Today's writing task for me turned out to be an example of something I mentioned yesterday. Basically, this bit of the story in progress turned out to be a version of a scene that I've turned over in the back of my mind for some time now.
This was the first time I've tackled it. At the end, I realized a couple things. One, that I'd done what I could with where I am as a writer, and that's what it is. I hope I've done the thing, and the characters, justice. But I leave it here.
Knowing damned well I'll come back to the subject again. Sometime somewhere, probably in an entirely different context, but it'll show up again, I feel certain. Again, just because my mind is like a dog with a bone. When I find some idea, some concern, some image, one of the good ones that lasts through many different considerations and turnovers and differing points of view, just like my dogs with their favorite bones there's always another chance to gnaw it over again.
Of course I realize I'm being vague. Know the best part of reading a writer's ruminations on this kind of thing? Soon enough the story will be out and you'll get a chance to ponder whether and when and how this little exercise made its appearance...
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Had one of those conversations today that just didn't go anywhere. Too much of a divide to bridge, in terms of where everyone started.
Personally, it was worth it, simply because I had to keep coming back to think about where I'd gone off track, and keep from turning muleheaded. Admittedly, for me this isn't a far trip.
The real thing, after the dust settled and everyone agreed to disagree, was that something else occurred to me; that's the part of me-as-writer that asks, "Now what did you learn, what did you hear, what did you see? What did you observe?"
Ultimately, it'll come out somewhere somewhen, in a story. Probably in several stories, because I'll gnaw at it, and all the other little things I've seen/heard/done/observed in moving through this thing called life. Put them together take them apart, in order out of order and in as many different ways as I can.
Not to solve anything, or to not solve anything. Rather to build and think, and most of all tell new stories from new points of view as best I can.
The real reason no particular story, at least from my point of view, can capture a writer's point of view. Because if the writer's really working at it, really thinking and engaging, that point of view is formless and void and ever-changing, always reworked. At least for some things, if not all.
Personally, it was worth it, simply because I had to keep coming back to think about where I'd gone off track, and keep from turning muleheaded. Admittedly, for me this isn't a far trip.
The real thing, after the dust settled and everyone agreed to disagree, was that something else occurred to me; that's the part of me-as-writer that asks, "Now what did you learn, what did you hear, what did you see? What did you observe?"
Ultimately, it'll come out somewhere somewhen, in a story. Probably in several stories, because I'll gnaw at it, and all the other little things I've seen/heard/done/observed in moving through this thing called life. Put them together take them apart, in order out of order and in as many different ways as I can.
Not to solve anything, or to not solve anything. Rather to build and think, and most of all tell new stories from new points of view as best I can.
The real reason no particular story, at least from my point of view, can capture a writer's point of view. Because if the writer's really working at it, really thinking and engaging, that point of view is formless and void and ever-changing, always reworked. At least for some things, if not all.
Friday, January 25, 2019
oh, and in case you're wondering. In my little corner of the theory world, our practice, and the one I've followed, is to name equations, especially approximations, descriptively. One example that might be familiar, and which is so general it won't name any names, would be Mean Field Theory, or a Mean Field Approximation.
In our little corner of the world, there are a handful of named equations, reserved for the big ones, and then, usually, extensions or approximations and so on are named descriptively, rather than for the authors. This is pragmatic: one names the equations when deriving them, rather than have someone else do it for you.
The other pragmatic benefit is related to, but not identical to, the idea of beauty in physical theory. If one can descriptively name a particular equation in just the right way, then the name itself tells those familiar in the art pretty much what the equation does, and, in many cases, how it was derived.
Naming then is an art, occasionally abused; when done correctly one hopes for, ideally, an aid to clarity and new ideas.
There's also an ethical choice implicit in this convention; the idea is to attempt to remove oneself and one's ego from the process. This can be very hard to do, even for those who would normally be ego-less.
Theoreticians, those of us who work down in the weeds at least, don't get, nor expect, general recognition. That doesn't mean we don't have pride in what we do. This whole naming practice can be an interesting stumbling block in discourse, sometimes leading to vicious inside pool.
