beginnings middles ends

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Beginnings, Middles, Endings

I started reading George R. R. Martin’s The Game of Thrones yesterday.

There’s nothing like beginning a new book. In this case, with all the hype behind this particular title, it has a lot to live up to. I’ve never seen the TV show and don’t really have a good idea who the characters are. I’ve avoided the series up to now because George Martin is getting old and he hasn’t finished writing it yet. I didn’t want to commit to that many pages of reading with no guarantee there’ll never be an ending to it.

But then I had a dream some months ago in which I was reading Game of Thrones, so I decided, okay, that must mean something good. I bought a copy of the ubiquitous Volume One and saved it for the summer. Now it’s summer, and it’s time to read long books …

But the thing is — maybe even more so with a series like this — I’ll never have the experience again of meeting and learning all the characters and crises and drama. Introducing myself to a huge new world already such a prominent and popular part of the common consciousness. I’m not concerned with catching up with everyone else, but I am determined to have the experience of being personally engaged by the book in my own right. And you can only do that by actually starting the book. And you can only have the experience of being enchanted by starting a book for the first time once. It’s great.

Something like …

I passed the halfway mark in David Peace’s first novel in the Red Riding Quartet, 1974, yesterday. There’s nothing like being in the middle of a good book.

There’s a startlingly accurate blurb from the New York Times on the cover of that novel. “A bundle of spastic nerves and jumpy tempos, hard to hold in your hand but harder to put down.” I would only recommend David Peace to certain people as a good read, as the world he presents is that bleak and visceral. But the way he experiments with narrative to fling the story at you like mud at a window you foolishly left open is maddeningly compelling. And like the NY Times says, the excitement of holding a narrative in your hands that you just can’t put down is so exceptional, you’ll put up with a lot. Even the unremitting blood and guts of a Yorkshire you can only hope isn’t quite as real as David Peace makes it seem. And that keeps you coming back for more, and more, and more, the deeper you get into it, until …

I finished The Duke’s Children by Anthony Trollope on Sunday morning. Not only completing the novel itself, but his six-book series The Palliser Novels as well. Some 4,200 pages worth of reading in total.

There’s nothing like finishing a good book. Coming to that moment which, if successfully carried out, establishes a sense of order and resolution to a world of infinite possibilities that you never get in real life. Finding out how it all works out for a change! Some people get what they deserve, some don’t, but in every aspect if the book is a good one, each ending for each character and situation provides a sense of aesthetic satisfaction with how the artist has drawn his conflicting lines into a single coherent picture. Even better if you don’t see things coming.

And Anthony somehow manages to end this magnum opus with one single sentence that sums up so much of the spirit of the entire series, even though referring specifically to a character unique to that last novel. But a good writer will do that.

Because there’s nothing like picking up a good book and reading it right through, really.

*****

Photography by Renee Beaubien, at Beyond the Prism

on Flickr, at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128997372@N08/

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

The Grand Finale! Episode 17, Chapter 17 of The Electric Detective, posts Monday, July 27th, in which the final two Contestants battle it out to a finish! And then, on Friday, July 31st … the Winner is declared! Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition concludes at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

With special continuing guest appearances by Jason Midnight and his Cousin Caroline.

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

Episode Thirteen: Finney-Ish — The Invasion of the Hotel Detectives

Episode Fourteen: Miller-Ish — Tempering the Cauldron

Episode Fifteen: Stevenson-Ish — Dr. Coffin’s Kindly Concoction

Episode Sixteen: Shelley-Ish — Prometheus, the Hard Way

Episode Seventeen: Baillie-Ish — The Electric Detective, Chapter Seventeen

As illustrated by the author.

yoko ono

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Yoko Ono Project

The first week of July, 2015 …

Yoko Ono wins the Observer Lifetime Achievement Ethical Award.

“‘Art to me is a way of showing people how you can think,’ Ono says. ‘Some people think of art as like beautiful wallpaper that you can sell, but I have always thought that it is to do with activism.’

