Archive | writing RSS feed for this section

Buddha machines and other stuff

30 Apr

I’ve been playing with this all evening. Maybe ‘playing’ is the wrong word. I was initially looking for something white-noisey that I could listen to while I was trying to write and Steve was pootling around the house. I thought initially that even something like sounds of rainfall or waves might do the trick, and somehow I came across the very awesome Buddha machine. It’s one of those things that’s been around for yonks but of course you never hear about it but everyone else does. This is what they look like:

buddha machinesawesome eh? These are the first versions (there is a mark II model out there).  The sound is crackly and there are only a few looped tracks that play over and over endlessly – or until your AA batteries run out.

I like them. Like their tinny quality, surreal, dreamy sounds, and even the way they look. I think I’m going to get one for Jeremy D – especially after he sent me this incredible typewriter all the way from Perth. I’ve been looking for a present for him for ages; something a bit different. And he’s an extremely spiritual chap, so I think this would suit him right down to the ground.

I really haven’t been blogging much lately. Have been spending all my computer time either messing around with different apps like Scrivener and Midnight Inbox (which is finally working for me, with the latest release), or surfing, or writing.

Work’s… well- it’s hard at the moment. Lots of pushing and pulling and it’s very frustrating. No real chance to stick to one project all the way through. I spend quite a lot of time angsting about work, and the funny part is the actual work part of work I really enjoy. I’m just not very good at all the other stuff. Pleasing people, playing the game. Some people are just so damn good at playing the game I really can’t begrudge them. I’m too much in awe. It’s just not part of my makeup at all.

And NZGamer? I haven’t had much to review from them lately either. I’m not sure what’s going on at the moment. Maybe I’m giving off some “keep away” vibe. Or maybe it’s just winter. I don’t know. I do know that I’m very content just doing my own thing, writing, reading, pawing through old papers and notes, getting out some old books I haven’t read for ages. One’s on meditation, which I was reasonably into for a while, maybe ten years or so ago. I need a little more calm and relaxation. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to those buddha machines. I’m enjoying the ‘between spaces’, the uncommittal, the undefined object, thoughts that drift by, that you don’t necessarily need to always catch and do something with.

New Year, new class

16 Feb

So I’m taking Short Fiction 1 at Whitireia. Class started today! It’s still early days, but I’m really excited. A lot of the class seems to be based on Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction, which I’ve heard about, but never read before.

We’re being encouraged to keep a journal and post some of those entries on our class home pages. I thought I might try and do something here with this blog, seeing as I already do morning pages (though urgh, not this morning) and keep another sporadic journal as well. I thought I might put up the odd writing journal post here and see how it goes.

On page 3, Burroway has this to say about a writer’s journal:

It doesn’t matter what you write and it doesn’t matter very much how much, but it does matter that you make a steady habit of the writing. A major advantage of keeping a journal regularly is that it will put you in the habit of observing in words. If you know at dawn that you are committed to writing so many words before dusk, you will half-consciously tell the story of your day to yourself as you live it, finding a phrase to catch whatever catches your eye.

It’s a nice way to describe it. I’ve always been a journal writer, and I guess I’m used to observing in words. In many strange ways I find it much easier to express myself if I can write something down than when I have to speak, off the cuff.

Saturday

14 Feb

It’s Saturday, and I really can’t complain about that at all. Had a mad week, what with being sick, taking cats to and from the vet, pilling Soots, who now also has one less fang and an attitude problem, Pippi meanwhile won’t stop going crazy all round the house, plus we have Jeremy & Megumi staying, Steve had a huge bike crash during the week and I got the resulting grubby meaty wound to clean, and there’s been an abundance of political bullshit at work. Yup, it’s safe to say I am one very happy relaxed Jess now that it’s midday on Saturday.

