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changelingPick up a book and write a sentence at random from it.
Delirium: "What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realise that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?"
--Neil Gaiman, Brief Lives
'When, finally, it drives away, down the hill, all it leaves behind on the road is the smeared red meat of roadkill, barely recognisable as human, and soon even that will be washed away by the rain.'
--Neil Gaiman, American Gods
These last two days were a bit of a Gaiman fest as I read both American Gods and Brief Lives; two books I couldn't read in case it influenced my style, and couldn't justify spending the time reading, in that order. Yes, the ogre that is NaNoWriMo is over for another year, only to surface its head next year at November. And no, I didn't get my novel done. But you know what? I think I will, in the future. I wrote another hundred words or so tonight. And didn't a Chinese philosopher (not sure which one) once say that every journey begins with a single step?
Do the same with a lyric from a song.
They whisper words into my ears
One speaks of truth and
One speaks of my fears
My disabilities don't get in my way
I look to the future and live
Day to day
--Vast, Three Doors
More NaNoWriMoness. I'm hoping to use this song as a starting point for the dream sequences I'm writing later on. This book really is haunting me. To me (no doubt to a lot of other writers), writing a story down is a way of exorcising it. There is a certain discourse in the writing community as to whether a book is or is not like having a child. I read an interesting and well-written piece that writing is not at all like having a child; it's far more hard work. After all, isn't most of creating a child simply a matter of deliberate (or accidental) fertilisation and then nine months of waiting?
Although I really enjoyed her article (can't remember where I saw it, ask Robert Sloan. I found it on a website he mentions), I disagree. Writing is like having a child, but you can't compare it to the gestation period. Rather it's more like raising one; the sleepless hours in the beginning (and later on as well), the panics, the sure feeling that you have no idea what you're doing, that you're groping about in the dark...and if you're lucky, you'll have raised the kid well. Now it's time to send it out into the world and have the critics destroy it. See what I mean?
Have you ever tried to analyze your own dreams?
Not as such. I do like Jung, and I even have a book on analysing your dreams, but I don't think that motifs from anyone's dream can necessarily mean the same to everyone else. For example, a dream about a raven might not mean that I have an intense spiritual journey ahead of me; to me, ravens might be associated with carrion. A raven in my dream might mean a friend or associate is waiting for me to fall so they can pick at my entrails. Dreams are fun. I've used at least two of my dreams in my current NOVEL. Interestingly enough, not in the dream sequences I've written so far.
The most disturbing dream I ever had explored sexual tension between Daniel and myself (that believe me has never existed). Both Daniel and Laim became very disturbing, psychotic characters. Laim was very Lokiesque.
Sadly enough, most of my relationships in my dreams are really miserable. They fail. I dreamt I was going out with Liv Tyler (who I don't even find that attractive), and she was throwing hissy fits because she didn't know where I was. Very cute and possessive, but ultimately, destructive. I remember I had another failed-relationship dream last night, but I don't remember the details.
What posters do you have in your room?
I don't actually have that many posters. Most of that is sheer lack of wall space. I do have half a dozen (precisely) posters for No Way Out, our first successful production as a theatre company. I was going to use them to wallpaper one wall of my room, but I ran out of 1) Blutack, 2) Enthusiasm and 3) Will, more or less in that order.
I do have an interesting miasma of postcards on the same wall. It also has not changed or been added to for more or less the same reasons listed above. I have a strange Dali/Matisse-esque poster above my bed, as well as mini posters for Show Me Love and The Monkey's Mask, two great dyke fillums. We need more of them. I have a strange collagey thing there too, nominally titled "Every Little Girl's Dream", because that's the largest text on it. It was mostly created from months of free gay newspapers and sheer boredom.
I do also have an Alpha Centauri poster pinned (okay, blutacked) up near my door, from those hazy days of VCE when I had time and the stamina to play. I'll play soon...any day now... I have both black-and-white and coloured posters from The Freedom of the City, a play I was in last year. I miss acting. Laim says the three of us need to find a three actor piece and have a go. I think that's the only way I'm going to stay sane next year.