Ono believes that activism can – and should – take many forms, and her range of causes is similarly broad: world peace, of course, but also the environment (in 2012 she embarked on a high-profile anti-fracking crusade), gun control and social issues, including feminism and same-sex marriage. She donated money after the Japanese tsunami, inaugurated the Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts in 2009 and was designated the first global autism ambassador in 2010. ‘To be an artist you need courage, and most people don’t think that,’ she says.”

Rumours circulate that Yoko Ono was a secret plot by the Rolling Stones to destroy the Beatles. Yoko declares she loves Paul and Ringo like they were brothers.

The Wish Tree

“Make a wish

Write it down on a piece of paper

Fold it and tie it around a branch of a Wish Tree

Ask your friends to do the same

Keep wishing

Until the branches are covered with wishes.”

The first tree was installed in the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, five years ago this month. Wishes have been contributed from all over the world. More Wish Trees have been installed in London, St. Louis, Washington, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Japan, Venice, and Dublin. Why not put one in your back yard? Or let planting a tree be your wish.

Yoko Ono sponsors Chess for girls in New York City schools.

One Woman Show: 1960-1971

17 May – 7 Sept 2015

“The Museum of Modern Art presents its first official exhibition dedicated exclusively to the work of Yoko Ono, bringing together approximately 125 of her early objects, works on paper, installations, performances, audio recordings and films, alongside rarely seen archival materials.

The Museum of Modern Art​

11 West 53 Street

New York, NY 10019”

“Draw a line with yourself. Go on drawing until you disappear.”

Music — Don’t Stop Me by Yoko Ono

“At my age I should be in a certain way. Please don’t stop me being the way I am. I don’t want to be old and sick like many others of my age. Please don’t create another old person.

So even when I am rocking on the stage, they are totally hard on me. They demand the musical standard of a classic musician and attack me for the rhythm or some notes which are not precisely in tune. I am not concerned with what my voice is doing. If I was, what you experience would not be. My voice will be dead, once I am concerned about it, in the way you are asking me to. Go to a classical concert, if you want to hear a ‘trained’ voice. What I escaped from when I was very, very young. I created my own niche. If I tried to present you classic music it won’t be what I created. You don’t get that way, with Iggy for instance, a grand rocker, who is creating his own brand of Rock, just as I am.

Let me be free. Let me be me! Don’t make me old, with your thinking and words about how I should be. You don’t have to come to my shows. I am giving tremendous energy with my voice, because that is me. Get my energy or shut up."

Popular Reaction - Yoko Ono’s name is synonymous with “the figure of the evil female interloper to the mainstream”.

“Send a fog to your friend”

Yoko Ono is 82 years old.

An activist for peace and human rights since the early 1960s.

Born on February 18, 1933, in Tokyo, to a life of privilege, her father’s family a long line of samurai warrior-scholars. Enrolled in Gakushuin, one of Japan’s most exclusive schools in 1937. Lived through the great fire-bombing of Tokyo in 1945. Forced with her family to beg for food while pulling their belongings in a wheelbarrow. Re-enrolled in Gakushuin when it reopened in 1946. Classmate of Prince Akihito, the future emperor of Japan. Graduated in 1951 and was accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University as the first woman to enter the department. Left the school after two semesters.

According to Wiki.

Married Anthony Cox, an American jazz musician, film producer, and art promoter, who was instrumental in securing her release from a Japanese mental institution in the early 60s. She gave birth to their daughter Kyoko Chan Cox in 1963. The marriage ended in divorce in 1969. Cox disappeared in 1971 with 8 year old Kyoko, in the middle of a custody battle. He raised Kyoko under the name Ruth Holman in an organization known as the Church of the Living Word. Yoko Ono and John Lennon searched for Kyoko for years. Yoko Ono did not see Kyoko again until 1998.

“Keep laughing a week.”

Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Liverpool University

Honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Bard College

Skowhegan Medal for work in assorted media

Awarded the fifth MOCA Award to Distinguished Women in the Arts from the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles

Lifetime achievement award from the Japan Society of New York

Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale

2012 Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Austria's highest award for applied contemporary art

“Everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does.” — John Lennon

yoko ono yoko ono think twice

i wish for

justice for the outsider

or at least a fair shake

ignore us if you don’t like us

don’t give in

to the urge to condemn

acknowledge our voice

cracked crazy and screaming

maybe wonder why

*****

Photography by Renee Beaubien, at Beyond the Prism

on Flickr, at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128997372@N08/

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Judgement! On Monday, July 20th. Leaving three Contestants only to go into Friday, July 24th’s The Electric Detective Chapter Sixteen. After which, there’s only two … Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Trapped in the Barometer’s Rising brothel, who will remain intact to slide directly into The Electric Detective Chapter 17 — the grand finale!

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

Episode Thirteen: Finney-Ish — The Invasion of the Hotel Detectives

Episode Fourteen: Miller-Ish — Tempering the Cauldron

Episode Fifteen: Stevenson-Ish — Dr. Coffin’s Kindly Concoction

Episode Sixteen: Shelley-Ish — Prometheus, the Hard Way

All with illustrations by the author. All the drawings except Billy Garlock’s have been used once — and we’re saving Billy for the final Instalment. Thus, a short review of the remaining Contestants is in order.

After this week, only 2 Instalments to go!

acquiring knowledge

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Acquiring Meaning

My wife likes to sew, but it’s hard to find the time. However, during what was finally officially logged as the worst winter in Winnipeg’s recorded history over 2013-2014 — which is saying a lot — we were trapped in the house pretty much every weekend for close to six months. So she got a lot of sewing done. Kept her sane.

She’d owned a particular piece of material for quite some time she’d never had the chance to do something with until this unholy winter. It featured a beautiful pattern. Bright white characters from the Japanese alphabet on a dark, dark blue background. However, as neither my wife nor I read Japanese …

She called me in for an intensive consultation at one point, just before making the commitment of cutting the material into the pattern of the pants she wanted to make. Which way should be up?

Not knowing any Japanese characters, we had no idea. No point of reference. But we both finally agreed one orientation looked better than the other, so that was how she cut the material to read.

The pants turned out great. When summer finally came — much to everyone’s surprise, by that point — she could actually wear the pants, as they were too lightweight for winter. As it happened, she had them on when a Japanese friend came to visit.

First off, we were extremely pleased to discover we had called the orientation of the characters correctly. What we decided was up actually was up. The next amazing thing was our friend could read what was written on the pants. It turned out to be a Buddhist prayer for serenity.

What a transfiguring moment that was! Seeing our friend suddenly deliver meaning, and a rather sweet meaning at that, to images that had been only appealing as design to that point. The entire garment abruptly took on much deeper significance.

Photo by Renee Beaubien

Reading is an acquired skill. Some skills in life we develop by instinct — like language and speaking. But others we have to consciously apply ourselves to learn. Like reading and writing that same language we acquire by instinct. Or other languages we’re entirely unfamiliar with, such as Japanese, in my wife’s and my case.

I remember the day I officially acquired reading as a skill …

I was finishing Grade One, was seven years old, and had been taught the rudimentary skills necessary to master phonetics. It was a hot spring Saturday morning, and the whole family was driving out to the cottage at the lake for the weekend. I’d been given a new Aquaman comic before we set off on the trip to keep me happy and quiet for the voyage.

By this point I was having no problem with the Grade One Dick and Jane Reader at school, but I didn’t consider that real reading yet. Oh no. Real reading was when I was going to be able to read a superhero comic book by myself! That was what was really important.

And I realized, as I started looking through the pictures at the beginning of this comic, hey … something was happening here.

So I applied myself and worked through it. God knows how long it took me, but I read the entire damn comic. And then announced proudly to my mother what I had just done.

