Category: Writing

Sometimes I suddenly remember I have a nonfiction blog

October 30, 2007 /

I tend to cite Occam’s Razor in arguments at the slightest excuse, but it wasn’t until this weekend that I encountered Crabtree’s Bludgeon. It fits in nicely with my current working hypothesis that what we call “sentience” reduces to the intersection of apophenia and confabulation. I know that doesn’t actually explain anything, but it’s fun to say.

I have a lot of ideas about how that all fits together, and how the Bludgeon and the Razor aren’t really in opposition (look at me conceiving coherence!), and what they mean when set against the Theravada-Buddhist concept of the nature of suffering. Lucky for you I haven’t managed to jam them into 101 words yet.

Speaking of arguments, yes, I was, go back to the beginning, I updated my personal slang dictionary for the first time in like a year–this time with a phrase I actually use sometimes. I would use the other ones if anyone would understand them, which they wouldn’t, because they haven’t read my damn personal slang dictionary.

Ommatidia cover mockup round 2 go!

September 24, 2007 / / 0 Comments
Brendan Adkins: Ommatidia

The images I wanted to use have since been withdrawn from CC license and weren’t working out right anyway; this one is from this lovely composite shot by DimSumDarren and it’s a lot subtler, I think. Possibly too subtle. Maria pointed out that those are not technically ommatidia, but she also pointed out that “eww,” which is a better reaction than anything I managed with the bug-eye attempts.

So close, guys, we are so close to a finished book. Quick poll (and yes, COMMENTS ARE ACTUALLY OPEN): how long did it take you to notice that something in the picture was a little off?

I use the word “spook” in this entry because I am currently obsessed with William Gibson’s Spook Country. I’ll write about that too, eventually.

September 12, 2007 /

The quarterly investing magazinelet I get from my IRA holder has, as its latest cover line, “The Best-Laid Plans.” Like Anse Bundren, I don’t think they know the rest.

Plans are worthless. I had half an evening free from work tonight and it confused me: I had kind of forgotten what else to do with myself. I haven’t billed a mere 40 hours since the (four-day) week in which I flew back from London; last week–of which I theoretically spent half vacationing–I billed 60. It’s all for the same hideous, endless project, the kind you hear spook stories about from people who have spent too long working with computers. It was supposed to finally launch tonight, and I–as the project lead–hit every target that was required by 6:00. At 6:02 the client decided that two more problems were worth delaying launch for. By 8:30 (with my Tuesday friends waiting in the living room) I’d fixed those too. Guess whether the launch happened!

I need a vacation; the last one I had was nice, but it amounted to what most people would call a “weekend.” I’m running bufferless in all my endeavors and I obviously haven’t had time to write anything here. I also haven’t had time to get a haircut, pick up my new glasses or practice for a fairly important test.

Boo hoo, I get paid well to work on my couch. Pretend there’s a good segue here about writing, buffers, responsibility and personal milestones.

I miss MC Masala and I’m sad to see its archives disappearing from the Inside Bay Area site. Obviously, Sumana’s still blogging, but her column was different: the early ones had a conspiratory enthusiasm, as if the author was sneaking you in to see how columns work and wasn’t supposed to be there herself; the later ones displayed an enjoyable assurance and a growing set of tools for telling stories.

I hope she posts her own digital archive soon. Or (he murmured hypocritically) perhaps a book-on-demand?

Story Hacks: Sixth in a Series

July 25, 2007 /

Pronouns? More like don’t-nouns!

Sure, you can use pronouns if you have to, like if you’re addressing someone in the second person and don’t know what real name to use. But here’s an AlternaTip–just imagine up a real name for your audience! For example, I’m going to call you Laura. Isn’t that better, Laura? (I bet that somewhere somebody’s reading this who actually is named Laura and they think it’s so awesome. Laura: it totally is!)

The real “Pronoun Problem” is that they’re so short. Pronouns reduce not only page count, but often word count as well! Plus, if you (Laura) have more than one person of a given gender in a story, pronouns might refer to any of them, reducing the laser-like accuracy of Laura’s sentences. And such ambiguity can lead to worse things, like speculation, or interpretation! These serious flaws may even prevent consumers from properly receiving your (Laura’s) Vision.

FACT: The previous paragraph was 56% shorter before I took out all the pronouns. FACT!

Writing without pronouns (or “liprography”) may not come easily at first, Laura, but it can be done–with enough AccomPracticeMent. Here’s an example to get Laura started!

