Omnia Mutantur

My Brother

2011-11-12T20:18:00.004-05:00

He made this.

http://eddierivers.bandcamp.com/track/teenage-angst

Produced it. Wrote it. Played it. Compiled it.

I miss creativity. I haven't felt it in months. I haven't felt that drive, the voices that whisper in my ear and push me to write, to create, to give life to characters that cheat and lie and cry and rejoice and live and love and laugh. That was me, at some point. Vincent is atrophying, dying, withering, fading, what have you. His voice is barely a whisper at this point, his image not even visible in the mirror. Creativity seems so far away...but this song brings me back to that lifestyle, almost. Almost.

We'll see if Vincent returns yet.

I (Don't) Remember II

2011-08-04T03:07:00.003-04:00

"I remember never worrying about hurting others. I remember never being concerned with relationships, or how much to tell someone, or how to act, how to smile, how to laugh, how to wile away the hours in a way to make her feel wanted, loved, cherished. I remember preferring it that way. I remember enjoying the solitude, the independence, the freedom, the "I" that would never become a "we." I remember buying dinners and paying only for myself. I remember going to sleep with a bed all to myself. I remember drinking and not worrying about the consequences. I remember living for myself and writing without worrying how it affected someone else. I remember not feeling heartbreak. I remember not even knowing what that stabbing pain felt like. I remember being unable to empathize with those who missed someone important to them. I remember not knowing what it meant to love, and I remember being deeply unhappy as a result."

Part One

Pathonaut

2011-07-29T16:23:00.003-04:00

The other day, I was wrestling with the question of why I seemed unable to write. I blamed it on a lack of emotion and inspiration--how can a summer camp move me to write? What dense emotions (and density is key, because if it is without weight then it is without importance) could it evoke? None, I knew. And this frustrated me, because I knew that so long as I was stuck in this emotional rut, nothing could budge my pen. I was Sisyphus, forever straining against a mighty boulder that, for all intents and purposes, did not, could not, and would never move.

I wracked my brain for the answer of how to move on. I knew the implications, of course: if I could not write unless I felt, then I was doomed to periods of crippling creative silence. Would I have to live alone, miserable, in order to create? It would be rather fitting, considering how I treat my own characters. But I don't think I'm headed down that path. Not anymore, at least.

I had the fortune of speaking to a student here, not too long ago. She's young and an aspiring writer, and what little she showed me reminded me of my own writing when I was younger (and, even, today). I started writing when I was about 11, but I was 13 when I started Prelude to Darkness. At the time, Vincent was the reservoir into which I poured all most rage, guilt, shame, pride, and conceit. He was also the scapegoat on whom I blamed my lust. This makes perfect sense, given my stage of development: I was an adolescent, dealing with these new feelings of lust while a cocktail of hormones swirled about my veins. To make sense of it all, I created Vincent. He was the lecherous teenager, not me! Once I got a bit older and realized that maybe sex isn't the worst and most iniquitous of all sins...Vincent changed, too. He stopped being a demon and instead became a writer. But, at the very outset of my creative career, one thing was certain: sexuality and emotions were inextricably tied to writing.

I suspect this is the case for most writers. Some, maybe the majority, start writing during adolescence, and so it makes sense that raw emotion is the fuel for our writing. The result can be catastrophic, as anyone who's read teenage fiction (or fan fiction, for that matter) can tell you. But, when done right, that kind of writing can lead to a very refined product, one that really connects with the reader. I think Writing is Art, and to me Art is Empathy. You need emotion to create that empathy.

But I'm not a teenager anymore. Emotions...aren't as extreme as they used to be. I can't rely on my hormones or mood swings or melancholia to fuel my writing. At least, not all the time. Sure, if I get dumped by a girlfriend and I'm miserable for days, I'll use the emotion to write. But that kind of self-destructive self-pity isn't sustainable, nor should it be. I need to divorce writing and emotions, or at least come to understand writing in a way distinct from emotion.

And that's what I'm setting out to do. I realize that I retain the same vocabulary whether I'm miserable or happy. I simply need to sit down and write. I know that literally every single writer in the history of writing (I make this claim in all seriousness), from the guys who scrawled on cave walls to the ones who have won Nobel Prizes in Literature, has said this, but I'm finally beginning to believe it: just write. Do that, and you will separate emotion from writing. And if you accomplish that, then you can write whenever you need. I won't need misery to write. I'll just need ideas.

If the beginning of my journey as a writer was to navigate my dreams and imagination, then the second part of my journey is to navigate my emotions. From Oneironaut to Pathonaut, I am charting these waters because I know that if I don't, I'll stay still. And water that only sits is water that only stagnates.

Lost At Sea

2011-07-20T23:19:00.004-04:00

I'm going backward.

A few months ago, I was full of hope and inspiration. There seemed within me a creative well that would never run dry, one that promised to issue forth stories upon stories, all of them dark and beautiful, passionate and hopeless. I had achieved a long-term goal, one in which Vincent and Victor finally reconciled their differences and became One again. I was Vincere, the root of them both, writer and friend, loner and lover, simultaneously two, free from the tension that had so plagued their relationship.

And now? I don't think I've written a single short story since that invitation in which I welcomed all the world to follow my journey as a writer. Instead, I've...I've joined a program where I work with kids. I give back to the community. I'm surrounded by people who love me, and others who give me advice on my future (an MFA looks more and more likely); I sit with peers my age from across the country, we plan activities for younger, talented students, and I get paid for it. I'm in the LA sun every day, and it's one of the most relaxing and least fulfilling summers possible.

I haven't written anything I enjoy, and it seems to me that I'm caught in the grips not of Writer's Block but Emotional Block. I've been wracking my brain for ways to write without misery, to create without darkness, but I simply can't. I don't know how. Someone once told me, "You don't have to be miserable to write. I don't think you know that." And I agree with her. Maybe there is something fundamentally flawed within me, but I somehow never learned that lesson: it's okay to be happy.

And so where am I? Am I back to my teenage years, caught in the midst of an inescapable angst? I hope not. I like to think that the years have given me more self-awareness than that. Is it ennui? I'm not sure, because I seem to be making progress with my life. As an RA this summer, I can (hopefully) be a TA next summer. With a few more years' experience of teaching, maybe I can apply for an MFA in Creative Writing: Fiction. Then what? Well, teach for a bit, write for more, then eventually end up as a professor for creative writing at some small university. I like to believe that ennui is a bit less productive than whatever I'm doing now.

So what is it? An emotional, creative dry spell? A bout of self-pity when none is warranted? Peut-être. But all I know is that Vincent has put his pen aside, the ink has run dry, and the cursor on the screen watches me, blinks expectantly, waits patiently, and haunts me still. I feel a deep frustration with where I am right now, and I'm unsure how to proceed. "Just write," some may say. How to write, when no words seem fit? How can I write, when the darkness that once whispered beautiful truths in my ears has now fallen silent?

Of Ghosts and Other Friends

2011-03-27T21:45:00.009-04:00

Ghosts have popped up in conversation pretty frequently these past few days.

I'm not particularly sure why. Ghosts aren't a popular topic of conversation, really. But, since I've been delving into my writing, my conversations have taken a turn for the...grim.

The first instance occurred when I was speaking to a lady friend of mine. It was one of those weekends where no one seemed happy, and she was having a rough time, for one reason or another. I told her how recently I've been somewhat unhappy, but we kept the conversation on her, mostly, and she told me how she's been relapsing with some poor eating habits. Her ghost haunts her still.

And then I was speaking to one of my brothers, and we started ragging on some ex girlfriends of ours. I told him something I've said before: if I think I have ghosts now, I can't wait until I'm 40. He mentioned to me that Stephen King had this analogy of ghosts as past regrets and memories--we haunt ourselves. I agreed, because I've always thought of ghosts not as strangers who haunt us, but rather our emotional attachment to people. I don't think I'm alone, here.

And so, of late, I've been thinking about ghosts. I've my own. I got together with an old friend from high school over my spring break, and he agreed that, for a 20 year old, I do seem to have "ghosts." I've always been hesitant and more than slightly embarrassed about this idea of me having ghosts or demons. I'm 20. What do I know of demons?

But, I think ghosts can fall into two categories: intellectual and emotional. I may not have gone to war, or been seriously injured, or lost a loved one, but I understand the concepts, and I've explored those themes in my writing. And any negative experiences that happen to me are refined and distilled in my thoughts. Ultimately, these concepts become intellectual demons: Vincent, for example (though I'll explain that relationship a bit more in detail soon).

Emotional ghosts can be those ex girlfriends. Emotional ghosts are the ones with faces. We all have ours. As I told my friend the other day (the one who had been having a rough weekend): everyone has their bullshit. And that's very much true.

But I also think that these ghosts of ours are...very comforting, in their own, twisted fashion. There's a poem that my school loves:

''Some questions cannot be answered.
They become familiar weights in the hand,
Round stones pulled from the pocket, unyielding and cool.''

I think these old questions are intellectual demons, but the concept applies to emotional ones as well: these ghosts of ours are companions. They have been there for so long, I would be shocked to realize that one had disappeared over the course of a few months, without my notice. And, as a writer, I use my ghosts for writing. I've been having something of a rough semester, but I've never written more poignantly than I am now. My ghosts are so strong, for me, that I can almost see them, and at times, I cannot sleep. I've lost weight. I smoke, occasionally. When it suits me.

But I also write. And these ghosts, as horrible as they can seem, are allowing me to develop myself intellectually and emotionally. And so they are familiar weights in my mind.

Vincent is one of my most cherished ghosts.

The emotional ghosts are the worst, I think, because of their persistence. Intellectual ones are abstract, and faceless--they are ideas, and ideas, no matter how horrible, are still just confined to the realm of thought. They can be temporarily dismissed by a distraction. But an emotional ghost? They are the weights in your pocket that can sink you, if you let them. Just ask Quentin Compson.

I'm worried, of course, that my ghosts will always be there. I think a large part of growing up is accepting these ghosts and letting them go. And I hope, naturally, that one day I will no longer need them. But I am also scared by that concept, because I cannot conceive of whom I would be without these round stones in my pocket. But I have a suspicion: I will be a man much lighter than his previous self.

Today, I learned the word "saudade" and realized with some small dismay that I understood the concept. But then I realized, with some satisfaction, that I did, in fact, understand the concept. And I thanked my ghosts for that.

Looking In The Mirror

2011-03-15T00:34:00.006-04:00

For those of you who know me, you know that, since about 8th grade, I've been somewhat obsessed with the idea of two selves. It all began when I was about 13, in English class, when a harmless comment informed me of the existence of two halves in my mind (on the one hand, I was angry and sometimes felt violent [hormones, really], but I would never let myself act on those impulses [conscience]). Independently, I had come to learn of the existence of the Id and the Superego. This notion manifested itself as a novel (Prelude to Darkness) in which I explored these two halves, who had since evolved from Impulse vs. Rationality to Good vs. Evil to, in its final and most sophisticated form, Light vs. Darkness. It was almost 400 pages of my thoughts on the nature of the human heart, and it consumed my life for years.