I also have an A3 poster Avi (the greezy sleeze) photocopied for me of a comic called "Therapy", by Marc Brueland, and a campaign poster from one of my sister's classmates (from last year, I think) based on a graphic & headline from an Age article called My Baby Ate My Brain. I never read it, and I think like the No Wife, No Horse, No Moustache Reader's Digest article in Schroedinger's Cat by Robert Anton Wilson, some mysteries are better left unrevealed. I'm also reminded of the Cain/Abel/Daniel scene in...(*goes to bookshelf for reference*) okay, possibly The Kindly Ones, possibly not. I'm tired, and at the moment not giving a damn. I have a headache that has been eating at me for hours. Anyway, I'm talking about the argument (one of millions) Cain has with Abel because Abel discloses a mystery. It's the one about the parliament of crows (yes?) - where the central crow who is either pecked to death or allowed to go free is actually a story teller.
I also have a map of Melbourne Uni on my wall above my door that I only just noticed, and three poster-sized pieces of paper near my bed for story ideas and plot points. I have a poster from the Astor Theatre on the re-vamped noticeboard by my door.
Can you sing?
I think I can, and prove it to the world all the time. Singing comes naturally to me like breathing. Most of the confidence in my voice has come from outside sources, but as far back as I can confidently remember (basically back before I entered Mac.Rob), I have been singing. I do it unconsciously sometimes, consciously others. I find it difficult to listen to music and not want to join in. Singing gives me greater pleasure than merely listening, although I'm sure I spoil it for everyone else.
It's interesting that I can only confidently remember back to the beginning of Mac.Rob (year nine). It's although I had a baptism of fire, and all the person that was Me beforehand was burned out. A truly new beginning.
Baptism of fire stems, I am sure, from the sort of baptisms that occur in Greek myth, most notably to Herakles, but also occurs in the Elusinian (sp?) mysteries of Demeter - that is, burning out all the mortal parts so one can become immortal, like the gods. Its common usage of being thrust into something so one can hardly tell if one is drowning or breathing, is, I think, a little less interesting that the original.
What's your favorite color of post-it note?
Post-it notes, alas, now remind me all too strongly of my place of work. They're part of our stock-in-trade as much as coloured folders, white-out, black & red pens and flourescent highlighters. My favourite that I've come across at work are the blue ones; they're more indigo than blue, I suppose - they have a hint of purple in them. Of course, ideally I would like black ones, so I could finally use the sodding white pen I've had wasting away in my top drawer for ages. Does anyone know where I can get black paper?
How many cassette tapes do you own?
Cassettes are sadly going the way of the Betamac in these troubled times. In theory, I have three Muddle-Headed Wombat ones, but I can only find two at any one time. I have six Blackadder tapes, consisting of the episodes of series two through to four. I have a Rolf Harris tape my grandmother made for me by taping over her What Birdcall is that? tape, and I have an ancient tape which is Rolf Harris on one side, Bill Cosby on the other. I grew up loving Rolf Harris, when I was about five or six. His humour was very appropriate to my age then. I still enjoy him now, but the interest is not as strong. I also have two Storytime tapes, in theory. However, I do not listen to these. Two of my parents' tapes, Jesus Christ Superstar and Rocky Horror Picture Show were required listening (I required them) when I was younger. Yes, I was listening to RHPS when I was in grade 4 and everyone else had a Grease obsession.
How many CDs do you own?
I used to be able to answer this with confidence, as I only had one or two of my own and many that I'd stolen from the rest of the house. However, having a job means I am now able to own my own CDs. I also have no idea how many I have, but I can bed it's less than most people my age. I also have four or five gig of mp3s, I'm not really sure how many. My music tastes are simple...it comes from being amazingly uninformed in popular culture.
Ever bought a CD for just one song?
I have actually; the Animals We Gotta Get Out of This Place, for (primarily) Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood. I was horribly let down. The Dougs do a far, far better version.
Have you ever lied to get off the phone?
That's such a stupid question. Of course I have. *Looks askance* Even before I started working at...where I work, where lying is practically part of the training. But I'm tired, and I have a headache and I have to work tomorrow, so philiosophy will be laid aside for tonight. No more extremely long answers like before.
I wish I was lying to get out of finishing this survey, because that would be a nice irony, but sadly, I'm not. I'll come back and regale you with my river of dreams some other time.
Delirium: "What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realise that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?"
