This is cross-posted from my other blog which I had not posted to in months and in is slowly getting a redesign...or as much of a redesign as one can give their blog on livejournal. Also, more attention. It's vaguely symbolic that this is being done done while my life is in the middle of the current dishevellment, I suppose, but as far as I am consciously aware, it is also coincidental.
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New beginnings. I've not written in a while, and this itself is not uncommon; though, this is perhaps the longest I've gone without writing here. So, new beginnings. It's a phrase that gets tossed around a lot. Leave the past behind, get a fresh start, begin things over with a cleaner perspective. It sounds like too much of a fallacy to me. The past is always with you. The trick is not leaving it behind, but not letting it consume you. My old works are embarrassing but occasionally surprising and an unavoidable sign of who I once was. If I want to move beyond them, I must mentally move my mind forward, not forget my older work ever existed. There are no fresh starts, no new beginnings in any real sense. Life continues, and if I want to move in another direction, then my life simply takes a turn. Nothing starts anew. The metaphors that insist otherwise are misleading. The everything that has come before will, to some degree, always remain with me, as it should, so while I know some people would call this a new beginning, while I understand "the thing to do" is to start a new blog to leave behind everything the old one meant, I will be doing none of these things. It's true I might eventually open another blog, but that would only be to have a blog that's not hosted on Livejournal. Also, I would post the link here and import (and copy edit. I mean, dear god have you read some of those posts?) all my old posts. I would be kidding myself to say they mean nothing, even if they mean nothing good.
Still, the subtle changes you see here do, in fact, correlate to changes in the physical world. A farewell to some old friends, several of whom I still wished to be friends with despite, well, despite a variety of things that had occurred between us. A conscious decision to, once and for all, get over old habits developed in my youth for reasons that really were very foolish; though, perhaps I could not realize it then. It surprised me,on reflection how much those old habits remained with me over the years without my realizing it. Yes, things are changing. I very much hope for the better.
So, I've recently read both a Wizard of Earthsea and Perdido Street Station. They're both excellent books but are dramatically different in writing style. Ursula K. Le Guin accomplishes what Mieville does in a third the number of pages. Her writing style is sparse, and at first this was a source or irritation, but for all its simplicity, it is not simplistic. There is nothing poor or insufficient about it. It is, in a sense, minimalist if it must be given a label. It tells you everything you need to know to enjoy her story, suffers from no ostentation, and never fails to be powerful in the dramatic moments of her story.
Mievelle's writing, or rather his prose, is lush. There were occasions I wished I could scoop it from the pages it and physically savor its flavor. He is one of the only writers in years that made me reach for a dictionary at regular intervals, which I appreciated. His prose itself gave details of this fascinating world he created and the societies within it; though, sometimes his love of his own word was painful to observe. Spelling chemical spelled with a "y" instead of an "e" is one thing. Using a full page to describe the geography and inhabitants of a district followed by a description of which districts surround it and what train lines runs through it during one of the most dramatic moments of the book is irritating. If I really wanted to be reminded of where the Sud Line ran, again, I would look at the map helpfully provided at the beginning of the book.
When I was younger and just deciding to be a writer, I had a decided preference for more minimalist writing. It was my belief that all the flowery descriptions and metaphors didn't really matter. What did was the story you were telling, and all those other descriptive flourishes, in the end, just got in the way of it. Years later I began to abandon that stance with no real conscious mediation or logic attached to the decision that I can recall. Now I've come to some place in between the two stances and wonder if I will, for some reason soon come full circle. It does not help that I was just reading the writing of someone who was once a very dear friend of mine (though I am not sure if she ever realized it. She has since stopped speaking to me. I'm not really sure why. I don't recall having ever said anything or done anything untoward to her, nor did she ever mention I had. I suppose I do have some ideas why, but they are petty, and in the end, I suppose I really do want to think better of her.) and she has mastered prose. That much is obvious to anyone who reads her writing, but what she lacks is inspiration. I don't believe them to be mutually exclusive, but I remember a conversation about writing we had once where she expressed having difficulty finding stories to write about, which it seemed she really did want to do. She's now, last I heard, a newswriter. As far as I am aware, she has not a creative work to her name.
Perhaps this comes to mind because mind because, more than what to write, my mind tends to paralyze itself with indecision regarding how something should be written. iInvariably when trying to write anything significant , several different ways to write it come to mind. This is far from comforting, but I currently have a great desire to write, and I worry this will affect me once again.