After I finished it, I put these two characters away, in a manner. I no longer viewed Victor and Vincent as opposing characters, and as a result, they were incorporated once again into my soul. I accepted that which I had repressed for so long (Vincent) because I finally understood that he had never been evil. Last semester, I learned that Carl Jung had explored this theme using the archetype of The Shadow, and I learned that Jungian Individuation eventually calls for the reintegration of the repressed parts of the soul into the whole. It was pretty nice, realizing I had figured some Freudian and Jungian psychology on my own (I can gloat, if I want to).

Regardless, I still kept my writing off in a corner of my life. I kept the names Victor and Vincent, but they came to represent not tension within my soul, but balance: Victor was the one who went out, who had friends, who made relationships, who partied, who lived in the real world; Vincent was the one who wondered, who wrote, who dreamt, who narrated, who lived in the fictive world. They weren't at odds, they simply fulfilled complementary roles. I never once felt that the one was impeding the other. True, at times, I wondered if they would ever be integrated. I remember fretting about choosing one over the other, since Vincent obviously couldn't be in a relationship. But, ostensibly, I was content with their curious, harmonious little balance.

I failed to see yet another dynamic: that of premed and English. In college, my plan was to write and publish short stories. I would make a living off of that, so to speak, and continue after graduation. However, just in case, I was also premed--it was Plan B, so to speak. I took General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Molecular Biology, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, and Physics in order to fulfill the premed requirements. I figured, worse comes to worst, I'd just be a doctor. I like medicine; anatomy and physiology fascinate me; I enjoy working on patients--it wouldn't be bad being a doctor.

But premed can't be a Plan B. It demands all your time, all your energy, all your effort. And I, quite predictably, was unwilling to give it all my time. Remember: it was "just" Plan B. So I studied, but I didn't give it my all. So my grades were less than perfect. But, because premed did suck up so much of time, I neglected writing.

To put it succinctly: by refusing to commit to one, I was failing both. Playing it safe was the worst thing I could've done.

Around last summer, after my internship in a hospital, I began considering the possibility of somehow making English my living, rather than medicine. It was just an idea, something I entertained when I got to daydreaming. When I began Junior year, it became a tad more substantial, this idea. I knew someone's mom who had gone from Comparative Literature to Advertising and Marketing, after graduation. So maybe English could lead to something stable, as well.

Last semester, I met someone who had gone from a science major, as a Senior, to Visual Arts. She could have easily graduated as her previous major, without the hassle of making up all the requirements she had missed for Vis. Arts. But she decided that she wanted to make the switch, and then did so. I asked her why, and she responded (this is something of a paraphrase): "Because I wanted to wake up in the morning, happy with what I was doing." Apparently, it is indeed possible to make your dreams a priority.

The daydream lost its haze, and began taking on form. I delved into writing, I got back to my roots--I began exercising creative muscles that had atrophied. And, more importantly, bit by bit, I felt the division between the two lives I led, as Victor and Vincent, slowly disappearing. I opened up about my writing. My family, who had never read any of my writing, suddenly began receiving short stories.

But I was still in Physics. I still hadn't committed.

Today, I dropped the class and, with it, premed. Officially, I am no longer actively pursuing medicine as a viable career option. I am applying for an internship at the Penguin Group; I am applying for an internship as a Creative Writing Teaching Assistant through Johns Hopkins; I am applying for a grant to go to Honduras and write a collection of short stories about her people. I'm writing more; I'm reading more; I'm finally accepting Vincent as a public face. When people ask me what I want to do, I'll tell them I want to be a writer. And I'm going to mean it.

And I'm going to be the man I want to be, the one who follows his passions. The one who isn't afraid of sharing his writing with his girlfriend. The one who seeks relationships that help his creativity, not ones from which he must hide it. And, finally, I'm going to be the man who can, after months of unwillingness, finally look himself in the mirror.

And as for this post? This is an invitation to you guys to follow me on the journey. Beginning now, this is officially my literary blog, one in which I regularly (REGULARLY) post my thoughts and writing, as an aspiring novelist. Watch me grow, guys. You are my friends (I assume, unless you are here creeping, in which case, hello Mr./Ms. Creeper), and this is me opening up about my writing. I'm not sure where this trajectory is taking us, but I'm excited to find out with you.

Champagne Toast

2011-02-27T17:27:00.003-05:00

People are going to ask me why I did it. Why I decided to give it up. The people who ask are going to be my friends, and some of them will not understand. "You don't have a problem." No, not yet I don't.

I'll give them answers that they will be able to understand, but the real one I'll divulge here, for anyone to read, and it will be cryptic, unless you know me a little better than most people do:

Because I want to be able to look myself in the mirror again.

"There isn’t... and this is the really important point... there isn’t a third option. There is no middle ground. If I could find a middle ground, I would have found it by now, and we would not be having this discussion." Champagne Toast

True Story

2011-02-24T14:17:00.002-05:00

Once, a boy decided to stop going to school after having finished fifth grade, in order to help his family.

Later, his grandchildren went to college.

I (Don't) Remember

2011-02-03T12:07:00.003-05:00

This is an exercise in free writing, or "train-of-thought" writing. Begin one section with "I remember" and write whatever comes to your mind. Afterward, begin with "I don't remember" and write whatever comes to mind. You have four minutes for each section. Begin.

"I remember the first day I asked what was--to me, at the very least--a thoughtful question. In my neighborhood there are some tall towers--they might be power lines, or antennae, who knows. As a kid, I was in the car with my parents, and I noticed a red light at the top of the tower. It was night, and there was no moon, so it was very noticeable against the black night sky behind it. I asked someone why there was a red light. He or she responded, so that planes don't crash into it. I never vocalized my next question, but it followed me the rest of that night and, I guess, my life: so why put it up there in the first place?"

"I remember smiling, and never noticing that there are shadows in the creases."

"I don't remember the first day I had too much to drink. I was a freshman, at a dinner with this group I'd just joined on campus. I was nervous and excited; timid, but feeling bolder by the sip; friendly, but shy. The wine wasn't good, but there was a lot of it. After tipsily rising from my seat to make a genuine and sweet toast, we moved to an eating club. My feet were already not responding as they usually did. We arrived, someone handed me a drink, and, but for a few brief, sweaty flashes, I've no more memories. I woke up excited. This was college, right? Also: what did happen that night?"

"I don't remember why I loved her."

Return To Form

2010-10-20T13:40:00.003-04:00

Lately, I've been having something of a slow, unexciting identity crisis.

Those of you who know me, or who have read through my blog, or have heard me speak about my writing or Vincent, know that I think of myself in terms of two people. This tendency was much more pronounced when I was younger (and more emotional/hormonal/melodramatic, what have you). It's calmed down a bit. But there has always been a lingering sensation of duality in my heart. Victor lives, Vincent writes. Lately, I've been delving into short stories, because I have to (my class demands it). But I didn't start out as a writer of short stories. I am a novelist. Not a published one, mind you, but a novelist nonetheless.

I haven't written a novel in years, though. Not since the end of high school, really. I've completed NaNoWriMo, but those are hardly novels. 100 pages isn't enough for me to tell a story. One month isn't enough time. As a result, I've felt as if a part of me has been withering away. The writer in me has atrophied a bit, due to lack of exercise. I've felt like I've been losing a part of me.

Hence, the identity crisis.

I'm going to start up a new project. It is titled Descent Into Divinity, and it follows the tragedy and fall of a man who will become one of my favorite and most endearing characters. It will be tragic, and I hope my reader sees himself in this character, whose name is Chance.

Last time I wrote a book, I disappeared from my friends and cut off relationships in order to feed my writing (I was looking for negative emotions). I won't do that again, but I wonder how I'll go about writing this one. With the analogy of method actors, I can say I am a "method writer." I delve into my characters to be able to write them well. I'm going to descend, just as Chance will. But, hey, I got out once, I'll get out again.

Time to return to form, and get back to being Vincent.

Words of Wisdom

2010-03-10T00:03:00.003-05:00

Victor Frankenstein tells me:

"If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind."

I have told myself this several times. When I was writing Prelude to Darkness, I sabotaged relationships, abandoned friends, and alienated myself, all in the dream of finishing a novel of which I could be proud. Afterward, when I realized how foolish that was, I swore to myself that I'd never do that again. I knew that no such endeavor was worth the loss of human contact and happiness.

Uncanny, how one Victor can relate to another. You know, Victor in Prelude to Darkness creates his demon, an alter-ego who is his dark reflection, the manifestation of everything he detests about himself, the darkness of his heart. He plays God, and creates a being who repulses him; Victor is a creator whose creature disgusts him.

Victor Frankenstein is no different. Both Victors apply themselves to an idea and blindly follow it, abandoning friends in their campaign to satiate their knowledge and fulfill their goals. They seek to bring light where before there is darkness, and, much like Prometheus, they suffer for it. In fact, this analogy can be extended. Much like Jesus, they suffer for it. And, we must not forget, much like Lucifer, they suffer for it. They fall. They die.

Frankenstein is quickly becoming one of my favorite novels. I used to describe Prelude to Darkness as a cross of Heart of Darkness and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with themes from Paradise Lost appearing between the lines, for the enjoyment of those intelligent enough to see them. I now realize, happily, that Frankenstein should be added to this list. Victor and Victor are no different, and, perhaps, neither are the monsters they create.

I can't describe how happy I am. I can now return to Prelude and improve it, refine the characters a small amount, allude to Frankenstein and his creation, and make it even more alluring and disturbing, because the archetypes of our nightmares will now seem all the more familiar and unbearably human. And what is the Impassive Grotesquerie, if not the chilling reminder of the humanity of your most inhuman monsters?

Tokens From the Past

2010-01-23T12:23:00.003-05:00

My friend sent this to me. I apparently wrote this when I was in...third grade?

"Deep in the forest there was a little boy called Joe. One day he saw a leprechaun! 'This is the time I've been waiting for.' he said. He ran so fast he caught the leprechaun. He told him where it was but it was a trick!"

Damn, that is a piece of crap. Don't even know what that last sentence means. I think I was going for something about a pot of gold. Not really sure, I only vaguely remember writing this story. In the original version, I said something like, "This is me chance," or something equally stereotypical of Irishfolk/leprechauns/whatever, but my teacher told me it was grammatically incorrect. It was intentional, woman! Hadn't you ever heard of stylistic liberties with grammar!?

Reluctant Acceptance

2010-01-16T02:16:00.002-05:00

Typically, when it comes to exams and whatnot, I'm told to do my best, so that I'll have no regrets. This is meant to highlight the bright side of things: you'll never be left wondering "what if?" because you invested all your energy into your task.

When I was younger, I used to look at it the other way around. If you did your best, but it still wasn't good enough, what did that say about you? Did it say that there were simply some obstacles, some hurdles that you couldn't pass? Did it say that there existed some natural gap between you and those who did better and that no matter how hard you tried, this gap was unbridgeable? That's how I looked at it. It was a sobering moment, realizing that sometimes you must reluctantly accept mediocrity.

It is...difficult...at times...to divorce myself from this thought.

