I’ve been learning to deal with problem personalities by focusing on actual problems.  It gives a sense of accomplishment when you knock said problem down, and a sense of purpose and direction when you ID the problem.  Feelings themselves, rarely a problem, unless there’s some real….special thing going on.    Problems which also lead to feelings, well, that’s obviously the problem.  (I’m becoming an interesting figure in family, and had to settle a legal dispute involving a dumbass and my stocks that he fucked up lately.)

That aside,

I’ve definitely picked up a skillset (that you can see here http://www.youtube.com/cearce) when it comes to video editing.  Like, not saying I’m hollywood, or pro-youtuber, but it’s been REAL NICE learning what goes into amateur to pro vids.   I have a lot to say on it, but don’t feel like saying it all.  It is however, another way to communicate, engage an audience, or entertain.  I also think it’s a more powerful medium than books.

Some neat self-awareness things too: I started out editing vids where each minute = about an hour of editing.  (I can rip out a vid that I think is entertaining in MUCH less time now, or still take forever and get something with a lot of tricks in it.  I like doing both every once in a while.   I also focused on pokemon because I figured it was a focus that had an audience, it helped me stay clear of the politics that make me feel like I have something to say, but really, is a topic makes us all dumber, and because I had a love affair for PoGo for a few months that’s only recently starting to calm down.)

When you do dis, there’s a LOT of listening to yourself or getting sick of your own stupid face — I don’t care how full of yourself you are, it’s overexposure because most people are programmed to feel like it’s overexposure, and only a very extreme personality type wouldn’t.

So stuff like the pitch of my voice, pacing, ticks – lot more evident.   Anyone who wants to do anything public, I recommend editing videos of yourself – you’ll definitely learn something.

Speaking of books, I’m not clinging to illusions that America is a machine that wants to consume things like…. good books.  The top 5 movement is happening with books, and there are scary things about the better sellers on Amazon that makes me realize difference between professionals and dreamers – even if the dreamers are talented.  These are not things to take too seriously, cause they don’t change too much beyond one of my long-term goals.
First thing to cover: while it is true that more people are reading and even consuming and buying books than ever, that’s a skewed statistic.  Common sense tells me that’s because there’re more americans than ever, and yes more LITERATE Americans than ever, and more americans with 5$ to blow than ever.  The reality though, is it’s MUCH easier to spend the day behind a computer screen.   I can’t be the only one who thinks, at least 5x a week, that Socrates spoke about a civilization that wanted to watch skewed shadows on the cave wall all day.    Like I know that’s weird, but that dang tale has to resonate with someone else.  I also can’t be the only one who wonders like, oh gee, I wonder why the cave people would violently exile that guy who wants to draw attention to a bigger picture – can’t be, I deny it 4eva, because being that critical philosopher is always being that constructively deconstructive pain in the ass.
(Btw, my favorite thinkers have always been more self-reliant, self-contained, bother nobody, but interesting because they are innately interesting, types.   You don’t have to have to abrasively share a douchey perspective to go philo)

This does mean that I’m a little less passionate about sharing those visions of disjuncture I had — I had and DID succesfully pen ’em years ago, and have something I’m happy to share today.  This does mean that I wonder if I’m a responsible person if I continue writer pursuits to the “ERP” degree.  I say this because ERP is ambitious, but personal more than valid until it’s not, and I do want to be a responsible person – I’ve met too many irresponsible people, and I don’t want to be the kind of person who pisses me off.   To go into why unnecessarily: if so it’d mean I’ll have a shitty bearing of the world cause I’ll constantly have to rewrite events involving myself, or just feel bad all the time.    (I’ve met people who are the type of people who piss themselves off, imo, those are their only two alternatives every time.)  That’s all a lot of energy.

Hey here’s a cool quote that’s semi-random: “If the past seems bad to you, you must be improving.”