She didn’t believe me. So I demonstrated — read whole pages out loud to her to prove I could do it. She was absolutely thrilled. Not only proud that her son was proving so precocious, but revelling in the freedom she knew this meant. She would never have to read another one of those damn comic books to me again!

Given the amount I’ve read since then, this was obviously a seminal moment in my life.

To this day I recall the feeling of the world opening up to me through my acquisition of this skill. I literally felt my brain expand in that moment. I had not only acquired a new skill. Having access to the universe being able to read properly opened up to me also meant having access to so much more meaning in my life. I grew up significantly that morning. And gained a hint maybe for the first time what growing up might really be all about …

There’s a lot more to the skill than suddenly recognizing what appears as random marks upon a page or fabric beforehand as holding comprehensible designation. The concepts those marks represent compose themselves into even deeper significance than their literal meaning alone connotes.

You have to use your brain in an entirely different manner than merely comprehending interpretation of a code to come to a resolution concerning what the deeper implications of any written statement might represent. Which is an instinctive skill you have to develop with spoken language as well. You learn to think critically, dammit.

Meaning may well be open to interpretation, within the given context the words are presented to you. So you’re missing a lot if you don’t apply what should be your instinctive capacity to think about language to the acquired skill of being able to read language as well. You don’t want to be fooled — plus there is so much beauty in language, you shouldn’t want to miss out, just because you’re not certain which way up the letters should go.

So, like the Buddha, we should all pray for the serenity to make sense of this world in the fullest capacity we can.

*****

Photography by Renee Beaubien, at Beyond the Prism

on Flickr, at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128997372@N08/

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Confusion! I mixed up last week’s blurb. The Electric Detective Chapter Fifteen ran Friday, July 10th, and Shelley-Ish, Episode Sixteen, runs this Monday, July 13th and Friday, July 14th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues in some kind of order at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

So one more time, if Victor Coffin ended up with Dr. Henry Jekyll’s old notes, who ended up with Victor Frankenstein’s? And don’t miss Tunguska’s cameo appearance, complete with description of what she’s wearing. Including shoes, of course.

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

Episode Thirteen: Finney-Ish — The Invasion of the Hotel Detectives

Episode Fourteen: Miller-Ish — Tempering the Cauldron

Episode Fifteen: Stevenson-Ish — Dr. Coffin’s Kindly Concoction

Episode Sixteen: Shelley-Ish — Prometheus, the Hard Way

All with illustrations by the author. The complete roster of 34 Contestants have now appeared, so we move on to the supporting cast, the Judges, and the Guest Judges.

After this week, only 2 more weeks and 4 instalments to go!

older writers

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

The Habit of Writing

     “Do you ever brood on life?”

     “Occasionally, sir, when at leisure.”

     “What do you make of it? Pretty odd in spots, don’t you think?”

     “It might be so described, sir.”

     “This business of such-and-such seeming to be so-and-so, when it really isn’t so-and-so at all. You follow me?”

     “Not entirely, sir.”

From Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen, by P.G. Wodehouse

Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen, the last of P.G. Wodehouse’s famous Jeeves and Wooster novels, was published in 1974 — when Wodehouse was 92 years old. The above lines are from the penultimate page of the book, and you have to wonder if this conversation, which comes somewhat out of the blue just at the end of the saga, reflects Wodehouse’s thinking on having lived such a long life as well as being Bertie Wooster’s philosophical summation of his own existential dilemma. “Pretty odd in spots, don’t you think, old P.G.?” It might be so described, Bertie, it might be so described …

I am always immeasurably impressed by authors who go on writing well past eighty. Or even seventy. But to make it past ninety and still be putting pen to paper! That is an accomplishment, and I do admit I find myself reading those later works with three things in mind.

     Is whoever it is still writing just because they long ago got into the habit of writing and can’t stop?

     Or do they have something particularly insightful to reveal after attaining such a heightened state of experience?