Accept Thyself

2010-01-07T15:44:00.003-05:00

When I was a kid, I used to love dressing up for Halloween. I'm definitely not alone in this: putting on a costume is fun, and adopting a new and exciting identity, even if it's only for a couple of hours, is liberating. Any act of disguise lets you step away from your life and act as you want. If you really wanna be pessimistic about it, you can look into Philip Zimbardo's work on deindividuation, particularly the Stanford Prison Experiment. Those two articles are guaranteed to make you reconsider any thoughts you had on human altruism or nature.

Anyway, back when I was writing Prelude to Darkness, I was a big fan of the concept of masks. Vincent was my mask, so to speak, and I wore him in order to really get in his mind. I adopted his persona and attitude so that I could write his character more fully. Once the book was done, I dropped the mask, and it was good being my own person. I vowed to myself that I would never adopt a persona that whole heartedly ever again. I didn't want to lose my individuality.

But, this isn't to say that I abandoned the concept of masks altogether. No, we all have masks, in our own fashions. It occurred to me the other day that perhaps I've clung to the idea of masks more fiercely than I've previously imagined. You see: in choosing a mask, you're in fact choosing your identity. Opposites define one another, and so by adopting the semblance of one thing, you're in fact affirming your existence as its counterpart.

I took up the mask of Vincent, and by doing so, I actually declared my identity as V. Vincent was a character in a book: a loner, a personification of the darkness inherent to all hearts; V was another character: the more social counterpart, the one who needed people. So, when I finished Prelude to Darkness, I figured that I could abandon Vincent, to a degree. But I made the mistake of forgetting that Vincent was also my pen-name: he was the writer. V, on the other hand, was the English major student who was considering medical school. Vincent didn't live and breathe; V had a life. Vincent was an idea; V was the flesh.

So, what I'm trying to say is: Vincent as the character left me, but Vincent as the writer never did. I'm still a writer. This entire blog is dedicated to my literary thoughts, to my exploration of everything words and plot, story and dream. But, of course, V is still there: I'm still an english major, and I'm still doing pre-med. Both halves are still there.

Vincent and V are still very big personalities, and it's difficult at times to reconcile the two. You see, as a writer, I stick to myself. My writing stems from introspection, and that precludes close and intimate human connections, at times. This isn't to say that I'm a hermit. God no. But it does mean that I keep my characters to myself. I close the doors and the blinds and I write, with only my music as company. I live in different worlds, in different times, all of them fictional.

V is, like I've said, the more social half. He goes to classes, goes to parties, and hangs out with friends. He wants relationships. This is obviously at odds with Vincent. And so, as is the case with every close relationship I've ever had, when I get in a relationship with someone, I stop writing. Vincent atrophies.

This is an issue. I don't want to lose Vincent. He completes my personality. He is an irrefutable part of my identity: I write. I tell stories. I have a passion for dreams. Vincent is, undeniably, me. But I can't ignore V, either. I love people. I enjoy relationships. I like the life I have.

And so, we have come to the crux of my little post here: deciding which is the mask, and which is your face. How can you balance the two? It's possible, of course, but I haven't been able to pull it off. It's always been one or the other, for as long as I can remember. I either choose V and get involved in a relationship and lose my writing, or I stick to Vincent and keep my writing but lose the opportunity for close human contact. (Of course, the fact that I chose the verb "stick" in referring to Vincent implies that I already lean toward one direction.)

This question, of choosing mask over face, can be put another way: you must decide which is your wife, and which is your mistress. I don't know the answer to this question, but I think this blog is possibly a hint at the answer. You see, it's a blog about my literary thoughts--essentially, Vincent. But it's also an attempt to reach out to other people--this is V. I need to adopt this balance, somehow, in my life outside the internet. I need to find a way to connect to others through my writing. Then again, I guess that was always the point. I wrote for myself, this is true, but always with the intention of having an audience. Maybe all I need is just to get published.

I really hope I can find the balance I'm looking for. I'm tired of feeling like I can't reconcile V and Vincent. I'm not trying to either live alone, but with my writing, or with a family, but without my writing. I can't choose V over Vincent, or vice versa, and, frankly, I shouldn't have to make that decision. The two define me, as a person. To be without one is to be less than a man.

Of Time

2009-12-20T21:15:00.003-05:00

Today, I was reminded of something I had written a couple of months (years?) ago. It was the prologue to a story I later wrote for NaNoWriMo entitled "Descent Into Divinity." The prologue focused on several unconnected strangers in church, listening to a sermon. The narrative shifts from one character to another, and at one point, it settles on a nameless man. The character of the man is pretty melancholy, and the man's thoughts often gravitate to the past, but he, as a person, isn't sad at all. He's actually pretty happy, because his memories--which are bittersweet--do not bother him. "The memories were sweet, and their taste was bitter, but that does not mean he was any less happy for remembering them. A fine wine, to the uncultured youth, is bitter. A life-saving medicine, to the ungrateful patient, is bitter. A delicious cheese, to the unknowing man, is bitter." And this man, above all else, is none of these things.

Anyway, that's not exactly the point of my post here. I just liked that passage from the book (I'm vain, if you hadn't noticed). A major theme that concerns the character of this nameless man is one of the passage of time. As it says later on, "He was grateful that Time had passed because that was Time’s duty. Not only that, but the past belongs in the past, and time must and should move on, just as humans must and should. He enjoyed his youth, but there are times to grow up, and it is no good to live in the past. There are reasons why memories are confined to the past."

There was a time, back when I was slightly more melodramatic than I am today (difficult to imagine, to be sure, but not impossible), that I was under the impression that nothing changed. No, if something appeared to be changing, it was simply an illusion; it was the inside manifesting itself more strongly on the outside. An apt analogy: stripping a pearl of the mollusk surrounding it doesn't change the pearl at all. If this sounds like the sort of faulty logic that only a 17 year-old caught in the throes of dramatic tragedy could concoct, then it might come as no surprise that at the time of conceiving this theory, I was a 17 year-old caught in the throes of dramatic tragedy, not to mention a great fan of faulty logic.

Everything changes. The flow of time ensures this. I'm reminded of one of my favorite scenes from Neil Gaiman's graphic-novel series, The Sandman. In Brief Lives, Destruction has a great speech about the "illusion of permanence." He says:

"I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend... I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend."

That effectively changed my outlook on life. I realized then that everything does change, that this is inevitable and in fact beautiful. Even the human body realizes this. We are much better at distinguishing motion than we are something stationary. This makes evolutionary logic. We are made to look for things in motion, predators on the prowl, because the body knows that to ignore change is to die.

And so, with this passage from the Sandman, I was reminded that everything changes, that the passage of time is inexorable, that omnia mutantur, nihil interit. Never ignore the passage of time, people. You will come to rue it, in your own way. I'm speaking from experience. I didn't write this post out of random inspiration. No, I was reminded of this today in particular. During lunchtime. I was heating a bag of popcorn (I'm not too picky about what I eat) and left to go to the bathroom. When I came back, I reached in to find it all burned and inedible. See? This is the universe's way of warning me. Time flows, regardless of whether you're attentively watching your popcorn or not. In the words of a Mr. Ferris Bueller:

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. "

A Resolution

2009-12-04T00:20:00.005-05:00

For the past couple of weeks, I've been arguing with myself over which is worse: the semblance of something, or nothing at all? This was sparked by a single sentence I had written into a story of mine, entitled "Necropolis, CA." I wrote: "They were nothing, and they had the dreadful appearance of being something." The sentence haunted me, and I wanted an answer.

People chimed in with their opinions on the matter. FerryDust suggested that it depended on whether or not "it" was a phantom or something real but ephemeral, that it depended on whether "it" was breathing and building, or dying. This is a very valid point, and I thank her for bringing it up. It does depend on that. The answer is this: it can be living and breathing. To be more specific: it should be growing.

Okay, to discontinue any ambiguity: my real question, and the question of my sentence, was relationships. I've been single for two and a half years now, and the character of my story was an extreme and quite successful womanizer. However, we both grew tired of being single, in our own fashions: I am altogether tired of it, while he, my character, is content with being single but not content with the illusion of satisfaction. Regardless, the question struck us: what was worse: the illusion of having a solid, meaningful relationship with a woman, or not having anything at all, of being alone when night falls, without a warm body in sight?

I grappled with this idea for many weeks, and I've finally come to a conclusion (hence, the title: a resolution): it, in fact, depends on when you are. Are you in the middle of the "illusion?" Then: the nothingness is worse. However, if you are after the "relationship" has faded, then the illusion means everything. The illusion is what keeps you company when the nights are lonely.

How to explain it further? How does this make sense? It's quite simple. I was seeing a girl, for a pair of weeks. However, it ended, as these things are wont to do. But during that time, we held hands; we kissed (yes, siblings, I've kissed a girl before. I am 19, after all); we whispered into each others' ears: we had the illusion. To be without each other was obviously worse. But, like I said, this ended. And so, afterward, I was left with the memory of it. And it was only then that I realized that even though it had been an illusion the entire time, it was still a fond memory; it kept me company. The times we spent together were pleasant.

Thus, my conclusion: during the illusion, nothingness is horrible. It is scary and cold and empty. It promises nothing, and nothing is dreadful. But afterward, when the illusion has ended and the emptiness is all too real...it is then that the illusion becomes important. It is then--and only then--that the illusion keeps you warm when the night wind sends a chill down your spine. How sad. What an unfortunate fate, but how predictable: the illusion only becomes important when you need it most. When the illusion is disheartening, you cast it aside.

So how do you act, then, when you are all too aware of the illusions around you? How do you act when you know that you are in the middle of the illusion of happiness? The answer is, also, simple:

You act happy.

In Which I Remember

2009-11-30T16:43:00.003-05:00

I've been moping around for the past couple of years. This is customary, around my age (read: still a teenager, still dependent on my parents for money/food/life). But, usually, my moping is not due to the fact that my childhood was so hard (it totally was, growing up in the suburbs of DC), that no one understands me (Only Sum 41 gets me. And Good Charlotte), or that no one recognizes my genius (my siblings, if they're reading this, are probably laughing at that last part). Usually, I mope around because it allows me write. I write dark stories, and dark stories demand dark characters. Moping around lets me embody these characters and make them come to life. I can think as they think, live as they live, and so, in my stories, they are more human, and so when tragedy strikes, it pierces the reader all the more deeply.

This isn't to say that I'm some sort of self-pitying adolescent amateur writer who thinks that his pain and suffering--however real they same to him--are worth writing about. No, I write under the belief that melancholy may be a source of inspiration, but it should not be the sole subject of its expression. People don't walk around feeling bad for themselves. They grow and the fall, they rise and they forget; their lives are a series of vicissitudes. A character who doesn't grow is static, and no one gets a thrill out of watching a puddle of pond water stagnate and attract mosquitoes.

Anyway, my moping was beginning to get the best of me. I'd regard my stories as demons, and the only means of exorcism was to write. Woe is me! Look at my burden! That's how I even began to view my writing: almost as a burden.

What a load of shit.

