Tag: writing

anewsin :: Demons

I lie listening to the gentle footsteps above my head. I reach my arm out as far as I can but my hands fall short of the ceiling. In defeat, I turn my body and continue to work on my letter — my letter.

Every intricate detail, displaying a different way of destroying the lives of those who step above me. It details the knives in my back and the daggers in my eyes. It describes the blood rushing over my torso like the rain on a tin roof. It speaks of the horrors that go on in my day to day, while everyone else screams of nothing.

The angel lying next to me doesn’t know what I have planned, but they will better from my explosive finally. They will finally get their wings.

Still, I wonder; is this all just an irrational expression of inner demons? Should I seek help or guidance? Or, should I just keep them to myself and have this fire inside destroy all that I am and create a shell of a human to distraught with their own perception of life to shed the simplest emotion.

The timer ticks and I wither away into insanity.

Gone are the days of innocence. Gone are the days of bliss. If ignorance is stupidity then may I wear the dunce cap and parade around recklessly.

Heed my call and run!

Run far to the east where you might escape this torment that plagues me! I see it consume a different individual everyday.

Many of them accept their call before they explode, throwing limbs in every direction. Those who accept don’t bother anyone else due to their own containment in depravity. Those who fight back cause commotion and get taken down quickly. Though noticed, they fade. Oh they fade into such obscurity that we create stories detailing a life that never happened! We create monsters out of them when all they wanted was to hold someone’s hand.

Even art is no longer expression but has become the wretch itself. It is spawned from minds that know no creativity or sound. They come from a place fueled by desperation to conform to a world that was created to conform to a world.

We base everything on the notion that we have something physical to hold when there is nothing. Built on a dream we crumble to despair, but despair not! For we can overcome this regime! Take up the sword and shoot your way through the barricades and children. They created their fate when the world was geared to them by others. They shall be the first to be extinguished.

The Fog

I want to preface this piece off by mentioning that this is all self-observation. There are a tonne of people a lot smarter than me who have written about the topic of brain fog, so all I can offer to the world is my personal experience with it. Therefore, this should not be taken as a scientific dive into that world. I know I don’t need to say that I am some kind of professional, but I am stating it in the off-chance that someone takes my words as more than a morbid kind of entertainment.

I shouldn’t be writing this. I shouldn’t be doing much outside of watching something — maybe sometime with cats or puppies being stupid. My ability to rationalize is very hampered right now.

I feel drunk, without the physical side-effects. I feel sleepy, but I tried to nap and got nowhere with that. I feel distracted, but hyper focused on the wrong things.

I call it brain-fog because I read that term somewhere and, regardless if it’s a one-for-one description, it is very apt at describing what I am currently feeling. Ironically, I only seem to see it mentioned when I’m in this state and, thus, cannot comprehend what I’m reading.

ISN’T IS GREAT THAT I AM TRYING TO WRITE SOMETHING IN THIS STATE OF MIND?

No amount of caffeine can fix it. As mentioned, I tried to sleep and got no where with the endeavour. I just ate not long ago, and I had a drink of water to see if that would clear things up. Thankfully, when I have experienced this in the past, it only lasts a day or two. I think. I hope. What if this is a permanent state, and sometimes I just notice it more than others?

I hope you enjoyed my last update on my YouTube channel. I know I come off as very rambly, but everything I say is mildly scripted. At least, to a point where I have an idea of how long the final product will be. That’s why I released the last one as a “short”. Now that I have opened up that option for myself, I will probably record a couple more. I will not be releasing them right away as a PodCast, instead opting to smash them together after five or so. That way, if you do follow the audio-only format, you won’t be inundated with short episodes.

Oh, update on the new book: currently sitting at just shy of 22,000 words. It’s half going well. I wanted to be a lot further, but it’s only the first draft that I wanted to be complete by the end of the year. I hope that I can write another 3000 words without succumbing to unnecessary bloat. Then, I will spend far too long making it prettier and longer!

A Dilemma

I want to talk about the book idea I just had, but is that even a good idea? It is rather cerebral, and there is a good chance that I am nowhere near smart enough to make it happen. Hell, I have little more than a concept, at this point.

I have talked to family about the idea. One thought it sounded like an interesting concept, but did not elaborate. One thought it would make an interesting screenplay, but could not see it working as a novel. I get that take more than most: I write a lot of ideas out that would make great screenplays but fall short as novels. Maybe I should write a movie? Do I really want to enter that world right now?