The canonical example is when someone comes in to give a conference talk about the latest and greatest equation they just discovered and named after themselves.
Ninety-nine percent of the time or greater, of course, the particular equation they think they've discovered was equation 34c in someone else's paper fifty years ago, usually a throwaway for a reason.
(Aside: If you think I'm kidding about the ninety-nine percent, understand that this can be a severe underestimate for some cases.
Consider that, for example, the three-body problem is centuries old, and remains unsolved. Further, this is no obscure problem, it remains the central unsolved issue for mechanics and all that derives from it. It's been looked at by an awful lot of very smart, very motivated, very well-trained people. Coming up with a new, original, and successful approach is, in real terms, vanishingly unlikely. That doesn't stop us all from trying, of course.
The extension to other areas may (and should! if we're all doing our jobs right...) change the odds fractionally, depending on the field; that said, there are very few areas of physical science that haven't had someone dig into them, even if only briefly. Your mileage may vary, I speak here only from my corner of the scientific endeavor.)
This whole naming thing also makes for head-scratching when one sees other schools and fields who practice a different style. Still, my own observation is that, for the most part, most of science and engineering has something like this as an ideal, at this time. I suspect there's always room to fluctuate, given that there's always another generation coming and looking to re-write the conventions.
In our little corner of the world, there are a handful of named equations, reserved for the big ones, and then, usually, extensions or approximations and so on are named descriptively, rather than for the authors. This is pragmatic: one names the equations when deriving them, rather than have someone else do it for you.
The other pragmatic benefit is related to, but not identical to, the idea of beauty in physical theory. If one can descriptively name a particular equation in just the right way, then the name itself tells those familiar in the art pretty much what the equation does, and, in many cases, how it was derived.
Naming then is an art, occasionally abused; when done correctly one hopes for, ideally, an aid to clarity and new ideas.
There's also an ethical choice implicit in this convention; the idea is to attempt to remove oneself and one's ego from the process. This can be very hard to do, even for those who would normally be ego-less.
Theoreticians, those of us who work down in the weeds at least, don't get, nor expect, general recognition. That doesn't mean we don't have pride in what we do. This whole naming practice can be an interesting stumbling block in discourse, sometimes leading to vicious inside pool.
The canonical example is when someone comes in to give a conference talk about the latest and greatest equation they just discovered and named after themselves.
Ninety-nine percent of the time or greater, of course, the particular equation they think they've discovered was equation 34c in someone else's paper fifty years ago, usually a throwaway for a reason.
(Aside: If you think I'm kidding about the ninety-nine percent, understand that this can be a severe underestimate for some cases.
Consider that, for example, the three-body problem is centuries old, and remains unsolved. Further, this is no obscure problem, it remains the central unsolved issue for mechanics and all that derives from it. It's been looked at by an awful lot of very smart, very motivated, very well-trained people. Coming up with a new, original, and successful approach is, in real terms, vanishingly unlikely. That doesn't stop us all from trying, of course.
The extension to other areas may (and should! if we're all doing our jobs right...) change the odds fractionally, depending on the field; that said, there are very few areas of physical science that haven't had someone dig into them, even if only briefly. Your mileage may vary, I speak here only from my corner of the scientific endeavor.)
This whole naming thing also makes for head-scratching when one sees other schools and fields who practice a different style. Still, my own observation is that, for the most part, most of science and engineering has something like this as an ideal, at this time. I suspect there's always room to fluctuate, given that there's always another generation coming and looking to re-write the conventions.
A week or so ago, I griped to myself about a science writer confusing velocity with energy in a context where even a simple check of wikipedia would have made the difference abundantly clear (hint: when the velocity of a beam line is already 0.999c, ie. for all intents and purposes streaming at the speed of light, an upgraded beam line on earth is very unlikely to have a velocity 10 times that of the current source...)
