a bit of random for the masses

Although I've meant for this blog to be about creative input and output, I haven't been very good about either lately.

I did design an interesting set of standing stones for one of my novels. Instead of the usual concentric rings, I devised a set of circles and ellipses that manages to look way cooler. Despite what the Greeks and early Western philosophers/scientists wanted to believe, nature doesn't favor a perfect sphere- it favors the ellipse, or, as they knew over in the East for ages, an egg shape (even good ol' Earth has a bulge around her middle). So the idea of forced perfection mingling with a more natural and organic shape appealed to me.

The rough design is on my laptop- I'll upload it the next time the laptop gets online.

I have been very bad otherwise. I'm not sure why my writing has gone suddenly stagnant. Perhaps I am tired, or stressed (definitely stressed!), or just making excuses for laziness. I haven't been challenging myself with my reading, either. I've been reading light-hearted chick lit when I could be doing mythological research or reading any number of good books about history, sociology, etc.

I suppose I am just lazy. I need to go back to school so someone will put a book in my hand and say, "read this by tomorrow and write a ten page paper on it or else you fail." I'm really good at working under pressure like that.

The Evils of Television

I've been completely television free for over six months. Before that, I had cable television for about a year, but rarely used it as I was a crazy dual degree theatre student and didn't have the time to waste keeping up with a weekly show. When I did turn the damn thing on, I tended to watch movies or Discovery Channel specials rather than episodic programming, and I was almost always doing something else (like homework) at the same time. So over the last 18 mos, for all intents and purposes I haven't been watching tv.

After being home with my parents for two days, I've spent a total of almost 10 hours watching television. While part of that was watching The Dirty Dozen and another was watching When Harry Met Sally, still, I swear that damn thing is addictive. What is it about the television that draws one's attention? Other than the obvious: noise, light, and bright colors. I mean, shouldn't one of my two higher levels of consciousness be able to put its foot down and say, "ok, we know it's bright and shiny, but that doesn't make it worth watching!"

It doesn't help that everyone in my family is hopelessly addicted. My mother leaves the tv on when she goes to sleep at night. She says she does it to drown out the sound of my dad's machine (he wears a mask that keeps air blowing into his nose all night to combat his sleep apnia), but it would drive me crazy to have it on all night. My brother does the same thing, although not usually on purpose. He just falls asleep and wakes up with it still on.

I know I have my own addictions- the internet, for one, but I have spent days/weeks away from the computer and been just fine without it. The cable went out here for a week once and they almost killed each other. If my brother didn't have a backlog of television series on DVD to watch, he probably would have gone over the edge and murdered my parents.

It's absolute craziness, and the worse part came when I was sitting with my parents watching Friday night shows. I caught myself thinking, "that looks like an interesting show, too bad I'll have to miss it," and briefly considered purchasing cable tv again. I think I'm over it now, but that was a scary moment. Besides, I have too many movies to watch and video games to play and books to read (and write!) to waste my time with that stuff. If it's really worth watching I'll wait for it to come out on DVD and my brother will lend it to me. Then I'll get to see special features and not be inundated with commercials.

Because, as well all know, no matter how awful the quality of the programming, the commercials are far, far worse.

Watch out, that's my head you're bashing!

I've come home to box up stuff from my old room in my parents' house, but like most times I visit, I have ended up sitting in the cold front room on my parents' computer wasting time on the internet. It's a good thing I got Sunday off- I always spend my first day here doing nothing.

So, I'm going to take this time to spew a little. Today's topic is how much I hate it when writers forget that they are telling a story and start shoving some philosophical or religious dogma down my throat. There is a fine line between writing a story that means something and writing a parable. When the story becomes merely the peripheral trappings for an author's belief structure, I cannot suspend my disbelief and invest myself in the characters and their struggle. The intent of writers like these is to sucker me into believing in their doctrine by writing a story that shows how perfect and right their beliefs are. Ironically, I instead disconnect from the story and feel only scorn for their underhanded tactics.

The most recent author I've come across who does this is Terry Goodkind. He is an objectivist (following in the footsteps of Ayn Rand), and writes a fantasy series called the Sword of Truth. I actually enjoyed the first few books, because although I could see the elements of objectivism he was weaving into the story and his characters, he managed to keep everything balanced. On the surface it was a story about a young man discovering his past and taking on the responsibilities he has inherited, but it was also about the strength and dignity of the individual, the benefits of equality in relationships, and loyalty. It was a commentary on how a society can become undermined by believing itself responsible for the welfare of the rest of the world. (This is a complicated issue, and my own beliefs differ slightly from the objectivists on this one)

But that was just in the first three or four books. A little in Soul of the Fire, but certainly by Faith of the Fallen, his characters became flat and uninteresting, the story cyclic and overdone. He began proselytizing, first using the dialogue of the characters, then the internal monologues, and finally the voice of the third person narrator. I never finished Naked Empire, and have no plans to read Chainfire, or any other book in the series. Somewhere along the line he forgot one of the most important creative writing adages- "show, don't tell."

This is actually something I worry about when I write my own stories. I want them to mean something; I want them to make a statement about life and mankind's journey and what it means to be human. But at the same time I don't want to alienate people by becoming preachy or overbearing. I want to show them what I think, not bash them about the head with it. For this reason I always ask people I trust to read my stories before I've finished doing revisions. I know, for example, that my best friend will not pull her punches in telling me what she thinks. I just created a community over at livejournal for artists and writers to get honest critiques, and I'm hoping that will be another forum for me to get the occasional slap in the face when I become overbearing in my work.

That's all for now. This room is freezing and I can hardly feel my fingers and toes. Off to read some more of The Fabulous Riverboat.

Post Alpha

As if you couldn't tell by the lack of posts before this one, this is my first entry into the world of blogspot. I'm here because everyone at work uses blogspot. I have about 4 years worth of entries over at livejournal, and about 4 entries total at myspace, but here I am ready to start a new journal.

I'm primarily going to use this to talk about the stuff I'm reading/listening to/watching, and what I'm writing: prose, poetry, and music. Also to talk about my clothing designs. Maybe I'll post a little about my life, too, but I think I'll keep that to livejournal.

Snapshot of my current input:
Reading the Riverworld books by Philip Jose Farmer.
Listening to Andrea "Nebel" Haugen, Kirsten Blodig, and other misc Scandanavian/Northern European folk music.
Just watched Labyrinth again after years away from it.

Snapshot of my current output:
Continued with chapter 5 of my NaNoWriMo novel, still haven't gotten to chapter 6.
Wrote another segment in my awful romance novel that I cringe when I think will probably be my first professional sale.
Did some serious thinking and wrote up a new premise for my "mother of god" story.
Drew up a new dress design, using geisha neckline and handkerchief-hem boxpleats. (I'll upload the sketch at some point).

And that's it for this first post. Yay and all that. When I have some time I'll sit down and do some editing to the style/layout/color scheme over here, since this one is kinda boring as is.