My Other Blog Has Better Content

Who Are We Fooling Here?

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 02:32:00 +0000

I started a Tumblar because it's easier and I like saying Tumblar every five seconds. It's mostly devoted to the phenomenon I like to call the Spitzer Face but mainly it's about nothing. You're welcome to drop by and oogle.

For now though, this place here is just an internet placeholder which I may or may not drop by every now and then to blow the dust off.

But let's be honest...

http://baconinabucket.tumblr.com/

OMG Highsmith

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:22:00 +0000

"All right. he may not be queer. He's just a nothing, which is even worse. He isn't normal enough to have any kind of sex life, if you know what I mean."

Patricia Highsmith probably never lost the dozens in her life.

On Firing Squads

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:24:00 +0000

Some of you Twitter users might have participated in Susan Orlean's #booksthatchangedmyworld discussion.

One of the many books I mentioned in my personal list was The Plague by Albert Camus. It didn't sit well with me after the initial reading but slowly grew on me over time as I turned the events over and over in mind.

The following passage is one that I think about a lot:

"Have you ever seen a man shot by a firing-squad? No, of course not; the spectators are hand-picked and it's like a private party, you need an invitation. The result is that you've gleaned your ideas about it from books and pictures. A post, a blindfolded man, some soldiers in the offing. But the real thing isn't a bit like that. Do you know that the firing-squad stands only a yard and a half from the condemned man? Do you know that if the victim took two steps forward his chest would touch the rifles? Do you know that, at this short range, the soldiers concentrate their fire on the region of the heart and their bullets make a hole into which you could thrust your fist? No, you didn't know all that; those are things that are never spoken of. For the plague-stricken their peace of mind is more important than a human life. Decent folks must be allowed to sleep easy o' nights, mustn't they? Really it would be in shockingly bad taste to linger on such details, that's common knowledge. But personally I've never been able to sleep well since then. The bad taste remained in my mouth and I've kept lingering on the details, brooding over them...."

If My Arms Were Big Enough...

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 15:15:00 +0000

I'd put all of you in a simultaneous headlock and give each and every one of y'all your own specially dedicated noogie because you deserve it.

xoxo, bitches.

We Are All Doomed, Seriously

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:59:00 +0000

I've been thinking of getting knuckle tats. My right hand would read: PUSH. My left: OVER. The idea being to give a good laugh to all those involved in the next scrape that I find myself in. The reveal would be right before the fisticuffs, you know, the moment of levity that takes place during the stare down. (That's how it happens, right?)

And maybe, just maybe O. Henry sits up in his grave a little bit and strokes what's left of his decrepit chin in appreciation.

Or not, because it's already been done by someone else a million years ago when people were still fish.

Luckily we're not fish anymore or a species that inhabits the Gulf of Mexico... but I'm not even hung up on that nightmare. We were going to kill the planet somehow it was just a matter of when. Now with the knowing, it's liberating to finally see the horizon of Our Impending Doom.

For me this means saying no to very few opportunities. That person asking to by you a drink might be buying you the last beverage you may ever have in your life so don't pass it up, even if you are driving. You may be leaving your house to purchase groceries, never to return to a house or CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT. Cats are Tweeting!

It is time to party like world is going to end. Soon.

Spoken like a truly crazy person? Perhaps, but consider this my fellow human: The state of the Gulf of Mexico prior to the incident was not good as in like not even close to good. There's already a dead zone about the size of New Jersey. That's bad. I don't imagine dumping a couple million-billion drops of oil into it will make it better.

Now, if the Powers That Be can go into a well a mile under the sea completely unprepared with any kind of workable contingency plans for when everything goes wrong, what is to stop them from committing the same kind of atrocity on land? Who's to say it isn't happening right now and we just don't know about it? Judging by the Government's lack of involvement and just even SIMPLE understanding of the risks associated with deep water drilling it's safe to say that no one is watching the back of the American people, or the front.

But it ain't even about that, because I'm talking about the people of the world (Sorry America even though we destroy it the best) and what WE are doing to it every single day. It is completely unsustainable. The methods of continuing our energy hungry way of life get dangerous and more destructive as the resources become harder and harder to reach. People have shown time and again that we will destroy anything in our path to get what we want. Sorry, Other Species.

[This is the part in the story when I get up from the comfy chair at my computer desk and make a hot cup of tea using the instant hot on my espresso machine... ]

Something y'all need to understand here is that I'm only pointing this out because it weighs on me heavily, I mean calm down people, I'm not suggesting we fore sake our instant hots and cede our comfy chairs to the apes. That's lunacy.

No one tries to force a carnivore not to eat meat, right? I'm just saying we need to be a little more conscientious about our destroying so we can milk our run a little longer. I suspect there's little we can do about our chosen path and when the aliens come from afar to pillage our worn out rock (which will be inhabited and controlled by eleventh generation sentient robots loosely based on a Steve Jobs' patent.) they will study our destructive method of existence and classify them as Human Nature.

So enjoy it while you can. I am going to party until my body won't cooperate or the lights go out. Whichever comes first.

Practicing My Blank Stare

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:58:00 +0000

I was at a show the other day, standing by the bar waiting for something to happen. A kid noticed the shirt I was wearing and waved me over.

