REDEFINE: Rewriting Myself

Hello, everyone. Long time no talk!

Today, I want to introduce a series of three (or maybe more) posts that will span across all three of my blogs. You can find the links to the other parts here:

• REDEFINE: Redesigning Myself
• REDEFINE: Rethinking Myself

Although all parts including this one are standalone, they are part of a bigger “series”, or idea, or whatever you want to call it; that I have dubbed “REDEFINE”. You might notice that all three titles have something in common: they are all about redefining myself in the sense that I am doing my best to not change myself, but to gain some clarity. Hopefully that clarity will come as I continue writing these three posts. So without further adieu, here is the first part: Rewriting Myself.

Since this blog in particular is a lot about written material, whether it be “nobody” or script writing, I thought it was appropriate to talk about what it would mean for me to rewrite myself. As I mentioned earlier, this isn’t so much a way for me to change anything significant about who I am, but rather a way to gain some clarity. As you may have noticed, I haven’t written or posted anything here since August/September. That was six months ago. The same six months ago that I said that I would do my best to post on a more consistent basis. Obviously, that didn’t work out too well. Why?

After some serious thinking awhile back, I came to the conclusion that I honestly don’t like finishing anything that I know the ending of, unless the ending is especially interesting. Yes, I’m one of those people that will eventually come to read the end of a book before I actually get there. To be honest, I think I like what I imagine happening in the middle too much to know what actually happens. Now, in the case of some really good movies, I will watch it even if I know what’s going to happen because it’s been long enough since its release that everyone around me has already told me what happens. For example, Disney’s Frozen. I know enough about it from other people that I probably never need to watch it. Usually, I would just Let It Go, but it piques my interest enough for me to see it anyway. But that’s beside the point. Kind of.

In any case, the way I operate is that, for the projects that I embark on, the ending must be unclear for me to remain interested and invested long enough to finish. This is why I am so much more proactive in team projects: I only know my other teammates so well, meaning anything could change at given moment because of their own respective personalities. This makes things interesting and therefore keeps me invested, so long as the project doesn’t go downhill. Similarly, when I start writing things, I love writing in stream of consciousness because a) I hate to plan or outline things in detail, and b) I never know where my mind is going to take me once I start on a topic. In the case of “nobody”, I’ve actually known how I wanted it to end a very long time ago. It occurred to me then, as it has now, that I no longer really care about what happens in between because I can let my imagination take care of the rest. Now, anybody else who is reading doesn’t know what happens in between, and doesn’t know what’s going to happen at the end. So I guess you’ve kind of lost there if it matters to you. I’m sorry…-ish.

What does it mean to rewrite myself?

First things first, it is a personal exploration to see what I can do when pursuing being more active in written word. It entails a lot of other things, but the main thing is script writing. Within the past few months, I have gathered a multitude of ideas for scripts that I hope to eventually turn into viewable media, such as short films. It has gotten me motivated enough to really go for these projects. Furthermore, I have enlisted the help of others, whether it’s asking them for script ideas, or help in writing the scripts themselves. This goes back to the team thing, where I work better when there are other people involved. As it stands, I think to rewrite myself essentially means to endeavor in this “writing” thing a bit longer.

I love stories. When I talk to people, I love to hear stories from them more than anything else. I can talk to you about sports. I can talk to you about politics. I can talk to you about religion, science, philosophy, entertainment, etc. But what I love to do most is to trade stories. Stories from your past, your present, your future, your dreams, aspirations, goals… And I will do the same for you. However it is only when the timing is right do these kinds of conversations even bother showing themselves. So for me to rewrite myself is in some ways telling more stories through the medium of prose. Whether it will be scripts, short stories, lyrics; whatever it is, I will enjoy telling you the story. I will rewrite myself into someone who tells these stories in the most fascinating ways possible. Hopefully.

How does rewriting myself help me REDEFINE myself?

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you for sure how this is going to happen. It’s more of a process than anything else, though, so I’m not worried. I hope that, as I write these stories and share them with the [online] world, that there will come a time when I can sit down, take a look at myself, and really consider what has changed about me. College is a transformative experience, but I’m not quite done transforming yet.

So that’s a brief look into what I hope becomes a lifetime of new experiences. I also hope this means I will post content on this blog on a more consistent basis than I have been with the other two. Toodles.

Hiatuses Suck.

…And they suck even more when you know you don’t need one.

You may have noticed that I have not posted anything related to “nobody.” for around three weeks now (or two, I haven’t counted); and although I had that bit about stream of consciousness last week, it’s safe to say that no real progress has been made on the story itself.

For consistent writers of weekly series, namely comic strips or comic issues, hiatuses may come from a variety of reasons: the author is sick, the artist is sick, etc. Artists and authors of Japanese manga sometimes take breaks to do “research”, so they may skip a few issues.

I have none of those reasons. Minus doing physical therapy twice a week, I have no veritable reason to call myself sick. I also have no research to do because, as it turns out, I know what I want the next part of the story to be. I just haven’t written it. It’s pretty annoying. Here’s why I think I haven’t done anything in the past few weeks:

As my summer draws to a close, there are a few things that I have to straighten out or attend, namely, a week in Las Vegas, and a good friend’s wedding. These will take me into the first week of August, after which point I will be assisting in the planning of the youth program at my church’s annual summer retreat. I will also be in the beginning stages of planning some projects for the upcoming school year, as well as design projects with a business venture called Nextaus Design.

Especially what with being unemployed, none of these things should take much time. So why am I procrastinating so much? I am someone who doesn’t set long-term goals easily, and the brunt of my daily life can be dumbed down to making sure that I survive another day. If I can go to sleep at night, then I have succeeded. (It’s the small victories that count, anyway). This isn’t meant to be depressing; it’s supposed to be a way for me to say that just knowing there are things planned ahead of me (sometimes outside of my power), makes me lose motivation.