That is part of the reason I haven’t been writing here so much in recent times. Between that new concept, and two books that I have been working on for a bit, I am mildly distracted.

What I would like to remind people is that Canada is coming up to an election. I implore you to vote for YOUR interests, and not just tow a family line on principle alone. I am going to have to vote strategically for the first time in my adult life, and I am far from a fan. I want to vote NDP (you know: one of the five major parties of Canada. We do have more than two.), but to keep out the party that would damage my way of life the most, I will have to vote Liberal.

Too Many Ideas

I have been bouncing stories that I wrote to a friend of mine.

The takeaway from the “exercise” is that I need to accept that 2000 words is not long enough, and that I have great ideas that act like an explosion: really cool, but end far to quickly.

I have this tendency to write vignettes: short tales that have a very defined beginning, middle and end that can all be explored in the aforementioned 2000 words. It is not an intentional thing. I never start writing and think “I’m just going to do a short thing today.” I go into a project with the full intention of writing something substantial, but I also refuse to pad things out with bullshit. Nothing kills the pace of a book I am reading more than twenty pages of bullshit bookended by three or four pages of amazing.

I know: I am shooting myself in the foot. If I even wish to be published, I need to flush out the worlds and accept that bullshit is necessary.

In sending my friend parts and pieces of my collection, I came across Elane, which is published in my book.

Off to the races…!

I have a plan for seven books.

I have one written so far, so it is much less daunting than it sounds. It’s a kind of series that I have in mind. I say “a kind of series” because they aren’t related so much in content or word, but they do share a grounding.

No, I am not going to tell you what it is. I am still sure I can actually do what I have planned, but I know that I cannot without backing from a major publisher.

I would be hiding the fact that this is a bit of marketing on my end. I hope that a literary agent will find my body of work more appealing if I had a promise of more to come and an extended universe that I hope to build.

The main take-away you should get from this post is that I am working on something huge and I am VERY excited to share it with all of you.

Hopefully, I can do that soon.

Not Inspired

I haven’t touched my latest book in over a week.

I get distracted easily. Between having to put my dog down yesterday (as of writing this), and the bullshit with American elections, I just have not been in the right headspace. I cannot even use current events in my writing.

Well, most current events, anyway.

It really does raise the question: how many words is enough? My ultimate goal is about one-hundred thousand. i am just over seventeen thousand right now, which is horrible seeing as I started writing a year ago. I have been kind of stuck on silly things. Things that I shouldn’t be stuck on, like fantastical concepts that have no place being based in reality.

For instance, my main character discovered a way of space-travel that is damn close to light speed. 99.9% to be exact. We only have reached speeds like that in theories, and we have not figured out a way to get a human to go anywhere near that. For some-fucking-reason, I am determined to have the science at least KIND OF work. I have been staring at the paragraphs (literal paragraphs. Like, maybe 4) determined to have the inspiration to figure this quandary out. Fuck the rest of the text, personal dilemmas faced by the main, or world building: I HAVE TO ANSWER THIS!

I don’t even know why I am allowing myself to be stuck on a point that I could gloss over. The point of the main character is that she is the only scientist alive who has even kind of solved the “dilemma” of overcoming the speed of light as a pace of travel. The crux of the text is actually a more philosophical aside from that idea.

With all of that said, I may be using that as an excuse to not write. Like I mentioned, I could gloss over the technical points. I have a tonne of writing that has to do with my main character getting to the point where her discovery even matters. I have little shame in admitting that the Presidential race of the USA, and subsequent lawsuits (regardless of barring on my immediate life), has been waying heavy on my everything.

Maybe, just maybe, next week will be better.

Assume the Fall

I made sweeping promises the other day. I would love to say that I will stay true to the schedule that I mapped out, but if I keep having days like today, I am going to promise that it will not pan out.

Yes, I have been working (pretty regularly) on my latest book. The issue I am having is that there are days, a lot of days, where I don’t feel receptive at all.

For example: today, I am very despondent. I just spent an hour looking at the wall, and was not bored for one second. I usually wouldn’t pay any attention to such an event, but I find myself finding it very hard to work on a project that I won’t get any feedback on for months, if not years.

Yes, even according to my rough “map” I set out, I have until November to produce a final version. I would like to pretend that 14000 words was an impressive point to be at. I have a large portion of events layed out in my mind, and putting them to words would be a quick event. Creating flourishes and riveting events would take a week, at most.

Knowing all of this, why do I not just do it already?