     Or have they just lost it, and are only still on the market because their name alone guarantees a few more sales?

Much as I appreciated Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen and was provoked to laugh out loud by it  more than once, I can’t say that there’s truly any profound philosophical insights to be found in the book. But P.G. hadn’t lost it. His flair for language was as penchant as ever. We should all write so lightly even only at 60.

So my conclusion regarding Wodehouse still publishing into his tenth decade would be yes, the man definitely was in the habit of writing. Thank goodness.

But what about some others, who went on — and in some cases still are — writing well past ages other people would consider more than adequate for retirement? How about Herman Wouk, Toni Morrison, Elmore Leonard, Philip Roth, Arthur C. Clarke, Dick Francis, or Thomas McGuane, to name a few?

Or how about John Le Carré? In his eighties, and his last book came out two years ago. As full of intrigue and solid with research and politics as anything he’s written.

Of course, on the other end of the scale you might mention Barbara Cartland — but then Barbara Cartland was always on the other end of any scale you might mention. When Barbara died in 2000 at the age of 98, she left behind no fewer than 160 unpublished manuscripts. Wikipedia says she wrote 723 novels total, once turning out a world’s record of 23 in one year — 1983, when she was already in her 80s.

There are habits, there are obsessions, there are addictions — and then there’s Barbara Cartland.

One of my favourite ladies, Lilian Jackson Braun, published her last The Cat Who … novel after she passed 90. But, unfortunately, it sort of showed …

The plot was nonexistent to rambling to weird, with strange random events occurring like her protagonist Jim Qwilleran’s longtime girlfriend Polly disappearing with another man and letting Jim know by a cryptic letter, but then a sexy young lawyer immediately shows up to take her place in Qwilleran’s rather oblique lovelife.

One does get the feeling in this case that Lilian was just rounding off a lifelong, very satisfying in its time, habit of writing, and that a publisher knew some more money could be made off her name.

But …

That was only her last book, written when she was about 95 or so. Lilian wrote at least 12 books in the series after she was 80, and they are all up to snuff, no question of it. And when she died at 97, she was still working on one more …

So let’s face it. If writing helps you live that long, it’s a damn good habit to get into.

*****

Photography by Renee Beaubien, at Beyond the Prism

on Flickr, at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128997372@N08/

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Chapter Fifteen of The Electric Detective unfolds on Monday, July 6th, while the first instalment of the penultimate Episode Sixteen, Mary Shelley-Ish debuts Friday, July 10th! Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Our two alien siblings go head to head in a one-of-them-has-to-go battle in the confines of the Barometer’s Rising brothel …

And, if Victor Coffin ended up with Dr. Henry Jekyll’s old notes, who ended up with Victor Frankenstein’s?

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

Episode Thirteen: Finney-Ish — The Invasion of the Hotel Detectives

Episode Fourteen: Miller-Ish — Tempering the Cauldron

Episode Fifteen: Stevenson-Ish — Dr. Coffin’s Kindly Concoction

Episode Sixteen: Shelley-Ish — Prometheus, the Hard Way

All with illustrations by the author. The complete roster of 34 Contestants have now appeared, so we move on to the supporting cast, the Judges, and the Guest Judges.

After this week, only 6 instalments to go!

writing by hand

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Creating Manuscripts in the True Sense of the Word

I had a Creative Writing teacher in University who told us if you were going to write novels, you had to write them directly on the computer. It was too much work otherwise.

Not True.

The only pieces I write directly on the computer are these blogs. Anything with any length to it gets written out longhand first. From short stories, to Reality Fiction Too!, which was over 1,000 pages.

I agree eventually you’ve got to type the damn thing into the computer, because using the computer is the only practical way to edit a book after you’ve written it — especially if it’s over a thousand pages. I use the process of entering the manuscript into the word processing program as an opportunity to do the first comprehensive redraft of the work. Very useful.

