This is Week Two and my wordcount is worse than Day One. I am not even exagerating. Strange part is? I’m more than fine about this. I haven’t caught the freakout bug yet. I haven’t started copying Wikipedia entries in my descriptions and I haven’t given my characters a stutter yet (Though, I’ve heard of some wonderful characters this NaNo who do have stutters. Nothing against those bad boys). Most people though, would probably be crying into their palms about this. I’m not though.

Why?

Because I’m happy with what I’ve got so far.

I believe I broke one of the unoffical rules for winning NaNo this year. At the begining of Week Two (meaning, yesterday), I decided to change my story. I decided to write something else. It is not that Invisible Lines wasn’t prepared enough. Oh no, it was moving great and I had a plot and reasoning and purpose and it made sense. Problem was it was dreadfully boring. And worse, it was boring to write. I’ve never had such a problem with my fiction. And if I’m not having fun, it becomes pointless. I run away from it. I sit around and watch paint dry instead of writing. Sleeping becomes the most important thing. I was running away from Invisible Lines, so, I left it.

Well sure, everyone says you get bored of your manuscripts eventually. You get tired of them. Daunted with having to pick at them. But when you’re bored within the first 5,000 words, I think there’s a problem. So, I shoved it off and picked up the great unknown. The noveling masterpiece I had no idea what I wanted to do with.

Cartography.

Suddenly, I’m excited again. I’m playing Patrick Wolf, Beirut and Final Fantasy on repeat. I’m stopping long enough to just sing along before I dive back in and let them talk to one another. There are so many characters in Cartography and they all want to speak. They all want to visit one another, have visions, have dreams, eat dinner and talk about how the kitchen table in the Tea and Cakerie is a mess.

For now, it seems alright that it’s working out in a way that isn’t exactly perfect. This is the kind of thing I’d be alright with editing. Editing to make it better, clearer, perfect. Not editing to make it interesting.

Oh no, these data-gypsies are interesting enough as it is.

So, #NaNoWriMo, how’s it going for you?

lego ferdinand magellan :: cstmweb

How easy is it to forget who you are?

I find it stupidly easy. I don’t know if it’s a problem that most people have. I have roaming obsessions. They flitter from here to there and back again. I forget what I love or I stash it away for later, only to find it years later and remember what an inspiration it is to me. I end up made of all these tiny, fragmented and unmatching things.

After some thought today, I put together a short list of things I love that I seem to have forgotten about in the haze of whatever it is I’m obsessed with at the moment (like you know, Star Trek…).

The Age of Exploration:: As if maybe this wasn’t obvious. I think I may have started Cartography a long, long time ago with my interest in Explorers and foreign lands. Though I’ve only read a few bits here and there on the subject, I want to read some more. It’s one of the few historical things I find facinating. Maritime history? Love it. Ancient Rome? Ancient Greece? I am so there. More and more I’m vaugely facinated by other European histories as well, though the idea of all those kings and queens scare me. Exploration interests me the most though. I totally have a history-crush on Magellan. For sure.

patrick wolf :: signora_oriente

lava lamp 2 :: mac(3)

Orange Lava Lamps. They used to signal it was writing-time. I’d gear up by the orange glow and scribble away. Now I don’t write as much by night, but, I think I want to start again. Trying to decide what is the right time for me to write is difficult. While I love getting up early, I miss the silence of the falling asleep world. I miss the sleepiness of the night. I miss the glow of the lava lamp. I’m going to find myself a nice spot to set it up tonight. I’l going to wander into writing land. I’m going to experiment. I’m going to make maps of new worlds.

And you, my friends? What did you love and now forget? Will you get it back?

Do you remember what your last zombie apocalypse looked like?
Mine was only last week.

And as a bonus, the Vulcans will inherit the Earth:

bonus Do you have your Halloween pics around? I’d love to see. Link me to ‘em!

thursday :: jgarber

In 2001, I left New Jersey.

It was my seventeenth summer and I just disappeared. It was a full day ride between here and there. I played the same cd over and over again. I fell asleep to the same memories over and over again.

The first time I ever heard Thursday, I was sitting in the backseat of someone’s beat up car, just months before. We were driving over a set of traintracks in Hoboken, driving away from visiting my grandmother in the hospital. I was staring hard at the radio, trying to make out the tuned-down songs over the voices in the front seat. My life was a circle of same events. The same hospital visits, the same mourning processes. I was always feeling bad for myself. Everything and everyone was always leaving me behind. I struggled to hear the music so I wouldn’t have to concentrate. Something to fall into, just for those minutes as we passed back into town.