"What?" I said, meaning "What exactly are you trying to sell me?" He asked if I had heard of [A Clever Pun On The Band Shirt I Was Wearing]. I told him I hadn't.

"Oh, they're a cover band, you should totally check them out." He said.

I nodded and disentangled myself from the conversation with a fantastic Jedi Maneuver that involved Time Travel!

Not really, but TIME TRAVEL IS AWESOME and dangerous in the wrong hands, which would be any set of hands (or hand) attached to a human being.

It took reserves of self control that I didn't know I even possessed to keep from going into a rant about how the only cover bands that I could ever give a shit about are all female avant garde, art-punk, reinterpretations, not a bunch of dudes playing songs that I already know note for note, in an inferior way to the original, because it could only be inferior because it's not original. Enough with the rehash already!

I'm sure he meant well, so it never got to that and to that end, I rewarded my good behavior with a drink.

Actually I bought a round of drinks for everyone and made it rain for posterity's sake.

Oh, who am I fooling....

The Oracle (flash)

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:48:00 +0000

Everyone assumed that the size of his ears made him a great listener. They were in fact gigantic, as if robbed from a sleeping elephant and attached to the head of a sleeping person, with great care taken to hide the delicate, requisite stitching to join different species' body parts.

They assumed but never asked. People were drawn to him, to tell their stories of misfortune. They stood in long lines and waited patiently for the person in front of them to finish confiding in him their life's woes.

He'd try to tell them, when they were finished that he had no idea what they were going on about but by a strange calamity of the cosmos, when he opened his mouth to speak, the inrush of air created just the right amount of downdraft to pull the monstrous ears completely over his head, holding fast until he exhaled and released them with a gale force.

"What does that mean?" Someone waiting in line asked the person in front of them.

"He's blessing them." The other said. Other listeners nodded sagely, confirming what they all thought to be true.

Resolve

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:20:00 +0000

Due to a strategically timed vacation I started my New Year a little late. I'm normally not the type of guy to make resolutions but this year I made one: I resolved to stop doing the dishes.

If you happen to drop by don't get all judgy when you're meal is served on a paper plate with the finest plasticware for utensils and yes, I did just fill a sippy cup of wine 'specially for you.

So the dishes...

Agatha Christie said, "The best time to plan a book is when you're doing the dishes." Heck, she'd know, I mean she only wrote 80 some-odd novels.

The problem for the rest of us mere mortals is all that planning goes to waste if you never actually sit down and write!

After setting aside my last work (tentatively titled The Myth of Parking Enforcement but Paola made such a weird face when I said that it may have to change :-/), I started immediately, feverishly, churning out prose on my new piece. It was still Christmas break so I had a lot of time to get things done. Funny how that works when the job doesn't get in the way.

Work started again though and I found myself slipping back into the old habit of paying lip service to ideas rather than formulating them into the written word on the page.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE WRITING. Rough math suggests I probably crank out about 500 words a day of non prose from social networking, job reports, carefully worded emails and the like but getting into the groove after a long day of doing boiler guy stuff ain't easy.

Usually I'd come home, do the dishes, catch up on all my internet stuff and then write. By this point in my life that means I'm making prose at about 6:15pm. Paola gets home a little bit after that and of course I want to spend some time with her so you can see the dilemma.

I decided that, in the near term at least, the most important thing is to write and so that is how it came to be. I walk in the door, make a cup of tea, go upstairs and hunt and peck my way to victory... or stalemate. In some sports you get a point for a tie, you know, sorry dirty plates.

It was timely that I heard the profile of Isabel Allende on the Writer's Almanac shortly after I made my choice. She starts a novel every January 8th by locking herself in a room for 10-12 hours a day. She doesn't use an outline, she doesn't talk to anybody about what she's writing. and she doesn't look back at what she's written until she's completed a whole first draft.

I've never read her work, if you have please recommend something. If I had the luxury of time I'd be all over that approach.

Something she says to her Creative Writing class, not mentioned in the article, is to write a page every day for a year and by the end of year you will have a book. Blew my mind to hear that. It's something I never thought about too. Anyone that dares to take themselves seriously as a writer should be able to put together 250 cohesive words a day without a strenuous effort.

And if you can't, well you need to at least get to there. Take it from good old unpublished me.

If I can do it so can you. 6800 words and counting...

How Not to Critique

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:06:00 +0000

One of my favorite scenes in Whit Stillman's marvelous moviefilm Metroplitan begins with the protagonist, a Mr. Tom Townshend, launching into a full on assault of the works of the celebrated author, one Jane Austen. You may have heard of this woman, on account of her novels being Emma Thompsoned or Gwyneth Paltrowed to death. Not that I'm complaining.

Because my memory is old and full of holes I can't remember the specific thrust but what the Internet helps me remember is this exchange at the end of the conversation:

Audrey Rouget: What Jane Austen novels have you read?

Tom Townshend: None. I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.

I just wanted to pat old Tom on his cute little head and give him a lollipop the first time I heard that.

I am never opposed to criticism when it's valid, meaning not used as a forum to launch a personal attack. I don't believe that criticism should be unemotional and analytical either. I would expect that every good critic is incorporating their life experience, their taste into what makes something work for them which is really all a critic can express albeit, against what one would hope is a solid cultural framework for context purposes.