I'd almost forgotten why I wrote in the first place: it's not a burden. It's what sets me free. Writing was my first love, and it will always remain the first love in my life. I love the passion and energy involved in the act of creation--and make no mistake, writing--in fact, all art--is an act of creation. Writing is exciting. I have NaNoWriMo to thank for this. For the month, writing had been a burden. The last four days rolled around, and I had 25,000 words to write. And write them I did. I pushed myself for about two days and two nights, and by the end of it, I had a novel. I had written a 50,000 word book, half of which was in half a week. And it thrilled me. It had been the rude yet no-less-welcome awakening for which I had been waiting for months now.

And now, suddenly, I find myself surrounded by literature. I might join a Creative Writing club. I'm hoping to take a creative writing course next semester, and pursue it as a minor at my school. I'm hoping to free my mind and my heart and explore new worlds, uncharted territories, and, most importantly, unfamiliar characters. Who knows what I might find? I sure as hell don't, but I'll let you know when I get there.

The Impassive Grotesquerie Pt. II

2009-11-27T14:58:00.001-05:00

It will not make you join a convent or a monastery when you see it. Nor will it make you throw up, or scream. It is not visceral.

It will make you squirm. It will make you uncomfortable. It will show you that the most horrible people in the world are not the ones that act out of fear, or rage, or insanity. It will show you that the most horrible people in the world are the ones that do not act out of fear, or rage, or insanity.

It is unpleasant, and it will leave you feeling dirty.

The Impassive Grotesquerie is, above all things, the chilling reminder that, sometimes, a mirror and a glimpse into the darkest aspects of the human heart will show the same image.

The Nature of The Turtle

2009-11-11T19:28:00.005-05:00

I like turtles. They've got this quiet air about them, a really cool, laid-back attitude that comes from walking at your own pace, regardless of what the world above thinks of you. And they're kinda cute, in their own grubby, reptilian sort of way. They've got all the home they'll ever need resting on their backs, and it's even organic matter: if you break it, they'll bleed. I like that--that their homes are a part of them. There's poetry to be found in that. If you startle them, they'll dive right into their shells and they won't come out until they're sure that it's safe. They're patient and like eating bugs. I've never met a turtle that talked back, and as for the aggressive ones: if you annoy them, they bite you. Now, that's a policy I can stand behind. And probably far away.

I don't bring this up to be funny, because if there's one thing you've probably learned by now by reading this blog, it's that I don't really keep it for comical purposes. Oh, sure, some of the more charming aspects of my personality might shine through every now and then, but that's the burden of having a stunning and quirky disposition: you can't always hold a straight face, even when you need to.

I'm like a turtle, in my own way. I remember discussing this with my dad at one point, many years ago. When I get stressed or upset or unhappy or anything like that, I retreat into my world and don't let it out. I'm pretty sure 12minds is like this, and maybe Ed is as well. Not sure how my sister compares, because I feel like she's a bit more open than her brothers are. Regardless of how my family reacts, I have always and will most likely (and I doubt this is healthy for me) always internalize my problems. That's why I have my writing: I release any problems I have into my stories. It's no surprise, then, that my characters end up being so, uh, messed up. After all, they're the pools into which I funnel all my conflicts.

This worries me, for several reasons. People always say that if you don't release or talk about your problems, you'll explode. Sure, why not? But what's really got me worried is this character from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. The youngest sister of the Endless, Delirium, has this habit of getting lost inside herself. Her realm is so large and so confusing that even she can't navigate it properly. And so, there are times, when she becomes too engrossed in a thought, or emotion, that she can't leave herself. The turtle retracts within its shell and can't find its way out.

Will that happen to me one day? Will I continue to pour myself into my books such that I begin losing contact with real life? Will I find comfort with characters rather than with friends? I doubt it, of course. Everyone doubts it. There's no way it could get that bad, right? And I honestly don't think it could get that bad. I'm not the kind of guy who'd let his life be consumed in any way, shape, or manner that isn't to his liking.

But I am a turtle, in my own fashion, and, like Delirium, I can get lost in my worlds. Now that I'm finishing up this thought, I can see that this was all a segue into another entry that I'll post in a couple of days. But, I guess this is enough introduction into the mind of V. I figure this entry will make more sense once I post the next one. Man, this is one hell of a weak way to end a blog post.

A Quick Résumé

2009-10-25T19:55:00.002-04:00

So, I know that I may (probably not) have some readers (again: probably not) that aren't all that familiar with me. I really know for sure that 12minds reads this thing, but it stands to reason (probably doesn't) that I may have some new followers. So, with that in mind, allow me to introduce myself:

Hey. My name's V. I attend a small liberal arts school with an odd fascination for tigers, and I'm an English major. I'm only a sophomore in college, so I've still got some time to go before I go ahead and be disillusioned with the real world, or whatever it is graduates do. I speak Spanish and French; I'm going premed because I like medicine and anatomy & physiology fascinate me, and because I have a slight masochistic streak running through me. My passion is creative writing: fiction prose. I'm in the process of creating an entire universe of gods, characters, kings, and a cast of thousands. I love mythology, I love stories, and I love the gates of horn and ivory.

I have three siblings, all of which I adore. The eldest is 12minds, a guy who's pretty much a personification of my grammar nerdiness, general nerdiness, interest in computers, love of reading, passion for stories, and, paradoxically, I guess, also my more mature half. He's really intelligent, and quite frankly, he intimidates with his knowledge pretty frequently.

Then I've got my beautiful sister, A. When she was a kid, she wanted to be a vet. Most kids want to be a vet/astronaut/actor/whatever when they're young (I wanted to be a paleontologist). This usually changes when they grow up/realize that it's actually pretty difficult to be an astronaut. A never changed her mind, and she's up in New York for vet school. She's the nicest person, and she's also way too intelligent for her own good.

And then we've got Ed (I'm the baby of the family). He's a musician and just graduated from college. If 12minds was my more mature half, then Ed's the sillier half. This isn't to say that the guy is any less mature--it's just that we lived in the same room for years together, so we just act like kids around each other. He's a more rugged, more muscular, and suaver version of me. I'm slightly not okay with this.

Throw in two parents in the picture, and that's my family: I am V. I have a harsh conscience and a long memory, and I'll most likely spend the next few years attempting to forgive myself for something I did and said this summer. I was pretty reclusive in terms of family involvement for the better chunk of my high school years. I was in the process of writing a book, and felt moderately separated from my siblings. Now that that's over, I'm finally getting to know them not just as siblings but as friends. I cannot be happier about this.

So, now you know me. I don't really know you all that well, probably, but that's beside the point. Let's move on. I want to discuss something that's pretty important to me: this whole english/premed thing.

Like I said earlier, I love creative writing. Also, I like medicine. The human body is quite possibly the coolest thing on this planet. So I'm doing premed, a series of courses designed to prepare me for medical school. Med School is my back up plan, in case I'm not an award-winning novelist by the time I graduate. And here I am, sophomore year, taking Organic Chemistry, a class with the reputation of being the hardest premed class one can take, as well as being the class designed to separate the wheat from the chaff.

After the first midterm, it turns out I'm in the chaff.

Now, I had a dilemma in front of me: I could drop premed (which many of my friends predict I will, at some point) and concentrate on English and Creative Writing. This would free up my schedule, not to mention save my GPA. Or, alternatively, I could keep at it, in the hopes that I improve. This will inevitably lead to stress, lack of sleep, most likely a lower overall GPA, and low self-confidence.

I want to stress here that I'm most concerned about my GPA. I don't like doing poorly on tests. I hate it. I don't like doing poorly in anything. I cannot accept mediocrity, particularly not from myself. So it's bad enough that I'm doing poorly in class, but to have that mediocrity lower my GPA?? Insult to injury, my friends.

You see, the reason I can't accept mediocrity is because--and all my siblings are guilty of this, too--I'm proud. I am proud individual, and I refuse to be bested by anyone. Not to mention the fact that I'm also vain, and nothing kills vanity like being sub-par. So what to do? Drop premed, or don't? Concentrate on English, or don't? Keep my GPA, or keep my pride (important to note that a higher GPA will be a source of pride--conundrum)? Run away, or take arms against a sea of troubles?

The answer didn't take me very long to figure out. I said it before: I'm vain. I know that if I were to drop Chemistry, I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror.

And if there's one thing I love to do, it's look myself in the mirror.

A Ring

2009-10-15T12:59:00.002-04:00

I should throw in a disclaimer right here: I'm not posting anything to reveal some new insight into the nature of man. In fact, I stand by the idea that my goal in life, through my stories, is not to uncover the mysteries of the human heart but to remind my readers of what they are, however ugly they may be. That said, this next post isn't going to revolutionize anything: it's just a thought, and I have plenty of those.

So, I wear this ring. It was a gift from Eduardo on my 17th birthday. We went to the mall, to get *him* a ring. While we were there, he purchased one for me, as well. The reason he did this was because 12minds also had one, so now it was like a brother thing: the three of us wore rings on our right hands.

Well, 12minds lost his, and Eduardo's is cracked, but he still wears it. Regardless, it's still a brotherly thing. It makes for a good anecdote whenever people ask me if I'm married, and when girls hear how close I am to my siblings, they coo and "aww" and swoon. Or something like that.

The reason I bring this up is because I'm reminded of what Eduardo told me when he bought it. He said, "It's clean now, but as it goes on, it'll get scratches and dirty." He was right. When I got it, it was shiny and pristine (oh yeah, I used that in its correct form, bitches). As time went on (i.e., a day), it was already developing scratches. Now, it's riddled with them.

I'm fine with this, and in fact, I love it.

Because, what Eduardo said applies to everything that involves growth. We start off a clean and blank, and as time goes on we develop scratches and imperfections, but it also means the development of a personality. If Eduardo had never told me that it'd get dirty, I'd probably view these scratches with regret, with a yearning for the time it was new and pretty. But now it reminds me of how I'm growing up, how I may have been new as a child, but now, as time has progressed, I've become a human being with a mind, an ego, and a story. This ring also has stories. It, too, has a personality, in its own fashion.

This is an example, to me, of the beauty in change. This is an example, to me, of the fact that everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.

Hence the name of this blog: Omnia Mutantur.

Despair in 100 Words

2009-09-22T07:09:00.011-04:00

So, back in about 12th grade (ah, back in the good ole' days), I took this fiction writing course in Bethesda, MD. It wasn't the best--it was about 10 other high schoolers, and we all met once a week, and it was a big range of styles, ranging from intensely, sterotypically fantasy writers (all about knights, goblins, and orcs) to melodramatic Danielle Steele prose (a small, sad albino girl wearing a black dress at a winter formal event) to almost Austenesque. And yes, it was awkward. I mean, get 13 or so writers together and it's bound to be strained. These people are used to living in their own worlds, after all.

Anyway, on the second week, we had an assignment: describe a character's personality/psyche by *only* describing his or her surroundings/physical appearance. No easy feat, if done correctly. Most kids got away with abstract descriptions, but I was determined to follow up on the prompt. And so I did just that. It was supposed to be no longer than 100 words, and I believe mine is about 92.