I don’t because I emotionally can’t. It’s not depression, it’s not anger, it’s not explicitly anxiety.

It’s apathy. It’s disdane. It’s hate.

I want to destroy something. I want everything to fall apart around me and drag me into an abyss. I am looking up at the world around me from a depth, and I cannot keep climbing to a ledge. I haven’t even gamed in a few weeks, because I cannot be bothered. I keep trying to listen to music to ease my mind, but I am constantly reminded of what I used to do.

I have even written the next few episodes of my PodCast to try to motivate me to do anything, my last episode only got five views however. It’s hard to keep caring when there is no pressure to do so.

Accept Your Voice

This is something I am horrible at.

Realize that in your writing, whether the written word or audio, you have a voice. Escaping that void is possible, but you should not be ashamed if you cannot.

It was my pleasure recording with the ~4 bands I did. I may have had a drumming “style”, but I was never boxed in by the constant repetition of one writer. That is not a bad thing, but from a drummers perspective, it can be a bit hard to grow as an artist. The coolest dichotomy that I saw was Livestalk v ACU. It was the same writer, but he was not constrained by the “punk/metal” sound we cultivated in ACU. He had taken down all constraints and, therefore, was able to flex his creative sound.

That is not even delving into his creative contribution to Slender Loris. They will probably remain one of my favourite punk bands for the rest of my life.

Voice is more personal when it comes to writing. I have read back most of my works recently. I was taken back by how similar they all felt initially. It was not until I looked at them from objectively that I noticed how different they are.

You can be too close to appreciate the things you have done. When your style is a certain way, it is easy to write-off projects as “the same”, resulting in spiraling and not producing any further.

Accept that you may have a tone or “voice” in everything you do. It doesn’t make anything new too similar to what you did prior. Look at the narrative. There is a difference between those two projects, and a successful tone should not dissuade you from doing something.

Yes, it is possible to leave your comfort zone. It is possible to create works leaving behind atribute that you have relied on forever. It could be neat! This does NOT mean your old works are shit.

Don’t beat yourself up.
Don’t hate what you do if it brings you happiness today.

Fictional Time

I am having a hard time rationalizing time in relation to my next book.

It is supposed to take place over years. Decades, even. I am very comfortable with that concept.

HOWEVER.

I have a couple of events that happen back-to-back, narratively. However, I have made them take place years apart on a literal scale. That was kind of by accident, kind of not.

Let’s start with the not.
I intended for the events to happen with a large gap between them. Of course, by large gap, I ment a few months. I am dealing with hours, however, and made it 10,000 hrs (~416 days) and 100,000 hrs (~4166 days).

Now, I could narratively make that gap make sense. I could express how time has little meaning, or do little vignettes further explaining events over that time.

The other direction I could go is to shrink the time by a factor of 10. That would make it ~42 days and ~416 days. That makes a lot more sense, as this is dealing with space travel. I am trying to keep some sort of realism in the story, and oxygen alone would make 11 years difficult, at the best.

If you haven’t noticed yet, I am writing this more out of a selfish need to rationalize my decisions than I am writing this for a concrete answer. I have given myself a plethora of time to figure this out, and it really has little bearing on the grand scope of the narrative.

Just, trust me. It will all make sense in a bit.

…like a pee.

I was talking to a friend of mine about how I was at an impasse in my book. I have been struggling with the idea of my main character being credited with creating a scientific discovery which has been a torn in the side of science for centuries. The character creates a way to move at near lightspeed. According to the science available now, the speeds she grants humans the ability to travel at is impossible.

The impasse comes at whether or not I pretend to explain it, using a mcguffin, or just leave it as a fact that she discovered this new thing and never even try to explain it. They are both easy to do, but the first creates new avenues that I can explore in the work, but also generates more work for me to explain, in universe, how that works.

The second feels like me admitting that I do not know how it could work. Though true, I am not sure how I feel about it. Maybe my huberus is taking hold, but there is also the feeling of leaving the rhamifications of such a discovery up to the imagination of the reader. I am not totally opposed to the idea, but I fear that it might create more questions than the reader would have otherwise.

Either way, my friends recommendation of just letting the story flow “like a pee” is not quite addressing the block that I am stuck behind. I agree that, a more conventional story, needs to have a little more of a natural progression behind it. In that case, his helpful insight may have helped a little more.

I am not saying that there is no appreciation in his statement. He at least tried his best to give me the advice that he thought I may have needed. Unfortunately, for me, it does not accelerate my process.