Criticism is one of the tools that historians, curators and the like use years from now to reflect upon our culture and decide what kind of idiots we were.

Howevah (as Stephen A. Smith would say.) You can't review something by proxy. Past experience may shape a future opinion but you can't say for certain your opinion of something until you experience it yourself.

Have you ever had two friends that you thought would be perfect a love match for each other, and surprise they didn't like each other for the same reasons you thought they would? Has your BFFFFFF in the whole world showed you something that they were absolutely sure that you'd love and you found yourself less than enthused when you got to experience it for yourself?

Have you ever gone to see a band with someone and they fell in love with the opening act even though you (yourself) were in love with the headliner?

Have you ever gone to a film that you were absolutely certain you would love/hate and come out with the exact opposite reaction?

If you answered no to all of those, Congratulations, you're a robot and your secret decoder ring is in the mail.

Think about it like this. Would you rather have someone form their opinion of YOU based on what one of their friends says about you or would you rather let yourself and your own actions speak for themselves?

Now apply that to art, music, movies, food and the like and tell me how you really feel, robot.

I will have more on this later, I hope.

It's "Finished"

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:05:00 +0000

She said to me as she walked out the door. Thinking about it now, I'd thank her if I could find her but I know: There is no finding her. Not where she went.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to writing my novel. At approximately 45,000 words I reached the pivotal scene. My original plan was to use that scene as a launching point to create a maelstrom from which I'd hammer down the rest of the subplots and tie a bow around the fucker.

Well, it didn't go like that.

As I wrote more and more of this scene and believe me I labored, we're talking days of staring at the monitor and coughing up a single sentence then deleting that sentence or one before it on the next day and writing something else.

As I wrote more and more I had hard time removing this excellent question from my brane.

As I wrote more and more of that scene, I realized that I was essentially writing the end of my novel.

It was a somber moment, there was no shimmying in the chair or anything like that, instead just an overwhelming numbness, a realization that I truly had nothing more to say on the subject. Between my beginning, middle and end I have enough to revise this thing into something truly workable.

I didn't hit the word count I wanted but the thing about journeys is that the destination is just another a mile marker. For me the journey isn't so much about writing "a novel" but becoming a full time novelist. I want to write many novels. Every piece that I write leads me closer to that goal and so I do feel a sense of accomplishment. Also, I learned a lot about how I work so I'll be better equipped to work with myself in the future.

Besides, I've read books (you may have noticed this) and am highly critical of writers that jam a story together and cobble on some wacked out ending that could've come 50 pages sooner. I wouldn't hold myself to a separate standard when I want my work to be on the same shelves as these guys/gals.

So it's done. I'm going to sit on it for a month before I print it and get to the editing/revision. 45,000 words @ 250/pg works out to about 180 pages. Paola pointed out that The Stranger is only 120 words. I can't decide if that makes me feel better or worse.

I've already started the next one. The inspiration came to me last year, I saw a bus parked on the side of State Route 99 during rush hour, hazards flashing. I can't remember if I saw or imagined a woman getting off that bus and into a grey Nissan truck behind it but that's what happens in my mind.

And that's where we go next.

Lazy Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:10:00 +0000

I hate when someone takes my or another writer's fiction at face value and reaches the conclusion:

HE IS EXACTLY LIKE THAT.

Who are we to decide anyone is like anything?

It is safe to say if someone is writing about it then yes, they've probably thought about it and I think that's about all you could ever discern without additional information from the writer.

Which may or may not even be true, if you really want to know.

Names

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:42:00 +0000

I'm going through a rough patch with my reading, these days. Seems like the books I've read since The End of Mr. Y take these great premises and bury them underneath other things that I don't care about. A sleight of hand where they lure you in with one thing and the next thing you know you're the proud owner of a three humped camel and a future stake in the Brooklyn Bridge. Or they just mail in the ending. A mediocre ending can totally destroy everything else that happened before it.

Up until recently, I'd never been the type to abandon a book, no matter how bad and I've read some crap, mind you. A Confederacy of Dunces, though... I couldn't separate the prose from what came off as a never ending fart joke, Pulitzer winning fart joke, mind you. Had to set that one down and the odds of picking it up again are about as likely as Patricia Highsmith cranking out another Ripley book. (Famous last words)

So I decided to bring in the big guns and go for an open and shut case. The Glass Key came to mind because whether or not Hammett's plots make sense have nothing to do with the enjoyability of his prose. Supposedly the book inspired my FAVORITE MOVIE EVER, Miller's Crossing, and I've been dying to read it since finding that out. I read the first few pages at a bookstore and was hooked instantly but I'd already blown my wad on other things on that particular visit. I was also in a bit of a crash crunch after spending my savings on a new motherboard and cpu (YAY for new computer shininess!) so that was another wrinkle.

My next option, and just to be clear, I have a bunch of self-imposed restraints that prohibit me from basically reading things by the same authors over and over. I want to write well and I think part of writing well comes from reading well. I don't believe that limiting myself to a handful of writers that I adore will accomplish that, considering the plethora of voices that are out there. You just never know when you'll discover your new favorite writer if you don't go out and look for them.

