26 May 2009--Audiobooks

I love the idea of listening to a book while driving to work. I still remember the wonder I had the first time I listened to an audio book on my over-an-hour commute to work. It was the BBC recording of the Chronicles of Narnia. I thought that the audio book would be distracting or that I would zone out and miss an important plot piece, or dialogue, almost when I skim a page while reading a book, and would need to reread the passage. Ah, but all my fears were needless, considering that I felt like I was watching a movie, but not actually seeing what it was. Enchanted with the experience, I proceeded to listen to finish the Chronicles of Narnia, and graduated to Harry Potter's adventures, and eventually branched out to more voluminous works, such as Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear series, Pillars of the Earth, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Those books, and countless others, have helped me overcome the drudgery of a long commute or traffic, and at times have made me want to get in my car and create errands for myself so that I'm able to "read" just a little bit more.
Of course, through this, I have discovered that books that were otherwise unreadable in print, I can tolerate, and even grow to love, while listening to it as an audio book. For example, Eragon, The Thirteenth Tale and The Fountainhead are all great books that I am proud to have read, but I would never have finished them if it weren't for audio books.
I guess I've been thinking about my audio book discovery since it was around this time two years ago when I pushed The Magician's Nephew into my car's CD player and was introduced to a whole new dimension of reading. And maybe it's because I've really enjoyed my last few "reads". Either way, I've renewed my love for audio books, and am conscious about the types of books that I will choose, namely, that I need to strengthen my nonfiction base. I really enjoyed Eat Pray Love, as an audio book, and I think I'll be able to read more nonfiction books this way rather than the traditional paperback or hardcover. I'm happy to say that I'm currently listening to In Defense of Food (and enjoying it immensely!) and hope to enjoy more nonfiction books this way. I really liked reading Gladwell's Blink, and I wonder now if he has any of his other books on CD.
Though I will never get over the idea that I am reading a book while driving, the one thing I miss out on is the tactile sensation of reading: the textures of the pages and cover, the smell of the paper, and the unconscious indicator of the story's pace as the pages in my right hand slowly thin out. So, I will never replace traditional books with their convenience counterparts of audio books or ebooks, but they definitely have their place/role in my life.

21 May 2009--Morning Thoughts on The Novel

Well, I thought that I would have a setback yesterday because I had myself a little pity party when I found out that my bank accounts were overdrawn. I think too much emphasis is placed on “being good” and keeping a healthy bank account. Don’t get me wrong, I want to ensure that my bank account is used responsibly, of course, but I mean it’s gotten to the point that one mistake that happens to everyone can nearly destroy me and question my moral integrity, my intelligence, my overall ability to do anything good and right in this world. I mean, I can talk about it in a distant way, but good grief, did I slump REALLY low yesterday. To the point where I was crippled, my mind numb, and questioning how I could ever aspire to be a professional, fulltime writer when I couldn’t even support myself with a regular full time job, and I would have to be a really great writer like those celebrity writers, not the ones who pound away at the computer and despite showing up and paying homage to the muse, they are still overlooked and unrecognized and unpaid, but what does that matter because they’re doing what they love, and it’s not about the money anyway, is it? Well, even though I agree with that wholeheartedly, that it’s not about the money, and that I enjoy writing as a hobby, realistically speaking, I will need money eventually if I am to be able to follow through on my plan for being this “professional writer”, and considering that yesterday I felt so stupid, why should I even bother because I won’t ever be a celebrity writer, not that I want the celebrity-recognition but I would like the paycheck or fraction of the paycheck as that status can command, and being that status is what I need to do this fulltime, so why even bother at all since I’m not good enough to even be thinking about that level of income. The whole morning went on and on like that in the midst of looking for other jobs that I can take on part-time, because at least I was “doing something.” It was a never-ending dizzying circle that kept spiraling down in this odd samsaric kind of way.

Thankfully, during my pre-ordained break, (after I punched out a paragraph-cum-poem neatly entitle “sucking at life”) I checked out facebook, and after a few encouraging words from my cousin Richelle, I was ready to get over myself and write again. Sure, it wasn’t all that easy, since I was on the technical plotting stage since I reached a point in my scene writing that I didn’t know where I was to get anywhere, but I ended up forcing myself to write till 10pm writing a fully developed plot summary (I hate the term outline, it’s too structured and yet also too sparse) that I can use to refer to and flesh out since I basically wrote them as self-encapsulating scene/paragraphs that still needs descriptions, dialogue, etc. But at least this way, I was able to see in miniature the novel develop scene per scene and if at the end of the scene, I knew more about the characters and if there were changes as compared to the beginning of that scene. There were few areas where I thought it may have dragged, which is good seeing it in miniature so I didn’t have to waste hours on writing that scene fully, only to discover that I needed to fill it in with a foreshadowing or another character, or whatever. Plus, seeing this thing to the end, and forcing myself to write with a specific time challenge I was able to create transitions and scenarios that flowed one to the other without thinking about it because I was just trying to see to the end. Kind of like skimming a novel to skip to the end and see what will happen. Except with writing. It was a weird feeling, but I didn’t have time to think about it because I was too busy writing. It makes sense to me.