"It is early morning. A new ashtray lies next to worn, damp running shoes. The remains of a warm cigarette, prematurely put out, rest inside. The shoes lie on top of a weathered bible that has a thin layer of dust on it. A blank canvas sits in front of him. Dry paint covers his brush. The telephone ring again. He does nothing. The correspondence accumulates; the messages beep; a fresh cigarette remains untouched; his hair is rank; his eyes are heavy; his chin is rough. Eventually, it begins to get dark."

Depressing, right? The one thing I'm really, really proud of is the fact that the 100 word limit forced me make sure every damn word had a purpose. And every damn word does. Not a single word, not to mention punctuation mark, the syntactical variation, and vocabulary, is superfluous. Everything is designed to communicate a sense of utter futility and overwhelming despair.

Damn, I'm a grim fellow.

Those of you familiar with Mr. Neil Gaiman's work will see a similarity or two with this paragraph and Endless Nights' "13 Portraits of Despair."

Anyway, from a purely literary standpoint, I like this. As a human being...I need something happy. Maybe Emperor's New Groove??

Conjunction-junction...

2009-09-20T17:22:00.002-04:00

Soooo, I was chatting with 12minds the other day (and by "chatting" I really mean he posted a commented on my blog. and by "the other day" I really mean several weeks ago) and he offered an opinion on this sentence of mine that I kinda like. The sentence was as follows: "A bustling metropolis where everyone touches and no one connects."

12minds suggested that I change "and" into "but," and I had some reservations about that. Sad to say, this isn't the first time we've discussed grammar together. Yeah, we're dorks. Quick anecdote: I once got him a shirt that says "Bad grammar makes me [sic]." Yeah, like I said: we're dorks.

Anyway, he thought that changing it to "but" would be better, because it more clearly opposes the two thoughts. This makes sense and all, but something about it bothered me, for some reason. I wasn't too sure why, but I liked "and."

So last night I was on my way walking to a party when I started thinking about it again. And then I realized what it was that I liked about "and." The difference, of course, between the two, is that "but" opposes two thoughts/clauses while "and" joins them. In this sense, "but" makes more sense to use, because the two thoughts ("everyone touches" and "no one connects") are opposites. They're *supposed* to be different.

But (heh) "and" joins the two, which seems to go against what I'm trying to do, unless you considered thusly (12minds will probably point out that that's not really a word, and he's right. whatever): going along with my whole idea of Impassive Grotesquerie (a fancy name for a simple concept), "and" is the more horrible of the two. You see, it's okay to have "but" in between the two clauses, because it clearly draws a line between the two: connecting and touching are very different. I can handle that.

But it's a lot worse to consider that maybe they're not all that different. That's what "and" suggests. It suggests that maybe the two are related, that they're closer and more similar than you would think. And therein lies the true horror. I feel like I'm not doing a very good job at explaining this. But whatever.

OR it's all an excuse to get away with it. *shrug* wouldn't put it past me.

I'm Not Even Sure...

2009-09-02T02:28:00.003-04:00

Random tidbit of a story I'll be working on in the upcoming months. Maybe I'll save it for NaNoWriMo, if I decide to do that again (i.e., if I decide to be suicidal again):

"Back when I was in high school, I was struck by the appalling spurt of self-pity and the even worse idea to express these feelings of melodrama in the form of the written word that seems to afflict every teenager at some unfortunate time or another. After recovering and realizing that it wasn’t all that hard to be a teenager, I swore to never again dabble with literature and its creation, no matter how important or great I thought my story. I kept this promise for many years, even into college, a time during which every budding liberal arts major thinks him or herself the next Fitzgerald. It wasn’t until the summer right after graduation that I even contemplated breaking this vow of mine.

"I’ve never considered myself much of a writer. Every so often, when nostalgia strikes and I’ve had perhaps one too many drinks, I look back on what I wrote during my adolescent years and cringe. Some say that all is improved in memory’s glow, but I say that some haven’t read the ramblings of a hormonal, lonely sixteen year-old. With that in mind, I thought long and hard on whether or not to share this story. Eventually, after again having one too many drinks, ambition won over good sense, and I decided to write it.

"When most people set out to write a novel, it’s generally for two reasons: either they have some really great idea, or they experienced some major event that changed their lives, something that shook the very foundations of everything they ever believed in. These often make for pretty good books, and I admire the people who can live through that much and still manage the creativity to write about it. I can’t boast that either of those two things happened to me. To be frank, it was a summer much like all other summers. The best way to describe the events of that season is with the image of skipping stones across a lake: the stones disturb the surface of the lake, but these traces are quickly swallowed up and erased by the current. The summer happened, yes, but it didn’t change my life. If anything, the events served as a melancholy confirmation of certain suspicions I had been harboring for years then.

"I asked some friends from college on how to start this project of mine, and they generally agreed that the beginning was as good a place as any other to start the story. I conceded that this was the practical way to go about this whole thing, and practicality was something I picked up from my father. He was a carpenter, and doing things in the most logical and efficient way—and correct the first time—was how he lived most of his life. I’m guilty of being my father’s son, and so I decided that if I was going to write this story, I was going to write in the most practical way possible, and if I could do it right the first time, so much the better. And so, despite going against my better judgment, I suppose I’ll start at the beginning."

Yup.

The Impassive Grotesquerie

2009-08-28T03:08:00.004-04:00

Something I really think is neat is John Keats' little philosophy of Negative Capability. It's the quality of being able to endure the unknown, of reaching out and touching the mysterious without an absurd scramble for answers. To me, it's a quality of being at peace when one is surrounded by the unknown and unknowable.

Anyway, I bring it up not because I want to sound smart (that comes later) but because it's as good a segue into this little project I've been tinkering with for the past week or so.

I've been preparing some of my writing for people to read, and I've been thinking a lot on how I want people to receive it. I came across an idea that really resonated with me.

Authors have different styles, obviously. Faulkner, for example, liked to take coherent plots and the traditions of punctuation and quite politely tell them where they can stick it. Cormac McCarthy did a similar thing in his novel The Road. Dan Brown likes having his pet monkey take a crack at the typewriter for a couple of hours, edit the more egregious spelling errors, and pass it off as a bestseller.

So my friend Yaa was telling me about Joyce Carol Oates and how she dabbles in this idea called Literary Indolence or something (I forget the exact name). It's when a writer just kind of says "fuck it" to the punctuation or coherency and lets the story run. It also happens in free verse poetry. If you wanna get cynical about it, it's an artistic excuse for laziness. If people don't like it, they get labeled as "philistines" or "close minded," and the writer just looks savvy and cool. *shrug*

I mention Literary Indolence, along with Negative Capability, because I've come up with a name for this theme of mine. I like to call it the Impassive Grotesquerie. It sounds fancy, and it damn well better. It took me the better half of a shower to come up with a name that sounded cool enough to describe the idea.

To put it long windedly, this Impassive Grotesquerie is my way of explaining or justifying my unhappy endings. As anyone who's heard me talk about my writing knows, my characters don't often end up happy, and even less often alive. If they somehow make it to the end of the story, they're usually the worse for it, as they're left with neuroses, scars (both physical and psychological), spiritual crises, and nightmares. Lemme put it this way: if you're a character in my stories, you'll probably wish you weren't.

Now, I've got reasons for doing it. I've discussed this with 12minds before. We both agreed that unhappy endings are not only more realistic and believable, they're also more satisfying and, generally speaking, more interesting. The movie can end with the couple kissing and making up, but what about the following week? What happens afterward? Euphoria doesn't last forever, after all.

So the Impassive Grotesquerie is more accurately the feeling I go for in my endings. You see, when I finish a story, I don't want the reader jumping up on his or her chair, shouting for all the world to hear, and having a spiritual crisis and/or mental breakdown. The horrors I write about aren't the visceral ones that have the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I'm not Eli Roth, here, or those assholes who direct the Saw movies. However, I also don't want the reader putting the book down, shrugging, and promptly forgetting about it an hour later. I'm not Charlotte Brontë, either. I want the reader to sit back, think about what has just happened, and feel the horror of what has occurred. It is a horror that follows you when you go to sleep. It is the unsettling feeling one gets when truths are unearthed that you'd much rather remain buried.

Hence the fancy name: Impassive Grotesquerie.

I'm not breaking new territory with this idea. And I'm sure that if I really wanted to (I don't) put in the effort, I could find someone who already thought of this and wrote it down somewhere. (Again, I don't want to go looking) You can see this kind of ending in Heart of Darkness. The book doesn't end with Kurtz dropping dead, while whispering, "The horror! The horror!" It ends with Marlow tells Kurtz' intended a lie; sure, a lie meant to protect her innocence, but an untruth nonetheless. And then when the book ends, it ends in darkness. This is meant to unsettle you.

And the same with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It doesn't end with Mr. Utterson stumbling upon Hyde's sprawled corpse, the result of a cruel suicide. It ends with the words of Dr. Jekyll rising from the grave in order to explain the bizarre events that occurred in the novel. And you're left with very dark and disconcerting truths.

But it's my little name, and I like it. And it serves me just fine, so that's that. To end on a happier note, let me quote this little gem from 10 Things I Hate About You:

"I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?"
"I think you can in Europe!"

Yeah, just think that. Only darker, or something. And cooler. Think sophistication. Maybe a throw rug and a pipe.

Necropolis

2009-08-25T18:05:00.002-04:00

So, with Prelude to Darkness out of the way, I've started writing short stories again. This one came out quite by accident. I was writing Prelude, and in one of the chapters I used the phrase, "A bustling metropolis where everyone touches and no one connects." 12minds rightfully said that it was kinda corny, but I liked it. And so I was thinking about this phrase when I got the image of someone smoking in a raining city. If you want a visual, check out this video.

And so I wrote it last night. It's only a rough draft, and I've got to figure just how I want the narrator to sound, but it's about this young adult (the 25 year old kind, not the 17th year old kind) in a nameless city. He's a painter, and when he arrives, he jumps into a world of drugs, alcohol, sex, and social climbing. It's a small tale (only 8 pages long) about what he learns from it.

Anyway, not to spoil it for you, but here's the ending:

"And it’s raining, and I’m doing my damn best to make sure my cigarette doesn’t extinguish, ‘cause it’s the only thing that stands between me and this damned city, this fucking place where everyone bumps into each other, where people brush past each other in line, where everyone fucks and everyone laughs and everyone drinks and everyone forgets and nobody sees the goddamn truth of it all, that they’re stuck here, that they’re nothing. It’s the bustling metropolis where everyone touches.
And nobody connects."

Kinda dark, in its own way. I like it, if I do say so myself.

Next up on the list of stories to right is a vampire one. Which, actually acts as a perfectly great segue into my next train of thought:

Vampires. What the fuck?

Remember those indie kids who were all like, "Hey, I used to like Radiohead back when they were small. I was there first fan," or the guy who goes, "Yeah, Sufjan Stevens' early stuff was good, but now he's all commercial." Well, that's me with Vampires. Since when are they super popular? They're not supposed to be! They're supposed to be the dark outcasts who appeal to the kids who like to think of themselves as dark and/or outcasts. They're not supposed to be mainstream! And if they are, they sure as hell aren't meant to sparkle like they just got out of a third grade birthday party.