--Neil Gaiman, Brief Lives
'When, finally, it drives away, down the hill, all it leaves behind on the road is the smeared red meat of roadkill, barely recognisable as human, and soon even that will be washed away by the rain.'
--Neil Gaiman, American Gods
These last two days were a bit of a Gaiman fest as I read both American Gods and Brief Lives; two books I couldn't read in case it influenced my style, and couldn't justify spending the time reading, in that order. Yes, the ogre that is NaNoWriMo is over for another year, only to surface its head next year at November. And no, I didn't get my novel done. But you know what? I think I will, in the future. I wrote another hundred words or so tonight. And didn't a Chinese philosopher (not sure which one) once say that every journey begins with a single step?
Do the same with a lyric from a song.
They whisper words into my ears
One speaks of truth and
One speaks of my fears
My disabilities don't get in my way
I look to the future and live
Day to day
--Vast, Three Doors
More NaNoWriMoness. I'm hoping to use this song as a starting point for the dream sequences I'm writing later on. This book really is haunting me. To me (no doubt to a lot of other writers), writing a story down is a way of exorcising it. There is a certain discourse in the writing community as to whether a book is or is not like having a child. I read an interesting and well-written piece that writing is not at all like having a child; it's far more hard work. After all, isn't most of creating a child simply a matter of deliberate (or accidental) fertilisation and then nine months of waiting?
Although I really enjoyed her article (can't remember where I saw it, ask Robert Sloan. I found it on a website he mentions), I disagree. Writing is like having a child, but you can't compare it to the gestation period. Rather it's more like raising one; the sleepless hours in the beginning (and later on as well), the panics, the sure feeling that you have no idea what you're doing, that you're groping about in the dark...and if you're lucky, you'll have raised the kid well. Now it's time to send it out into the world and have the critics destroy it. See what I mean?
Have you ever tried to analyze your own dreams?
Not as such. I do like Jung, and I even have a book on analysing your dreams, but I don't think that motifs from anyone's dream can necessarily mean the same to everyone else. For example, a dream about a raven might not mean that I have an intense spiritual journey ahead of me; to me, ravens might be associated with carrion. A raven in my dream might mean a friend or associate is waiting for me to fall so they can pick at my entrails. Dreams are fun. I've used at least two of my dreams in my current NOVEL. Interestingly enough, not in the dream sequences I've written so far.
The most disturbing dream I ever had explored sexual tension between Daniel and myself (that believe me has never existed). Both Daniel and Laim became very disturbing, psychotic characters. Laim was very Lokiesque.
Sadly enough, most of my relationships in my dreams are really miserable. They fail. I dreamt I was going out with Liv Tyler (who I don't even find that attractive), and she was throwing hissy fits because she didn't know where I was. Very cute and possessive, but ultimately, destructive. I remember I had another failed-relationship dream last night, but I don't remember the details.
What posters do you have in your room?
I don't actually have that many posters. Most of that is sheer lack of wall space. I do have half a dozen (precisely) posters for No Way Out, our first successful production as a theatre company. I was going to use them to wallpaper one wall of my room, but I ran out of 1) Blutack, 2) Enthusiasm and 3) Will, more or less in that order.
I do have an interesting miasma of postcards on the same wall. It also has not changed or been added to for more or less the same reasons listed above. I have a strange Dali/Matisse-esque poster above my bed, as well as mini posters for Show Me Love and The Monkey's Mask, two great dyke fillums. We need more of them. I have a strange collagey thing there too, nominally titled "Every Little Girl's Dream", because that's the largest text on it. It was mostly created from months of free gay newspapers and sheer boredom.
I do also have an Alpha Centauri poster pinned (okay, blutacked) up near my door, from those hazy days of VCE when I had time and the stamina to play. I'll play soon...any day now... I have both black-and-white and coloured posters from The Freedom of the City, a play I was in last year. I miss acting. Laim says the three of us need to find a three actor piece and have a go. I think that's the only way I'm going to stay sane next year.