So my next option became Anna Karenina, a highly regarded novel that you may have heard of.
It was selected as the best novel ever written by one group of authors and it's considered one of the best to come out of the 19th century. I dug the book up from my library, where it sat on a stack of Dostoevsky works: Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment and House of the Dead, flipped it open and proceeded to read the foreword which is something I never do. Stupid lit scholars never bother to tell you there may be spoilers in the foreword.

After reading how Tolstoy came to the decision to write the book, I was hooked. I brought it downstairs to my desk, put my feet up, skimmed the rest of the foreword and got to a part, right before the prose that said: "Besides being more direct than earlier translations and closer to current speech, it has the great advantage of simplifying the Russian names, so that the reader is no longer confused by all the -evnas and -oviches an can give his full attention to the story as Tolstoy wanted us to do."

I didn't even have to read the next part to know it was coming but the main character's name Karenina is a patronymic: daughter of Karenin, I believe. Someone more familiar with Russian feel free to correct me. The translation uses a simplified naming convention that effectively breaks the title of the novel.

Um... what?

Because I don't speak Russian and will probably never learn it, I like to hope that when I'm reading something translated they're adhering to the rules as much as possible. To me, simplifying an established naming convention doesn't do that. It makes me think of Ellis Island immigrants giving their names to the Yankee gatekeepers, uncultured and unfamiliar with anything un-American, if they couldn't pronounce it they changed it to "to make it easier."

Pardon me for not believing names should be easy.

This isn't an original thought (its' touched on in Percival Everett's Glyph at least) but if you think about it your name is as inherited from your parents as much as your nose or any other genetic condition. In most cases, parents have decided what they're going to call you before they've even seen you, when you're nothing but a dream to them. In the case of my name, I share it with my Father and many members of my extended family. I don't know if this makes me more sensitive because of that, but I think you have to give the proper respect to what a name represents. Most of us do not choose them, they are given to us by people that have been on the planet longer than us.

But it's just fiction right?

Well yes, artistic vision aside, you could say that about any piece of art and that would end the argument.

But I think that art is much more important that and if Tolstoy had chosen to call his characters something easy, something non-Russian, then that's what he would have done. He didn't do that though.

It took me awhile to understand Russian names, and how a single character could have like 6 different names (if you include all the nicknames etc.) but it's really not that hard to piece together if you pay attention. Plus, I like the conversational familiarity provided by people fluidly switching from one affective name to another. It gives me the "This is how they really talk" over there feeling. It would be a big turnoff for me to pick up a book with a different time and setting than my own that sounded just like people talk here and now. Isn't the goal of most fiction to transport you to another time and place?

Anyway, long story short, I need a better translation of Anna Karenina for one and for two I decided to punt and I'm reading Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch because I know I'll enjoy it. Then I'll head back to the bookstore when this holiday madness dies down to grab Middlemarch and see what this Eliot chick is all about.

Us realists need to stick together and so forth.

Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:56:00 +0000

Douglas Coupland was on APM's Marketplace discussing his new novel Generation A, a book that takes place in a future without bees.

In the interview, Coupland talks about the early theory of hive collapse being linked to possible cell phone use. Luckily (or so we think) that hasn't turned out to be the case. I say luckily because I agree with him; if the choice came down to saving bees or using rollover minutes I think, given some time, governments would collaborate to design a nice thoughtful memorial to the species.

Sorry honeybee, #speciesfail.

Not that I endorse this line of thinking but let's be realistic people. How many of y'all would give up your handheld wireless internet access to save a species that most folks consider a nuisance?

Now I'm not the type of person that keeps the phone attached to my ear and most of the time I don't even answer it when it rings unless I'm expecting a call (secret's out!) so it wouldn't be a problem for me to do that, but don't think I'm approaching this from a holier than thou position.

I have a commercial grade espresso machine installed in my house. One of the drawbacks (as if there could be drawbacks to having espresso or boiling water whenever you want it, lol) is the unit has a drain that over time gets clogged with coffee residue, the super fine granules that manage to sneak through the portafilter or come out of the brew valve at the end of the shot.

Basically, it requires regular maintenance to keep rancid water from overflowing onto my (wife's) counter top.

There are a couple of ways to do this. One involves disassembling the line and running a wire hanger snake to push the (now) living coffee clog out.

The other way involves filling the little drain box with drain cleaner and waiting.... waiting.... waiting.... until the cleaner eats through the clog. Then I pour a little more in, wait again, flush with hot water, voila.

If you have to guess which method I prefer I'll give you a hint: I don't like taking things apart unless there is absolutely no choice e.g. Asteroid headed toward the Greater Seattle Area = No choice.

Paola wanted to try an enzymatic drain cleaner so we did and it was a disaster. We picked a powdered kind that needed to be mixed in a gigantic volume in order to be effective. This posed a huge problem because the physical limits of the drain would never allow for anything close to that volume to occupy it. This meant me spending three days nursing the cleaner into the drain box and waiting.... waiting.... waiting... for nothing and cleaning off the counter top to start over.

Finally at the end of the third day, I disassembled the drain to find that the coffee clog was gone but now there was a pasty globule of cleaner that I had to clean out to make the drain operable.

At this point, I just wanted a homemade double tall latte so I did the only thing that made sense: Went to QFC and bought the old industrial stuff. I explained all this to Paola, when she woke up and she concurred. As much as I want to SAVE THE PLANET I can't tolerate having drains back up into my home.

