I Miss Holding Your Hand

[This is a backdated post]

I miss holding your hand.
The way that you didn't give a damn.
That it never occurred to you to care what other people thought.
That you never even paused to consider that other people might care.
I miss the casual, thoughtless closeness.
The warmth and support.
The total lack of agenda.
I miss how it was so easy for you.
How you made it easy for me.
How after a while I didn't even think about it either.
I miss the quiet times as much as the crazy times.
But most of all, I miss holding your hand.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

"Why is it that you still keep your journal in books?" my Dad asked me the other day as I was scribbling earnestly. "I mean, is there any particular reason you can't do it electronically?"

Well, no... but yes.

It'd just be... wrong.

Apart from demonstrating that I'm such a Luddite that even my father has overtaken me, happily keeping all his affairs in order on a tablet, his question made me wonder why the idea of keeping an electronic journal bothered me so much.

I guess there are a few reasons.

• A Beginning And An End - I like the idea of a journal being a finite length. It captures a chunk of your life, as much as you can fit into those pages. It can span years or months, depending on how much you have to say, how much has been going on. It has a beginning and an end. Once you've run out of pages, as long as you're around to do so, you start another one.
  An electronic file can theoretically go on indefinitely, stretching out in a long and cumbersome fashion that takes an amount of navigation to find anything you may want to read again.
• Fidelity - Sure a book journal could get wet, get mildew, be burnt or lost or ripped or stained, but that would be down to location and bad luck. And even when damaged, it may still be decipherable. Data files corrupt. They can do it for no particular reason, or your computer may get a virus or overheat or shut down or just plain die. Then your memories would be gone. We have books in museums that have survived since the advent of books, scrolls and parchments from earlier still which are still legible.
  If it comes to a choice, I trust paper.
• Handwriting - Not long ago when asked why he still handwrites his first drafts, Neil Gaiman pointed to studies* that have been done that prove your brain interacts differently with language when you write compared to when you type. It has to pay more attention as you form the words and sentences in your mind, then has to direct the nerves and muscles involved in moving your pen across the page. It's more involved.
  You get to chose different coloured pens for different moods or events, different kinds of inks, different types of pen that affect how your writing looks and how you feel about the act of writing. For some people writing a journal can almost be an artistic act.
  The fact is that a lot of the history and memories tied up in journals aren't just in the words but are in the physical item, the visual cues. The feel of the book, the scent, the handwriting, crossings out, misspellings and sketches of your younger self, the stains or tears or marks it may have gathered along the way all evoke deeper memories or associated feelings.
  
  

These are some of the many things that make re-reading old journals so rewarding, enjoyable and immersive. Not just the words themselves but how they're presented, how you recorded them and how you get to re-experience them.

So yeah, Dad, I guess there is a reason why I still keep my journal in books.
Because it's beautiful and it's the act of creating something as I write that keeps me interested in keeping a journal at all.
The memories are precious but so are the package they're housed in.



*I didn't bookmark the specific article at the time and have no hope of wading through his twitter feed to find it so here are two lifehacker articles on the subject: A Defence of Writing Longhand and Why You Learn More Effectively By Writing Than Typing.

The Shamening! (Not To Be Confused With The Shamaning)

Oh dearie dearie me.

I knew I'd been slack of late but it wasn't until the lovely Erin Palette applied a judicious kick to my saddlery regions with a stylish boot that I realised it had been two months* since I posted anything!

SHAME!

So as a form of penance and blog-self-flagellation I am going to look back through my notes for things I intended to post but didn't and my planner to see what I was doing at the time and I am going to fill in the gaps.

This week.

Possibly today.

Because when you are slightly sleep-deprived, a little bit hung-over and having a hair of the dog it is the perfect time to make grand promises and to write.

So that means... 10 posts! Oh for the love of... I mean, excellent, I relish a challenge!

So here we go.

Operation STOP BEING A LAZY ASS has commenced!



*TWO MONTHS!!!

A Handful Of Haiku

Godzilla battles
The only real winners are
The construction firms

I cry in this

Postapocalyptic ode
For fallen cities

Stepping on your foot
One of the many dog ways
I say I love you

Sequels are to films
What necrophilia is
To blameless corpses

Gary Numan, right
He's a singer and pilot
Ha! Imagine that

Goddamn bloody hell
Who put this freaking chair here
Avenge my bruised toe!

You might have noticed
I'm a bit shit at haiku
I'll stop now - sorry!

And Knowing Is Half The Battle!

Darn.

Missed it again.