These are lists of things I feel like I have to do rather than things that I will do on the spot with minimal preparation. I don’t mean to put everything in a negative light (in fact, I am endlessly excited for the wedding). Rather, my usual, unstructured life has suddenly attained some form of structure and it makes me uncomfortable to some degree knowing exactly what to expect in terms of time spent. In my mind, the time in between these mutually exclusive events becomes virtually nonexistent. So knowing that school will start soon, I think this is a huge barrier I have to overcome.

While I figure that out, expect a lot of time in between releases. I will, however, do my best to post as often as I can. There will be a mix of story-related thoughts, as well as general thoughts on writing.

So yeah, hiatuses suck, but are necessary.

In the meantime, feel free to follow my design blog, Atelier Rising, where I will probably post a little more starting now. Alternatively, you can check out my other blog, Bastion’s End, where I post general thoughts on anything, much like these posts on this blog, but about… anything I think of. Updates never o’ clock every never.

Stream of Consciousness

I will be the first to admit that I don’t plan many things in my life, regardless of importance or priority. I find a life that is too planned out to be suffocating, and enjoy the uncertainty that comes with every action. As Socrates once said, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” But i digress. The point is, I don’t find joy in knowing exactly what is going to happen next in my day, as per my own expectations.

For example, this morning, I happened to wake up earlier than usual, greeting the day at a shocking 10am. As with most mornings, I felt an unbelievable surge of motivation to do stuff. What stuff? Stuff that I could finish. The agenda was simple: go to the gym, write, eat, watch tv, and make fun of listings on Craigslist. (But seriously, which one of these people is actually looking for a strictly platonic relationship?)

Now, on any other day, I would’ve completed maybe two of those activities in a timely manner. Today? Well, the issue was I planned to write the next part of “nobody.” That didn’t happen. Which is precisely why I’m writing this instead.

You see, because I write so sporadically, it just makes sense for me to write only when I feel like it—when I feel that burst of inspiration that just prevents my fingers from stopping whatever spree I’ve gotten on. I have ideas for the next part, but part of me is preventing myself from writing them down because it just doesn’t feel right.

So what is “stream of consciousness”, and what does it have to do with my writing? You can probably find a better, more logical definition of it literally anywhere else (because Wikipedia actually screens edits made to pages now), but I would sum it up like this: stream of consciousness is basically the literary form of ranting. I say this from my experience doing so because, the way I see it, you start with an idea (sometimes a really awesome phrase or sentence), and soon realize that unless you write more, that idea will look pretty stupid just chilling there in the middle of your page, with nothing to back it up. So you write. I am more than willing to admit that more than half of the words on this blog are only here because I had a really cool sentence in my head that I wanted to say, but had no contextual reason to say it. That’s when I write posts like these, that have a passable topic and whatnot.

I really enjoy writing stream of consciousness strictly for one reason above all else: I don’t know what’s going to happen next, either. Now, I suppose this example would work better with a higher viewership, but it goes without saying that when reading something, readers will want to know what’s going to happen next, regardless of literary quality. My example would be the Harry Potter series. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate it’s cultural value and the impact it has made on multiple forms of media, but I simply did not enjoy the series. Still, I found an incessant need to know what happened next, even though I really didn’t care for the characters themselves.

In the context of “nobody.”, because I am writing it piece by piece and releasing it as I finish, the reader essentially has just as much information as I do about characters and how they’re developing. In fact, the reason why I started this was to also to try to include viewer feedback into the development of the story. Although I know the ending, I don’t know the middle, which veritably makes this a very difficult project. And that’s why it’s enjoyable. Again, this would work better with more viewers, but that’s my fault for not knowing SEO techniques and other advertising skills. But I digress… again.

Ultimately, I find writing in a stream of consciousness to be extremely freeing in the sense that every sentence, every paragraph, even every word is the culmination of everything in that single moment when I am writing it. Words can change in a split second if I can think of one better, or they can just not make any sense because I just didn’t know the correct terminology. One of the most exciting things to happen is to be writing and writing, not really knowing where you were going with things, but then suddenly, your mind subconsciously brings back something you wrote at the beginning and relates it to what you are writing in that single moment. And suddenly, BAM, you’ve gone full circle. I think the human mind is much more powerful in the oddest ways than we could possibly imagine.

For any aspiring writers, English students, or graduate students working on a thesis, do give it a try: writing without knowing where you’re going with your words (like I said earlier, the literary form of ranting) often gives you a kick of sorts back into “the zone”. In fact, I’ve heard that a good technique to get rid of writer’s block is to just write loads of crap until you come up with a thought.

Stream of consciousness is cool.

Peace.

(And to bring things full circle, I definitely could have written the next part in the same amount of time because this about the same number of words as an average part I release. But it’s too late now, and I don’t like to have regrets. Also, my memory is really bad so I don’t really remember anything past the last 10 minutes anyway.)

“NOBODY.” Potential Book Cover

 

(I apologize for the lack of a border… the cover is white!)

This is the working cover I have for the book, should it ever come in published form. You can read through the thought process from a graphics standpoint here on one of my other blogs, Atelier Rising.

I wanted to show this because I felt that an image was necessary every once in a while, or this blog would just be a wall of text. And that can get tiring on the eyes.

The reason why I wanted to have a cover is, I have seen a lot of self-published material out there, and I have stumbled across a couple e-books that are, from what I’ve seen, self-published on sites like Amazon for their Kindle. Now, assuming I ever finish this thing, I would like to put it up for available purchase (assuming I have the funds to do so). So yeah, that’s why I made a cover.