Sunday, April 29, 2012

This Right Here Is A Blog Post

So I finally finished that elementary detective short story and it is up on my blog. It feels good to finish something and the apprehension at having people read it has faded slowly, replaced with relief. I did it. It is a completed piece of writing. That feels good.

I haven't gone back to my novel since February and the longer I take to look at it, the more I don't want to. The more afraid I become that it is a terrible boring and in all ways bad piece of writing. I'm not sure why those thoughts are always there, though I feel like they plague most writers or artists. Why should someone read my writing? What am I contributing to the world that was not there? What's the point? Etc. But you fight through and you write anyways.

I'm happy with the story. The funny thing is when I began, I had no idea it was going to turn out the way it did. The plot changed in ways I hadn't expected, characters did things unexpectedly and the way it all turned out neatly in the end was as much a surprise to me as it may have been to any of the readers. Writing a story almost feels like I'm discovering it within myself. That sounds cheesy, I'm sure, but it's ultimately true. When I write, I usually don't know what's going to happen to the characters in a few pages, I'm making it up as I go along. Somehow, my subconscious is a genius because it all works in the end. It's fun though, in a strange way I can't really describe.

I guess I enjoy experiencing stories. Good stories with believable characters, emotions and conflicts. I enjoy them in every form: film, literature, video games and even writing them myself.

The Long Nap was an idea I had four to five months ago and was finished about a week ago. It probably should not have taken that long but I was particularly lazy in regards to writing. It is also completely unedited so there are likely a fair few grammatical/spelling errors not to mention other problems, such as word choice. The hardest part about writing about children is making it believable. Kids can be smart but they can also be really dumb. You have to watch what words you use in dialogue and what references you make. A kids isn't going to make the same connections in his head as an adult would, wouldn't use the same metaphors or the same cultural references. I just used the word references three times in three sentences. That's bad writing right there.

I have been contemplating my sci-fi idea and it has begun to take shape. My basic take on it is this, what if the consciousness was discovered, as a force or simply a 'thing'. What I mean is, what if scientists discovered a way to detect it, measure it, take readings, etc. Instead of being this thing we simply don't know anything about, or simply assumed as byproduct of our brains, what if it became known as some invisible force or object or web of knowledge, information, feelings that resides within us? Religious zealots would jump on this claiming that science has finally found our 'spirit' while atheist scientists would simply proclaim that the consciousness is simply something that comes about when the subject's brain is large enough, it is simply a byproduct of higher intelligence. Regardless, the brain is simply what holds this invisible web of our minds within. Using this crazy science fiction, it could be possible to transfer consciousnesses from one being to another. Considering we only use a certain percentage of our brains, it would be possible for a brain to hold two consciousnesses within it, containing the memories, feelings, and thoughts of both. Stay with me here...or simply skip this paragraph, it may not be making much sense anyways. Regardless, with this basic framework, my main character would be a person who would jump to others' brains and control their body, suppressing their own consciousness while he 'rides' their body. Doing this would enable him to protect witnesses, infiltrate practically anywhere and well, pretty much anything. I was thinking of the plot as something like this: The scientists use certain electrical charges to transfer consciousnesses. There are a few 'agents' who are used to do this for certain missions. One agent gets killed while in another's body but manages to jump to another's body. This is not supposed to happen and could lead to catastrophe, so an agent is sent after the rogue agent, both able to hop bodies and crazy antics ensue. Sound insane? Yeah, I know. It needs alot of work, but that's why I have it stirring in my mind at the moment.

Anyways, I've also been writing some flash fiction which is fun. It's simply writing a story in very few words, less than 1000 usually and sometimes even in just a 100. It's interesting and makes you cut the story down to it's most basic form. I will likely be throwing these up on my blog in the near future to see what you think. It's nice in that I can use these ideas that are whirling around in my brain and put them down in a very short form, cutting them down to their most basic essentials. I also like to do that on twitter, writing stories in 180 characters is silly but fun.

I'm following a few indie authors on twitter. It's interesting. Seems like many authors write blog posts telling others how to write, or giving tips on how to write or getting published, etc etc. I find that silly. Though they probably have more followers than I do...Perhaps I should change my method....

Tips On How To Get Followers To Your Blog!
Number 1: Don't say Fuck on your blog.
...Fuck

Well, who cares. I don't want to tell anyone how to write anyways. There are enough writers in the world, probably too many. Some of them should go into painting or art history or something.

Tangents aside, I've been reading William Gibson's Neuromancer. It's quite good, a sci-fi world not unlike Blade Runner, filled with cyborg-ish body augmentations, crazy neural hacking and all that good stuff. I guess the author basically envisioned the internet before there was an internet, so that's pretty cool. I am very much enjoying it.

I've been watching a show called Awake. It's about a detective who, after an accident, lives in two worlds. In one, his wife survived. When he goes to sleep, he wakes up in the other world, where his son survived. He sees shrinks in both worlds and both tell him the other world is a dream. Very interesting, with cool cases and some intriguing crossovers between the worlds while he goes slightly crazy. There is also some behind-the-scenes conspiracy going on about the accident but nothing will get resolved because it's probably going to be cancelled like all good shows are.

I've also been watching the second season of The Killing which has really ramped things up since season one. It is fantastic. It is depressing. I would liken it to The Wire in terms of acting, plot, characters and setting. Only this is focused on less characters and one case. So far it's been amazing. Watch it.

What else? Fringe is great because it's really accepted it's zaniness and has really gone over the edge yet still managing to tell interesting stories with the characters.

I'm out like a bad light bulb. Haha terrible joke.


“Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...” 
― William GibsonNeuromancer


2 comments:

  1. +1 to the science fiction idea. One note, though: the "not using all of your brain" thing is bullshit. We certainly never have every neuron active at once (that would be a seizure) but there is no part of the brain that we do not use.

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  2. Ah okay. Good to know. When I eventually do more work on this setting, I would like to chat with you about it, as you are a knowledgeable fellow about science and such.

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