This whole "blog every day for a week" thing would go a lot easier if I remembered to do it before 11:30 pm at night. Okay, what happened today? Well, I finished reading Laird Barron's Imago Sequence, which is essentially a book of short stories riffing on the Lovecraft style. If that's not a familiar name to you, H. P. Lovecraft was a pulp fantasy writer in the early 20th century who specialized in writing stories around the basic of theme of "that which man was not meant to know." Building from the general tradition of Gothic horror, his stories generally had the same pattern to them: a man stumbles by accident onto some ancient ruin or otherworldly artifact and the mere contact with it starts to unhinge him. He gets more and more obsessed, and the more he uncovers, the more insane he becomes. Often, the whole thing revolves around a being beyond human understanding who doesn't even acknowledge our existence, but would drive us insane if we looked at it. It's that sort of thing, nine times, with variations. There's a mysterious photograph series, a sinister farm, a Wild West locale. Always something just different enough to keep it all fresh.
Essentially, the Lovecraft mold works because it's playing with our basic modern sensibilities. Where we, deep down, believe that all of our problems can be solved with sufficient knowledge, the Lovecraft story presents the deepest threat to that, something utterly beyond our comprehension, where the more we learn, the worse off we are. Now, I love a good genre story. Something that can create new movements while working with a known frame is like poetry, in my book. (Unless it's actually poetry, in which case, ugh.) That's why I've read romances, 18th century rake hero plays, and westerns--I like looking for the variations. And I think that's something people can relate to. We want to be surprised, but we still want a sense of the general frame of the story. We use what we know to guess what happens next.
The thing, that metaguessing should be the death knell of the Lovecraft story. Minor variation or not, you know how it's going to end. You've got a guy going from ignorance to knowledge, and he's going to go off the deep end in the process. (And it's almost always a guy--the only version I've ever heard with a female protagonist was Alan Moore's Neonomicon, and that went into a monstrous pregnancy direction--weird for a creature who barely acknowledges our existence.) And because our knowledge of how the plot works gives us that advantage, it's contrary to the theme of the story. But it still happens. I suppose it's similar to the case as with regular horror--we know how a slasher flick works, but we still enjoy being surprised within that frame, even though knowing that frame is there damages the surprise. I think the explanation there is that there's a difference between the "art horror" we get from watching something we know isn't real and the actual experience of horror. I suppose that could apply for the Lovecraft story too, since it's a subset of horror, but... something seems off about that explanation to me. Meh. If I pursue it, and wind up stark raving insane, at least I'll be able to respect the poetic justice. That's what you want in insanity, right?
Later Days.
Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Why You Should Watch Avatar: The Last Airbender
I've recently returned to a second viewing of what may very well be my favorite long-running TV series: Avatar: the Last Airbender. This time round, I've tried to sell my roommates on the show, and results have been... poor. They find the show to simplistic, and too cartoonish. They are wrong. But my attempts to convince them that have gone astray, largely because their exposure to the show extends to whatever episode they happen to stumble in on. Spending five minutes explaining why Aang has hair now or why a turtle duck exists is not going to sell anyone (unless you're a very special sort of anyone). So I thought I'd set out a more detailed, exacting argument here for them, and for anyone else who is still missing out on this show. (I'm breaking it into three posts, 'cause it's really long.)
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Princess Maker 2 LP: So What is an LP?
I decided to take advantage of the long weekend by doing something I've wanted to do for a long time: A Let's Play of Princess Maker 2 (whether I'll finish it this weekend is another matter. I have a feeling these take a while). An LP is essentially a written (often with visual aids; occasionally video rather than written) account of a videogame playthrough. If you're interested in some examples, I point you towards the LP Archive website. I'm not going to secondguess people's motives for creating the LPs, but I imagine it has to do with the nature of videogames. In general, playing a game is a rather ephemeral condition. You have a piece of software whose programming is generally set in stone, but your own playthrough of it is both unique and temporary. The LP allows players to share that experience. There's also an element of what Mia Consalvo calls "game capital"--a humorous, engaging description of a game playthrough nets its creator some prestige within (certain) videogame communities. In my case, they're useful for analysis, as they provide a text that basically documents player experience. They're often a bizarre combination of role-playing and game explanation, as the player jumps back and forth between documenting their role as the character and their role as player. I'm doing an LP myself to get a sense of what they're like to compose.