For me, indoor plumbing is the thing I wouldn't give up and by that I mean all the peripherals that are assumed to come with it, like a free flowing drain, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

If it would have taken a mix of napalm and DDT to get that thing open again I don't think I would've hesitated, so sorry other species.

What do other species care anyway? The only thing that stops most of them from eating us is the part where we can't fit into their mouths.

So what is the one technology you couldn't give up, no matter the circumstance?

Envy

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:08:00 +0000

I've been trying to organize an Algonquin Round Table style elitist lit group where we would gather at certain snooty establishments, sip the finest cognac out of gilded snifters, discuss and more importantly deride the current state of literature. Except for the good stuff which (of course) would all be written by us. That would be universally praised, ad nauseum and so forth.

I would be the Edna Ferber of the group, obviously. So far no takers. I'm serious about it too. Most days I want to suck the creativity from other writers' brains and set it in a jar for my own personal use at a later date. This would be a convenient way to surreptitiously accomplish the task, like herding sheep. Not that I'm generally surreptitious but supposing I were I certainly wouldn't be advertising it, if ya know what I mean.

I'm kidding...

?

She reminds me

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:58:00 +0000

...of how the wind blows.
The wind is never concerned with obstacles.
The wind never asks if it’s helping or hindering.
The wind never waits to move.
It sees a place it wants to go and it goes there without begging the question.

Like her: Un-embraceable.

The wind embraces you and your arms flail to grab that which it cannot.

Halfway There

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 19:25:00 +0000

To where you ask? Like I'm supposed to know. I'm just the guy putting the words on the page. 40,180 of 'em to be somewhat precise.

After close to a year of beard wringing, alcohol induced typistry I hit the halfway point of my book. Wordcount wise I'm shooting for 80,000ish. These things are constantly evolving so who knows what the final will be. We have a plot, we have characters doing stuff, we have words on multiple pages, some of which by mere circumstance are actual sentences.

Looks like I'm running out of excuses to finish the dern thing.

If you're writing fiction or considering to do so, I want to recommend Self Editing For Fiction Writers by Renni Brown and Dave King. I picked it up because I'm slowly working into the editor's mindset for when I have to go back and reread this monster from scratch.

Ugh.

Usually after I finish something I can't bear to look at it. Don't know why. Maybe it's the closeness to the project and emotional immediacy. I find it hard to not become attached to whatever I'm working on but it never feels right when it's fresh. Not until I set it aside and look at it a couple of months later. Then I can edit without prejudice.

I'm thinking this will be wrapped up early next year if things continue as they have.

Unique Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:27:00 +0000

The conversation always works out better in my head. When it comes to executing what I imagine to be a witty remark, the words decide to take a detour at the last minute and instead of saying what I want to say I end up saying something like what I wanted to say.

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." -Mark Twain

See the dilemma? With mere mortals this isn't an issue, well not that it shouldn't be but I can shrug off the disproving stare of a fellow steerage class yokel without a thought. Just as I'd imagine they're likely to forget the words no sooner than they've left my mouth and collided with their ear. I think most people aren't really listening to 80% of what I say anyway and that's fine since I don't talk to most people.

There are writers that I like, writers that I love and writers that make me wring me hands in despair, tear at my beard and wail things like: "I will never be able to write like that!!!" Luckily, most of the last group are dead so I don't have to face the stomach turning experience of meeting them in public.

I'll pause so you can fix your hyperbole detector.

It's not jealousy, I don't think so anyway. Writing fiction to me, is a way to document your world view, a method of transforming your interior dialogue into something tangible. Taking an idea and giving it your own distinct voice. To be jealous of the way someone else perceives the world is a little insane don't ya think? Even with 6 Billion people covering the planet it's plain to see that differing degrees of perception are limited.

This is why I can read novels written hundreds of years ago set in places nowhere close to mine and relate to the characters and principles within. This is why music by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart etc. stands the test of time. Why Rodin's The Thinker isn't going to ever stop being a great piece of art. This is why the story of Romeo and Juliet has been retold a million times with a million different variations and will never stop being told until Forbidden Love is driven out of humanity's conscience.

The external shininess of the human experience might change but if you rip away all the I-Phones, interwebs, cable television and the like, have our hopes and dreams really changed that much from the days of people drawing pictures on the walls of caves? Isn't happiness forever the goal, no matter the definition of happiness to the person?

Occasionally I'll read a phrase, sentence, story, whatever and be reduced to a trembling wreck because someone will express an idea that I've been turning over an over in my head more or less since I could walk.

Then the beard tearing, hand wringing and self flagellation begins until I'm so numb with pain I can't remember what it was that upset me. Recently it's this line by Scarlett Thomas from The End of Mr Y.

"'Fact' is a word. Science itself is just a collection of words. I'm guessing that truth exists beyond language, and what we call 'reality.' It must do; well, if it exists at all, that is."

I'm in a constant crusade in this belief, that there really aren't any absolute truths contained within the human experience. We haven't reached a point where we're able to quantify them and even the ones that we assert as absolute we have no way of knowing where the truth actually lies.

Why? Because we're the ones coming up with the methods of discerning this truth and people, to a large extent are incomparably flawed. Why wouldn't our methods be as well?

