. Spinning .

Wow, I’ve been up for several hours and can’t find anything worth telling you about, whether it be narrative of little adventures or some gradual unfolding of the deeper meanings of life according to me, or some worthwhile tidbit of information on literature or literary efforts—nothing. Nothing at all.

So I’ll be back in a few hours at the most. I am going to shower, dress, put on my evil face, and get into some kind of trouble worth writing about.

…and in a much more eloquent or raw or thought-provoking or entertaining manner.

It’s annoying that the same story must be told over and over and over again. Are there truly only thirty-seven plots to life? Even with inventions and new communications, and methods of travel, I suppose it only means that someone will not reach someone in time to communicate the danger of something blowing up before they leave to get there. Boring, huh?

Science Fiction is hard-pressed to keep up with the rapid innovations in technology. We’ve been completely blown up and resurfaced in The Planet of the Apes, Matrix, and all the stories that make an attempt to start humanity from scratch.

So it must all be in the words then, or rather, their placement in relation to one another. Using natural ingredients to make a stew that is outstanding. Brushing pigments on a canvas in such a mix of colors and form that it is like no other. This writing thing may need more craftiness than I thought.

At Everyday Matters, do read this insightful and logical entry entitled, “My Name is Mud” that speaks of the difference between the finishing touches and finishing off as in kaput! a work of art, a work of language, an idea.
I can relate as a writer, and especially more so as an enthusiastic but undisciplined artist. What colors don’t mix together to give you olive drab?

Although this may be argued with (by Neha, who more likely understands both the term but may be tempered by her understanding of the writing life as well!), I believe I have reached a state of mind very like the dictionary term at least of Nirvana.

“Buddhism: the state of perfect blessedness achieved by the extinction of individual existence and by the absorption of the soul into the supreme spirit.” (Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th Ed.)

In changing tense and person and all the other little technical stuff that makes up revision, I find myself as well reading beyond to find better ways, words that offer vision rather than instruction. This rewriting process is not as hateful as I suspected it would be! It’s fun in a rather twisted sense, to have the power and control over words and lives of characters I do not as yet know as well as I am learning to know them. I’m digging deep inside their psyches and finding shocking things, but lovely things as well. And I’m learning to write them down just as I’ve learned them–by watching what the characters are doing.

Not quite Nirvana as many are privileged to know it, but this third meaning offered in Webster’s also, may grant me coverage for this fleeting, temporary state: “any place or condition of great peace or bliss.”

Well maybe Cormac McCarthy can get away with it, but I shouldn’t try.

Got on Spinning a little bit ago to do some visiting of the links (it’s easier now for me to do it this way rather than keep pulling down my Favorites list, and that is another reason why the links open in a new window rather than a new page–it’s all done for my convenience, I guess!) and just reread briefly my last couple of posts. Now this has been one of my main technical flaws in writing since forever, but I’m at my most eloquent, or so I think, in paragraph-long sentences. I had managed to break the habit a bit through the courses I’ve taken in reading and writing, but some old habits die hard.

Maybe allowing myself a little poetry now and then will train me in the right direction with compression of words and finding the vital imagery that’s just as important in short story narrative.

I must remember the rule: Less is more.

Cormac McCarthy can do whatever he wants. He’s good enough to get away with it.

Hell, I should have stabilized by now. Somewhere in the void between moody and elated, organized and scattered, purposeful and fanciful should be a middle ground that’s easy to navigate, seeings how one finally has the use of both hemispheres of the brain. Why do they continue to grumble and argue? Why can’t they get along and work well together to lead one on a productive path to some place where they’ve never been? Shouldn’t that adventure act as an incentive to quit the quarreling and move along? I’m not looking for hand-in-hand here; I’m looking for a cooperative attitude geared towards equality to ensure survival of the common whole.

Anyway, that’s the deal here now. I’m in too good a mood to write about conflict and emotion. But I’m supposedly a clever woman, and will manipulate them to advantage, giving each their equal time until they work up to a rhythm that has them waiting in the wings, anxious and breathless with their narrative or technical compulsion until within a seamless second they will work together side by side.

Luckily I’m in that creative mode where I can sit and write about anything in a kind of nifty way. But organization is key here, and I’ve spent the morning separating out the voices that are clamoring to be heard.