They're also known as player diaries, and after-action reports. If you're interested in reading/watching up on some good ones, I recommend the group-authored LP of Dwarf Fortress, Boatmurdered, game journalist Tom Francis' LP of Galactic Civilizations 2 (which I've mentioned before), and in the off-chance that you still want more after that, there's a list of choice LPs at TVTropes.org.
So that's the LP. Next up: What's Princess Maker 2?
Later Days.
They're also known as player diaries, and after-action reports. If you're interested in reading/watching up on some good ones, I recommend the group-authored LP of Dwarf Fortress, Boatmurdered, game journalist Tom Francis' LP of Galactic Civilizations 2 (which I've mentioned before), and in the off-chance that you still want more after that, there's a list of choice LPs at TVTropes.org.
So that's the LP. Next up: What's Princess Maker 2?
Later Days.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Let Me Tell You A Story
" 'I knew a man,' I say. 'He imagined he was dogged by bad luck, a decent man, but one for whom everything went wrong. We were all sorry for him. No sooner had he saved up some money than there was devaluation. And it went like that all the time. No tile ever fell from the roof when he wasn't passing. This invention that one is dogged by bad luck is one of the favorites, because it's comfortable. Not a month passed for this man without his having cause for complaint, not a week, scarcely a day. Anyone who knew him a bit was afraid to ask: How are things? And yet he didn't really complain, he merely smiled about his legendary bad luck. And in fact things were always happening to him that other people were spared. and all the time he bore it manfully--till the miracle happened.
"It was a blow for him, a real blow, when this man won the big prize in the lottery. It was in the newspaper, so he couldn't deny it. When I met him in the street he was pale, dumbfounded, he didn't doubt his invention that he was a man dogged by bad luck, but he did doubt the lottery, in fact the world altogether. It was no laughing matter, he actually had to be comforted. In vain. He couldn't grasp the fact that he was not dogged by bad luck, wouldn't grasp it and was so confused that on his way back from the bank he actually lost his wallet. And I believe he preferred it that way," I say. "Otherwise he would have had to invent a different self for himself, the poor fellow, he couldn't have gone on seeing himself as a man dogged by bad luck. Another self is more expensive than the loss of a full wallet, of course; he would have had to abandon the whole story of his life, live through all the events again and differently, since they would noi longer have gone with his ego--'
"I drink." --Gantenbein, Max Frisch
Back way back, in the early winter months of 2007, I took a course on European literature. We read Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, Michel Houellebecq's Elementary Particles, Marcel Proust's Swann's Way, and Max Frisch's Gantenbein. The other books were superior pieces of literature (well, the Houllebecq's open to discussion), but it's Gantenbein that stuck with me the most, and I think this passage is the reason why. I'm very attracted to the idea that we guide our lives on the basis of stories we make up about ourselves. And these stories being nice or flattering isn't nearly as important as them being intriguing, and all encompassing. They allow us to unify our past and project our actions into a meaningful future. Without them, we drift. We live our lives as if they're stories because the alternative is to live with no story at all.
Of course, in the academic world, the correct term for these stories is "worldview," "subjective perspective," or the catch-all term "ideology." I prefer stories or narratives to ideology though; "ideology" seems like a 19th century coining for something that's been around a lot longer than that (sorry Marx). Jean-François Lyotard famously argued that we've entered into a phase where there are no longer grand narratives that prop up and attempt to motivate an entire society. I've got my doubts about that--watch Fox News for a few hours, for example, and tell me no one's selling grand narratives anymore--but I think on an individual level, we still let them shape our experiences.
Using "story" over "ideology" also allows me to speculate without a shred of evidence on what it would be like to live a life based closely on one of the classic forms of narrative, tragedy or comedy. The appeal of living in a tragedy, I imagine, is that you're always the central figure--I mean, that's part of the appeal of any narrative, but for tragedy, it's doubly so. You're a great, noble figure, brought down (or at least besieged) by forces outside of your control. The downside is the obvious one: the protagonist of a tragedy is never at peace, or even at rest. At its extreme, you see yourself as a martyr figure, constantly under attack. (And if you act like that long enough, you probably will be under constant attack.)