“As you know, Kevir, today is your wedding day and it is a very important day for all of Pseudio,” said Kevir’s Mom seriously.

“Yes, serious Mom,” said Kevir to Kevir’s Mom. “It’s because I’m marrying the Princess Launa, the most famed Princess in the Land, who loves Kevir’s Mom just as if you, Kevir’s Mommy, were Launa’s own Issues Mommy!”

“I do!!!!!” Princess Launa began saying to Kevir’s Mommy. “You, Kevir, and I, Launa, are almost like your Mommy’s son and daughter!”

“Which is as it should be,” said Kevir’s Serious Mommy. “After all, no woman can truly love you, Kevir, unless she, Launa, is family!”

“Kevin’s Mom is right,” exclaimed Kevir.

“All of us love each other, but not necessarily in any sexual manner!!!!!” said Kevin’s Serious Fucking Mommy Issues.

Today’s Hack in a Nutshell: Laura, seriously, give me a call because I have this screenplay and there might be a part for you.

Follow-up

July 18, 2007 /

Mr. Munson wrote me a great email about The Implicit, and noted echoes of Naomi Shihab Nye’s Valentine for Ernest Mann–which I think we read in his class, and which I had completely forgotten until I read the “poem like a taco” bit, but had clearly absorbed and recycled. Just illustrates the point, really.

And Holly made two cakes (they were supposed to be a four-layer cake, but they got nervous and decided to be two cakes instead), one of which had this written on the dish around it:

Eventually he finds himself writing another pubic hair story, and realises he’s bored. He’s done three zombies, twenty-six otherworldly small girls, ninety-three ninjas; fifty states, every tube stop, all two thousand UN constituent nations, cutting everything he’s ever seen into 101-word pieces. He’s sent the small girls to Ganymede to fight the ninjas (the small girls won), and then set up a rematch deep within the sun (they united against their common enemy, the masked superwhale).

“Next time,” he says, eyes narrow beneath the unruly crest of his white eyebrows, “a hundred and two.”

People read my stuff and write about it. There is no better feeling in the world.

The insignificance of numbers

July 17, 2007 /

Today I posted the 1001st story in Anacrusis, and I wanted to do something a little different for the occasion: an audio story, read aloud by a startling array of generous people. I thought the hardest part would be actually asking them to read the silly little thing without cringing, and the next-hardest would be the actual mixing process. It turns out that the hard part is not being able to use all the material from everyone for the whole thing. They were all so good!

Thanks to Robert Baker-Self, Maria Barnes, Amanda and Jon Brasfield, David Clark, Amanda Dale, Kevan Davis, John Dixon, Holly Gramazio, Josh Hadley, Sumana Harihareswara, Stephen Heintz, Catriona Mackay, William O’Neil, Leonard Richardson, Kristofer Straub, and everyone who’s had a kind or critical word to say about Anacrusis. Let’s do this again when we hit 10,201.

Self-exposure

July 3, 2007 /

I have the instinctive habit of never mentioning the goals I set for myself, on the grounds that if I then fail to meet them, I don’t have to be embarrassed. But embarrassment makes for good blog entries! So here’s the setup, even if it takes a long time to pay off, one way or another.

My goals for 2007 are to get my driver’s license and complete a half-marathon.

My goal for 2008 is to teach at the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program.

My goal for 2009 is to attend Clarion South.

A day late

June 22, 2007 /

I keep track of Anacrusis anniversaries in an idiosyncratic way, which means that I don’t notice things like June 21st, the day I first went public with it. But Mister Munson did, two days ago:

“Something seems to have worked in your googlebombing efforts. Bobrulez is higher in the google results than your blog site.

Hey, Happy Birthday to Anacrusis tomorrow, and as a nod to that spirited bit of rhetorical dabbling, I have posted my xanga entry in 101-word-anacrusis form.

It’s no great shakes, but it was fun. It is actually more of a writing exercise, isn’t it? It’s like Soduku for the literate.

Not sure I want to get on face book, it just seems so public. Xanga is so much more anonymous.

By the way, this email was an anacrusis!

I’m hooked.

Bryan”

I’m not sure whether I prefer “Sudoku for the literate” to “fiction for the attention-deprived,” but it is a nice dig at Sudoku. I’m not a huge fan of crosswords, but at least they’re not entirely computable.