I have already been up since quarter to seven, despite having a late night up reviewing a new game. I’ve done morning pages. I’ve worked on the novel. I’ve done chores! Now it’s just midday and I can’t believe how much I’ve got done in the last five hours. I should get up early more often (though to be honest there just isn’t the same ‘feel-good factor’ in getting up early during the working week. Just means I get to work earlier.)

I’ve been spinning lots, and knitting – just finished a pair of socks – which means I might actually do it the right way around this year, and have things completed FOR winter, instead of knitting during winter… in time for spring. Have another pair of socks planned, as well as a couple Rebecca sweater patterns. Fingers crossed I keep up the momentum.

I’ve also been reading quite a bit, though there’s been one casualty: The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt, which I loved at first, but then got the sneaking suspicion that nothing much was really happening. I looked it up on goodreads, and my god, I’ve never seen so much vitriol (OK, that’s an exaggeration, this is the internet after all). After that I sort of lost my enthusiasm for the book. I feel bad about it, but not so bad that I’m going to pick it up again in a hurry. In the meantime, I’ve picked up The Savage Detectives , by Roberto Bolaño, and Lonely Werewolf Girl , by Martin Millar (I got the book autographed from his website – the price was still a deal, compared to how much some websites were expecting me to pay here in NZ). Loving them both at the same time, equally, but in different ways. Oh yeah.

Savage Detectives reminds me a bit of Reinaldo Arenas’ Before Night Falls in tone – or maybe it’s that they both share the ‘lonely writer comes of age while having lots of sex amidst political upheaval’ theme. Werewolf Girl is not what I expected. I don’t know exactly what it was I was expecting, but it has a much more contemporary sort of feel to it (I’ve never read any Martin Millar before) and it’s a lot more disjointed and rough around the edges than I was expecting. I’m really really not saying that as a negative, in fact he somehow makes it all work to the book’s advantage. It’s still early days though;what I’m saying is merely based on early first impressions.

Anyway, am heading off now. Jeremy and Megumi have headed up the coast for the afternoon, and Steve will be back soon from his Karipoti training ride. If I want to get any more writing done I’ll need to move fast. Adios.

Atlantic blog article

22 Jan

Just finished reading this fascinating article by Andrew Sullivan, called Why I Blog. It’s more than just a puff piece (of which there have been a few lately); it’s a thoughtful look at blogging’s place in the writing spectrum.

A few quotes:

A blog, therefore, bobs on the surface of the ocean but has its anchorage in waters deeper than those print media is technologically able to exploit. It disempowers the writer to that extent, of course. The blogger can get away with less and afford fewer pretensions of authority. He is—more than any writer of the past—a node among other nodes, connected but unfinished without the links and the comments and the track-backs that make the blogosphere, at its best, a conversation, rather than a production.

There are times, in fact, when a blogger feels less like a writer than an online disc jockey, mixing samples of tunes and generating new melodies through mashups while also making his own music. He is both artist and producer—and the beat always goes on.

In fact, for all the intense gloom surrounding the news-paper and magazine business, this is actually a golden era for journalism. The blogosphere has added a whole new idiom to the act of writing and has introduced an entirely new generation to nonfiction. It has enabled writers to write out loud in ways never seen or understood before. And yet it has exposed a hunger and need for traditional writing that, in the age of television’s dominance, had seemed on the wane.

A writing post

24 Apr

I’ve been snorting all week over the Miss Snark blog. She’s a literary agent who tells it like it is, and even though she’s stopped posting on her blog, the archives are still good value. Poor lady, she actually gets submitted gems like:

TITLE is written in the spirit of such books as Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD, Milton’s PARADISE LOST and Dante’s INFERNO.

Gaa.

I’ve been reading some of the workshops from the Holly Lisle webpage too, and can’t recommend them enough. The workshop on creating conflict encouraged me to subject a few of my characters to the torture, and it’s really helped clarify some of my ideas.

I’ve also recently joined the kiwi writers forums. They seem like a nice bunch of lads over there.