And the extreme comedy isn't any better, albeit its excesses are more insidious. Comedy, at its heart, is fairly conservative. Yes, it makes fun of stereotypes and cliches, but it as it does so, it is at some level reinforcing them as well. It not only reinforces such beliefs, it also encourages you to keep things the same--see the anecdote above. The man lives a comic trope, but because he's so used to it, he can't live anything else. Consider your typical sitcom--the characters can change and grow only up to a point, or the spirit of the show is irrevocably altered. Drew Carey never gets out of his dead-end job, Pan and Jim will never work anywhere but the paper supply office, and Liz Lemon will never get her life together (and Jack's wife has to be kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il, but that's a different rant.) An even better example is Jim Carrey's character on the Truman Show; though it wasn't a comedy per se, the life his character was living is comparable to the same consequences: living in a comedy keeps you safe, protected, but unchanging. IT's the irony of the comedy: take it to the extreme, and it becomes a tragic prison. And vice versa. The sad clown trope, and so forth.
The comedy aspect in particular has been in my mind of late. It was my birthday a few days ago and on the day I was walking home from purchasing a few groceries. I was so intent on the book I was reading (yes, I read books while walking. That's a different discussion. Stay focused) and walked into the wrong house. Just as I wondered when we had painted our walls yellow, a stranger's voice called out "hello?". I replied "sorry, wrong house," and 23-skidooed. And when I was at the bar to celebrate said birthday the next night, I told that story a lot, because, well, it's a good story. One of the common responses was "yep, that sounds like something that would happen to you" or "you're really living that absent-minded professor stereotype, huh?". It was a little eye-opening. Am I trapped in a comedic hell of my own making?
Well, no, I'm not. To give Lyotard some credit, it's not so much that grand narratives have ceased to exist, it's that, more than ever, we're bombarded with some many different stories, so many versions of ourselves and others, that one label can fully encompass anyone, myself included. At the same time, you need to recognize when you've put yourself or allowed yourself to be put in a particularly destructive story (or ideology, path, etc), and extricate yourself accordingly. We all have some control over the stories we tell. And no one has to be trapped in a story, comedy or otherwise.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to Facebook and upload a photo of myself doing a blowjob shot.
Sometimes, the line between tragedy and comedy grows a little thin.
Later days.
"It was a blow for him, a real blow, when this man won the big prize in the lottery. It was in the newspaper, so he couldn't deny it. When I met him in the street he was pale, dumbfounded, he didn't doubt his invention that he was a man dogged by bad luck, but he did doubt the lottery, in fact the world altogether. It was no laughing matter, he actually had to be comforted. In vain. He couldn't grasp the fact that he was not dogged by bad luck, wouldn't grasp it and was so confused that on his way back from the bank he actually lost his wallet. And I believe he preferred it that way," I say. "Otherwise he would have had to invent a different self for himself, the poor fellow, he couldn't have gone on seeing himself as a man dogged by bad luck. Another self is more expensive than the loss of a full wallet, of course; he would have had to abandon the whole story of his life, live through all the events again and differently, since they would noi longer have gone with his ego--'
"I drink." --Gantenbein, Max Frisch
Back way back, in the early winter months of 2007, I took a course on European literature. We read Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, Michel Houellebecq's Elementary Particles, Marcel Proust's Swann's Way, and Max Frisch's Gantenbein. The other books were superior pieces of literature (well, the Houllebecq's open to discussion), but it's Gantenbein that stuck with me the most, and I think this passage is the reason why. I'm very attracted to the idea that we guide our lives on the basis of stories we make up about ourselves. And these stories being nice or flattering isn't nearly as important as them being intriguing, and all encompassing. They allow us to unify our past and project our actions into a meaningful future. Without them, we drift. We live our lives as if they're stories because the alternative is to live with no story at all.
Of course, in the academic world, the correct term for these stories is "worldview," "subjective perspective," or the catch-all term "ideology." I prefer stories or narratives to ideology though; "ideology" seems like a 19th century coining for something that's been around a lot longer than that (sorry Marx). Jean-François Lyotard famously argued that we've entered into a phase where there are no longer grand narratives that prop up and attempt to motivate an entire society. I've got my doubts about that--watch Fox News for a few hours, for example, and tell me no one's selling grand narratives anymore--but I think on an individual level, we still let them shape our experiences.
Using "story" over "ideology" also allows me to speculate without a shred of evidence on what it would be like to live a life based closely on one of the classic forms of narrative, tragedy or comedy. The appeal of living in a tragedy, I imagine, is that you're always the central figure--I mean, that's part of the appeal of any narrative, but for tragedy, it's doubly so. You're a great, noble figure, brought down (or at least besieged) by forces outside of your control. The downside is the obvious one: the protagonist of a tragedy is never at peace, or even at rest. At its extreme, you see yourself as a martyr figure, constantly under attack. (And if you act like that long enough, you probably will be under constant attack.)