Then I pop open my current issue of an important science journal and find someone writing that there's 500C (i.e. 500 Celsius) summer temperatures at the site of an archeologic dig, right here on the Earth. Umm, probably not. (Meaning, that should have read 50C, so it's a transcription error, and none of us can cast a stone here, now can we?)
Gentle reminders to be humble.
***
Oh, oh, now here's an idea for a mystery novel or a thousand of them: environmental DNA. Basically, there's enough DNA floating around in natural water systems, from animals and algae and all and sundry, to do meaningful surveys on. Or, to implicate just about anyone the killer wants, in the right circumstances. Can you say spray bottle? I knew that you could...
***
Ah, naming conventions.
Mineralogy does this -> all romantic Greek/pseudo-Greek derived names. Up to the point where everyone realizes they're running out of possibilities and moves to "Screw this we're just counting elements and going with it"-name conventions. (monohydrate, half-hydrate...)
Assuming this is a general pattern, movement from human-memorizable names to category-memorizable names (i.e. from specific examples to a classification system with a certain mechanistic taxonomy) may be indicative of a type of maturity of a field. Not "We know everything there is to know about this" maturity, rather simply "We can describe the broad types to our students in a systematic way that everyone can understand even if they don't agree with or use it systematically" maturity.
You know, like the SI units system. Useful as common language, if not for any given area of application.
Vis a vis organic chemistry and the naming conventions. More honored in the breach than the execution, admittedly. Astronomical assignments, I suspect, have a similar issue, though occasionally we still get little joys like Ultima Thule. And if you really want some entertainment try and figure out proteins and biomolecular systems of naming generally...
Just for anyone out there thinks I'm picking on them: theoreticians [waves hand] are worse. Once an equation gets to a certain status or level of use, the fights begin over who thought it up first... That may be why you end up with Maxwell-this and Einstein-that and Boltzmann-other, because it's an occasionally useful way to head off the part where everyone gets out their knives and starts carving up the literature and whoever else gets in the way in the process.
***
On a completely different subject. Listening to the radio the other day, and I discovered I want something.
Actually, I want two somethings.
Now, wanting is a good thing, right, because it teaches us what we can't always have. Still, I have hope. I hope, really, for two little somethings.
I'd like Tom Morello to play lead guitar, or maybe Vernon Reid, I can't decide which. Ok, let's say I hope for three things.
Tom Morello and Norah Jones, say.
Vernon Reid and Rhiannon Giddens, say.
Or any combination or whatever, covering the song "What am I Gonna Do (With the Rest of my Life)", by Merle Haggard.
See, what happened the other morning, listening on my commute to the day gig, I caught "What am I gonna do" for the first time in a while, and what caught me was Roy Nichols' lead guitar (Roy was lead for The Strangers, Merle's backing band for years). Roy is precise, stylized, clean.
Tom Morello and Vernon Reid, in their own very distinct ways, are also incredibly precise and clean players. Which is why it struck me: I would love to hear what they do with that piece. The lyrics, the style, adult, very mid-century American songbook, but they demand a primal scream of a solo, constrained in some intimate way.
Poor description, perhaps, but Tom and Vernon are the two who jumped to mind; besides, seeing that type of pairing, with Norah or Rhiannon, oh wow would that be a good gig.
That's two. Counting on my fingers and finding I'm one short.
But those two covers would be the appetizer.
The final one I'd really love to hear cover "What am I gonna do"?
Brittany Howard. With the Alabama Shakes, by herself, don't care either way. I just think that there's a song and singer and guitar player pairing I'd very much hope to hear someday.
Then I pop open my current issue of an important science journal and find someone writing that there's 500C (i.e. 500 Celsius) summer temperatures at the site of an archeologic dig, right here on the Earth. Umm, probably not. (Meaning, that should have read 50C, so it's a transcription error, and none of us can cast a stone here, now can we?)
Gentle reminders to be humble.
***
Oh, oh, now here's an idea for a mystery novel or a thousand of them: environmental DNA. Basically, there's enough DNA floating around in natural water systems, from animals and algae and all and sundry, to do meaningful surveys on. Or, to implicate just about anyone the killer wants, in the right circumstances. Can you say spray bottle? I knew that you could...