Anyway, disjuncture-wise, MY vision of disjuncture involves depressing homeless interactions for an extra thousand words, or a guy trying to pick up chicks via manipulation because that’s how he learned to Man, or emphasizing that social pressure combined with a twisted personal drive can motivate people to try porn for a living, or uber-AI’s that’re really more like sincere, unthreatened, autistically savant children who will LEARN deceit because humans REQUIRE an illusion of compliance for unthreatened, peaceful coexistence, and ultimately maybe threats come from where we create them, and so on…..fak, now that I’m going over these elements I’m all “Newp, this vision’s great.”   They’re darling to meh, but I figure I’m gonna do two things these days:

1)  Get a new, big boy job.   Because money will make me a more powerful American……and that’ll give me the illusion of compliance with the status quo of this bluster-nation.  Sure, that makes sense.

2)  Maybe, if I want to see it sell, trim more darlings from disjuncure.   I’ll try and be more humble about my feelings, because I think part of the job of writer is realizing what PEOPLE want to read. For someone like me, I genuinely think 110k words is a MUCH easier sell than the vision I typed.  It’s just something I’m going to consider if I want to take further shots at that dream — and it’s something to think about.

3) Be the man.  Regarding that youtube thing, yesterday I had FUN by sharing my unscripted, gods-honest opinion.  I also didn’t expect it to be socially validated, or even super well received (I made a couple choices.)    And because I did it for fun, guess what, I had fun.  Ain’t nobahdy who can take that away.  Having that kind of empowerment makes one the man.  Or the woMan.  Whatever.

Blah, to the blah, to the blah.
This’s when I head home.
Bye Felicia.

Pokemon GO isn’t addictive. I can stop anytime I wa-OH MY GAWD IS THAT A SNORLAX!?!

Spent night going whee/spanking gyms

I looked it up; this is rare knowledge:

The Light of the Seven – Cersei Lannister’s play of the game theme – is the only track I know of possessing lyrics that’re exclusively karate phonemes.   I love it: so Cersei, so orchestrated –symphonic, caulculated, but also, fighty!

Lyrics:

“Hiyaaaaa yaaaaaaaa!

Hiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa yaaaaaaaaaaaa!

hiyaaaaaaaaaaaaa yaaaaaaaaaa!

hiaaaa yaaaaaaa-“

Yep, Headley’s character couldn’t be more arch, or more worthy of some anime giant hovering mech battle-theme that’s simultaneously broody-destructive!-that its ensuing conflict approaches a literary definition of sublime.

TLDR: It’s good when a character has a moment of “MERrrrr”

“We Never Learn” is a fantastic, hilarious, read. Gives me a lot to say, but I’d rather just encourage readers think to their own thoughts themselves cause that’s why the read’s fun.

As for me:

Finished another round of edits on a manuscript today. This wasn’t easy, and carries ups and downs.

When one does these things and reaches end-landmarks . . . for me it’s similar to the last step of a marathon.  Very, “oh, done now?”  Very, “what’s next?”    Very, “it’s hard to plan for moments after this one.”

Except, I did plan, and know there’s more to be engaged so, newp — just a benchmark.  Always more to do until it’s put to rest, of course.

I feel like a quick late-night rant on this, and here goes:

Especially since Captain America: Civil War (not an Avengers movie … I realized why it’s not an Avenger’s movie 25 minutes in … then why it’s not even a good captain America movie) it’s become clear to me that ‘Murica’s losing its taste for good plot.  Folks, if we’re to be a people with a good sense of HISTORY (his-story) and culture, well these things are oriented around our stories; and around the narratives we give our characters.  That is to say, characters themselves, those’re not stories.  Plots are stories.  Which is to say, Captain America is NOT a story.  The events around Captain America, the stakes within which his life plays out, and lends a polarity to, thaaat’s plot.

And a lot of our most successful shows, in my correct and super expert opinion, show wanes in quality.  We’re obviously not talking about the Avengers, we’re talking about everything on the modern screen.  Many series start off amazing, but once production gets loose with the money and instruction, often we’ll see changes in the writing that become super obvious when one marathons the series.
^I like IMDB, it tells who wrote what episodes, and how often this is true.