20 May 2009--Against the Whelming Flood

This morning didn't start off too hot. Well, I shouldn't say that. It started out well enough: I woke up at 9am, made coffee, opened my laptop and prepared to have an inspiring day of just all out writing to make (and exceed) my pre-ordained 4 pages of morning writing that will serve to flesh out my novel. Thinking about that, I realize that I shouldn't say "flesh out" since that implies that I have at least a skeleton of a novel, you know, from start to finish. I think what I have is more like an embryo of the novel, although, seeing that I have over 30 pages written, I'm not so much proud of that writing anymore. I may have only written 30 pages of background but not the actual story. But I need to stop writing around the actual problem.

The actual problem, is that when I opened my laptop, and spent a few minutes clicking through Google's "special day in history icon" that I can never resist reading about (today it was about the fully preserved fossil of Darwinius Maxillae, or something like that), I decided to round out my procrastinative endeavors and check out all the other mundane things in my life, including bank accounts and bills. Wouldn't you know it, but I stupidly forgot about an EFT (a new bill, I might add, so I definitely wasn't expecting it) that put my bank account into the negative. Mark's going to love that. On top of all that, I checked my other bank account, which I use solely for tracking my own personal expenses (I only keep $20 in there from paycheck to paycheck), and instead of the $0 balance that I thought I had since I put $3 in there yesterday, it turned out that my account was -$30 as of Monday, and the teller didn't bother to tell me that when I put a measly $3 in. How frustrating! Of course, when I encounter a financial obstacle, my solution has always been to take a few calming breaths and then promptly apply online to whatever job I can find. This time, I searched Monster.com and Indy Star to see what results I would find. Wouldn't you know it, there were part-time offerings for Verizon, so I decided to apply there again. Of course, I am conscious that the likelihood of getting a callback is basically nil. But, I always have to feel like I'm being an active participant of my life, and the action helps to soothe me and open a channel to God, saying that ok, I've done my part, what next? And the what next is inevitably God telling me that I need to be a better Steward of my resources and to know more for next time, but know that He still loves me, and that I'm not the complete failure that I think I am.

I just think it's funny to see that one aspect, one little moment in time can reduce me from hopeful and inspired-ready to self-abusive and unforgiving. Just wait until I want to market my novels for publishing. I should fashion my self-flagellate whips now. And a shadow box to display all of my rejection notices. Wouldn't that make me feel like I'm being an active participant in my own destiny?

At any rate, here is my morning writing, reduced from four pages of a rough draft for the novel to a semi-paragraph, almost poetical litany of how much I suck:

I wish I had beautiful things to say. But I don’t .
I wish I were the eloquent queen, the girl of your dreams, your fiery seductress swirling liquid ruin with your dessert. But I am none of those things.
I am the master of backpedaling; of being the quick wit five-minutes-too-late, the $30 cup of coffee because I couldn’t figure out if I had $2 or $3 left in my bank account. I am the too early to be fashionably late, too late to be punctual. I am the "if only I could have" safety of my golden years. The “after” in the aftermath; a flashforward gone wrong. The secret tears that everyone sees. The ongoing caps lock that confounds case sensitive logins. The coffee brewed with not enough water. Not enough. There.

13 May 2009--Thoughts on Reader's block

I wanted to write about some of the books that I've been reading, but the only books that I've been reading with a consistent frequency is The Heretics of Dune and the writing books that I've borrowed from the library. The Heretics of Dune has been constant only because it's in my car and I'm listening to it via audio books. I know this because I had the brand new hardcover re-release a few weeks ago, and barely read past the first few chapters. I'm experiencing a weird sense of detachment from reading fiction, only because I get hang ups with it whenever I try to write. Like, I need to rest from it almost, so that my subconscious can digest whatever it is that I read, and that I won't feel conscious about it as I'm writing. It gets to the point at times that I waver between feeling like a plagiarist or feeling like a hack. So, since I don't want to be discouraged from writing anymore than I already get, my short term solution has been to stop reading. I know, that's weird, but I don't devour books nor have the shaky addiction to devour books like I used to. In fact, I think I may have replaced my addiction to reading with more junk food eating. I'm not entirely sure, but I have noticed that my need for eating junk food has increased noticeably since I've stopped reading regularly. Well, I don't want to seem like I'm not reading at all, since I did go through like 6 nonfiction books, and I am currently trying to read Extremely loud and Incredibly close. I just wish that I weren't so "all or nothing" about these things, but I do want to do everything possible to encourage my writing, even if it means cutting myself off from books I love to read (fantasy). I think a lot of times, my trips to the library help me to assuage my inability to buy things, and so I end up borrowing stacks of books, dozens at a time only to end up not reading them or maybe only one or two of them. Who knows. Oh, and I feel like I'm slowly going insane because when I do get to write, I end up not leaving my world entirely, and end up feeling flaky all day during my day job where I'm forced to talk to lots of people. Which is why I hope to find another day job which will encourage me towards my dream of being a full time writer, if for nothing else, so I don't feel like I'm losing my mind and spiraling towards a dissociative disorder.