***
Ah, naming conventions.
Mineralogy does this -> all romantic Greek/pseudo-Greek derived names. Up to the point where everyone realizes they're running out of possibilities and moves to "Screw this we're just counting elements and going with it"-name conventions. (monohydrate, half-hydrate...)
Assuming this is a general pattern, movement from human-memorizable names to category-memorizable names (i.e. from specific examples to a classification system with a certain mechanistic taxonomy) may be indicative of a type of maturity of a field. Not "We know everything there is to know about this" maturity, rather simply "We can describe the broad types to our students in a systematic way that everyone can understand even if they don't agree with or use it systematically" maturity.
You know, like the SI units system. Useful as common language, if not for any given area of application.
Vis a vis organic chemistry and the naming conventions. More honored in the breach than the execution, admittedly. Astronomical assignments, I suspect, have a similar issue, though occasionally we still get little joys like Ultima Thule. And if you really want some entertainment try and figure out proteins and biomolecular systems of naming generally...
Just for anyone out there thinks I'm picking on them: theoreticians [waves hand] are worse. Once an equation gets to a certain status or level of use, the fights begin over who thought it up first... That may be why you end up with Maxwell-this and Einstein-that and Boltzmann-other, because it's an occasionally useful way to head off the part where everyone gets out their knives and starts carving up the literature and whoever else gets in the way in the process.
***
On a completely different subject. Listening to the radio the other day, and I discovered I want something.
Actually, I want two somethings.
Now, wanting is a good thing, right, because it teaches us what we can't always have. Still, I have hope. I hope, really, for two little somethings.
I'd like Tom Morello to play lead guitar, or maybe Vernon Reid, I can't decide which. Ok, let's say I hope for three things.
Tom Morello and Norah Jones, say.
Vernon Reid and Rhiannon Giddens, say.
Or any combination or whatever, covering the song "What am I Gonna Do (With the Rest of my Life)", by Merle Haggard.
See, what happened the other morning, listening on my commute to the day gig, I caught "What am I gonna do" for the first time in a while, and what caught me was Roy Nichols' lead guitar (Roy was lead for The Strangers, Merle's backing band for years). Roy is precise, stylized, clean.
Tom Morello and Vernon Reid, in their own very distinct ways, are also incredibly precise and clean players. Which is why it struck me: I would love to hear what they do with that piece. The lyrics, the style, adult, very mid-century American songbook, but they demand a primal scream of a solo, constrained in some intimate way.
Poor description, perhaps, but Tom and Vernon are the two who jumped to mind; besides, seeing that type of pairing, with Norah or Rhiannon, oh wow would that be a good gig.
That's two. Counting on my fingers and finding I'm one short.
But those two covers would be the appetizer.
The final one I'd really love to hear cover "What am I gonna do"?
Brittany Howard. With the Alabama Shakes, by herself, don't care either way. I just think that there's a song and singer and guitar player pairing I'd very much hope to hear someday.
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Here's a thing I discovered in the past week. If you ever get into a car with lane assist, take a minute, when you can, to play with it.
Discovering how it feels for the lane assist to kick in when you're winding your way through curvy mountain overpasses in icy fog, with trucks and traffic and all the rest of the noise, is not the best way to learn the limits of the thing.
Short description is that it feels like under- or over-steer, depending on the circumstances. If you've every hydroplaned in the middle of a hard turn, you'll know what I mean.
Or, if you've ever driven short-track, dirt-track in a sprint or mini-sprint, you know that feeling? The one where you dive into the turn, with just the wrong amount of speed, and you have to trust to feel and instinct and God knows what else to balance the throttle and the wheel pressure?
Like that, only with none of the honed instinct that comes with trusting your car.
I'm fine, but for those first few seconds I wondered. Once I knew what was happening I could plan for it. But I suspect that, however many of one type of wreck are prevented, there are going to be new ones to go along with it. Probably fewer, but it's another thing to learn in the whole driving thing.