Don't take it personal, humanity but you are and it's no jab either, it's just something you need to learn to accept.

When it comes to ideas, personal philosophy, innovation and the like, I'm of the opinion that there's only a finite amount of the stuff out there more or less recycled and reinterpreted since antiquity.

This isn't a negative by any means. Understanding that you may have reinvented a rounder wheel shouldn't come with stigma because of the lack of uniqueness attached to the idea. The only thing that matters in the end is whether or not the idea works and has validity outside of the "creator".

I propose that people need to take a step back from themselves and instead of worrying about their own creativity and how special they are, look at the world around you and see how you relate to it and it to you.

Instead of saying someone has a stupid idea because you don't believe it, try to understand why that person came to this conclusion and rationally explain your position. It can be done.

Lastly, before you condemn an idea at least have an actual understanding of why you are condemning it. Maybe I'm wrong for thinking this but I do believe just about every idea has merit. It may not to me but if it does to someone out there than who am I to question it on that scale?

All I can do is a agree or disagree with it and move on. I don't feel I'm in a position to tell people how to think about things, just as I don't want anyone ever telling me how to think.

That doesn't mean that I won't tell people that they should think. By all means think, all the time, NEVER STOP and if we reach different conclusions let's hash it out and maybe we'll both come away from it a little more learned even if our positions stay exactly the same.

The Hunt and Peck Diaries (Continued)

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:19:00 +0000

We're doing a little dance now. 36,064 words only one instance of the word 'hurried'. That is certainly worth celebrating.

'Point' and 'pointed' however will need to be phased out in revisions. Guess I'm fond of characters that hand-talk.

On to other things.

A couple of Fridays ago, talking to my homie on IM about the new Quentin Tarantino movie... actually it wasn't a real conversation. It had some elements of conversation; more than one person involved, dialogue, etc. but mostly I berated him about getting to see Inglorious Basterds first.

SO THERE.

Have you seen it? Don't tell me you're one of those people that hates Tarantino because of something he said or did one time or his excessive use of violence and the N-word, THE EAR SCENE, etc.

You might want to stop reading here.

I was probably an average Tarantino fan until Kill Bill Vol 1. One of my all time favorite scenes in a moviefilm involves Beatrix Kiddo (funny that Tarantino triggers the spell check and Beatrix Kiddo doesn't lolz) dispatching 88 crazed NINJAS with a samurai sword, even plucking the eye from that one idiot stupid enough not to wear goggles that day. Not to mention all the other elements of uber stylized coolness in that film.

Also, when it comes to suspense, especially of the Hitchcock kind, he's on a whole nother level with that. I squealed and grabbed Paola's arm during the diner scene in Death Proof. The camera does a slow pan and low and behold, Stuntman Mike is sitting at the bar, enjoying a coffee apparently listening in on the ladies' conversation. The camera finally pans back around and he's gone making you wonder if he was even there in the first place. Foreshadow much?

QT happened to be on Tavis Smiley doing the standard movie promotion tour. Didn't get a chance to see the whole thing but I caught this little snippet in which he talks about the art of storytelling.

Hold that thought for a second.

In constructing my epic novel in lyrical prose, Man Loses Hat, Man Finds Hat, I've discovered that I'm the type of writer that really likes to wander in the woods. Writing fiction, some say is an exercise in problem solving. The writer asks a question that they don't know the answer to and creates the prose to discern a solution.

I create situations for my characters sometimes that completely stymie me and spend days agonizing over how to resolve them while moving the plot forward. I have a general idea of where I'm going. Now that all the major players are in action it's just a matter of moving the pieces around until I reach the desired outcome.

Easy like Sunday morning?

Having a general idea is nothing compared to taking that same idea and stretching it out over the span of 80,000ish words. Which is where the clip comes in. As I muddle along through this thing, allegiances and motivations change, certain characters become superfluous and the plot becomes more convoluted. I know when I'm finished there will be a lot of stuff stricken from the original draft and scenes will be ordered in a manner more conducive to plot development.

QT talks about coming into the theater in the middle and sticking around after the movie to watch the beginning until the rest of the movie makes sense. This is what writing the novel feel like to me.

The beginning isn't really the beginning. All the important back story that makes the characters who they are constitutes the beginning and we're not going to dwell on that. We're going to dwell on the story which is what's happening NOW and in order to do that I've realized that writing everything in a chronological order is to my detriment.

It is small epiphany but one that I think will really help me down the road. Write the scenes worry about the chronology and plausibility later. This I can handle.

By the way. I did outline this thing, heavily and it's not even close to what I'm ending up with. Think I'll send a copy of it to the brave souls who volunteer to beta read for me. Just for giggles.

Death by a Thousand Epiphanies (on Macguffins)

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:31:00 +0000

While watching the dreadful movie Push with Paola this weekend I asked her, about midway through, "Do we really need to know what's in The Case?"

She said, "For the purposes of this movie, yes."

Which in my mind is an instant fail.

The existence of The Case should be enough. If you have to stop and explain to people what is going on and why something is important then it means the supporting elements surrounding the central theme aren't doing enough on their own to convey this message.

As a viewer/reader, I only need to know The Case is important, the protagonist and/or antagonist desire it enough that they're willing to make each others lives hell in order to get it. Or some variant of such. Pick your trope.

