hypothesis resulted in the elements being recycled as ingredients in a batch of peculiarly tasty cookies, which were peddled around to the lab occupants with good will. She never did eat any herself though, and I wonder that they failed to question that, as it has much to do with common sense.

An Arbitrary Entry

July 2nd

 

In trying times, when writing proves rather beyond my capabilities and I am too exhausted to drag myself onto my feet to indulge in a frantic, stress-relieving house cleaning, music becomes a solace incomparable to anything else. Many a night I spend sleeping curled around my laptop, since sleep is impossible without something going, and last night was no exception. Granted, sleeping on a loveseat, even a broad one, does not allow for much room, and, as I played something off of YouTube and therefore had to leave the laptop open to keep it from glitching, I am now paying the price of indulgence with my aching hips. (Speaking of indulgence, there is lemon tart on the kitchen counter, the wheel half gone, and I want some before it disappears entirely. This means I should go fetch a sliver before other people venture into the kitchen; however, I am not quite certain that my digestive system can handle the food quite so early in the morning. And yes, eight-thirty a.m. is early, and I never thought I would see the day when I would say that. Considering, though, that bed-time has hovered somewhere between three and six for the past handful of days, it makes perfect sense; when one has only had four and a half hours of sleep eight-thirty is early.)

While several songs from Within Temptation and Evanescence are my go-to pieces when in need of emotional reinforcement ("Lost", "Lithium", "Missing", "A Shot in the Dark"), I have recently rediscovered the depth and power of simplistic instrumental music, a la Helen Jane Long. Her album Intervention is one I have played repeatedly over the past few days, even going so far as to use it for sleeping instead of my traditional Night playlist. Some of the songs are better than others, but the whole album is worth hearing, unlike some of the other piano albums to which I've listened. Of course, George Winston is excluded from that; his albums so far have been entirely worthwhile, with no song easily discarded to slim down the playlist. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that I have been raised on his CDs. It breeds good taste, it does, when one has such music entwined in the fibres of one's soul.

~ ~ ~ ~

Supper has been made and consumed, and the clean-up awaits. I would be at the dishes if such a thing were allowed, but I have been informed in no uncertain terms that, while the house is cleared for cleaning to my heart's content, the dishes are not to be touched. Therefore I will not, on pain of death, wash them. However, I have so far gotten away with organizing the dirty dishes on the counter to my heart's content, and, if I am very, very good, I may even be allowed to do a token dishwasher load, offered as a gesture of kindness and bribery from a certain royal highness. Though I should like to know when being allowed to load a dishwasher constituted a bona fide bribe.

 

 

July 5th

 

There is nothing quite like falling asleep at three-thirty a.m. only to be waked before seven by a fly with a disturbing fixation on your facial orifices. As I know well the fruitlessness of attempting to roll away from an intrusive fly in order to grasp at three more hours of sleep, I dragged myself up off the dining room floor and marched upstairs to take care of washing my face and brushing my hair before returning to my waiting laptop. (Yes, yes, I am aware that the fly swatter should have first been obtained and an execution ceremony commenced; this I would have done with pleasure had not the quiet time of someone else been at stake. Diving after a tiny buzzing creature, brandishing a well-used swatter, is not exactly behaviour conducive to a satisfactory personal Bible study. Of course, if one is being bothered by such a persistent fly during personal Bible study, the only action preserving the last fragments of quiet time would be the immediate termination of the miserable creature's existence; however, as it departed upon my rising and did not seem to be afflicting the other occupant of the room with such intimate attentions, I chose peaceful coexistence over a potentially bloody -- though swift and just -- killing. Next time I shall not be so merciful.)

 

Last night before falling asleep I had pulled up an OpenOffice document on my desktop and marked it as a word storage file. While I usually prefer to jot down interesting discoveries on paper, I am currently lacking my word notebook (Why ever did I neglect to pack my notebooks when those, apart from my laptop and my books, are the most important possessions I have? Facepalming hereby ensues.) and the impracticality of preserving any number of paper scraps has been firmly impressed upon my memory by a series of losses. So I have capitulated at last and formed a computer document for the collection of eccentric and previously unknown words.

 

Some people take morning strolls through the neighbourhood; I believe I have just discovered the pleasure of meandering through the dictionary at an early hour, and it is an addicting pleasure. Instead of finding one or two to tide me through the day I ended up tripping over another every time I attempted to extricate myself from the clutches of the word finder, one word leading to another until I found myself elbow deep in a document scribbled full of exciting new adjectives, nouns, and verbs. No, I do not have a photographic memory, and no, I am not going to recall more than two of those by the end of the day, but the delight of laying hands on words that I will most definitely be learning and using in the very near future is not to be questioned.

 

Getting caught up in the 'S' section proved a helpful change of plans, as I proceeded to stumble over such gems as 'sockdolager': a hard hit (this word belongs unquestionably to Kit Baxter), sordor: refuse, and sophomania: the delusion of exceptional intelligence. Despite the dullness of the sentences themselves (how is one supposed to be eloquent at seven in the morning, I wonder) I had fun constructing a few just to be able to use certain words, like 'somniloquacious' (Try as they might, Charlie's parents could not break him of his somniloquacious habits, and he continued to ramble about any and everything that entered his mind as he slept.) and 'slubber' ("Don't slubber that tablecloth, boy!" Molly shrieked, flapping her hands at him as if to shoo him off like the common crows that pestered her laundry, attempting to prevent him from spilling his slumgullion over her freshly pressed linens.). Engaging these words in quotidian conversation will be even more gratifying than playing half-asleep with contextual sentences, pleasurable as that employment may be.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

It has been suggested to me that I attempt to assume the voices of various friends and write pseudo-blog posts from what I would perceive to be their perspective. While I do not think I have the capacity for such a venture, I am curious about what it would be like to shift focus enough to write, as it were, from the mind of someone outside my head. Perhaps if I lack inspiration on a sunny day I shall pick up my pen and indulge the idea.