The Twilight books were a miscarriage from the literary world. The Twilight movies were the film equivalent of a mom taking five shots of Bacardi 151 for three months straight before giving birth. I have no real beef with True Blood. I've tried watching season one, but it's just not for me. This isn't significant, though, because I stopped watching TV sometime sophomore year and I've only watched three series since then. There's a new series coming out called The Vampire Diaries, and the only way it'll be good is if they somehow throw in the Dread Pirate Roberts, and Inigo Montoya, which I don't think they will.

What I am looking forward to, though, is Daybreakers. It looks very cool. That's what a vampire movie should be like: dark and an analogy for a disease or the inner demons of humanity. The trailer can be seen here. It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. And the Placebo music is pretty perfect for the trailer.

But anyway, like I was saying, I'm want to write a vampire story. I've always wanted to write one. I've wanted to write one since I put down Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, and I don't even think I'd hit puberty when I read it. I'm excited to write it. I know I'm biased, 'cause I'm arrogant, but I think it's a cool idea.

And finally, one more thing: whatever happened to Werewolves? They were cool, too. Not like Lycanthropes, from Underworld, or, again, like those guys from Twilight. There's a move called Wolfman coming out. Looks pretty decent, also. Has Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Hugo Weaving, otherwise known as Agent Smith/Codename V. Trailer can be found here.

The Cool

2009-06-22T14:53:00.004-04:00

So, back in the day, I used to listen to The Flaming Lips, Elliott Smith, The Walkmen, Broken Social Scene, and a bunch of other cool indie groups that not many people knew about (and by "not many people", I'm referring to the middle schoolers and high schoolers I hung out with). Then my friend Joe introduced me into DJing, and my music tastes shifted into the House, Hip Hop, RnB, and generally stuff that doesn't require a whole lot of effort but is exciting and fun to listen to.

No, I never once ventured into Punk Rock. Even I had some sense.

Anyway, I get some shit for it every now and then from my siblings, because, understandably, House music is stupid. It's like the action movies of the music industry: easy to understand, simple to create, formulaic the majority of the times, but awesome if done correctly. This isn't to say that I don't listen to good music still. I always enjoy going back and listening to some Decemberists, or maybe some Modest Mouse. I even hit up ole' Sufjan from time to time. But the reason I stick around Hip Hop and that music is because sometimes, it's really, really good.

Take Lupe Fiasco for example.

One of my favorite songs, in general, is a song from his album "The Cool". The concept of the album revolves around three characters: The Cool, The Streets, and The Game, and the interactions between the three. My favorite song is called "The Coolest", which, to me, revolves around the story of an individual promised riches and fame and his coping with the prices involved.

There are two reasons why this song is my favorite: first of all, it's not happy. In fact, the entire time, it feels melancholy. The beginning piano chords sound like something I'd hear at a wake, and the first few sounds remind me of a tomb opening. It's a scraping sound of rock on rock, like a crypt door of some kind. And then when the beat drops, the one part that really sums up the song for me is:

"Lord please have sympathy and forgive my cool young history"

And that's the second reason I love this song: if anything, this song reminds me of Faust. The opening lyrics go, "I love the Lord, but sometimes it's like that I love me more." I can imagine a penitent figure, one who loves God, but who feels the urge to pursue fame, fortune, and riches. And as a result, he falls in love with her: "her" being this fame and fortune, his Mephistopheles. As the figure explains it:

"She said that she would give me greatness,
status, placement above the others
My face would grace covers
of the magazines of the hustlers.
Paper, the likes of which that I had never seen--
Her eyes glow green with the logo of our dreams
The purpose of our scene,
The obscene obsession for the bling"

So this desire for money and riches drives the young hero of the story. His devil promises him greatness and status, and all the while he remembers his beginnings and asks God for forgiveness. And even though he repents, he still doesn't turn away from his devil. He knows that what he does is wrong: his obsession is "obscene", after all. But he loves her too much. Their bond is so strong: she promises to make him royalty, immortal, free from pain and fear. And even if he does die one day, she'd join him. As Lupe Fiasco so eloquently puts it: "A match made in heaven to set the fires in hell."

Is it cheesy to say that I relate to this song? This isn't to say that I'm from the streets, or even that I'm on my way to them, whether they're the actual streets or fame and fortune. I didn't go through a tough childhood--I had everything provided for me. But it has long been my belief, even before I ever heard this song, that I'm going to hell. You see, to me, my writing is the one thing keeping me from Church. I used to go weekly, and I believed--fiercely. But one day, I began creating stories. And either it's a fault of my character, or simple misfortune, but I could never really keep those stories separate from my life. I lived them; I became my characters, when I could. I obsessed over them and delved into them, and so I turned my back on God. I was raised knowing the punishment for that.

But I never really stopped believing. It's just that, I love my stories. I have hopes that I'll make a living off of them. Maybe I won't get status or greatness, but I'll get something--a living. And for whatever reason, I can't live with both my stories and God. It's one or the other, and sadly, for right now, I chose my stories. I have hopes to leave them one day, when all are told and done. But until then, I pursue my Mephistopheles. I misheard the lyrics of "The Coolest" for a while, but the way I heard it really struck me: "Streets got my heart, they ain't got my soul," and I guess I feel the same way about my writing.

This song really does connect with me. The ending words are particularly strong:

"Come. These are the tales of The Cool.
Guaranteed to make you go and fail from your school
And seek unholy grails like a fool...
...So.
Shed no tear
when we're not here
and keep your faith,
as we chase
The Cool."

And all the while, in the back of my head, I silently pray: "Lord, please have sympathy."

The Misfortune of Saraphael

2009-06-16T01:20:00.002-04:00

"Fine then," he muttered with no attempt to hide his disgust. He rose from the ground and brusquely dusted himself off. "You wanted this so very dearly from the start, did you not? Then you can have it." He thrust his hand out at me. "Follow me," he commanded with a jerk from his head, "and I will show you what lies on the other side of the heart." His lips pressed together in anger and made a thin line on his face. "I will show you what darkness lives beneath the folds."

A Small Taste

2009-06-05T15:18:00.002-04:00

I love that I've kept writing from back in the day. I started creative writing when I was 11. I tried writing an epic fantasy series and I got 30 pages in before deciding that maybe I hadn't enough experience with writing yet in order to tackle such a large project. So I took a step back and decided, I'll write my entire life, and when I'm good enough, I'll finish that story.

Anyway, my first project thereafter was one concerning the human heart, light, darkness, and balance. This is the first paragraph of the book when I started it, back in September of '04. I was 13, then. I guess that makes it ninth grade.

"Everyone has evil in them. It’s a fact. You can’t get around it. It’s something dark. Primal. Something hungry. Most of us learn to ignore. We feel it, but we move on. We learn to live with it. And it, in turn, shapes us. Then there are others who are so good that they don’t even notice it. There are those of us who feel it, but don’t care. They live with it, but they have more good in them then anything else. And then there are those of us who are so equally divided between good and evil that only God knows who they truly are."

That's nice and all, I suppose, for a 13 year old. It's funny how I can remember writing that, too. I remember having those thoughts, putting them to paper (albeit on a computer). Anyway, this is a more recent version of that story. It's from the prologue, and it's not the first paragraph. But it's still fun.

"In order to truly be at ease, I sought to understand the nature of the human heart. A fundamental aspect of my theory concerning the soul was that I was not special; surely nothing raised me from the ranks of the billions of other individuals with which I shared the planet. By that assumption, anything I discovered of my heart was applicable to the world. With this in mind, I decided upon a theory concerning the human heart, and it revolved around a single tenant, a simple belief that, when I discovered it, utterly shaped my behavior, hounded my thoughts, and tormented my soul. The theory was simple: every denizen of this world has two persons residing within his or her soul: one light, and the other the darker twin."

This summer, I'm determined to finish this story. I've "finished" it three times before, but I always come back to rewrite a bit more. Now, however, I only have a couple parts that need rewriting. I'm no longer re-hauling the entire thing. The story, Prelude to Darkness, is finally coming to a close.

Yay for having free time in order to write!

Don't Worry, It's Inflammable

2009-05-19T02:53:00.004-04:00

So, today I was watching The Daily Show when Mr. Jon Stewart made a joke, using the word "inflammable" to mean "not flammable." This annoyed me. Not because Mr. Stewart had misused the word, but because "inflammable" is such a misleading word. The prefix "in" can mean:

A prefix of Latin origin, corresponding to English un-, having a negative or privative force, freely used as an English formative, esp. of adjectives and their derivatives and of nouns (inattention; indefensible; inexpensive; inorganic; invariable). It assumes the same phonetic phases as in- ² (impartial; immeasurable; illiterate; irregular, etc.).

www.dictionary.com

So, understandably, one would think that "inflammable" would mean "not able to burn". Makes sense, right? But no, apparently "inflammable" is the exception. Way to once again be clear and unambiguous, English Language. I'll go ahead and throw "inflammable" in the same list of commonly-misused-(and for good reasons)-words, along with "enormity", "pristine", "peruse", "bemused", and, as my brother recently pointed out, "sanguine."

Still Living

2009-05-08T02:12:00.003-04:00

My attention was brought back to this little blog just recently, so I thought a little update was called for.

Life is good! College can be stressful, apparently (who knew?). I've got several ideas for writing floating about my head, and I'm currently doing my best to work out several discontinuities and kinks from storylines. One of the tricky things about creating an entire universe of characters and places is that what you say in one early story must hold true for the rest of your writings. So I've had to really think ahead about what I want to write as my chef d'oeuvre. Once I've got most of the ideas/rules laid out, I can write my "earlier" stories.

This is, of course, assuming that in the decades of writing that are (hopefully) ahead of me, I won't change my mind about my characters/the direction I want to take my stories in. A hell of a lot to assume, right?

I've been currently thinking about actually doing the things I love. It's college, and I should pursue my passions. Chemistry is not a passion. I doubt that Organic Chemistry will be a passion. However, this whole pre-med business revolves around the worry that I won't be able to make a living as a writer. I'm assuming that I'll have to support someone in my life aside from myself, and if I can't make money as a writer, I need a backup plan. This is where the doctor thing comes in.

Sadly, it's not like you can just breeze past pre-med requirements without putting in effort. You've got to strive, as it's difficult to get into medical schools. And even though Chemistry is useless once you've gotten into med school, you still need to take the class.

So here I am, with pre-med. I'm telling you, though: if I get published at any point in my undergraduate career, I am kissing this whole doctor business goodbye.

I need to write a paper on Milton's Paradise Lost. See, this is the sort of stuff I love. Balancing chemical equations and finding the pH of acidic concentrations? Using Ideal Gas Law and molality, looking into Electrochemistry? Not so much. I find it interesting, but hardly satisfying.

Thoughts

2009-03-10T17:08:00.003-04:00

I was struck today by a bout of philosophy. I began wondering what it truly meant to live, and I recalled what a sibling had told me: to be aware. In the words of Déscartes, "Je pense, donc je suis." However, this wasn't really what I was going for. If a person is in a coma and loses all brain function, yes, one can make the argument that the individual isn't truly living. But I also think it's possible to be aware, to think and to act, and also not be living.