Discovering how it feels for the lane assist to kick in when you're winding your way through curvy mountain overpasses in icy fog, with trucks and traffic and all the rest of the noise, is not the best way to learn the limits of the thing.
Short description is that it feels like under- or over-steer, depending on the circumstances. If you've every hydroplaned in the middle of a hard turn, you'll know what I mean.
Or, if you've ever driven short-track, dirt-track in a sprint or mini-sprint, you know that feeling? The one where you dive into the turn, with just the wrong amount of speed, and you have to trust to feel and instinct and God knows what else to balance the throttle and the wheel pressure?
Like that, only with none of the honed instinct that comes with trusting your car.
I'm fine, but for those first few seconds I wondered. Once I knew what was happening I could plan for it. But I suspect that, however many of one type of wreck are prevented, there are going to be new ones to go along with it. Probably fewer, but it's another thing to learn in the whole driving thing.
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Of course, now that I consult the All-Knowing Wikipedia for Harry Potter, I see for the movie: a 2 year time, 1999-2001, from purchase of rights to release of the movie.
No development hell, they know how to make a movie when they want to.
A few preliminary thoughts on reading Hollywood versus The Author. I took it up after seeing it in Kris Rusch's December Reading Rec's.
This isn't a review; just ideas as I read through a group of writers kibbitzing, trying to figure out the ways and mores of Tinseltown, and how to navigate them with a bit of grace and skill. Overall, the picture isn't a clean one.
I've a few, well, theories I guess, but I'm far too new a writer, and the time if/when Hollywood would come knocking for anything I put up is far in the future. I'd say there're the obvious things that "everyone knows", that the town's a pit, a trap for the unwary, consuming all that come looking for glory.
Or, and here's the key: a quick buck. All the scams boil down to greed. And, at least from this outsider's point of view, the competent pros in the movie and tv business being surrounded by an awful lot of people who aren't in it for anything but the scam. Or the "fame" or the loose change or all of the other things that come along.
Stealing ideas, development hell. Endless re-writes. These are signs that, to me, sound like wanna-be's, not pros.
Look, well-run tv shows put out 20 to 40 hours or more of video every year, like clockwork. Spending year after year in "development hell" doesn't sound much like competence, not when there are people who do it every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Looks to me like the only defence a writer with a novel to sell options/rights on has is time. Use the option, put a deal, and then a movie, together in a limited time, or lose it. Period.
I suspect that's at least part of what was behind how competently the Harry Potter movie series was handled by Warner Bros. (if you're of a certain age in the HP fandom, you'll know jodel-from-aol, a.k.a. RedHen. Her description is that the first two movies were little more than boilerplate; I'm not saying they're the world's greatest ART, just that the movies were, for Hollywood, handled with a level of fidelity and competence that are far more the exception than the rule) I think Jo Rowling had not just the "leverage" of a hot property. I suspect she had a time limit on when the first movies, and the ones after, would be done, or they'd lose rights.
Such deadlines likely force: one script with minimal re-writes, from a scriptwriter who's a pro and is just translating, not "writing to their vision", i.e. writing their own script and passing it off under the flag of convenience. No re-writing for girlfriends/boyfriends/whoever's the hot young thing under contract. No games with casting, no prima donna's behind the camera or in front of it.
Only pros, people who can put together a movie in a timely manner with no muss, no fuss, and none of the drama queen business. People who just do the work.
I'm sure this isn't the whole of it, but right now I suspect it's also the only realistic grip that an unknown writer has on their story.
Sunday, January 6, 2019
Addendum to previous: caveat for mobility and space. However, the principle is still good. Having the printer and files (or microwave and coffee pot) across the room, down the hall, rather than right there where I can grab it, may be frustrating in one sense, but I've found two major long term benefits.
Time to think.
Extra movement.
Both have their utility far and away from the momentary convenience of grabbing paper or stuffing files from my chair, in my experience.
Time to think.
Extra movement.
Both have their utility far and away from the momentary convenience of grabbing paper or stuffing files from my chair, in my experience.