I don’t know if this is interesting to anyone, but I’ve had a huge rethink on the story (too scary to call it a novel, though that’s what it is), and, twenty-five pages in, I’m scrapping most of what I’ve written, but at least I know what I want to do with the whole first chapter. I’ve kicked off the opening scene with a riot, instead of my protagonist waking up early and making a cup of tea. Yes, the riot scene does involve the tea-drinking character, though I have given her a good kick up the bum and she’s now more stroppy than the one in the first twenty-five pages. Hallelujah!

I’m writing with Scrivener, which I’m enjoying, in the way it allows me to write scenes separately if I like, rather than looking at everything in one blobby document. I think you could go a bit overboard with the planning though, and limit yourself to scenes you’ve already blocked out on the corkboard. That said, my first draft is actually being written in a notebook, so I’m trying to keep things fluid.

It’ll be interesting to see how it works when it comes time to edit. I think breaking a document up into bite sized scenes at least lets you focus on just one area, rather than getting overwhelmed by a huge document with hundreds of pages, that you have to scroll up and down in to find characters, names, places and scenes. Once I’ve finished my basic rough draft of this novel, I’m considering importing my NaNoWriMo novel, breaking it up, and having a bash at making it respectable.

We’ve got a lovely long weekend coming up – Anzac day’s tomorrow. Steve & I are going up the coast to show his house to someone who might be interested in buying. We’re also picking up the Hebel that’s going to make up the surround for the gas fire in the lounge. I have a game to review, that unfortunately from all accounts doesn’t sound incredible: Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters. And I’m going to try and finish that first chapter…

Turkey City Lexicon

24 Apr

Lovely list of things to avoid (and a few to aspire to), from sfwa.

Sims 3 First Look

11 Apr

Hey, so my ‘Sims 3 first look’ preview is up on NZGamer at the moment (here).

Tristan also is going to be interviewing some of the top Sims brass (including Rod Humble!) and asked if I had any questions for them. This is what I sent:

As shown in both sims city societies, and the glimpses we’ve seen of the sims 3 and spore, it appears that there is (and has been) a definite shift away from the number-crunching side of Sim gaming to a ‘fuzzier’ style of gameplay that puts greater emphasis on the communal,social experience. Has this been an intentional change of direction, or is our gameplay style just changing?

Along those same lines, do you see the paths for The Sims, Sim City and Spore games ever ultimately converging?

In previous interviews you’ve mentioned that with the large pool of personality types, players can come up with some interesting combinations that often result in unpredictable emergent behaviour in the neighbourhood. What are some of the stranger examples you’ve seen?

Since the entire neighbourhood will be running mostly without the direct influence of the player, can we expect the AI of other sim families to be more sensible so they can look after themselves (go to the toilet, or even to work) without intervention? To what degree will Sims on a player’s periphery (i.e. ones they’re not playing directly with) behave autonomously?

We’ve just heard that The Sims 2 has hit the 100 million mark! This is great news (Sims fans are going to take over the world someday), but do you find With so many fans, it becomes more difficult to to try and experiment with the model rather than just giving players whatever they want? We really can be pretty rabid at times.

We’ve noticed that a lot of features that came with Sims 2 expansion packs seem to appear in the base Sims 3 game, such as gardens and weather. Are these just artistic representations of the game, or will the base game really have all of this built in? Speaking of expansions, will The Sims 3 expansion pack model be the same as The Sims 1 and 2?

The Sims bodies and faces we’ve seen in screenshots look fantastic, and you wouldn’t believe (actually, you probably would) the number of people who are excited about being able to create fat sims! Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be any vampires, werewolves, zombies or plantsims among them. Will the Sims 3 be keeping any of our supernatural friends, or do you have some other surprise in store for us?

Rabid, fannish-type questions:

The realtime aspect of the game is also really exciting. Have you seen any unexpected ways of playing with this new feature? Would buildings such as hospitals and apartments be possible now?