Getting inside the case presents the problem of building up to a gigantic anti-climatic moment. Once the stakes are raised too high, opening The Case may at best please some of the audience but you ain't gonna get them all, especially me. If a tangible, physical value is attached to the items within then the questions start: "You're kidding me! I don't know if I would've done all of that for that."

The Case represents our deepest hopes and dreams, a solution to the meaningless drudgery of our everyday situation, an escape from the normal, a new beginning. The Case, in order for it to be important to everyone needs to be all things to all people. The Case is only a means to an end, not the end itself. It is how we get the ball rolling, how we nudge the protagonist forward to make sacrifices and to change. Make your story good enough and nobody will care what's inside that case.

More on Epiphanies later.

Breaks are for the Broken

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:21:00 +0000

Beginnings are easy, endings are hard, middles are tedious.

This is all you need to know about writing a novel. Those darn middles are where good ideas go to wallow and become mediocre.

WALLOW.

If you add an s to that it becomes swallow, which could either be a graceful bird or action that one does when confronted with explaining what their idea is about (or when consuming a beverage(s) that makes you forgot about said idea).

I don't feel like anything I've ever worked on is so irrevocably broken that a healthy dose of editing couldn't fix. Even my first novel attempt, that I cringed at the idea of rereading for 13 whole years isn't that bad in retrospect. I would never do anything with it but it sure is nice to look at that thick sheaf of words and say "Holy crap, I wrote this and it doesn't make me want to puke."

That doesn't do anything for finishing though. In fact, a lot of what I read about the art of writing novels suggests that it's a bad idea to go back and reread, period. In the first draft portion, the writer should be focused with burping words onto the page, not even pausing to correct obvious grammatical and spelling mistakes. The first draft is for the writer to tell the story to themselves. Then go back and write the darn thing, already.

This is all conjecture of course. Lawrence Block says no one can really tell you how to write a novel, no one except you of course and you only learn by completing one.

So where does that leave me? 33,000ish words in but I need to take a break. I have a short story idea that won't go away and it must be indulged. It's about... well go read that older post if you don't know because it's always about love. I think this should take about a week or two to hash out, probably leave it in draft form and hop back onto the horse. Besides, I don't feel so bad when hearing about first time novelists that took more than 3 years to get it done.

In the meantime, finally got around to reading Scarlett Thomas. Loving the End of Mr. Y, the whole thought experiment thing is kind of cool. Gave me all kind of ideas.

I have a thought experiment involving money. Give me some. Now.

Discuss.

Context

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:33:00 +0000

If you meet someone, for the first time in life, as in never spoke a word to this person before and the second sentence that comes out of their mouth is: So, what have you been up to?

Is there a proper non-sarcastic way to answer that other than a shoulder shrug?

Discuss.

The Thing About Apples or Two Ideas Collide

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:21:00 +0000

My blog dashboard is about as cluttered as my desk. There are 20-30, 200 word starts that have fizzled out in mid sentence. How's that for inspiration? The problem for me is that I don't want to fact check or put up something erroneous when I'm in the middle of making a grandiose assumption about human nature. This is why I prefer to write fiction cause I can just make the shit up as long as it's logical within the rules of my universe.

Those of y'all that manage to stay on top of your blogs should know that I envy you. There's some good content floating around on these interwebs, a lot of it free, a lot of it very entertaining, so I advise you, dear reader, to take a look at some of the links over thattaway ------->

...after I lull you to sleep with my diatribe. Or before. Either way. I'm easy like that.

There are few things I enjoy on this earth more than a crisp Granny Smith apple. It's a lunchtime ritual for me that always starts with peeling the origin sticker off, taking the first bite then deciding if it's worth it or not to continue. I did say crisp, see. I know a lot of tricks to determine an apples worthiness beforehand but you can never rule anything out until the actual taste test. Until your teeth break the skin it's just a guessing game.

The thing about apples is that a lot of stuff goes on under that skin, one of which is pesticides. I'm too lazy to source the article but apples are one of the worst offenders when it comes to retaining pesticides. Not that this is the apple's fault. It just the nature of their design. Unless you're fully kitted out with the latest testing gear, the average consumer doesn't stand a chance of knowing what they're putting into their body.

So what does one do? If you're concerned about turning your body into a toxic waste receptacle you can go organic, which is what I did. Organic apples don't keep as well though, go figure. When nature has its way and they're allowed to degrade as they should, it leads to a shorter shelf life. This is fine, it just means that the end user needs to be a little more selective and not ignore the little voice warning you that a ball of mulch lurks underneath that green skin.

On Monday, I sat down to lunch and peeled the origin sticker off, shocked to see that it said "New Zealand/Organic." Maybe I wouldn't have been shocked if I didn't live just on the other side of Stevens Pass from the Apple Capital of the World.

So I'm munching on my apple, feeling a bit like Paul McCartney might have the first time he laid eyes on his hybrid Lexus. Okay, not quite. I'm sure Sir Paul didn't feel even a minor twinge of guilt but I did. It got me to thinking about a speech I heard by Arundhati Roy about the EVVVVEEEELLLLSSSS of globalization. I'd recommend listening it to yourself (and her other stuff because she's a freaking genius) but I'll pharaphrase: Globalization has absolutely nothing to do with the consumer and everything to do with the profit.

