Me on a Saturday Morning
Sep. 30th, 2006 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaThis is one of those rambly real-life posts. With a bit of Battlestar Galactica, for I am obsessed.
1. It occurs to me that writing, much like the author of "Jennifer Government," suggests at the back of his book, is a constant war against playing minesweeper with your work open in the background.
2. Of course, it's also a war against starting a new BSG video (this time it will be Laura Roslin / Lee Adama, but I'm scared I don't have enough clips, even though I successfully vidded Roslin to rap music and thus should be afraid of NOTHING. Also, I don't have the time).
3. It's also a war against continually re-watching the latest webisode, because that was pretty sweet. At first I was like, okay, here's the reverse-psychology where poor, broken Jammer gets given an 'easy out' and decides to side with the cylons because they gave him juice. Except it wasn't quite like that. I really enjoyed watching Doral. I appreciated that Jammer still refused to join the police, and vehemently so. That makes the situation more sympathetic, more tragic that he's going to do so much *worse* damage by being, effectively, a snitch from the inside even though he thinks he's doing something honourable. That's a pretty cool double play - piss him off with the NCP then offer him something that, in the wake of his outburst, seems so much smaller and more rational.
4. Apparently writing is also a war against unnecessarily updating one's LJ.
5. "The Book" is going badly. I am totally stuck. I want to write a short story about that year I spent where my best friend spoke to his rucksack, which we both agreed spoke only within the limits of his imagination. His rucksack was a marsupial. His rucksack had a razor sharp wit, even though he didn't. His rucksack affected a fake irish accent. It took a long time for his rucksack to like me (and we studiously avoided the connotations of that). When he finally warmed to me, he started dying. This is psychosis, I know that. But when it happened, I cried, and I know the boy begged the bag not to go. I was the one who carried him home on the train and put him in the bin, because he wanted to die like a bag. It was the first time I had ever carried him. On the train, I thought I heard him speak (he asked if he got a ticket too) and I've felt bad ever since that I was too scared to answer.
(The kid in question was fairly damaged; the kid in question needed someone to defend him because no one else would; I was probably the first person the kid in question ever felt safe with, and that his bag died when I came along probably means about a million things, some of them certainly unhealthy. I want to tell the story like fiction, because in fiction, you can get away with things like this and no one says, shocked, that should have tried to get the kid on some kind of anti-psychotic. In fiction, it can become as normal as it was. But perhaps I'm too close to the source text - when I try to write it, it becomes a cliche-laden wasteland.)
I think I will go to theChinese Supermarket Outlaw Trading Post and see if they have any coconut thingies. Or chocolate soy-bean milk. Yes. That is what I will do.
1. It occurs to me that writing, much like the author of "Jennifer Government," suggests at the back of his book, is a constant war against playing minesweeper with your work open in the background.
2. Of course, it's also a war against starting a new BSG video (this time it will be Laura Roslin / Lee Adama, but I'm scared I don't have enough clips, even though I successfully vidded Roslin to rap music and thus should be afraid of NOTHING. Also, I don't have the time).
3. It's also a war against continually re-watching the latest webisode, because that was pretty sweet. At first I was like, okay, here's the reverse-psychology where poor, broken Jammer gets given an 'easy out' and decides to side with the cylons because they gave him juice. Except it wasn't quite like that. I really enjoyed watching Doral. I appreciated that Jammer still refused to join the police, and vehemently so. That makes the situation more sympathetic, more tragic that he's going to do so much *worse* damage by being, effectively, a snitch from the inside even though he thinks he's doing something honourable. That's a pretty cool double play - piss him off with the NCP then offer him something that, in the wake of his outburst, seems so much smaller and more rational.