Priority #1 is rewriting of “A Seasonal Life” but there’s a character that’s calling for attention, and I have had to start another story because he just didn’t seem to understand that a cowpoke from the 1870’s didn’t belong in contemporary suburbia among a family who had a different set of conflicts of their own.

So I listened, and as soon as he took a breath to contemplate his telling of his story, I labeled him and stuck him in a Word file to post on Talespinning for later listening. On top of this, I’m speaking to myself in Spanish about my daily routine, and that will end up posted on the proper course discussion as soon as I can refine out the western twang.

I’ve started the task that I’ve put off so long, that of further editing and full revision of “A Seasonal Life.” In truth, I’m enjoying it.

Why do we tend to hide from this necessary part of the process? Why do we need to cling to our words as if they were cast in the stone of cave walls, near impossible to correct and improve? Oh yes, I remember now; the flow of words is the easy part–the creative high.

While we don’t like thinking our “baby” has flaws, don’t we spend our lifetime wiping a little dirty face with spit on a hanky? Take quick swipes with our fingers to calm and comb unruly pillow-tangled hair on 3-year old heads? Don’t we fill our children with milk, cheese and vitamins to make them healthy, and when they cough or sneeze, swath them in flannel imbued with Vick’s Vaporub?

These are the little loving things we do as creators. As creators of words, we will learn to respond with the same loving care and pride and needn’t hesitate to rush to fix things that will make everything all better for our babies.

“It is more than a calling. Writers do not write because they are required to do so. Writers write because they just cannot not do it.”

Found this this morning on Scratch Pad, a weblog that unfortunately has only three postings, written back in December. I don’t know if Ronaldo, the author, has gone on to start another weblog, but these three entries cover the why, the how, and the where of writing; the questions asked by every writer of himself almost every day. His words, in one version or another have shown up on every writer’s space I’ve seen–whether in the cosmic space of the internet, or written on paper pages of articles or book jackets. The only things Scratch Pad hadn’t covered were the self-doubts and the dreams.

Somehow I know that even while I cannot link the weblog to Spinning because of its probable abandonment, Ronaldo is out there somewhere, writing.

I have just received the proverbial kick in the ass that was evidently needed to get me back on track in my writing. Being a lady at heart, if not in spirit, I shall graciously accept it as the necessary push in taking that direction my waffling emotional self had practically obliterated from my vision, tossing petals of impediments in every variety of pretty form to stall me.

No more pissin’ and moanin’ then, but active creativity as I focus on the stories that I know are what I may do best. Instead of crying, I will spend those minutes learning and applying what I’ve learned. Instead of decorating, I will decorate my screen with words and analyze each one as to its purpose in the tale.

So to it then, Professor; I’m busy narrativing!

While I might get struck by cosmic lightning, I just deleted a very well known blog off my listings. Supposedly a writer and appreciator of literature, yet still blog-bogged down with the now clichéd “fuck.”

Now this is a wonderful word. Spoken properly, it rolls off the lips, beginning with the curl of the under lip beneath the teeth with “fff….” and cleansing the emotion with the hiss of the sudden expulsion of breath in the “uck” that cuts the word sharp and clear. It stops me in my tracks when I hear it emanating from another room in the house, and has the same experienced effect on my husband when he hears it from me (unless accompanied by a boom or a crash that sounds like it needs help). It holds such power, says so much, covers a specific range of human emotion and reaction like no other word can, and yet it is starting to lose its impact because of overuse, going the way of the cliché very soon if it is not placed on the literary endangered species list.

I don’t have time for research on this, but I wonder how long “fuck” has endured? Surely a century or so, no? I cannot tell, for the classics I have read did not contain the word, although the rage or despair that would have drummed it up clearly existed. Finally allowed its freedom, it has unwisely imbibed in everyday life to the point of being clownish and ignored, read over and barely noticed anymore.

I will hold the word dear to my heart and promise to take it out and unleash its power only when it is appropriate to the occasion, when it still will say something and not be lost in meaningless conversation nor abused into oblivion.

I promise; when next you hear it from me, you will be aware of its necessity. Take joy and admiration in its use.