And the extreme comedy isn't any better, albeit its excesses are more insidious. Comedy, at its heart, is fairly conservative. Yes, it makes fun of stereotypes and cliches, but it as it does so, it is at some level reinforcing them as well. It not only reinforces such beliefs, it also encourages you to keep things the same--see the anecdote above. The man lives a comic trope, but because he's so used to it, he can't live anything else. Consider your typical sitcom--the characters can change and grow only up to a point, or the spirit of the show is irrevocably altered. Drew Carey never gets out of his dead-end job, Pan and Jim will never work anywhere but the paper supply office, and Liz Lemon will never get her life together (and Jack's wife has to be kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il, but that's a different rant.) An even better example is Jim Carrey's character on the Truman Show; though it wasn't a comedy per se, the life his character was living is comparable to the same consequences: living in a comedy keeps you safe, protected, but unchanging. IT's the irony of the comedy: take it to the extreme, and it becomes a tragic prison. And vice versa. The sad clown trope, and so forth.
The comedy aspect in particular has been in my mind of late. It was my birthday a few days ago and on the day I was walking home from purchasing a few groceries. I was so intent on the book I was reading (yes, I read books while walking. That's a different discussion. Stay focused) and walked into the wrong house. Just as I wondered when we had painted our walls yellow, a stranger's voice called out "hello?". I replied "sorry, wrong house," and 23-skidooed. And when I was at the bar to celebrate said birthday the next night, I told that story a lot, because, well, it's a good story. One of the common responses was "yep, that sounds like something that would happen to you" or "you're really living that absent-minded professor stereotype, huh?". It was a little eye-opening. Am I trapped in a comedic hell of my own making?
Well, no, I'm not. To give Lyotard some credit, it's not so much that grand narratives have ceased to exist, it's that, more than ever, we're bombarded with some many different stories, so many versions of ourselves and others, that one label can fully encompass anyone, myself included. At the same time, you need to recognize when you've put yourself or allowed yourself to be put in a particularly destructive story (or ideology, path, etc), and extricate yourself accordingly. We all have some control over the stories we tell. And no one has to be trapped in a story, comedy or otherwise.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to Facebook and upload a photo of myself doing a blowjob shot.
Sometimes, the line between tragedy and comedy grows a little thin.
Later days.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Friday Quotations: Fat Fridays
"It is possibly worth mentioning that in Fat Charlie's world, women did not simply turn up. You needed to be introduced to them; you needed to pluck up the courage to talk to talk to them; you needed to find a subject to talk about when you did, and then, once you had achieved those heights, there were further peaks to scale. You needed to dare to ask them if they were doing anything on Saturday night, and then when you did, mostly they had hair that needed washing that night, or diaries to update, or cockatiels to groom, or they simply needed to wait by the phone for some other man to call.
But Spider lived in a different world."
"Stories are like spiders, with all they long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look so pretty when you see them under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, each to each."
--From Ananasi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
I was at a bookstore the other day, blissfully spending my X-Mas gift cards, and I had to choose between this book and Guy Gavriel Kay's A Song for Arbonne. I've read them both before, but never owned either. I think Kay's may be the superior novel, but for light, winter break reading, Ananasi Boys just felt right. (Plus, it's miles above its predecessor book, American Gods, which has a more epic plot, but a main character so cardboard that you can hear paper rubbing together when he moves too quickly.)
Oh, and if you're into that sort of thing, Happy New Year.
Later Days.
But Spider lived in a different world."
"Stories are like spiders, with all they long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look so pretty when you see them under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, each to each."
--From Ananasi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
I was at a bookstore the other day, blissfully spending my X-Mas gift cards, and I had to choose between this book and Guy Gavriel Kay's A Song for Arbonne. I've read them both before, but never owned either. I think Kay's may be the superior novel, but for light, winter break reading, Ananasi Boys just felt right. (Plus, it's miles above its predecessor book, American Gods, which has a more epic plot, but a main character so cardboard that you can hear paper rubbing together when he moves too quickly.)
Oh, and if you're into that sort of thing, Happy New Year.
