symbolic 01: introduction
We assemble every week in the basement of the local church or pub and we sit together in a ragged circle. We're here to make confessions. Hello, my name is Mark. I write.
I'm here because I've got a problem with the writing process. It's not fatal, my problem, but it certainly distracts from the act of creation. Modern psychology likes to reductio ad absurdum with the platitude that "recognizing the problem is halfway to a solution," and I'm all for clearing out the channels. The process and I have become good friends over the years; I did five drafts on my second book, three of which were complete -- and wildly different -- versions of the story. That's not a fact that I'm terribly proud of, and one that certainly lies there and stares at me from time to time, but it has certainly made me much more comfortable with the idea of starting.
It's fall and there are two things I look forward to as the year dies: rain and NaNoWriMo. Rain means you can stop making excuses about the yard work you're not doing and allows you to spend hours squatting next to the water heater with a keyboard on your lap. NaNoWriMo -- National Novel Writing Month -- is a wild excuse to undertake the nearly impossible: write a novel during the month of November. While most people take six months to more than a year to write a book, NaNoWriMo expects you to get off your ass now. For us process-devotees, this is a sweet deal.
This column is a window. I am a monkey and there is a typewriter in the cage with me. I've also got a sharp knife. Gather 'round, we're going to dissect the process. We'll start with this deep-end dive of the novel in a month. And we'll see just how much life this book can have after its accelerated birth. Along the way, we'll stop off at those points which catch our eye and put the knife to them as well.
I'm calling this SYMBOLIC: ADVENTURES IN TEXT. Whether you traffic in film, music, comics, or art at some point you bump into text. You have to deal with symbols on the page or the screen. How does it work? What structure -- artificial or genetically wired -- is in place that allows you to understand me when I say, "There is a purple cow standing next to the red barn." What causes you to argue with me that there is no such thing as a purple cow? How do the symbols work? And, more obsessively, how much of their power have we forgotten?
writing
This is a reasonably comprehensive list of my published work, both virtual and physical.
THE MISFIT LIBRARY
I am Nine of Thirteen, one of the members of the Misfit Library, a writing collective which puts out a quarterly journal of our respective work. We are scattered across the globe and determined to change the face of the planet one story at a time. The link above will take you to Misfit Central where you can acquire copies of the journal as well as read exclusive online material.
SYMBOLIC
I wrote a column for OPi8.com's Transmit blogs: journals of the new dark underground. SYMBOLIC tracked the novel I was working on, referencing the process and the research materials which mad up the backbone of the work. In addition, SYMBOLIC busied itself with ruminations and considerations on the nature of language and communication. And a wee bit of mythology. The first 100 entries of SYMBOLIC can be found here on this site as well as at OPi8.com.
LITERARY REPRESENTATION
I am represented by Scribe Agency as my literary agents. Please contact these gentleman if you have any queries about my work.