Assault Prevention

I stole these from a post on chuckpalahniuk.net, but i thought it was funny, and it has just maybe inspired a satirical story on my part...

Please distribute this list. Put it up in your place of work, in your university’s library or wherever you think they might be read:

If you or somebody you know is thinking about sexually assaulting a loved one, co worker, stranger, or mail man, please read the following.

1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

On Writing and Other Things

Yikes, sorry for the delay. Just realized this thing actually had a small mass of followers. Maybe it still does. Shame on me using the past tense.

On writing and other things I have been lax, as my duties to other things have become more important lately. Life changing stuff happened and is happening, and maybe one day it can be discussed as writing, but for now, lets leave it where it is.

What brings me back here today is the notion that writing would be therapeutic. I have spent years preaching this to people out there who need help coping with things, or just need an outlet for some of their excesses of energy.

Now, I suppose I should sit down and follow my own advice.

/W

starting out

for me writing is a lightning bolt moment. these do happen more if you write every day and you have habits, but its still just a bolt from the blue. for me, it starts with a character name. some weird part of me can picture a whole person from a name.

of course, sometimes it starts with a scene. this is most common if i have not been writing for a while. the best way to get writing again (for me, anyhow) is to set a scene, to jabber about a storm, or a diner, or who the fuck knows. the canary yellow first page of WAR DANCES that vibrates with each pull of a tension headache. just whatever.

very rarely do i start a blank page with a fully formed idea.

Mondrian from Below

as advertised, i do have a 12 ft by 12 ft mondrian painting.



the door is in the corner of that shot, sorry.

Stylized Destruction

Literature, or more precisely 'literary fiction' has no real set of rules. There is, though there is the vague notion that it should be about people coping with something, and not the event itself. Literary fiction defies classification. If you can explain to someone what kind of story you're reading (or writing) in a sentence, then you, my friend are likely in some genre or another. Literary fiction defies cliché. The literary author can take something cliché, like the amnesiac story arch, and manage to make it his own.

Literary fiction exists to break the rules, by sacrificing technical perfection to achieve a voice that is the author's own. You could compare two literary authors and tell the difference, almost instantly from one to the other. On the reverse, comparing two 'bestsellers', or, one, and a piece of dime-store smut, and that difference in voice most assuredly goes the way of the dinosaur.

Literary fiction also tends not to offer closure, in the traditional sense, but rather a pragmatic, functional ending where the players continue their lives, better or worse, for the experiences they have encountered in the story.

The literary author is recognized, sometimes more for his stylized destruction, than anything. When looking at Raymond Carver, for example, it is impossible not to notice how blunt and cold his descriptions are, or how his characters relate to one another. But at the same time, that is what makes a Carver story so distinct to Carver. Almost everything that does not need to be said is cut away, and what is left is barebones story. When this is compared to someone like Tolkien, the difference is immediate. Tolkien spends pages and pages describing a field, or a sword, or a lake, or a mole on someone's ass.

Some literary authors take this a step further and eliminate whole sections of the language. Adverbs, and pronouns are common enemies of this writer, for example. An adverb is something that the literary author destroys to create voice. People can do things stupidly, we all would agree, but the literary author cares more about what that looks like, or smells like, or sounds like. What is stupidly really saying about this action, or this person? The personal pronoun “I” is often eliminated from first-person writing because it can act as a speed bump, every time a reader hits it, he is removed from the story and the disbelief the author has created for him. Cliché expressions, such as 'wringing your hands' may also be cut away in the name of explaining them physically.

You might also see these writers use a lot of comparison. Everything is something else. The moonlight is the color of ice cubes, maybe. This puts the reader more into the story, and also makes their picture unique to them. The writer might go further though, and incorporate a body part. A foot, or penis or something of that sort, so that the color of ice cubes effects a specific skin tone. This might also further differ the reader's picture.

Physical descriptions of the characters are also kept to a minimum by some literary authors. All of this is to keep the reader picturing. The literary author has no need to describe a person's whole wardrobe, or every curl of their hair, or the exact shade of green their eyes might be.

So, that about covers it. Wouldn't you say?

The Alphabet Game and other prompt talk

So, someone does read this thing. My likely first follower has sorta become my accountability at this. We have even started playing “The Alphabet Game” wherein we go through the twenty-six letters that comprise our linguistic discourse. This is not to say we do the kindergarten A is for Apple deal, but we use it to limit our prompts to a word, and therefore much more of concept than a setting. This is pretty interesting since I have always done prompting the old-fashioned-way. Me and my girlfriend used to do them daily with song lyrics, or quotes, or a setting. I still start out a lot of my writing with lyrics which have become entangled in my brain. Sometimes I erase them, since that can be construed as plagiarism, but other times I leave them in as the character seems to call for it. We all know people who speak in lyrics and proverbs and riddles. Besides, some bands really like that you do this, as a fan, and will get behind you and be very supportive.

long time no see

Long time no see...

So, my little experiment is obviously somewhat of a failure. Being that I am neither writing, nor am I progressively talking about writing in any coherent sort of way. However, the existence of this little corner of the internet has led to discussions which have in turn led back to me being here.

For now, I will run totally counter to anything I would have said whenever I was here last. This is not to say any of the past ranting about writing has been proven wrong, or anything. My past rantings fell out of training and a growing understanding of a very specific style of writing. Why we're going counter to that is because when you're not writing, your writing muscle starts to atrophy. When your muscles start to atrophy, you can not just jump back into your regimented workout schedule. Easy does it, and that, yeah?

This is my stipulation for now: Just write. Fuck voice. Fuck style. Fuck. Your voice and your style will keep themselves up. They do that. They'll be there when you find them again. Will they be there the way you left them? Maybe, maybe not. With everything you write, and everything you learn your voice changes. Just like as you get stronger that workout changes.