When Dying in New Brunswick came on the radio, there was something about it that just made sense. It was voice that sounded like crying and I had done enough crying. It was about place and moment. It was words I could barely hear over voices that were too loud, talking about things I didn’t want to know about anymore. It was someone else’s moments that still made me feel about my own.

In 2001, I left New Jersey, the only cd I took with me was Thursday’s Full Collapse. I played it over and over again. I left behind sickness and death, I left behind sadness, but still it was hard to leave home. It still has been hard to leave home.

Last week, my best friend Jess took me to see Thursday for my birthday. It was my fifth time going to see them. I stood there with no idea what to do with my hands, so, I grabbed tight to my shoulders and tried to remember what 2001 felt like. It’s something I just always do. It’s nothing that I can get back to and each time I feel a bit more seperated from it. It becomes that much further away. But still, I try. It’s the motion of looking out the car window on the highway in the middle of the night and watching the lights pass. It’s the crossing of borders, the new cities and the new states, the new places that all I ever wanted to do was explore.

It’s the process of being in between homes.

It’s 2009 and next week I’ll be twenty-six. Some part of me never stopped being seveteen. Never stopped trying to make out the words over the voices of others. Never stopped worrying about place or home. Some part of me will always struggle to find that feeling in that same song, find that way to piece it together, to use all that bad for good.

Sometimes, though, I forget that.
So thank you. Thank you for reminding me.
Thank you for last week, thank you for 2009, thank you for 2001.

I realize most people on the internet want to look awesome. Some days, I think I wake up and try to do exactly opposite that.

I got my hair cut for the first time in a while last week. Though, I’ve been taking a much needed mental vacation for the past few days, so I’ve hidden off the internet for a bit. Or, trolled Twitter too hard. Either way, not here, basically.

In any case, It’s not my usual haircut but it’s pretty cute and it messes up real well, which is important for someone who is actually as lazy as I am. I often try for it to look messy, but it’s a bonus when it just does that on it’s own.

I was also lucky enough to find the pefect dress recently.

In fact, it’s quite in-character for Cartography, which pleases me. Mixed with the right shawl-wear and stomp-em-all boots, I was in business.

I am just not smiling because it was much too windy outside.

South Florida’s picked up a bit of the chill lately, which is doing wonders for my wardrobe. I can pull out all 10 or so sweaters I’ve been hoarding for the ocassion. Also leggings. While I may not have the most perfect legs, someone should have told me how amazing leggings actually were. I’m a bit disapointed in you, style-nerds.

Because of this newfound knowledge, I’ve been slowly concocting a list of need-buy items for my wardrobe I may have once overlooked. Just to buy in case I come across them. Not that I’m looking to expand on my clothing for now (I’m satisfied with what I have, for now), but, in case I find these sort of things at a steal price, I know in advance I need them for something or other.

So, my post-apoc survivors, what’s on your must-have lists?

I spent the weekend in Miami. Perfect for thinking on Invisible Lines. Passed the same spots I first came up with the whole thing a few times. It was good. Very good.

Going back to places you haven’t been in forever or never thought you’d want to go back to is an interesting thing. Going back to people you never thought you’d spend time with again is also an interesting sort of thing.

There’s a few things I’ve learned in life. One of them is forgive your friends. Really. This doesn’t mean you have to forget or dive into huge friendships with them again (though with some, you may want to…). But forgive your friends. Forgive people. Forgive places. Old homes were once your friends too. Make peace with the entire thing and let go. Don’t hold in hate for city streets and traffic lights. Don’t be angry with terrible decisions and painful mistakes.

You may find life to be a bit better that way. Be inspired. Give it a shot. And if not, at least enjoy the messy photography from the passenger windows here.

Book-Color Histogram by Patrick Gage

I have slow pupils.

This apparently isn’t even a joke. It makes reading hard. But, I’ve been told it’s more than okay to pull these glasses off of my face and jam my face into the book. The doctor said it was alright. My eyes are terrible at focusing. It’s more than okay.

So, what seems to be the problem lately?

When I started the RIP Reading Challenge, I was terribly excited. I devoured the first book within the day that I bought it. Problem was, I devoured it because my choice was a terrible one. I wanted to get it over with. I wanted it to be over. It just didn’t work for me at all. So, it slowed me down. Now I stare at the pile of books and I’m unsure how to continue. What should I read next? Will it not work for me the way the other did. I frown and continue on.

You can’t be inspired if whatever you’re pulling from is stuff that isn’t what you hope to be. Isn’t that what inspiration is all about?