Seriously, please explain to me how an apple that comes thousands of miles via container ship, offloaded at the port by union longshoreman, then delivered to a wholesaler by a truck be cheaper than one that's only a hundred miles away still on the dern tree?!

Well, I'll tell you how. The only way that apple could be cheaper would be to reduce the production costs, which means paying the workers less. Considering their competing against migrant farm workers in America, imagine how much less that means they're getting paid.

I can't stomach that, organic or no. I don't want to eat New Zealand apples when I could drive to Wenatchee and load up my car with crates of apples. I don't want apples from halfway across the world when they may as well be in my backyard already.

Is there a solution? I don't know. Maybe it's time to buck up and wander down a Farmer's Market to see what they're all about.

Paola vs. The Drunk Lesbians

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Sun, 31 May 2009 08:47:00 +0000

No, that is actually the post title.

The last time I saw the Aggrolites, it was in Portland at Mt Tabor Legacy. My wife almost got into a fight with a drunk skinhead girl that wanted to wild dance all over the place. They didn't fight but she stood up to her and didn't back down before people intervened and things cooled off.

Tonight at the Crocodile, it eclipsed surreal. Two drunk girls elbowed their way to the front so they could make out and roll around the crowd. Seriously. I doubt they had any idea what band was playing. I'd go a step further and say they probably had no idea where they were.

Things settled down for a moment when they disappeared for three songs or so but then they popped up again tongues in each others' mouths, desperate to let everyone know that they were gay and here to stay. Or something. For the life of me, I have no idea what was going on. All I know is that they kept bumping me and getting all up in my minuscule dancing space. The place was packed, yo.

Paola offered to switch places with me but I wanted to grit it out. I'm tough, right? Wrong. The next thing I know, the woman I married pushed past me, patted one of the girls on the head like a doll and said "It's all right, it's all right." She shoved the girls away from us towards the middle of the crowd. One of them cried out "There's only so much you can do!" but resistance was futile. Within a song they'd vanished and I didn't see them again until the show was over.

It was awesome. Women started coming up to Paola and thanking her for getting rid of them and I'm just sitting there beaming thinking, "Yep, that's my wife!"

In other coolness, one of those women happened to be Lynval Golding's wife June. I can't even make this shit up.

The Idiot (Copied from elswhere)

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:10:00 +0000

Hello Blog,

I have nothing new to put into you other than this review of The Idiot. Why am I so remiss? well, let's say as a writer you only have a certain amount of words that are worth producing on a daily basis. Between real life, the internet, my epic masterpiece in lyrical prose (Man loses hat, man finds hat) that leaves a scant few for you blog. Sorry. This is the way the cookie crumbles.

Discuss.

Few writers can transpose humanity like Dostoevsky. I marvel about the man's ability which almost seems supernatural, to dissect the WHY in people. He understands it and is able to take those insights and transfer them to paper like no other.

The Idiot is his masterpiece in that regard. The plot, a mere shell used to draw the unusual characters into interaction, reveals that at the end it's all about the way people are. People are wont to feel a certain a way and many go out of their way to spout those feelings from a mountaintop but how we act is who we are. The Idiot conveys this with Dostoevsky's masterful use of prose and characterization.

An uncorruptable man serves no place in society other than a laughingstock... but is this the case? That is what The Idiot asks and the answer is best left to the individual reader.

Dostoevsky is never easy going for the timid. This novel will always have a special place in my heart even more so than the Brothers Karamazov because it's not an easy read. The questions asked probe humanity's core. The questions and content will make you uncomfortable but that is the nature of good art. It should never be easy.

If you want a cookie cutter plot with the answers thrown on top than this book is not for you.

This is why

noreply@blogger.com (Addis) — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:14:00 +0000

Some guy said, "You can never go home."

I spent a week in Anchorage disproving that numb-skull but not without enduring a significant amount of "OH SNAP".

Let me tell you a little secret about people, lean in close cause I'mma whisper it in yo' earhole: If you are living your life trying to change other people than you are wasting your life.

Friend, i suspect that most of us come out of the womb fully formed, our likes and dislikes already pre-established, only dependent upon whether or not we experience them to cement our beliefs.

I find it comical to hear some folks express how worked up they get over a person doing a thing but if you ask them if they were ever to be influenced by a singular person they'd say no.

What this person is saying is that they possess a supernatural ability that allows their worldview to prevail at all times. Newsflash: FAIL.

People, seriously get over yourselves. The only thing that you have power of in this world is how you feel about you. Everything else is a coin flip. You can spend hours working on how you want to be presented to others but if one person perceives you differently than how you've wanted, then you've wasted your time.

And if you are living your live trying to make other people see you a certain way then again, you are wasting your time. People will see you how they want to see you.

Happiness comes from within. Happiness is an approach to a situation that is entirely not dependent on how others approach the same situation. The only thing that ever matters is whether or not you can look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and be happy with your choices.

As sure as everything, when you are on your deathbed the only other person there with you will be you, not those other people that have judged you from afar.

Stop judging people, stop living for other people, live for yourself and judge yourself. Don't tie your happiness up into what other people want of you.

Or ignore all of this shit. Personally I don't give a fuck. I'm doing me, you do you. Just keep it off of me.