Finally, my mother has cancer. I discovered this not long ago. Perhaps this has spurred my current desire to write. It was this, in fact, that I originally meant to write about, but even now I find my mind veering away from the topic, as if afraid to discuss it. She just underwent surgery, which went, as do most things, both better than we feared yet not as well as we had hoped. If you are religious, please keep her in your prayers. If not, in your thoughts. I would be greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
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New beginnings. I've not written in a while, and this itself is not uncommon; though, this is perhaps the longest I've gone without writing here. So, new beginnings. It's a phrase that gets tossed around a lot. Leave the past behind, get a fresh start, begin things over with a cleaner perspective. It sounds like too much of a fallacy to me. The past is always with you. The trick is not leaving it behind, but not letting it consume you. My old works are embarrassing but occasionally surprising and an unavoidable sign of who I once was. If I want to move beyond them, I must mentally move my mind forward, not forget my older work ever existed. There are no fresh starts, no new beginnings in any real sense. Life continues, and if I want to move in another direction, then my life simply takes a turn. Nothing starts anew. The metaphors that insist otherwise are misleading. The everything that has come before will, to some degree, always remain with me, as it should, so while I know some people would call this a new beginning, while I understand "the thing to do" is to start a new blog to leave behind everything the old one meant, I will be doing none of these things. It's true I might eventually open another blog, but that would only be to have a blog that's not hosted on Livejournal. Also, I would post the link here and import (and copy edit. I mean, dear god have you read some of those posts?) all my old posts. I would be kidding myself to say they mean nothing, even if they mean nothing good.
Still, the subtle changes you see here do, in fact, correlate to changes in the physical world. A farewell to some old friends, several of whom I still wished to be friends with despite, well, despite a variety of things that had occurred between us. A conscious decision to, once and for all, get over old habits developed in my youth for reasons that really were very foolish; though, perhaps I could not realize it then. It surprised me,on reflection how much those old habits remained with me over the years without my realizing it. Yes, things are changing. I very much hope for the better.
So, I've recently read both a Wizard of Earthsea and Perdido Street Station. They're both excellent books but are dramatically different in writing style. Ursula K. Le Guin accomplishes what Mieville does in a third the number of pages. Her writing style is sparse, and at first this was a source or irritation, but for all its simplicity, it is not simplistic. There is nothing poor or insufficient about it. It is, in a sense, minimalist if it must be given a label. It tells you everything you need to know to enjoy her story, suffers from no ostentation, and never fails to be powerful in the dramatic moments of her story.
Mievelle's writing, or rather his prose, is lush. There were occasions I wished I could scoop it from the pages it and physically savor its flavor. He is one of the only writers in years that made me reach for a dictionary at regular intervals, which I appreciated. His prose itself gave details of this fascinating world he created and the societies within it; though, sometimes his love of his own word was painful to observe. Spelling chemical spelled with a "y" instead of an "e" is one thing. Using a full page to describe the geography and inhabitants of a district followed by a description of which districts surround it and what train lines runs through it during one of the most dramatic moments of the book is irritating. If I really wanted to be reminded of where the Sud Line ran, again, I would look at the map helpfully provided at the beginning of the book.
When I was younger and just deciding to be a writer, I had a decided preference for more minimalist writing. It was my belief that all the flowery descriptions and metaphors didn't really matter. What did was the story you were telling, and all those other descriptive flourishes, in the end, just got in the way of it. Years later I began to abandon that stance with no real conscious mediation or logic attached to the decision that I can recall. Now I've come to some place in between the two stances and wonder if I will, for some reason soon come full circle. It does not help that I was just reading the writing of someone who was once a very dear friend of mine (though I am not sure if she ever realized it. She has since stopped speaking to me. I'm not really sure why. I don't recall having ever said anything or done anything untoward to her, nor did she ever mention I had. I suppose I do have some ideas why, but they are petty, and in the end, I suppose I really do want to think better of her.) and she has mastered prose. That much is obvious to anyone who reads her writing, but what she lacks is inspiration. I don't believe them to be mutually exclusive, but I remember a conversation about writing we had once where she expressed having difficulty finding stories to write about, which it seemed she really did want to do. She's now, last I heard, a newswriter. As far as I am aware, she has not a creative work to her name.
Perhaps this comes to mind because mind because, more than what to write, my mind tends to paralyze itself with indecision regarding how something should be written. iInvariably when trying to write anything significant , several different ways to write it come to mind. This is far from comforting, but I currently have a great desire to write, and I worry this will affect me once again.
Finally, my mother has cancer. I discovered this not long ago. Perhaps this has spurred my current desire to write. It was this, in fact, that I originally meant to write about, but even now I find my mind veering away from the topic, as if afraid to discuss it. She just underwent surgery, which went, as do most things, both better than we feared yet not as well as we had hoped. If you are religious, please keep her in your prayers. If not, in your thoughts. I would be greatly appreciate it. Thank you.