 

But Yield Who Will to Their Separation

I want to write.

The more I do in life, the more I see, the greater becomes the yearning to have a pen in my curled fingers, paper smooth beneath my hand, and the more I realize that no matter what I choose to do in life words will always take precedence. It is a recurring conclusion, one that gains clarity in much the same way as a rolling boulder increases its speed as it moves downhill, and there is not much to be done by way of escaping it; there is always the possibility of denying the urge, of returning to the more practical pursuits of science and culture (in this case, midwifery), but there will never be opportunity to throw the same depth of passion into midwifery as comes with literary pursuits.

There is no place I would rather be than in my corner, laptop at my disposal and notebook in my lap, ideas flowing from mind to page and back again. While I am almost ashamed to call myself a writer, knowing that the quality of my craft is so poor as to merit, in many cases, nothing but scorn and the relentless marking of an honest red pen, I cannot help the near-physical longing to be writing, to set words down and hone the thoughts expressed by them until word and thought unite in piercing unity. The urge cannot be repressed. It wells up at the most inopportune times, forcing my attention away from my surroundings and drawing me deep into a world of intense mental stimulation and excitement. After all, what is more exciting than encountering a particularly overwhelming turn of phrase or grasping the appropriate usage of a rare word? What provides more satisfaction than capturing the very essence of life in a graceful progression of letters, those curious building blocks of our written language?

There are no outings more thrilling to me than the ones involving the local library, where I can only stand transfixed before the shelves, poring over book after book, usually in the nonfiction section where there are any number of memoirs, historical tomes, journals, poetic volumes, and witty essays. I have fond memories of browsing the Philosophy and History sections in my old library, of spending hours crouched in the middle of an untrafficked aisle, perusing the contents of dozens of books. Occasionally, lacking time to sufficiently glean from a certain volume and being unable to reserve it through more acceptable channels, I would take the book and conceal it in an obscure cranny, bidding it stay put until the next time I visited. Many times, upon returning, I would discover it there, and book and reader would reconvene with a sort of cheerful camaraderie.

Handling good books, like touching blank notebooks and shopping for journals and stationary, is sheer pleasure. Many a volume is not worth touching, much less reading, but the joy of caressing a book that meets both aesthetic and literary standards is unbelievable in its intensity. While I have not always had the finest taste in reading material, having begun with cheap adventure series like the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy mysteries, I cannot remember a time when holding a book in my hands did not send a thrill of delight from my toes to the top of my head. Even as a toddler there were specific books that elicited nothing but happiness (here I recall a small paperback of nursery rhymes, prayers, and songs, beautifully illustrated, a hardcover book of substantial size, filled with small platitudes and stunning pictures and reserved for special occasions and clean hands, and the inestimable Doctor Seuss, permanently imprinted in my memory as the author of the "vug under the rug", an undepicted monster of frightening proportions from the book 'There's a Wocket In My Pocket').

Even though I did not realize that I needed to write until I had already entered high school (unless you take into account my fervent devotion to composing poetry as an eight-year-old brat, a venture that proved quite remunerative as I obtained a twenty-five dollar prize for one such attempt), my life-long love affair with books and their stories, not to mention the technicalities of writing itself, has shoved me squarely into the act. And why not pursue it? As a child, my father told me regularly that he could not imagine me filling any other career than that of a librarian, as I always had a book in hand or a story in my head. However, I could not see why I should play caretaker for a community's books when I could open a notebook and write a tale of my own; I recall informing him more than once that, yes, I would take the librarian's job, but only because I would have plenty of time to sit behind the desk and scribble out literary works between attending to patrons.

Throughout these past two and a half years of midwifery apprenticeship I have worked hard, but in every situation I have found myself disconnected in an odd sort of way, observing the situation, as it were, for translation to paper later; many a time I would quietly fill whatever place I had to fill at a birth only to slip away afterwards and put down the words I had stored in my head while working. There were times when I asked my mother if something was wrong with me, because, while everyone else would be obviously caught up in the emotion of the present experience, I would be calmly surveying the event, steadily transposing life and death into words while the others laughed or wept. Not necessarily good words, of course, because there was -- and is -- much lacking in my wordcraft, but I still saw the world through a lens of ink. Many a postpartum hour I spent in a shadowed corner, scribbling away for dear life on my crumpled little notepad, making life experience fodder for my pen.

Of course, there is not much to be said on matters of career choice: I have invested several years in the more tangible pursuit of midwifery, and I do not expect to give that up at the drop of a hat. Part of growing up, I am discovering, is integrating every aspect of life into one unified whole, which means no part of it excludes the others; however, I know full well that, no matter how hard I try to focus on something else, writing will always draw me back, forcing me to throw all else aside and pour my heart into story, into the art of words. Perhaps someday it will prove a remunerative pursuit; perhaps I shall never get beyond spinning fanciful tales and recording snippets of life for myself and the people closest to me. Does it really matter?

There are many aspects of writing that set my heart to pounding and my fingers to tingling: the physical act of creation, the vibrant explosions of plot and story, the ramrodding power of a well-turned phrase. I love the words, the metaphors, the parallels; I thrill over the characters and the depth and complication of their stories. Tragedy stirs me, hope enlivens me, and words set me fairly to dancing, and when I am holding a blank book in one hand and a pen in the other, I know as I know nothing else that I have no choice but to write.

I want to write.