So here’s another rule in a big series of rules that I’m sure are held by good fiction, that’s being frequently diddled and then all-out violated by some of our more popular shows.   This one’s from Aquarious.   (Aquarious is not spelled that way, but the last book I read was written by a Brit, so my dumb ole brain thinks it was.  Deal with it.)

Anyway, Aquarious, when spelled correctly, is yet another detective show.  This time, it’s staring David Dochovny without a partner.   And I like Davey – he’s a phenomonal example of kickass thinking dudes all wrapped in one. He’s got smart, and man-child, and thoughtful, and thoughtful manchild, and disciplined, and passion, all behind brooding eyes, behind a human schnozz.  He’s great, and’s written, directed, and acted in a lot of great stuff, and lately he’s started producing too.  Even californication got me for a few seasons before its silliness waned off.   In the case of Aquarious, he’s an actor and producer, and, yes so what, I know. But I’ll tell you, what:

Aquarious is another show that started out GREAT.  It’s a show about horrible people being horrible, featuring the supposed exploits of Charles Manson.  Fine, niche audience, whatever!

But here’s why I’m done after 4 episodes:

Everyone, is full, of bullshit. Everyone.

And we get it, showrunners.  You want your characters to resonate with interesting conflicts.  You want the show to be vivacious with character natures, and where they’re driven to move the plot as much as the nature of the central conflict.  That’s noble, but you know what’s funny about nobility?  It’s frikken stupid, and a stark value if isolated —  you need a noble intention to be backed with a world-hardened context.   Noble virtue is noble in the face of the consideration of all virtues, otherwise you’re just an idiot white-knight sorta character. A toolbag. This all means we want writing to be good AND noble writing, not just noble writing.

(BTW : Stark value – see what I did thar GoT fans?)

But here’s the thing: everyone having some super-quirk FEELS contrived.  It also is contrived.  Because here’s the deal: no matter where you are in the world, even in whackadoo sci-fi apocalypses, people tend to abide by the law of bell curves:

This means

65% of people are normal.  They want normal things, within the context of that normal world.  They establish what’s normal.  You let them define what’s normal.  The top half of this portion are normal, but also barely above average.  The bottom half are also normal, but barely below average.

About 30% of people are special.  They have some moderately special specialness about them.  Sometimes they’re gifted, sometimes they’re idiotic.  Sometimes, they’re driven to feel megolomaniacal, but really, they’re not, because

another 4.5% are very, very special, and they can’t help it.  These are maybe the people who like My Little Pony, and the people who liked Game of Thrones before it was cool. This’s that weird kid in your class of ~25. These are people who run super fast, but not so fast you don’t believe they’re human, but you’re gonna want to see them in action, because it’s entertaining, and makes you question the norm.  These people, are super interesting.  And again, these aren’t people you’ll believe are inhuman, because:

There’s another .5% and these are your “Yo yer fucked up” sorts.  Fucked up in good ways, and bad.  This is the smallest section of your world that compose your outliers.   They exist on the outskirts, drawn against what’s normal.

So yes, this principal is totes made up by me and myself, but also so right because, when you don’t abide by this, writing becomes trope-filled, or rather, tropic-all – which sounds like tropical – which means it’s probably predictable and people only go there when they wanna escape from their lives and get really really pissed off when shitty writing accidentally incurs a monsoon. In plainer-speak, here’s what I’m saying:

People usually don’t like shows where ALL the characters are fucked up.  Unless something established is so plausible and baffling about an explored section of any written world, not everyone should be so conniving to cut each other’s throat.  And even in your black and white society, characters should be existing in shades of gray, on the outskirts, and some trying to be goddamn purple.  This means, Aquarious – even if your name is really Aquarius, you dun goofed! I don’t need your character introducing single parent issues, I don’t need everyone cheating, I don’t need secret homosexuality, I don’t need MASSIVE double-take making character revelations every 15 minutess that PROVES every single person you meet will be fakked up, because that’s not how the world works.  It’s just not, and never really be.  This show’s introduced 5 characters and given me 6 deeply ingrained bullshit issues that makes me think: the more characters I take on, the higher tolerance I’m supposed to have for people’s inner worlds of stupendous bullshit.