You might think using pen and ink is an archaic way of approaching the whole enterprise. After all, why not avail myself of the technology? In fact, why don’t I skip the whole 1,000 page nonsense to begin with and just tweet the novel?

RF2: many characters lots of conflict Theda wins lol

That’s not exactly the life affirming creative process I’m hoping to engage in when I sit down to write … There are distinct advantages to picking up a pen and letting the words emerge the slow way. But don’t just take my word for it. Read what other more famous names who do the same thing have to say about the practice.

Reality Fiction Too! apart, how can any real writer expect to turn out anything resembling a substantial body of work when they start off by writing their manuscripts longhand, you might ask? As my University prof complained, the time it must take! Well, what about …

Stephen King

It slows you down. It makes you think about each word as you write it, and it also gives you more of a chance so that you're able-- the sentences compose themselves in your head. It's like hearing music, only it's words. But you see more ahead because you can't go as fast.

Or what about the equally prolific …

Joyce Carol Oates

Why is this so unusual? Every writer has written “by hand” until relatively recent times. Writing is a consequence of thinking, planning, dreaming — this is the process that results in “writing,” rather than the way in which the writing is recorded.

The truth is, you have a lot more time to think about what you’re writing when you do it by hand. As another proud practitioner of the pen and ink tradition mentions …

Amy Tan

Writing by hand helps me remain open to all those particular circumstances, all those little details that add up to the truth.

And then there’s the sensual satisfaction of physically filling up a blank page.

Neil Gaiman

I like the whole first and second draft feeling, and the act of making paper dirty

My manuscripts rarely make it to completion without a few ketchup stains. I like to write while I eat lunch. Try doing that and typing on a computer keyboard at the same time without blowing a few circuits.

Quentin Tarantino

My ritual is, I never use a typewriter or computer. I just write it all by hand. It’s a ceremony. I go to a stationery store and buy a notebook — and I don’t buy like 10. I just buy one and then fill it up. Then I buy a bunch of red felt pens and a bunch of black ones, and I’m like, “These are the pens I’m going to write Grindhouse with.”

I like writing with different coloured pens too, alternating chapter by chapter, blue, black, green, red and purple. Although I’m thinking of giving up green, because the ink is always so light I have trouble reading it afterwards with my aging eyes.

But you don’t necessarily have to use pen and ink, or even regular 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper either.

Truman Capote …

wrote the first and second drafts of his novels entirely in pencil, then switched to a typewriter for the third drafts.

Vladimir Nabokov …

did all of his writing by hand – on index cards! This gave him the opportunity to perform hands-on cut-and-paste work, rearranging scenes by moving cards around. He also preferred to work standing up.

On top of all this, no one ever lost a handwritten manuscript to a hard drive suddenly crashing, or to word processing software suddenly glitching and irrevocably devouring three pages you just wrote. Which did happen to me, the one and only time I wrote a longer work directly on the infernal machine. I love writing the first time, but trying to reconstruct what I just wrote after being suddenly thrust into an extremely bad mood by Bill Gates and MicroSith is pure hell, let me assure you.

So on that note — right after I finish backing this blog up on an external drive — you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got a date with a notebook and some several delightful pens …

*****

Photography by Renee Beaubien, at Beyond the Prism!

On Flickr, at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128997372@N08/

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Episode Fifteen, Stevenson-Ish, unfolds this week, with the first part on Monday, June 29th and the second on Friday July 3rd. Don’t miss the cameo in the actual story by Tunguska! Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Victor Coffin gets his hands on the notebooks and certain chemicals left behind by the infamous Dr. Henry Jekyll …

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

Episode Thirteen: Finney-Ish — The Invasion of the Hotel Detectives

Episode Fourteen: Miller-Ish — Tempering the Cauldron

Episode Fifteen: Stevenson-Ish — Dr. Coffin’s Kindly Concoction

All with illustrations by the author. The complete roster of 34 Contestants have now appeared, so we move on to the supporting cast, the Judges, and the Guest Judges.

After this week, 8 instalments to go!