I'm not gonna say this is one of those "happy writer" tips. But then, that may depend on your point of view...
Put the printer upstairs, and the filing cabinets, and take advantage of the laptop to work downstairs...
Not foolproof, by any means. It's often way too easy to talk oneself out of doing the up and down dance. But, when you don't have a choice, it sort of pays off.
Put the printer upstairs, and the filing cabinets, and take advantage of the laptop to work downstairs...
Not foolproof, by any means. It's often way too easy to talk oneself out of doing the up and down dance. But, when you don't have a choice, it sort of pays off.
Saturday, January 5, 2019
I don't know if this is an original idea or not, but it finally clicked for me today: most internet arguments bear an extraordinary resemblance to faculty behavior at a seminar.
Or any presentation at a meeting. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. Some poor soul has been tagged to get up and give their talk. They've organized their slides, put their thoughts together. Maybe this is something they've been working on their whole lives, this is their baby.
Maybe they got handed the thing yesterday, their boss is out of town and guess what, tag you're it! Project stinks, they don't know anything about it, but this is the talk folks, here ya go.
Either way, here's the schmuck tasked with entertaining the crowd for an hour or so...
And the putz in the audience wants to argue. Endlessly. It's never about anything truly important. It might be "I discovered that years ago", the faculty favorite. Or it might be "I don't understand this, and I'm going to broadcast my lack thereof for all and sundry. At length."
Charitably, most of the time, there's a mismatch between the talk and the audience, assumptions maybe, domain of application almost always.
What bugs me, whether I've been the target or just in the audience watching someone get raked over the coals, is that these sorts of things should be taken to private conversations. Or, really, that old favorite, "I'll ignore this because it doesn't seem right."
I may be unusual though, I can get terribly embarrassed by public confrontations. I don't do social conflict, or at least I'm not comfortable with it in certain contexts. Especially when it's such a no-brainer to say "Look, we disagree, and I'm happy to figure out why. But a talk really isn't the best place to get there."
That's seminars and meetings, teleconferences, the kinds of things many of us have to deal with every day.
What I spotted this morning in a random comment thread, in between rolling my eyes at yet another endless argument, was how familiar it was, all of a sudden. And that's when I realized how close it all was to the seminars and meetings that I get so bored by.
Same kind of thing, argument that might be argument for the sake of argument, but is often just that simple path away from being more equitably relaxed: "Hey, it's cool, I get that we're not quite meeting on the same plane. No worries, agree to disagree and we'll get on to more productive uses of our space and time."
Work doesn't generally get done in a public forum. Even for public entertainers, comedians, actors, sports, the work is the stuff we don't see. The product is what we get in front of the cameras, on stage, under the lights on the field.
Not to say that I don't think confrontation has its place in the world of the mind, but the stage where it actually accomplishes something isn't likely to be the grandstanding speech. Rather this: Art speaks to Art. The best response to a paper is another paper. Or project, or patent, or program or novel or poem or song or or or...
If nothing else, a little more time to think and consider one's own assumptions, test them in private, work through them without the world looking over your shoulder, never hurts.
Or any presentation at a meeting. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. Some poor soul has been tagged to get up and give their talk. They've organized their slides, put their thoughts together. Maybe this is something they've been working on their whole lives, this is their baby.
Maybe they got handed the thing yesterday, their boss is out of town and guess what, tag you're it! Project stinks, they don't know anything about it, but this is the talk folks, here ya go.
Either way, here's the schmuck tasked with entertaining the crowd for an hour or so...
And the putz in the audience wants to argue. Endlessly. It's never about anything truly important. It might be "I discovered that years ago", the faculty favorite. Or it might be "I don't understand this, and I'm going to broadcast my lack thereof for all and sundry. At length."
Charitably, most of the time, there's a mismatch between the talk and the audience, assumptions maybe, domain of application almost always.
What bugs me, whether I've been the target or just in the audience watching someone get raked over the coals, is that these sorts of things should be taken to private conversations. Or, really, that old favorite, "I'll ignore this because it doesn't seem right."
