I don't have time to make an entry, but I'm going to make the time. It's better than racking my brain over a research proposal that's due early this week. Incidentally, I'm about halfway through, with the hardest half yet to come, so things are looking grim. They always do, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
About five months ago, I took a break from all things related to the MUD, which was quickly becoming the third most time intensive routine of my life, next to sleeping and screwing around at work. I justified it by the amount of creative things I did there, but then that started to decline. It was time for a little break, to organize my thoughts and secure the next couple of years of my career. During that time, I picked up several routines to take the place of the newly made vacancy in my day. Frequent trips to hone my photography skills was chalked in about every other weekend. I extended my working hours by three on most nights, and caught up with movies and the news, which I had neglected continuously for the past five years or so. I dated sporadically, which proved unreliable in keeping a permanent block of my time. All this still left a few hours every other day that I didn't have anything to do, so I made a wager with some friends at work: we'd agree to hit the gym three days a week and the last person standing would get a free lunch out of the deal. I'm now in pristine shape awaiting my free lunch. There's some merit to what my friend told me shortly after the wager was made: Going to the gym is all a plot to suck you into the healty lifestyle bullshit, and once you're locked into that mentality, you're doomed to spending bucketloads of your hard-earned money on crap you think will help, and doomed to always feel guilty. It's almost as bad as church. (His words, paraphrased) To this day he refuses to set foot into the rec center. I say there's some merit because even though I essentially won our little bet, I still maintain that routine religiously for no reason in particular. I find it helps me collect my thoughts and ideas, and gives me a couple of hours to catch up on the latest music. I refuse to be one of those 30 year olds listening to bad 80's music on their tape deck. To that end, I bought a nice mp3 player and make it a point to load up a different CD a week which I conveniently borrow from the internet.
But then of course, there's not much creativity in repetitive lifting and going in circles for half an hour on a track, so eventually I needed another fill in routine. The music and thinking helps, but it's all too passive for my taste. Nothing tangible is ever created (that's a debatable point, but bears no influence on the remainder of my rant, so henceforth it shall either be taken as fact or ignored altogether). I opted to ease back into the web logs, and about the middle of March I started writing again. That brings up a rather interesting subject: my writing. Well maybe not interesting for you, but i'm going to pursue it anyway, mainly because I can.
I started with the Clausius stories several years ago on the MUD. Then it was something to pass the time, but I enjoyed it so much that I decided to keep at it. Over the years, the short stories would appear, with seemingly little plot and direction. They were just fun to write on whatever popped into my head. That's how they still are, though I think i've got the language down since my first few stories, having never taken anything other than core English courses in college (and I think in many respects I learned a lot more in my high school English classes). And i've taken to being a little more consistent, keeping tabs on dates and character names and what not. That aspect stems from deeply rooted retentiveness in my personality (approaching or exceeding anality). I was hesitant to do that at first, but eventually i said what the hell and it didn't take away from the fun one bit. I would argue it adds to it in some twisted and perverse quenching of my obsessive nature. I admit though, i'm quickly getting away from those easy to read hack and slash stories I used to write so often. It's as much entertainment as it is experiment, and sometimes experimental things are rather dreadful to experience. Case in point: the so called experimental music, which on rare occasions produces something redeeming and of deep cultural value. In most cases though, it's just loud and obnoxious. That's my opinion not to be taken seriously given my overall music experience spans less than a couple of hours every other day. But I do at least try to understand.
Ok, I digressed to the point that I lost the point. I was talking about my stories. If you didn't read any of them, then you can ignore most of this entry safely. They're still very much experimental. I tried the psychological approach, and overdid it to the point that it lost coherence. I tried the packed full of action approach, and it works, but it was difficult to be anything but superficial. I tried about a dozen different cliches: misguided youth, amnesia, blood vengeance, dreams within dreams, revelations (luke, I am your father), etc. I have yet to decide if those work or not. I'm currently working on a combination of those things, with some reinventing of fundamental concepts along the way. I think the big lesson thus learned is to be diverse, but in moderation. I haven't read enough to be truly diverse, but like all things, it comes with time. I guess if the whole writing thing doesn't work out, I can do something with the doctorate degree once I get it. Which is why I should get back to that proposal.
Posted by Clausius at April 12, 2004 02:00 AM