I also have an A3 poster Avi (the greezy sleeze) photocopied for me of a comic called "Therapy", by Marc Brueland, and a campaign poster from one of my sister's classmates (from last year, I think) based on a graphic & headline from an Age article called My Baby Ate My Brain. I never read it, and I think like the No Wife, No Horse, No Moustache Reader's Digest article in Schroedinger's Cat by Robert Anton Wilson, some mysteries are better left unrevealed. I'm also reminded of the Cain/Abel/Daniel scene in...(*goes to bookshelf for reference*) okay, possibly The Kindly Ones, possibly not. I'm tired, and at the moment not giving a damn. I have a headache that has been eating at me for hours. Anyway, I'm talking about the argument (one of millions) Cain has with Abel because Abel discloses a mystery. It's the one about the parliament of crows (yes?) - where the central crow who is either pecked to death or allowed to go free is actually a story teller.
I also have a map of Melbourne Uni on my wall above my door that I only just noticed, and three poster-sized pieces of paper near my bed for story ideas and plot points. I have a poster from the Astor Theatre on the re-vamped noticeboard by my door.
Can you sing?
I think I can, and prove it to the world all the time. Singing comes naturally to me like breathing. Most of the confidence in my voice has come from outside sources, but as far back as I can confidently remember (basically back before I entered Mac.Rob), I have been singing. I do it unconsciously sometimes, consciously others. I find it difficult to listen to music and not want to join in. Singing gives me greater pleasure than merely listening, although I'm sure I spoil it for everyone else.
It's interesting that I can only confidently remember back to the beginning of Mac.Rob (year nine). It's although I had a baptism of fire, and all the person that was Me beforehand was burned out. A truly new beginning.
Baptism of fire stems, I am sure, from the sort of baptisms that occur in Greek myth, most notably to Herakles, but also occurs in the Elusinian (sp?) mysteries of Demeter - that is, burning out all the mortal parts so one can become immortal, like the gods. Its common usage of being thrust into something so one can hardly tell if one is drowning or breathing, is, I think, a little less interesting that the original.
What's your favorite color of post-it note?
Post-it notes, alas, now remind me all too strongly of my place of work. They're part of our stock-in-trade as much as coloured folders, white-out, black & red pens and flourescent highlighters. My favourite that I've come across at work are the blue ones; they're more indigo than blue, I suppose - they have a hint of purple in them. Of course, ideally I would like black ones, so I could finally use the sodding white pen I've had wasting away in my top drawer for ages. Does anyone know where I can get black paper?
How many cassette tapes do you own?
Cassettes are sadly going the way of the Betamac in these troubled times. In theory, I have three Muddle-Headed Wombat ones, but I can only find two at any one time. I have six Blackadder tapes, consisting of the episodes of series two through to four. I have a Rolf Harris tape my grandmother made for me by taping over her What Birdcall is that? tape, and I have an ancient tape which is Rolf Harris on one side, Bill Cosby on the other. I grew up loving Rolf Harris, when I was about five or six. His humour was very appropriate to my age then. I still enjoy him now, but the interest is not as strong. I also have two Storytime tapes, in theory. However, I do not listen to these. Two of my parents' tapes, Jesus Christ Superstar and Rocky Horror Picture Show were required listening (I required them) when I was younger. Yes, I was listening to RHPS when I was in grade 4 and everyone else had a Grease obsession.
How many CDs do you own?
I used to be able to answer this with confidence, as I only had one or two of my own and many that I'd stolen from the rest of the house. However, having a job means I am now able to own my own CDs. I also have no idea how many I have, but I can bed it's less than most people my age. I also have four or five gig of mp3s, I'm not really sure how many. My music tastes are simple...it comes from being amazingly uninformed in popular culture.
Ever bought a CD for just one song?
I have actually; the Animals We Gotta Get Out of This Place, for (primarily) Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood. I was horribly let down. The Dougs do a far, far better version.
Have you ever lied to get off the phone?
That's such a stupid question. Of course I have. *Looks askance* Even before I started working at...where I work, where lying is practically part of the training. But I'm tired, and I have a headache and I have to work tomorrow, so philiosophy will be laid aside for tonight. No more extremely long answers like before.
I wish I was lying to get out of finishing this survey, because that would be a nice irony, but sadly, I'm not. I'll come back and regale you with my river of dreams some other time.
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Date: 2001-12-01 07:33 am (UTC)Hey, did you check out nanowrimo.com they have this really cool discount fpr iuniverse.com, they'll edit and proofread your book, give it an isbn and sell it by demand on Amazon and Barnes and Nobel, how cool it that!
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Date: 2001-12-02 05:45 am (UTC)