But I still feel like I learned a fair amount from this year's attempt and here in my foggy and slightly twitchy state I want to share some of these wisdom nuggets with you.

• It Is Important To Try And Write In Voices Other Than Your Own
  This year was the first time I tried to write a prolonged piece in a character voice significantly different from my own, specifically my main character was a teenage boy.
  I am not and have never been a teenage boy. I didn't entirely understand what made them tick when I was their peer and certainly don't claim to have deciphered their mystery now but in trying to write in this voice I had to work a few things out.
  I had to have a proper think about the behaviour of different friends and relatives during that time in their life and try shape actions, dialogue and thoughts around this framework. I had to consider the different set of motivations that would drive my character, especially as I decided to give him a spectacularly messed up family life just to make it more eventful and provide an opportunity to work in more adjectives.
  I realised that the best way for me to write a character that seems genuine is to keep things fairly simple, pick a few issues or behaviours to highlight and just let the character grow.
  
  
• The More I Write The More I Realise I Need To Write
  Whilst NaNoWriMo is great for getting people to attempt writing a novel at all, you can't just write furiously for all of November and then do nothing else during the rest of the year, or at least I can't. I write all year round but don't confront my shortcomings as a writer or challenge myself with longer pieces and I really should
  Without constant practice I will never improve and oh do I want to. My brain delivers ideas on a strange schedule and oftentimes I get my best stuff out when I'm just wittering away and letting it happen. I don't often have inspiration strike complete with a plot and character bios, it usually just grows as it goes like a watermelon vine in the stomach of a child who has swallowed a seed in summer*.
  
  
• Sometimes Show Don't Tell Takes More Effort Than You Think
  It is a treacherous and thin line to walk, that barrier between explaining too much and completely losing your reader by being too subtle. The tricky thing about being the writer is you know the characters' back stories and motivations** and what you think is a vital and gripping clue might be missed altogether by a reader who is not you. If you have someone who's judgement and taste you trust who is willing to read your work and critique it without being unkind or - even worse- too kind, you love that person and you never let them go!

Ah well, the world spins on and there are more words to pin lovingly to the page but first - sleep.



*You know it's true!
**Or at least you have your suspicions...

Here I Go Again On My Own...

Alrighty, it's NaNoWriMo time and the failing voice of failingness is singing in my ear saying things like "Hey there! You didn't even get back into the country until the 4th of November, then you were jetlagged and self-indulgent and didn't start until over a week had passed!" and other such helpful things.

Yeah well, shut your pie hole failing voice of failingness!
I can come up with plenty of stuff like that all by myself without your help!
Like the fact that whenever I should be doing one thing that I really want to do (ie. writing) I find myself wanting to do something else I really want to do instead (eg. drawing) and get all distracted and then have lovely productive circular arguments with myself on the topic!

Circles and ranting aside I'm doing it and there's not a damn thing you can do to stop me!
I'm also having dessert before dinner and mmm it's delicious, you hear me!? DELICIOUS!


PS.
Goin' down the only road I've ever knoooooooooooown!
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone!

*Ahem*

Mother? Is That You?

Hi Internets, how's it going?

Well NaNoWriMo is over, sleep is once again plentiful and my co-workers have stopped backing away from me and muttering cryptic things about crazy eyes.

I won't lie to you Internets, I didn't make it this year.

My word count topped out at 21 099 but I'm not disappointed, I learned a lot getting that far.

Last year's plot was a very by-the-seat-of-the-pants plan-as-you-go affair so as long as I could keep thinking of one more thing for my characters to do each day, I could keep them moving forwards and I ended up with the 50 000+ word count and a passable story.

This year I decided to try come up with a storyline to follow, got a little bit ambitious and the learning began.

Lesson the First: A Plan Is A Beautiful Thing (or If You Are Going To Base Your Story Within A Complex And Esoteric System Or World Of Any Kind, You Should Probably Have An Idea Of How The Whole Thing Works)

I started off with an idea of how I wanted things to run and was pootling along but every few pages I would have to stop and have a huge brainstorming session as the plot turned out to be very very heavily intertwined with how my exciting and strange situation actually worked. I couldn't just mock it up and keep going because the 'reality' of the situation was intrinsic to what was going on. It would have been like a murder mystery where none of the clues fit together and when you re-read it you realised that there must be more than one killer but no one actually died and also the characters had all swapped names midway. And the continuity was shot to hell.