I need to bulk up my reading, but I need to be reading things that count. Things that are good and healthy and full of experimental turns of language and vision and form and I need to go back to my basics (Winesburg, Ohio FOREVER!).

I won’t be giving up on the challenge. I told myself I’d shoot for four, but, I’d be pleased with reading two books. The next book I’ll pick up will fit into my necessity for reading but it’ll be something I can settle dow

I sit down and write and whatever comes out is stuff I am more than displeased with. The voice is terrible. The style is totally off. I haven’t lost it, it’s just hiding somewhere in there and I’m confused. I can’t write Third Person Subjective Limted to save my life. The thoughts seem stuck, can’t come out.

I’m convinced these two problems are connected.

Let’s take a look at the most recent collection of books I’ve read over the past year. Most were fantasy, most were Children’s or Young Adult fiction, the others were first person point of view or non-fiction.

These are not the type of things I write.

Reading is the same with any other sort of inspiration. It’s a discussion I’ve been having on and off with Don via Twitter these past few days. I’ve come across it in magazines I’ve been reading. It’s a big, glaring sign that’s above me.

You can’t be inspired by things that aren’t like anything you hope to become.

Sure, what I’ve been reading has been fun and entertaining and while that serves it’s purpose, I feel empty by my lack of reading for lack of a better term. It’s an immersion act and I need to get back into it. I need my books with style, substance and written for an auidence that understands just a bit more than what Young Adult fiction caters to. I need to see how other writers tackle getting into the heads of characters without it being as simple as a first-person point of view.

I need to be picky again.

So, while I won’t be giving up on the RIP Challenge, I’ll be picking my next book to try and fall into these lines. And while I was hoping to finish the challenge with reading four books, I’ll be content to read just two. Especially if the second one will make my day, my week, my life.

Then, maybe if I’m a good reader, next time I can splurge on a Gay Fantasy novel. But, only if I’m a good girl.

And, really, Twitter (for once) said it best:

Some things should never change.

In writing Invisible Lines, I come across the problem that it’s inspired by nothing I am usually inspired by. Strip away the broken asphalt streets, the stuffy feel of opression, the blank slate of the end of the world. Instead, it’s a story that’s inspired by everything right now. Everything in this moment. Everything I’ve comes across, everything I’ve loved and not had a place for.

In short, Invisible Lines is fun because it’s everything I’m not used to.

So, because of this, I’ve been scanning around, trying to remember what it was that first floated through my head when I started this project and what I can pull down and around to get it going. Here’s a few bits and pieces that have helped so far.

+ DJ Shadow’s Midnight in a Perfect World

While ‘”TrueFax” dictate I spent much of 2002 in a (valid) argument against both Saul Williams and DJ Shadow, I saw no real reason to be against either other than to be a pain in the ass. When I listen back now to Midnight in a Perfect World, I feel everything come together against a star dotted sky. Bonus if it’s on a highway, cruising with the windows down and the most perfect feel of chill in your nerves. It’s when everything is just right. Really. I imagine this is what Jamie Carr listens to when he rides his bike down the Highway 2-9.

+ The Art of Brandon Graham
More specifically, the background scenes in King City. The intricate bits that happen behind the main characters, the way the city moves and shakes with it’s cool attitude and strangeness that works, nothing has ever excited me more. There’s a whole vibe of positivity and happiness in this work and whenever I think of how I want to feel when I’m writing Invisible Lines, I think of this. It’s all about the love. Be sure to check out both the livejournal (filled with inspirations, arts and other randomness) and the deviantart. I know I’ll be rereading all the work I have of his before I set down to write Invisible Lines.

+ Juxtapoz Magazine
If only for the fact that I can cut things out and put them in a book or on my wall. I have zillions of back issues of Juxtapoz magazine lying around my place. There are always splurts of color and setting in there, always something I probably didn’t pay attention to the first time around and always something to remind me to dig deeper and find things better. It’s a surface scratching sort of thing. Sort of an easy entry way, especially when I can pick it up at the local bookstore when I get my copy of Poets & Writers or The Believer. For me, I love trying to figure out which art in there Jamie Carr would have done, what he would have hated, what he would have been frothing at the mouth over. It’s good to know your characters like that.

+ Pictures of Miami

Miami Skyline by Mr. Thomas

And that’s only a small part of what I need to get Invisible Lines going. There’s an entire other world to explore, with it’s own bits and pieces.

But, I’ll save that for next week.