Later Days.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
On the belated TV Show Farscape, "Starburst" refers to their method of interstellar travel
Two quick, largely pointless, anecdotes:
First: I was walking through the U of Blank's rough equivalent of an Arts building, when I was approached by a young girl. She explained that she was taking advantage of her sociology professor's "late paper" policy to submit her paper, well, late, but she was afraid to return the paper in person, lest he associate her physical appearance with the name. To that end, she asked me to submit the paper for her. Since I'm a sucker for a good story, (and let's be honest, a pretty face) I agreed. So I took the paper and wandered around sociology a bit with a bemused look on my face. Now, either sociology professors here are the most congenial people in the world, or my "bemused" look is pretty identical to my "confused as hell" look, because I got three different people wondering whether I needed further direction. Finally, through their help, I ascertained that the professor in question wasn't actually there at the moment, but he had arranged for a nearby colleague to collect the term papers for him. Consequently, not only were both teacher and student operating through proxy, his use of a proxy canceled out her need for one. So I handed off the paper, and reported back.
It's probably best for her that I didn't get to see the professor in question, because I was totally going to refer to myself as a drug mule, which would neatly defeat her purpose of not attracting attention.
Second story: After this transaction was complete, I returned to my original task, selecting an item from the 2nd floor vending machine. After much deliberation, I went with the NEW! Flave-red Starburst pack, which features strawberry, watermelon, cherry, and fruit punch. The final fruit punch flavor, as the picture helpfully suggests, is a mix of strawberry, watermelon, and cherry. I can imagine how that product brainstorming session went:
Jerry: You wanted to see me, boss?
Boss: Yes, yes. What's the hold up on the new Flave-red package? The boys in marketing say it's gold, but we need to get the product out!
Jerry: Well, we're having trouble on that final flavor. We just can't find the right red fruit. We're currently field-testing apples, raspberry, and--bear with me on this, it's a bit of a stretch--plum.
Boss: Field-tests? Jerry, this project's over budget and out of time. We can't wait around for a bunch of field tests. Just lump all the other flavors together and call it "Fruit Punch."
Jerry: But boss, we can't do that. It's lazy, and derivative. Our public deserves better.
Jerry is fired for not being a team player, and the boss receives a bonus for finishing the project understaffed.
I should totally write for the Office. Or Dilbert. Is the job of writing Dilbert open?
Later Days.
First: I was walking through the U of Blank's rough equivalent of an Arts building, when I was approached by a young girl. She explained that she was taking advantage of her sociology professor's "late paper" policy to submit her paper, well, late, but she was afraid to return the paper in person, lest he associate her physical appearance with the name. To that end, she asked me to submit the paper for her. Since I'm a sucker for a good story, (and let's be honest, a pretty face) I agreed. So I took the paper and wandered around sociology a bit with a bemused look on my face. Now, either sociology professors here are the most congenial people in the world, or my "bemused" look is pretty identical to my "confused as hell" look, because I got three different people wondering whether I needed further direction. Finally, through their help, I ascertained that the professor in question wasn't actually there at the moment, but he had arranged for a nearby colleague to collect the term papers for him. Consequently, not only were both teacher and student operating through proxy, his use of a proxy canceled out her need for one. So I handed off the paper, and reported back.
It's probably best for her that I didn't get to see the professor in question, because I was totally going to refer to myself as a drug mule, which would neatly defeat her purpose of not attracting attention.
Second story: After this transaction was complete, I returned to my original task, selecting an item from the 2nd floor vending machine. After much deliberation, I went with the NEW! Flave-red Starburst pack, which features strawberry, watermelon, cherry, and fruit punch. The final fruit punch flavor, as the picture helpfully suggests, is a mix of strawberry, watermelon, and cherry. I can imagine how that product brainstorming session went:
Jerry: You wanted to see me, boss?
Boss: Yes, yes. What's the hold up on the new Flave-red package? The boys in marketing say it's gold, but we need to get the product out!
Jerry: Well, we're having trouble on that final flavor. We just can't find the right red fruit. We're currently field-testing apples, raspberry, and--bear with me on this, it's a bit of a stretch--plum.
Boss: Field-tests? Jerry, this project's over budget and out of time. We can't wait around for a bunch of field tests. Just lump all the other flavors together and call it "Fruit Punch."
Jerry: But boss, we can't do that. It's lazy, and derivative. Our public deserves better.
Jerry is fired for not being a team player, and the boss receives a bonus for finishing the project understaffed.
I should totally write for the Office. Or Dilbert. Is the job of writing Dilbert open?
Later Days.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
But how does using a frozen hotdog as a phallic comic prop make you FEEL?
Man, that's going to be another title that'll direct some really weird searches.