You see, to me, living is a collection of countless actions and feelings. It is to laugh and to love, to enjoy and to smile, to recollect, to remember, to feel, to cry, to despair, to panic and to sing, to dance and to sweat, to regret and to long, to feel and to burn, to hurt and to heal, a thousand, thousand things that individually are unique but are simply part of a larger whole. It is this idea of Emergence, that from a collection of small, individual facets a larger crystal arises. To me, going to work day after day, neither enjoying one's time their nor feeling ambition for more, isn't living. Participating in a monotony from which one cannot grow isn't living--it is subsistence, the barest of existences. When I spent my summers in a nursing home, I saw people wake and exist on a day-to-day basis, eating and interacting, yes, but some were simply existing. They never enjoyed nor reviled their lives. They interacted with others, yes, but one could tell that they had already died on the inside.

I suppose that is what it means to live, at least for me: to have a soul, still. To have a fire within it. To still enjoy life, so still want to live. Not to grow accustomed to monotony, to become used to stagnation. To live is to have spirit, a will to grow, a desire to continue living for some further end.

And what of sleep? Didn't the ancients consider it a small death? Perhaps it is, a thousand tiny deaths until the largest one, as my dear friend Hob Gadling suggests. Maybe each dream is a trip into the sunless lands, a trip from which we return every night until that one night in which we don't.

So, then, when faced with death, what are we to do? Some people fear death, others used to revere it, but us? What about us? I don't necessarily fear it. In the past few months, I've developed something of a personification of death in which (and this differs only slightly with how Mr. Gaiman portrays her in his Sandman series) Death and Life are siblings (twins), and that before Life, we are all members of Death. And we fear being born, because we are so accustomed to the existence before. And so when Life takes us, we forget all our time with Death, until we are reunited once again years later. It's not a morbid thought. It's somewhat melacholy, because I think Death is lonely, maybe even misunderstood. And so we enter to her realm every night, only to forget in the morning.

Hmm...maybe it is a bit morbid.

Regardless, I don't really fear death. Yes, I'd like to continue living, and I'd like to prolong death for as long as possible, but I don't fear it, per se. I don't hate it. I don't really wish for immortality, for if my characters are reflections of my soul and my characters eventually come to revile their immortality, then I assume that I, too, would come to hate it.

But what does one do after the wake of a death? I've thought on this, and I'm always struck by how odd I find death (in that I struggle to define it, as I struggle to define life). I can't seem to get over how weird death is. But then I realized that, quite simply, it's just another chapter. One individual's story may have ended, but such an ending is simply the end to a chapter of our stories. And so we continue. In the words of Dream:

"She is dead.
You are alive.
So live."

Maybe it's something along those lines. I accept death, yes. And it does cause something of melancholy for me, for I am separated from one I cared about. But I can live, content with my memories. I can live, content with the knowledge that the individual's legacy perseveres, and that I am part of this legacy. I can live, knowing that this is simply a new beginning. This is the start to a new story.

And I do so love stories.

In Which I Remember Who I Am

2009-03-04T00:10:00.001-05:00

A storyteller. An artist. A Creator. A god.

Time to start creatin'. Those stories won't tell themselves.

It'll be good to be back.

In Which I'm Overly Dramatic

2009-02-17T00:54:00.003-05:00

Or I could be. I've had a lot of thoughts bouncing around recently. Most important, not to mention most unsettling, is the realization that my personality as it is now is not conducive to what I want to be and achieve.

......

I don't know how to change, I just know that I need to. And this, world, is why I should not listen to romantic and/or depressing music late at night.

I need to get into writing again. That always clears of mind of these foolish thoughts and emotions. My next story will be a tad on the supernatural side. And I have a play in mind. These should prove to be interesting times, ladies and gentlemen.

"Knights...

2009-02-08T22:40:00.003-05:00

...[have] no meaning in this game."

These words have been bouncing around me head for a while now, especially now that Valentine's Day is fast approaching.

I don't know what I expected. I knew girls in high school are immature, just as guys are--we were in high school. We were supposed to be immature. But I suppose that I expected people at college to be better. They're supposed to be, but maybe I simply wanted and expected too drastic a change in one year. We were only in high school a couple of months ago. People don't grow up that quickly.

All of my girls here with whom I had some connection that extended beyond drunken debauchery have all disappointed me, exactly because they have simply proven that knights have no meaning in this game. You don't get points for being an idealist, in the words of James Gordon. For the most part, girls expect assholes. And I'm beginning to suspect that they want the asshole--they want the man's man, the aloof, emotionally retarded male who won't call back but at least is a real man. And so when faced with a guy who's willing to wait, or who wants to talk, or to get to know her better, the girl might be a bit confused. Or if she's not, then she's simply turned off. She calls him passive. A coward. And girls wonder why good guys don't exist anymore.

"It [isn't] a game for knights."

It's not. I think I had suspected this for a while now. I guess it's only now becoming obvious to me.

Yes, I realize that this post is the literary equivalent of an angsty, preteen Xanga post. I'm only human. I can be permitted some lapses every now and then.

I've Made A Huge Mistake

2009-01-29T23:26:00.001-05:00

Looking for jobs and internships during the summer.

Just realized how utterly useless an English degree just might be.

Elitism & Old Friends

2009-01-22T20:01:00.003-05:00

Lately, I've been going through my music library, finding music and bands that I haven't listened to in a while, reconnecting with a different music age of mine. It's funny how I suddenly remembered how much I enjoy listening to The Flaming Lips, or Wilco, or The Dandy Warhols, or a bunch of other bands that by now are somewhat outdated and old. It's nice to hear them again. It's like finding old friends again, catching up on old times.

I'm currently listening to a song called Fight Test, by the Flaming Lips. It's a song that actually really resonates with a character of mine by the name of Chance. He's a big guy, but he refuses to hurt others, and Fight Test really kind of is his theme song.

"I thought I was smart
I thought I was right
I thought it better not to fight
I thought there was a virtue, in always being cool
So it came time to fight
I thought 'I'll just step aside'
And that the time will prove you wrong
And that you would be a fool"

And it takes him time to realize that it is always okay to fight for what you believe in, whether it be your friends, family, or a cause.

"Oh. To fight is to defend
If it's not now then tell me when
Would be the time
That you would stand up and be a man
For to lose I could accept
But to surrender I just wept
And regretted this moment
oh that
I was the fool"

As I was thinking about indie bands and whatnot, I started thinking about WPRB, the local radio station here on campus. They're so dedicated to this indie elitism (the best bands are the most obscure. Anything mainstream is evil and crap) that they refuse to play anything that is playing on popular radios, even firing a guy for insisting on playing Marroon 5.

What the hell?

Ignoring entire genres of music for the sole reason that they're popular is quite possibly the stupidest and most immature thing one can do. It's a great way to simultaneously alienate a huge demographic of listeners as well as limit your own fanbase's taste and exposure to music. Furthermore, you just inject them with a false sense of superiority. "Oh, you like N.E.R.D.? I listen to Stereolab."

Don't get me wrong--most of what is played on the radio is crap. It doesn't take talent to create the music Fall Out Boy does, or to pump out what Linkin Park called music. But artists have talent. To ignore Lupe Fiasco's music because he's popular is moronic. "The Cool" is a great album, and his songs have meaning and his lyrics have substance. The same goes for N.E.R.D., whose music is catchy, true, but is good. Close-mindedness is conducive only to ignorance. And what to do about "popular" indie bands? Is it okay to play Radiohead? Modest Mouse? Daft Punk? Sufjan Stevens? Where do you draw the line in elitism?

(Listening to Daft Punk live in concert. Amaaaaazzzing. Album's called "Alive 2007". Definitely recommend it.)

I don't know how to end this post. Maybe a period will do.

Dean's Date

2009-01-13T01:34:00.002-05:00

Dear V,

Welcome to your first Dean's Date.

It's the day where all your papers are due. As you're reading this, you have four papers to edit. You've written them all already, thankfully, but now you've just got to finalize them. But don't take a breath of relief just yet. You've got three exams to study for. Haha, and don't even think about sleeping this week. That's for people who don't procrastinate and are productive. * Anyway, just thought I'd stop by and laugh at you for a bit. Have fun!

Sincerely,

College

*And that's definitely not you.

This is going to blooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Sickly Frustrations

2008-12-03T15:34:00.004-05:00

The human body's a fucking moron.

"But, V!" I can hear you protest, "The human body is capable of thousands of intricate and complex functions! No human technology can come close to achieving what the human body can do!" True, I will grant you this much. However, it's still a moron. Why? I'll break it down for you with my good friend Mr. Analogy.

Imagine there's a large computer company. It has a fair plot of land, and it constructs a building on said land. Housed in this building are millions of servers. This makes the supercomputer the company owns work very well and efficiently. Joyous!

However, one day, there's a virus going around, and it's messing up the servers, through whichever means. The company holds a meeting for the board of directors, or whomever. They try figuring out how to fix this problem. Suddenly, one person stands up and says, "We should construct a police-like robot that will search for this virus and any infected servers and destroy these servers in order to prevent the virus from spreading." Sounds smart, they all agree. They muse about it, when suddenly a large, burly character stands up and shoves the other one out of the way. He then bellows, "That's real fucking stupid. How about this: this robot-building stuff sounds like it'll take a while. Fuck that. How about me and my buddies just go down and start smashing servers, without discerning between healthy ones and sick ones? I mean, eventually, we'll have to get all the virus, and it's faster than that other dude's idea."

Then the board gets up, thinks about it for a moment, and goes, "Hey, you know what? That's a pretty good idea."

Now, if you smash up a couple of hundred out of millions, it won't really matter. You won't really notice anything weird. But if you start breaking tens and hundreds of thousands, shit starts getting slow and messed up.

That's my body's approach to dealing with viruses. Instead of making B Cells, which selectively search out infected cells, my body makes Natural Killer T Cells, which just blast the hell out of all cells in the infected area, which just so happens to be my throat, leaving it a scorched, desolate wasteland. Way to go, body. Thanks for really helping me out there.

In Which I Recount...

2008-12-01T01:46:00.001-05:00

...the view from the top.

It's pretty nice, ladies and gentlemen.

The Final Hurdle

2008-11-30T18:22:00.000-05:00

2,000 words left.

I can do this.

In Which I Spread My Wings

2008-11-30T00:09:00.001-05:00

9,000 words left.

Time to fly.

Where I Fly

2008-11-20T02:46:00.002-05:00

My roommate can't seem to understand how I can survive on so little sleep. He's an athlete and has practice at 6 am, typically, and so is understandably in bed by about midnight every night. Myself, I stumble into bed no earlier than three, usually. This past week, I've been getting to bed at about 7 am.

I explain to him that it's quite similar to his athleticism. Anyone who's ever done a sport seriously knows that every so often there's something like a "high". You reach a point where your body flies. I experienced it in Cross Country, or in Soccer. Your body is released from its chains for but a moment, and it soars. Yes, you come crashing down eventually, but the view from those heights is unforgettable. You'll always want it again.

