Going in blind

I had a great reading experience over the past couple days. I've never read anything by Dennis Lehane before, nor seen Mystic River (though it's been on my list for ages).

I didn't even know he wrote the book Mystic River until I was partway through Shutter Island.

Late Tuesday night Kazu tweeted

Shutter Island (the novel) is a good read. Not everyone is going to like the ending, but most of the build up is brilliant. A page turner.

My initial thought was "by saying some people won't like the ending, I'd probably be one who does."

Like I said, I'd never heard of Shutter Island, the book or the movie, prior to Kazu's mention. His recommendation means a lot to me, though, so I looked for it on Amazon. Not only is it Kindle available, it's currently at the price of a discounted mass market paperback.

Without pausing to check the synopsis, genre, or reviews, I downloaded the books sample. Within minutes of finishing the sample, I bought the whole thing. All from the comfort of my own home! xD

I read until I fell asleep that night, and in the morning until I had to leave for the theater. Actually, at one point, fearing how nightmarish and dark the book was headed, I strategically put it down, so I wouldn't be going to sleep scared. But for the most part, I dove in and read without pause.

Which, I think, is how Shutter Island is best experienced. While reading, I didn't stop and have the chance to analyze the story. Not in the sense of picking apart the past, but predicting what was going to happen. I was too concentrated on squeezing everything out of the current moment and getting to the next page to worry about what happened farther along.

Also, due to reading on the kindle, I had a percentile bar telling me how far into the book I was, and a "page" count, but I never really stopped to look at how many pages I had left. I never pulled myself out of the narrative to feel the thickness of the book and ponder what needed to be wrapped up by the time I was done.

Starting a book (or movie) ignorant of the content (though not quality) is an experience I know I like, and Shutter Island is another example that it's a good policy to have.

Messy, messy, messy

I have an abnormally strong desire to watch an episode of Better Off Ted right now. But I'm under the covers and relatively warm and don't want to jeopardize that. 

The past couple days have been stressful and emotional, but not for anything happening close to me. Amanda Palmer launched a project yesterday. It's a lighthearted carnival-punk muffin frosted with kiddie porn and child exploitation. 

If you're saying to yourself, "but I don't frost muffins!", that's kind of my point. 

The idea that those two topics should not intermingle that way is not the only thing about the project/launch, but it's the biggest part to me. Other bits are "crip drag", nonconsensual fiction, and AFP's 'open mic' gaff (tweeting something she really should have filtered before it reached her fingers). 

I've engaged in the discussion in public, in a limited-access way, and in private, and it really gets to me. 

It gets to me that there are so many touchy subjects in play that the whole thing is a tangled mess. 

It gets to me that my main probelm right now isn't even with AFP, but with the people who passionately disagree with me. (Amanda admitted that the traumatic backstory should have been a secret ingredient in the muffins, not the frosting on top, which I thought was a good move, but it got lost in the roar over other things.) 

Overall, I don't have anything new to say about it. The whole experience of being caught up in the discussion has been pretty disheartening. Especially the part about Art giving an Artist license to be unapologetic. 

I think criticism and analysis is something in orbit around Art that can't be loved or hated. I don't want Art to be without it, but I don't want criticism to be the stronger of the two. But there are no rules in their relationship. 

Why does it all have to be so messy?         

not just bad, but boring

Earlier today I went through a phase of cognitive dissonance. I wanted to write, wanted to enjoy it, but the thought of sitting down and typing repulsed me. It was a nearly psychosomatic pain. Some message from my subconscious was trying to break through, and I couldn't quite hear it.

The Absolute Write forum has been a decent place for me to go for writing advice. Like Mur Lafferty said in a recent podcast, there's no new advice, generally speaking. Practice-wide breakthroughs don't happen. There aren't new developments about the science of writing, and there's a lot of overlap in the habits of successful writers.

Especially at the rough draft stage (where I am), advice is rudimentary: butt in chair, fingers on keys. This is basic story time, worry about the style and prose later. "Give yourself permission to suck" is a common chunk of wisdom I'm working at accepting. Permission to suck kept me going when the prose was painfully flat and--what's the opposite of clever?

Today I enhanced my license to suck by adding on a clause that gives me permission to be boring.

While telling Reagan about my writing sorrows, I realized I enjoy treating this current story like a documentary. In this rough draft stage, I've outlined the "what" of the plot, and now I'm detailing the "how". When something related to unicorns happens in Bethany's life, I want the footage. When something goes down with her friends at school, i want the footage. I want to know every turn in the story, every inch of character development, inside and out. That won't happen if those twists and turns aren't on the page.

In the larger scheme of things, I want to have good pacing. Amy recently advised "make every paragraph interesting", and someone on the AWForum dropped the gem "Start a scene late and leave it early" (actually, I think that's from a famous writer). Also, the woman who wrote a blog ripping apart the first two and a half Twilight books hammered home to me the point that describing daily routines and movements are boring. (And that adverbs are bad, but I'm not worrying about that yet.)

All those things, I take them to heart. I understand the value, but when I try to apply those lessons to this manuscript, they drag me down. Giving myself permission to be the patient documentary director, to shoot the full length of every relevant scene of my main character's life, takes a load off my shoulders. I like spending time in these scenes and watching the characters closely in my mind.

So that's today's development.

I figure the first draft is for plotting anyways. Second draft will be for editing and story revision. Third draft for polishing the language. That's the ideal, anyway.

Permission to write boring. And to relax.

scheming, scheming, scheming...

Well, I paid for four more years of domain hosting, so that's decided. Still going back and forth on the site redesign/blog change.

"Are blogs dead?" is a question I've noticed here and there in the past months. A lot of the time it seems like this one is. Despite the long history, I don't post regularly right now, and I never post art anymore, so it's just navel-gazing with the occasional bit of Writing thrown in. And I don't read blogs either (she said with much chagrin). Not even the ones that I consider dear to me.

I had a really bad jag of emo-ness go on earlier this week, and as I howled over my failures, I asked Reagan when my failures would be "enough" and I could give up for good. He said four years.

Of course, all the lessons and methods he has for his art don't apply the same way to writing... or do they?

On the surface, the hustle is different with writing. People don't browse fiction on the internet the same way they browse art. And I'm supposed to (by my own decree) be dedicating this year to writing. Instead I'm BSing on the internet.

This hour and a half before bed I said I was going to get some words in, but I spent the first half hour cleaning house and the second half hour taking care of business.

Necessary evils, necessary evils.

*hangs up "under construction" sign and goes back to work*

Painful decisions.

Blogger and I, we go way back. But I have a long history with my own hosting and my own domain address. But this love fest is breaking up. Blogger doesn't want to hang out with my server anymore, and my domain host is getting needy.

Strange that all this is happening at once: my domain name expires and blogger stops supporting FTP, all within a month.

While this is a welcome invitation to scrub down to the basics and start over, I'm not ready to shake things up.

Not like I have anything to lose, though.