Anyway, I was at a party last night, and I had consumed a fair bit of alcohol. (It was the first time in a long time I'd drank heavily for two consecutive nights, since the night before that was my brothers' roommate's going-away party. And yet, the day after, in both cases: no hangover. Truly, I live a blessed life.) Often, when I'm drinking at a party, I get the urge to either work out math equations, or write down story ideas. This time, the muse that struck me belonged to the latter group. I hunted down a pen, and an available writing surface--a piece of discarded wrapping paper was the fist thing I found.
Sadly, looking at what I wrote in the light of day suggests that these inspirational works will not be among my best. The first thing written is "find a way to pun 'chronic' and 'chronicles.'" The second sounds like the voiceover for a movie trailer:
Every Doom has its Day.
Every Day has its Night.
Every Knight has its Fall.
Stories end.
Lucky for me, the important part at the moment is what happens after. A friend saw the writing (without being able to read it, and thus couldn't assess the quality of the writing) and commented, in a friendly manner, that observing people at parties must serve as good fodder for writing for me. I tried to deny this, since at the very least, it suggested a quality to what I had just written that even then I was pretty sure it did not have, but I think she's got a point. To paraphrase, I like to observe.
Don't get me wrong. Participating is great, and it's what all the cool kids are doing. I love a good conversation, and I'll take up any sort of endeavor that strikes me in the right way. But there's a part of me that really likes to take a step back, think about things, and reflect. (There's a connection between this and the post a few days ago about nocturnal walking, but I don't feel like teasing it out at the moment. Or bothering to link it. User unfriendly!) And a party's an ideal opportunity for this. People who are more honest than kind may suggest that this reflection comes from a lifetime of sitting by myself at parties in my formative years (and they'd be wrong. In my formative years, I stayed home. So there.), but I don't think it's a bad thing, not anymore. Like I said, I enjoy the interaction stuff. But there's a lot to be learned by thinking not just about what people are doing, but why.
I think I'll end this meandering with a quotation from Margaret Atwood, from her short story "Happy Endings," as to why it's important for a writer to spend time on the "why" as compared to the "whats:" and "wheres." This is Atwood, so it's slightly more cynical than it needs to be, but it gets the point across:
Later Days.
Anyway, I was at a party last night, and I had consumed a fair bit of alcohol. (It was the first time in a long time I'd drank heavily for two consecutive nights, since the night before that was my brothers' roommate's going-away party. And yet, the day after, in both cases: no hangover. Truly, I live a blessed life.) Often, when I'm drinking at a party, I get the urge to either work out math equations, or write down story ideas. This time, the muse that struck me belonged to the latter group. I hunted down a pen, and an available writing surface--a piece of discarded wrapping paper was the fist thing I found.
Sadly, looking at what I wrote in the light of day suggests that these inspirational works will not be among my best. The first thing written is "find a way to pun 'chronic' and 'chronicles.'" The second sounds like the voiceover for a movie trailer:
Every Doom has its Day.
Every Day has its Night.
Every Knight has its Fall.
Stories end.
Lucky for me, the important part at the moment is what happens after. A friend saw the writing (without being able to read it, and thus couldn't assess the quality of the writing) and commented, in a friendly manner, that observing people at parties must serve as good fodder for writing for me. I tried to deny this, since at the very least, it suggested a quality to what I had just written that even then I was pretty sure it did not have, but I think she's got a point. To paraphrase, I like to observe.
Don't get me wrong. Participating is great, and it's what all the cool kids are doing. I love a good conversation, and I'll take up any sort of endeavor that strikes me in the right way. But there's a part of me that really likes to take a step back, think about things, and reflect. (There's a connection between this and the post a few days ago about nocturnal walking, but I don't feel like teasing it out at the moment. Or bothering to link it. User unfriendly!) And a party's an ideal opportunity for this. People who are more honest than kind may suggest that this reflection comes from a lifetime of sitting by myself at parties in my formative years (and they'd be wrong. In my formative years, I stayed home. So there.), but I don't think it's a bad thing, not anymore. Like I said, I enjoy the interaction stuff. But there's a lot to be learned by thinking not just about what people are doing, but why.
I think I'll end this meandering with a quotation from Margaret Atwood, from her short story "Happy Endings," as to why it's important for a writer to spend time on the "why" as compared to the "whats:" and "wheres." This is Atwood, so it's slightly more cynical than it needs to be, but it gets the point across:
"You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality.
"The only authentic ending is the one provided here:
John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.
"So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with.
"That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.
Now try How and Why."
I love trying How and Why. Aren't they fun?
Later Days.
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