Lesson the Second: Priorities Are Not Just For Self-Help Junkies (or If You Have Suddenly Realised That You Have This Situation On Your Hands You Should Stop, Sacrifice A Day To Putting Together A Framework And Go On From There)

I was so caught up in the 'must achieve word count' rush that I figured I could just nut it out as I went along. I was able to refine it slowly, with much revisioning as I worked out the bits that didn't work or didn't make sense once they'd been fleshed out, but what with the refining and the slow going without a clear picture of where I was going it was more difficult to tap into those type-til-your-eyeballs-feel-like-overfried-eggs bouts which are so helpful during NaNo. If I'd sacrificed a day or even two I might have had a clearer run at it. Maybe not, but I might give it a try next time and see how it pans out.


Lesson the Third: Your Characters Are On To You (or If You Don't Know What You're Doing Your Characters Will Get Short-Tempered)

Along with my having a crack at having a real plot, I had a bit more of a go at building characters and trying to have more complete back stories and characteristics that came through slowly in a structured fashion. It's hard. I've heard some writers say that it can be easier to get the bare bones of the story down and then go back and insert and flesh out different characteristics or plot points or backtrack to plant the red herrings and I definitely think that is the way to go after trying to get it all down from the start. Especially as for me I was still meeting my characters as each sentence wandered onto the screen. My characters got a bit tetchy at the underwhelming pace things seemed to be moving at, this created some useful and interesting tension that I'm planning to keep in, I like them when they're all cranked up.


There were a lot of other lessons to do with the juggling of work and sleep and writing and remembering to eat but those are just the lessons I've been told you learn every year doing NaNo. Like getting all nostalgic about going camping until you're out bush again and being handed the toilet diggin' shovel and slapping at the mosquitoes swarming your face and then you remember last time... And yet it's still fun.

I have ended up with page upon page of 'world-building' notes and even though I am exhaustipated I'm actually excited to continue with this one beyond NaNo.
I want to finish telling this story and find out what happens. And I could certainly use the practice.

Sweet Jiminy Christmas!

Crap in a hat it’s almost September!
How the hell did that happen? Where did the rest of the year go?
I don’t remember slipping into a coma but I suppose you wouldn’t… though if I did you'd think people would at least have the decency to ask me how I was recovering…
Anyway, it’s almost September which is practically October which – apart from heralding the indecently early arrival of Christmas carols in the stores – is right next to November which, as everyone knows, is NaNoWriMo time. Holy shits!

I haven’t done any preparation at all!
After I dragged myself weakened but victorious to the end of last November I had all these plans of writing various length pieces of a specific nature, having plotting practices and working on my dialogue until it sparkled like a very sparkly thing but um… I didn’t do that.
Oh jeez, what am I going to do!?
I already used a swag of ideas to get through last year’s run!
What if I can’t think of any more!?
What if that was it and I end up staring blankly at the screen, the cursor burning its blinking image onto my retinas as a cold sweat breaks out of my brow!?
No! Keep it together Ricochet! You can do this!
Stop listening to the Doubty McLogic part of your brain! When has logic ever done you any favours? You’re barely on speaking terms except when it comes to contemplating how to ‘remove the head or destroy the brain’ in the event of zombmergencies.

This fun-time panic all boils down to the fact that I can indeed talk a lot of shash but wouldn’t even be able to keep my own interest for 50,000 words without some kind of structure and direction. Being equal parts lazy and – if I’m being honest – perennially terrified of failure there is always the temptation to bail out on an idea when finding a Step B to follow my current Step A gets particularly difficult.
Finding a story worth telling is also tricksy – on an entertainment level or a deeper meaning level – as I certainly don’t want to end up with the ‘let’s say there’s a person a lot like me except with awesome powers/abilities and she saves the day and totally shows all those people who gave her crap; also she has this mysterious and alluringly dangerous guy hanging around her who in no way resembles any pre-existing sexy fictional characters’ story. If that kind of thing is allowed to run unchecked it can go very very wrong and the sense of achievement at the end wouldn’t be as high as an effort of 50,000 words should warrant.

I guess it’s just time to buckle down and have a think about the basics and psyche myself up to actually let something really bad happen to a couple of my characters this time.
I am such a wussie when it comes to really putting the screws to my little darlings. They give you the most betrayed looks. Big eyed puppy dogs have nothing on figments of your imagination who only wanted to live free under an endless sky and not accidentally or deliberately get booted off the top of a 20-storey parking structure just to keep your plot moving along.

Hmm, you know that could work…
Just have to calculate the velocity of a plummeting 80 kg man, factor in the wind resistance for the Panda suit and the probable impact on the vehicle below… let’s say it's a Rav 4…