4. Apparently writing is also a war against unnecessarily updating one's LJ.
5. "The Book" is going badly. I am totally stuck. I want to write a short story about that year I spent where my best friend spoke to his rucksack, which we both agreed spoke only within the limits of his imagination. His rucksack was a marsupial. His rucksack had a razor sharp wit, even though he didn't. His rucksack affected a fake irish accent. It took a long time for his rucksack to like me (and we studiously avoided the connotations of that). When he finally warmed to me, he started dying. This is psychosis, I know that. But when it happened, I cried, and I know the boy begged the bag not to go. I was the one who carried him home on the train and put him in the bin, because he wanted to die like a bag. It was the first time I had ever carried him. On the train, I thought I heard him speak (he asked if he got a ticket too) and I've felt bad ever since that I was too scared to answer.
(The kid in question was fairly damaged; the kid in question needed someone to defend him because no one else would; I was probably the first person the kid in question ever felt safe with, and that his bag died when I came along probably means about a million things, some of them certainly unhealthy. I want to tell the story like fiction, because in fiction, you can get away with things like this and no one says, shocked, that should have tried to get the kid on some kind of anti-psychotic. In fiction, it can become as normal as it was. But perhaps I'm too close to the source text - when I try to write it, it becomes a cliche-laden wasteland.)
I think I will go to the
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 01:32 pm (UTC)Lee/Laura vid?! I had an idea for an L/L vid, but it would involve me trying to rip my DVDs and using up a large chunk of my hardrive or downloading episodes and have I mentioned I'm inherently lazy?
Hey, I did not forget about your last e-mail. In case you didn't know (and you probably didn't) I work in an accounting department at a very large law firm and the last two days of the month are always pretty crazy. Plus, I have a ficathon entry due Monday and that took priority. You shall here from me by the end of the weekend - just a warning. ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 09:23 pm (UTC)And yes, I do sometimes vid and have wanted to vid L & L for a long time, though the lack of clips intimidates me. Heck, I wouldn't even try vidding Laura until recently because she's dead interesting but never does anything but sit and talk. Eventually I will do this. The current vid would be to "Oooh Child" by Beth Orton, though I also want to do one to "Maybe Katy" by Barenaked Ladies ("Just because her youth is fading, doesn't mean she's not worth dating!"), though I think that one's less feasible for various reasons. It'll get done eventually, I'm sure. But probably not until further into S3. I'm holding out for a few more scenes.
The Book and the story described are actually different things - though this is not clear from the above paragraph. The Book is the The Book I spent a year on my MA Creative Writing course attempting to write, got most of the way through, then decided to totally overhaul. It is currently sat, languishing on my hard drive as I become a corporate slave instead of writing anything. The story described above is based on a real experience (wow, now you probably think I'm whacked out!) and is something I've wanted to write out for a long time, but can never get right. Although you may be correct that a children's version would work.
Randomly spamming you from the past
Date: 2007-01-30 09:47 pm (UTC)But remember! Vidding was born in an age when *everyone* on TV did that all the time! ;-)
>and is something I've wanted to write out for a long time, but can never get right.
Maybe you simply need to give it a bit more time, to get some more distance? It sounds like it could be a very good story. (I'm kind of afraid to ask how it ended in Real Life.)
Randomly replying from the past:
Date: 2007-01-31 06:45 pm (UTC)Perhaps you're right. Maybe one day it will work. And it was Kev's backpack, so, you know, it ended mostly okay.
Re: Randomly replying from the past:
Date: 2007-01-31 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 02:09 pm (UTC)Write. Now.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 09:40 pm (UTC)If you're interested, an early version is available here (though don't feel you need to read it): http://zippysatellite4.blogspot.com/2003_07_20_zippysatellite4_archive.html
That's the first draft I wrote and is...lacking in many, many ways. Not least, it's lacking the all important sentence you quoted, which in many ways is the heart of the story, at least for me. It's a story about fear. The above draft doesn't have enough information in it, but every time I try to add more, it descends even further into cliche.
I try to believe one day I'll get it right.
(The above link takes you to a web blog I maintained as part of a friend's site for about two years while I was at colleged. I'm sadly no longer in touch with her regularly, and quit with the blog a long time ago. It was less of a "crap about my life" blog and more of a "trying to write an interesting 'article' once a week blog." I updated it erratically, some if it's totally true, some of it's totally false, most of it's sort of true.)
Forgot to add:
Date: 2007-01-30 10:07 pm (UTC)