I lived in Miami for about five years. It took forever to get used to after living in New Jersey for so long. It will always be a series of highways and clusters of homes, beaches that aren’t close enough, night life that isn’t for me and long trips down half-lit paths.

My Miami experience, I think, differs from most people. But, it still remains one of my most favourite places in the entire world. After spending so long searching for a home, without realizing, it became it. It’s just one of those places. It means a lot to me.

When I first set out to write Jamie Carr’s story I was going blind in my right eye. For a month my optic nerve was swollen. I lacked colour saturation and my field of vision was extremely narrow. I was spending a lot of my time being driven to the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, a tall building in a series of tall buildings off the side of the highway. I spent a lot of my time staring off at the street.

One day after visiting with my neurologist and coming to (bright) terms with the fact that I didn’t have a stroke, didn’t have multiple sclerosis, and I didn’t have a tumor, I saw a guy walking off to the side of the road, near the on-ramp to the highway. It was nothing special, just a backwards baseball cap, oversized shirt and hunched shouldered sort of walk. It was just one guy trying to get from one place to another. Just a regular sort of guy who probably lived in that part of town.

As we drove on and I watched the streets and the highway that sprawled out before me out of a pair of broken eyes, one clear one and one half blurred, muted and colourless. Staring at nothing in particular, Jamie Carr and his story was born.

Invisible Lines takes place in a post-future Miami-tinged city that is built around a major highway system. In the same way that nomads built their homes around rivers, everything is built around a large highway called the Two-Nine. Jamie Carr has lived his entire life there, until he is hit by a car. And then, of course, everything changes, and getting back to the way it was before is tougher than it has ever been.

All at once, it’s a story that focuses on culture, relationships and really, the love between a boy and his dog.

After a few long talks, pushes, prods and the recollection of a converstion I had with Alexandra last week (who told me I better write this story one day or else…), I decided I would tackle the story for NaNoWriMo.

And now, I suppose, you’ll be forced to hear about it.

and yes, for the record, i lost vision in 2007. please, feel free to laugh, shake your head and/or sigh at me.

ps. i’m sorry gay hoodlums in space didn’t win out this year. maybe next. ♥

Today, A Silver Mount Zion is just not doing it for me. I’m sitting here with a Peter Pan mug of cold raspeberry tea after being awake for the past four hours and staring off into space. The problem today is, words.

As a writer, I’m bound to have a ‘WRITERS CREW’. No seriously. I suppose it is a crew. People filter in and out of it, but, at it’s core it’s any normal support system that anyone would have for anything. Except we nerd out about words, plots and characterizations. We get serious about it. Really. I’m not playing when it comes to things like the LHW Society*.

So, in any case, discussions have been floating around about this year’s National Novel Wrtiting Month, which is coming up in a little less than 30 days. Will I be taking part? Yes, I think I will be. Do I know what I wanna write? No, no damn idea. Problem with it is, do I want to know what I am going to write? Do I even want to plan? I always half-plan and fail. Do I want to go that route again?

There’s at least 5 stories jammed in my head at this given moment. And saying that makes me sound like one of those people, but, maybe I am. Cartography is reserved for other projects and therefore out of the running for this venture (How is Cartography? Ask me next week, maybe I’ll tell you how I destroyed the world this time around). That leaves me with what I attempted to pen last year with dizzying failure, District Heights or maybe a return to ideas I had over ten years ago (Eight Days of Rain anyone?). There’s the timeless tale of alternate dimension hopping that is Jamie Carr and the Invisible Line. And really, if you’d like me to make you happy and list it, I know someone out there really wants me to write Gay Hoodlums in Space… So, I mean, there are choices. As well as the old standby of just opening up a document and writing in it and seeing what comes of it.

Problem is, this year, I want to succeed. No, more than that. I need to succeed. I need that push, that motivation, that desire to see something full and through. I know I’m procrastinating on everything and I know that I’m floundering and watching Star Trek when I should be writing. I know all this. So, I need something to kill all that off. I need to jump head first into something I am going to fall in love with and seek out until the end. Sure, I have to wait until November for it, but, we’ll need this month to prepare if I am going to do it the right way. Right?

I need motivation, structure and involvement. So, I think this is a good idea, right? Spend this month writing out stuff for Cartography and whatever other project I will decide to take on for NaNo and in Novemember throw everything off, celebrate my birthday and finish what I’ve started.

How does this sound?
Or am I being crazy again?

* I should mention here that Magen went and got herself published, again. So show her some love and respect and good things by reading The Octopus’ Lover. It’s worth it.