symbolic 27: coalesce, like...
This word has been rattling around my head the last few weeks like a moth against the wire grate over a mercury vapor light. I don't think my mouth is shaped right to actually use this word without spilling my tongue out of my mouth, and the simile I've wanted to use is escaping me. It's a tip of the tongue moment which has gone on so long that all the nerve endings in my mouth are dead.
...like butter.
Butter, like blood, coagulates. The fluid clumps, clots, and finally hardens. And it is this clumping which puts me off. I've been expecting things in the BOOK OF LIES to come together more easily and have been stirring the mixture too often, too frantically. "Coalesce" is what I've been caught up on, not "coagulation." There is less sense of mobility with the latter, the mental image of inflexible pieces which you have to work around.
...like stone.
There is a panel in Grant Morrison's New X-Men 137 where Emma Frost slips her fingers into the head of the immaterial X-student Tattoo and says in a very bored tone: "Two can play this dreary game, dear. You solidify, you die, too."
The evolving creature must remain flexible, must remain uncaged from a solid mass in order to survive. I've been examining my reading habits over the course of the last month and have noticed that a number of authors which I normally gravitate towards are becoming bound in rock. Part of this may very well be the nature of the business -- once you hit a profitable formula, there isn't a whole lot of incentive to break away from that systematic structuring -- but how much of this stagnant repetition is my fault? If I keep reading the same things over and over again, aren't I perpetuating the very concrete mixture which has snared us both?
...like mist.
Which, by definition, is no longer "mist" or "vapor" or "smoke" once it coalesces. But, like Dracula on the balcony shifting from bat-form to man-form, like the main titles of Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness, this is the image which I have in my head: elements swirl together, rotating and moving about in a fluid medium until they finally achieve their optimum position and snap into place. This is very hard to juggle and, in this state, it is even harder to judge if you've got all the elements you need anyway.
I'm not very good at jigsaw puzzles; I don't have the temperament to sit still and fathom the connectivity between the pieces. The wee mathematician in my brain draws a formula on the mental chalkboard: there are a finite number of combinations to all the pieces; doing the puzzle is just a matter of trial and error until you've exhausted all the combinations. Which, when you get right down to it, makes puzzling sound very monotonous. Me? I'm kind of shallow and prefer the exciting things; the dull repetition makes me want to claw my eyes out.
Excitement becomes synonymous with juggling. I do up a list of projects which are currently active on my plate and it becomes clear that I am juggling -- I've got too many balls in the air. When you first learn how to juggle (really, the physical kind) there is a period where you are just trying to keep the balls in the air. All you are is frantic movement as you struggle to stay ahead of the ball coming back into your hand. Each throw becomes more and more a "get the hell away from me, you devil orb!" motion and, fairly soon, you're being led by the arcs of your throws as you struggle just to keep these three balls in the air.
..like phantoms.
I can juggle three balls. Not four, not five, and I can't do tricks with the three. It's a rudimentary juggling ability, the sort which any clown is expected to know before the first day of clown academy. But it is an ingrained skill at this point; I don't consciously think about the motion of the balls and I could do it all day if needed. And, after the initial delight of seeing someone juggle, the shine wears off and my audience becomes aware that the motion is, simply, repetitious. They, like me, start to get bored, their eyes drifting in and out of focus.
Right, focus. What was I talking about? Yes, coalescing. Coming together. Sometimes you have to keep juggling. The other option is to drop the balls and let them roll off under the sofa or (even worse) the refrigerator. Sometimes you just have keep moving -- left, right, left -- and be patient.
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.