This is the same. I'm pushing my body, my brain, my creativity, to their limits. And I fly. I just wrote an essay, starting at about 12 am. And yes, it took me three hours and I'm exhausted and I've consumed what is most likely a dangerous and unhealthy amount of energy drinks, but I'm flying. And when I'm writing and I start to fly, I truly soar.

Neil Gaiman helps a bit, too.

Last sentences of my essay: "Horror strips all who encounter it of their innocence. And innocence, much like paradise, once lost, can never be regained." Very true. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a book to write.

Fond Memories

2008-11-19T03:37:00.002-05:00

I remember when I used to sleep. Those were good times in my life.

Seen On A Bathroom Stall

2008-11-11T14:51:00.001-05:00

Discuss: How does one define what it means to exist?

(scrawled underneath it): Je pense, donc je suis.

(in response, by another hand): Voltaire can suck my balls.

(in response, by another hand): It's Descartes, you FUCKING MORON.

*sigh* college is fun.

Swimming Upcurrent

2008-11-10T17:33:00.003-05:00

How did this happen? I'm like 6,000 words behind! Curses! Whatever--if I work hard, I'll catch up soon enough.

This is, of course, assuming that I have no work to do this entire week. Hahaha, oh man, I make myself laugh sometimes. Hilarious!!

Epic Voyages

2008-11-08T01:36:00.002-05:00

Screw Odysseus (Ulysses? Why did I just learn this year that he has two names?) I'm on my own epic voyage, and it's called NaNoFuckingWriMo. Traveling for a decade? Psh, that's easy. Try writing a book in a month. I have a great idea, and it seemed really cool in my head. But trying to write it in a month? All of a sudden, my conversations are strained. My characters are dull. My totally awesome plot isn't happening. I know how Point A and Point B. I just don't know Point Whatever-the-fuck-happens-between-A-and-B. Luckily, I'm so dumb that I don't even know how to get discouraged. I'm like an animal that doesn't learn that touching an electric fence will hurt*.

Anyway, whatever. I'm at about 8,000 words. I'm 2,000 behind! Actually, 3,000. Curses.

*That's a pretty depressing image, actually. And by depressing I mean hilarious.

Realizations

2008-11-05T01:56:00.001-05:00

There's a group of drunk college students parading about campus--at 2:00 am, no less--chanting "O-ba-ma!"

Wait a minute--there were elections today???

Improvisation & Procrastination

2008-11-02T18:29:00.003-05:00

Well, Plan A was going up to you, giving you a big hug, and asking you about your break. It'd been a while since I'd seen you, so it'd be nice to simultaneously catch up and prove I'm capable of uttering a normal english sentence. It'd be cute, full of small romantic clichés and "aww" moments that we 'd look back on when we're well into our later years.

Well, my brain froze upon seeing you, so out went Plan A. Luckily, I'm quick on my feet and I improvised Plan B right on the spot, which was just as efficacious as Plan A. It was: say hey and then quickly walk away and avoid holding a conversation with you. Now, I might be able to understand others' doubt concerning the success of such a plan, but what can I say: I stick by my guns. Even if I'm holding a .45 revolver against a howitzer (how's that for shitty analogies? Also, that's evidence of how much time I spend on wikipedia. Damn you, five clicks to Jesus). Anyway, *sigh* this is gonna be a long year.

I've fallen in love with Questionable Content. It's a cute indie webcomic that makes me miss the days when I would search for bands like Broken Social Scene (and by "search for" I mean "wait for my brothers to tell me about) and artists like Sufjan Stevens. I miss the sentiment of superiority, knowing that I know about a band that isn't mainstream. Like it's mine. And the more obscure it was, the better. Those were glorious days. I like to blame my DJing on the death of my indie-love. Top 40 is death to indie.

I've managed to read all 1,300+ comics in a week. Does that make me a nerd without a social life? Possibly. Could it also make me an awesome guy with a great social life? Well, I'm no scientist. but yes. Yes it does. So instead of writing essays and reading and getting ready for school, I've stayed up late reading about indie bands and small robots and romantic angst. And here I thought college would make me a better student...

Incredulity

2008-10-29T20:31:00.001-04:00

Really, Universe? You really just had to go ahead and do that? Uncool.

Unwelcome Guests

2008-10-29T00:34:00.002-04:00

Curious things happen. We think ourselves strong (and I'm assuming you're a part of this "we", even though it ("it" being the "we") is obviously synonymous with "me" or "I"), or cold. Distant enough to take a blow and not feel it too badly. Hard enough to withstand a couple of words and not flinch. Mature enough not to feel too badly about ourselves. We think ourselves covered, head to toe, in a suit of armor, shielded from the dangers and perils of the outside world. We think ourselves safe.

But we need to move. And to do that, a suit of armor needs joints. And joints means weaknesses. Otherwise we just stand there, waiting, stagnating. And I think we all know that to wait is to age, to hesitate is to die. I know I'll die someday, but today's not looking like it. Nor tomorrow, for that matter.

What I mean is: we--I--created a false sense of security around myself. I thought I had buried my past, for the most part. Such memories are unwelcome guests. And I know that old ghosts are never too far behind, but I figured myself for a fast runner. It's just odd--curious--strange--frustrating when I realize that this suit of armor of mine is older than I thought. And that there are chinks in the armor I never quite noticed. And that there are holes that leave me exposed. And that maybe this suit of armor was never there at all to begin with. Just an illusion that I desperately clung to.

It's curious how six words can do that to you. Or maybe I'm just blowing this out of proportion. I have a habit of doing that. I dunno: it kind of sucks when you realize that you're right. What I mean is, I have a character who always says: "why bother fighting someone? Sometimes, words can hurt a lot more than steel ever can." It's something of a bitter victory when you realize you're right. At least, it is in this situation.

Perhaps further amazing is how silence can mean even more after the utterance of significant words. Six words can mean so much, and the proceeding silence can mean so much more. How utterly marvelous.

Bloody hell.

Remotivations & Writings

2008-10-21T16:23:00.002-04:00

Survived midterms. Now on to important things:

I've been letting my reading and writing slide. Now that I finished testing, I have a bit more time on my hands. I revisited a collection I'm really enjoying, Dreamsongs, by George R.R. Martin. Back in the good ol' days, when Mr. Martin was a tad younger and weighed about thirty stone lighter, he was a writer of short stories. I've never been one for short stories. Their very name limits them (to a degree. Does anyone actually know how long a short story can be?), resulting in the inevitable simplifying of characters. I'm not really for that. I like backstory. I like lengthy tales. It shows in my writing. I like to talk, both verbally and nonverbally. I'm in love with the sound of my own voice and the flow of my prose. So I'm conceited, whatever. All artists are conceited, it's in our very nature. We're creators, so we think ourselves gods. It comes with the territory.

Anyway, I was struck by how his writing short stories really launched him in the literary world. Furthermore, I was walking around campus the other day when I came across a flyer that asked, quite forwardly, "Want to be published?" As most other writers, I responded in the positive. It then asked for short story submissions, even poetry (which I can't do for the life of me. The best I've been able to crank out in 18 years has been, "Roses are red/Violets are blue..." and then writer's block hits me). Well, I've got one full-length novel lying around, but I'm not sure how practical it is to print a novel in a magazine. So that left short stories. I had one, but that wasn't very good, so, inspired by corpulent Mr. Martin, and driven by the flyer, I decided to try my hand at short stories.

I've never had so much fun before.

There's something about short stories that is just so refreshing. There's a beauty in the simplicity, in the bare minimum. I've written three stories in the past couple of weeks (which is no easy feat during college), and I'm shooting for six or seven before the fifth of November, which is when I need to submit these pieces. I've one on a family reunion, on a doctor marrooned on an island, and one existentialist piece on candles. They all sound boring enough, but I have to say, however biased I am: they're not. I'm really excited by them all. These stories are keys. If I submit these to enough editors or publishers or whomever I submit them to, then maybe I can make a name for myself in some places. And with that, publishing a novel is just a tad easier. Martin did it--why can't I? All you need is some ambition and creativity. Luckily, I've got the two in excess.

Insomnia & Infatuations

2008-10-16T02:44:00.002-04:00

It's a good thing I don't sleep anymore. It's amazing how much you can get done if you just deprive your body of its most basic needs. Except for the fact that after a certain hour (say, 2 am) my productivity just shoots down, hence the blogging. But in all honesty, I'm getting a little less than 6 hours of sleep a day with one meal a day.

I wonder how long my body can keep up with this. Eh, whatever. I'll sleep in two weeks, so it's fine. And I'll eat eventually. I hope.

In other news--you.

Yeah, I'm talking to you.

I asked you out on a date. Only you didn't know it was a date. Hopefully you won't realize what I'm doing until it's too late and you're already standing at the altar. But yeah, you're causing me quite a fair amount of stress, so I'd appreciate it if you stopped being so beautiful.

Which reminds me--what the hell? Now, I like to think of myself as a pretty well-spoken, eloquent guy. When it comes to girls, I know what to say and what not to say. I can be smooth, charming, and charismatic. I know just when to smile and how much teeth to show. In other words, I can be a Casanova. But no. Apparently not with you. Apparently my latest strategy in wooing involves me standing still, my heart rate increasing about 30 beats/minute, me mouthing--not actually verbalizing, because that'd be too normal--the word "hey", and then quickly making a getaway before you realize that I'm actually really awkward and maybe not as cute upon closer inspection. This is completely contrary to my usual plan. Maybe you'll be so stricken by my innocence and awkwardness that I'll win you over without even meaning to. And maybe afterward I'll win the lottery and get straight As at school. And while we're dealing with theoreticals, maybe I'll become a superhero.

Then again, maybe not. I hate girls sometimes.

Ruminations & Visions

2008-10-12T14:55:00.000-04:00

I was walking around campus today when I realized something: there is beauty in ambiguity, in unclear distinctions and blurry lines. Such ambiguity brings with it an inherent mystery to its nature: you can't exactly make something out, there's a veil surrounding it. And because of this, it's almost beautiful. It's alluring because you don't know it.

It's easy to get lost in the details. It's comforting knowing something, but every now and then you have to take a step back and take the small risk of letting something mysterious stay mysterious. There is beauty in ambiguity.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: in my rush to get to dance rehearsal (for which I was already 40 minutes late) I forgot my glasses in my room.

...yeah.

I wandered around campus in awe of the big orange, red, yellow, and green clumps of leaves on trees. Since when are there so many trees on campus??

Beginnings & Recollections

2008-10-09T19:29:00.002-04:00

This is something of a catharsis for me.

Something I've discovered is that it's rather difficult for me to communicate with people. Sure, I have a bunch of eloquent words I can use; the only problem is that I don't, or can't. So here we are. Words are always comforting--they never judge.

And also, I rarely have the time to call people. So here we are--here's a peek into my little life. This should save me a bit on phone bills.

And thus is this a beginning.

I mention recollections because I can't help but remember my Xanga days. I fondly look back on the days when I'd post about my day, about how mean people were, how no one understood me, how only I really knew what it was like to be a teenager growing up in an area as affluent as mine (and they still don't!!), and how I was so alone. Oh, woe was I. I wonder how I got through such tough times.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: welcome. Oh, and while I'm at it: Muse, help me out here.