Before The Sims 2 was released, a standalone Create-a-Sim was released. Will you be doing this for The Sims 3 as well?

Will The Sims 3 retain the standard ‘work’ model, or has this been revamped?

Will The Sims 3 see the return of Mark Mothersbaugh? (Please say yes.)

Will the Goth family return to the game?

I’m sure it’ll all be made more ‘flowy’ for interview purposes, but it could be a nice opportunity to find out more about the game and share with everyone. I’ll make sure to post the interview once it’s published.

Poetry

8 Apr

The craft of poetry, and different forms, here.

more Moleskines

3 Apr

at 43 folders.

New category

3 Apr

Just a quick note – I’ve added a new blogroll category, called ‘Obsessions’. Everything there relates to my writing/notebook/planner fetish.

If you don’t understand… just look away!

Books, pens, writing

28 Mar

These photos are beautiful.

New Mac

12 Mar

Well, testing, testing, and all that jazz, cause I’m writing this on my new MacBook! Luckily, it only took a day or so to set up the wireless connectivity to the network (problems with the DNS settings, but they are all sorted now).

So far… well, the most I can say really is that it feels strange. Strange to be using a completely different OS for starters, but also interesting. Today I found downloadsquad, which has a whole lot of information on different applications, widgets and the rest, which was quite a big help to me, as I knew sort of what I wanted, but had no idea where to look.

Applications that, so far, seem quite cool and interesting include: MindNode, ecto (what I’m writing this with), CopyWrite, Scrivener, Journler, and photo drop. All very cool applications, though I’m really only just learning about them all. Which I decide to stick with will be another story.

Big Huge Labs

12 Mar

I’ve only just seen some of these apps today, but they look really great:

plot generator

Writer: the internet typewriter

Updated profile

6 Mar

I updated my profile tonight.

It’s cold. Steve’s in the hallway scraping wallpaper. I’m closed up in the study because the sound of ripping paper was driving me nuts.

I’ve been trying to write the first few sentences of a story that’s been going round and round in my head for at least a year. It keeps growing and developing, which I suppose is a good thing. But as it develops depth and momentum, it’s harder and harder to get purchase on its entry point.

I have something now but already things are different to the idea. Suddenly it’s summertime in the story, when all along it was meant to be winter.

Postcard from the past

5 Mar

I was just going through some old postcards when I found this one. It’s of Mt. St. Helens, in Washington, and was taken after the May 18, 1980 Volcanic Eruption. It’s from someone who I don’t remember at all; but it must have been a teacher. It was written in February of 1987, so I must have been ten at the time. Ten, ten. I think I was in fourth grade then. My teachers in fourth grade were Mr. Sherwood and Mrs. Brown. She can’t have been my teacher at the time. Did she teach at Lake Shore? It reads:

Dear Jessica,

Thank you so for writing me and telling me what stories and authors you like! There are some tricks to getting the story innards in one’s head: drawing a map of the whole story; walking through that map; having another character tell it other than the hero or heroine; and tell the story to lots & lots of friends! How wonderful of you to tell stories to your younger sister!

Your friend,
Mrs. Boryer

Anyway, I think that’s the name. It’s quite hard to make out as the ink’s a little smudged. It could read Boryer, Borner or perhaps Borver.

I can’t stop wondering about this woman: who she is; why she wrote such a friendly postcard to me; what I must have written to her in my initial letter.

It’s a cute postcard too; she’s written up the side, and drawn arrows to more text at the top of the card, and then she writes around to the other side again.

‘Your friend Mrs. Boryer.’ It’s mysterious. And yet she’s obviously taken my questions so seriously. I don’t know quite what to think. I’ve had this postcard for ages; it’s been in my pile of postcards I suppose since I received it. And yet I don’t remember the text on the back at all. Have I had some sort of blackout? Is my memory really that bad?

It’s disturbing and wonderful at the same time. Haunting too. I wish I could write her, find out who she is.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.