symbolic 44: what familiarity breeds
The logjam was caused by family ties. Or rather, a perceived need for familial ties. Georges begat Serena who begat Jack. Serena was a plot device intended to bring elements of the story together, a means by which I could bring Jack -- an outsider -- into the story. Since the underbelly of this world is strange and different, I needed someone who wasn't part of that to be drawn into it. Jack was to be my foil, the uninitiated soul who would ask all the questions which the audience would have, and I could then lecture as necessary to instruct the audience about the world view.
And, frankly, the idea seemed rather pedantic. Sermons can, without effort, bore the audience in a second, driving them out of your narrative. The attention of your audience wanders and they start thinking about all the things they should be doing instead of being harrangued by your prose. John Galt's epic speech near the end of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is an extreme example. Is there anyone out there who has actually read all of this 90-page speech?
If Jack was an outsider and was part of family (i.e. Georges' grandson), then how would he get involved? If his grandfather has been locked away in the looney bin for nigh 30 years does Jack even remember the man? How would his grandfather know enough about Jack that he'd want to bring Jack in? Unless it was just an attempt to keep Jack from getting snatched by the bad guys. In which case, why would he bother involving the Lunar Society? Why wouldn't he just contact Jack directly?
I hate these sorts of questions. They nag me; they cause logjams in my brain. And I end up sitting at my desk, staring at the screen, waiting for some solution to come to mind. And, eventually, I end up at Orisinal playing games instead of working. If I'm just going to play games, I might as well bite the bullet, get an X-Box, and vanish.
Doesn't sound very satisfying. So I remain at my desk, staring out the window and thinking things to death. Used to be that I would just start writing, start flailing away and getting the words down. I'd worry later about plot and story and other contrivances. The trouble with that method is that I end up with lots of words that ultimately peter out because I've run into another logjam. It's a litany of logjams, my metholodgy, and it isn't a good way to work. I end up with lots of fragments and nothing ever finished.
So I'm trying to figure out something better. Well, something different. I'm not sure it is much better. And I'm not sure that I need to have everything worked out before I get started either. That may not be the way that I work.
Michael Ondaatje (the fellow who wrote The English Patient) has a book that is a collection of conversations he has with Walter Murch (Coppola's go-to film editor who also edited the film version of The English Patient). One of the things that Ondaatje and Murch discover is that they both have an abundance of material when they get down to work. Both come to projects with the task of creating a final product out of a wealth of material. They find their stories out of the unconnected threads strewn about. They cut and trim and move things until a cohesive vision takes shape.
You've got to have pieces in order to put the puzzle together. I hate puzzles. But maybe it's time to get over that.
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.