I may be unusual though, I can get terribly embarrassed by public confrontations. I don't do social conflict, or at least I'm not comfortable with it in certain contexts. Especially when it's such a no-brainer to say "Look, we disagree, and I'm happy to figure out why. But a talk really isn't the best place to get there."
That's seminars and meetings, teleconferences, the kinds of things many of us have to deal with every day.
What I spotted this morning in a random comment thread, in between rolling my eyes at yet another endless argument, was how familiar it was, all of a sudden. And that's when I realized how close it all was to the seminars and meetings that I get so bored by.
Same kind of thing, argument that might be argument for the sake of argument, but is often just that simple path away from being more equitably relaxed: "Hey, it's cool, I get that we're not quite meeting on the same plane. No worries, agree to disagree and we'll get on to more productive uses of our space and time."
Work doesn't generally get done in a public forum. Even for public entertainers, comedians, actors, sports, the work is the stuff we don't see. The product is what we get in front of the cameras, on stage, under the lights on the field.
Not to say that I don't think confrontation has its place in the world of the mind, but the stage where it actually accomplishes something isn't likely to be the grandstanding speech. Rather this: Art speaks to Art. The best response to a paper is another paper. Or project, or patent, or program or novel or poem or song or or or...
If nothing else, a little more time to think and consider one's own assumptions, test them in private, work through them without the world looking over your shoulder, never hurts.
Thursday, January 3, 2019
I'm in the middle of contemplating the imperative, i.e. I'm in the middle of the turn of the year and the natural tendency to wonder just what in the hell I'm doing, where I'm going, etc.
In other words, I'm trying out resolutions, looking for the ones that matter this year, the ones that can properly be called goals, rather than just random noise from my inner lazy bastard. Some of this noise might, likely will, rise to the level of goals, down the road; my task, just like, if the internet is any indication, most of the rest of humanity, is to sift through and find the gold.
Health, that's an easy one. If nothing else, I feel the whisper on the back of my neck, old age is coming. Someday, sure, I'm not so far gone, but this is one of those visitors one had best be prepared for. At least a little bit. Exercise and diet, those old doctor's standard orders, and maybe I can push back certain reckonings.
There are other tests of will. One I'm coming to grips with this morning, that would be my reading habits. I'm trying out different modes of reading, the when and how and what portion of the thing. Journals and literature for the day gig, stories for the night gig. Time being what it is, I need to relearn old tricks and habits, in new settings. And better, I want to do these things, build a balance I'm happy with, one that gets me through the world of words with purpose and feeling.
I've other things to do, of course. Stories to publish, send out into the world. That part will be pretty obvious, since that's one of my purposes with this space. So watch this space, and we'll see how this year 2019 does for us all. I hope it's beginning well for you and yours dear reader, and gets better as we all go along.
In other words, I'm trying out resolutions, looking for the ones that matter this year, the ones that can properly be called goals, rather than just random noise from my inner lazy bastard. Some of this noise might, likely will, rise to the level of goals, down the road; my task, just like, if the internet is any indication, most of the rest of humanity, is to sift through and find the gold.
Health, that's an easy one. If nothing else, I feel the whisper on the back of my neck, old age is coming. Someday, sure, I'm not so far gone, but this is one of those visitors one had best be prepared for. At least a little bit. Exercise and diet, those old doctor's standard orders, and maybe I can push back certain reckonings.
There are other tests of will. One I'm coming to grips with this morning, that would be my reading habits. I'm trying out different modes of reading, the when and how and what portion of the thing. Journals and literature for the day gig, stories for the night gig. Time being what it is, I need to relearn old tricks and habits, in new settings. And better, I want to do these things, build a balance I'm happy with, one that gets me through the world of words with purpose and feeling.
I've other things to do, of course. Stories to publish, send out into the world. That part will be pretty obvious, since that's one of my purposes with this space. So watch this space, and we'll see how this year 2019 does for us all. I hope it's beginning well for you and yours dear reader, and gets better as we all go along.
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