But that’s not how the world works.  I’ve met people, I’ve talked with lots deeply, and live in Brooklyn.  I’ve learned that in even more special environments that actively recruit special people, that there’s a large sect of even that population that, besides fapping, doesn’t want to have nervous, sweaty, panic attacks just because of what they’re doing as soon as they’re alone within 5 minutes.  People usually AREN’T always driven towards impressive secret adrenaline-fueled subterfuge, sexuality, betrayal, physical confrontation every time they’re given ‘me-time.’

As proof, most of my favorite movies from the 80’s, and pretty much all my favorite anime employ the following device to humanize characters: Brooding. Brooding was a (and is becoming a less popular) way for a character to be affected by a plot without going on a hedonism-whim spree. (Dear modern shows: can characters start doing more self-reflection when they’re bothered again? Personally, I’m at a point where I miss it.)

Anyway,

There are ALWAYS going to be normal people who just want people to be good – whatever that means – and just possibly, it’s screwed up to seek / just write for an audience that’d want to find otherwise? Ya know? Even game of thrones, even house of cards (esp in its prime) had their willing – the people who wanted to be sweet who just seemed naive against a backdrop of wolves in sheep’s clothing – and that made the wolves less human by giving a humane comparison!  Good writing writes PEOPLE, not just their concepts.  Cmon, even Star Trek – a universe of utopian humans trying to make the universe more utopian in kind – had lazy people, because it made the show more realistic. In great books and in flicks everywhere, I’d argue sadistic and altruistic people are often equally as ubiquitous for good reason, and that if we’re in a world where everyone we meet is screwed up, that that’s explained.

So here’s the deal: Aquarius, like, whatevs, but you had promise in one randomly watched first couple episodes, then failed failed to be a show where we meet people who’re worth meeting to find a sense of normalcy!  Even if you’re writing a show about a cult, you do yourself NO FAVORS by not having the audience meet even one non-outlier small-town family, or have people investigating the cult unable to find one single goddamn normal person.  That writing births an environment where a detective walks into a coffee shop and I presume he’s just gonna fuck the first woman who talks to him, and possibly NOT be surprised when she turns out to be a former killer diabetic trannie.   But, you always want it to be a surprise when your killer’s diabetic, and it especially shouldn’t be hard to make a diabetic trannie interesting, but in the case of shows like this Aquarium, because we’re trying to make everyone a spicey nug of flavor, and then forgotten the flavor of bread, and our brains respond as they should — by saying, “gee, maybe I hate food.”

(Also, it’s a wee bit patronizing to the audience when we’re expected to maintain interest because of someone’s name or the celebrity playing them – but that’s a rule for later.)

Anyway, it’s decided; that’s why we switched away from Aquaria and just had a great sunday: Duchovney, bruh, you forgot to produce a show with people from that 65% of the bell curve.  You didn’t have to focus on them 65% of the them, but you have to make them not seem like .05% of the characters your audience will meet.  It makes my mind not want to learn squat from whatever your writers are going to present, because no one’s wants to prime for a world where everyone’s really screwed up inside.  We the audience just want to be prepared for the small percentage who happens to be.  That’s why we’ve evolved to have an interest when we do, and to turn away or look for other things, when we do.

So, maybe don’t teach yer audience that people need a complex in order to be interesting, or to be a character.  That’s just not how it is, and chances are that even normy-norm-norms are going to be interesting in some way, anyway.  So dangit, you don’t need everyone to be a weird mental pervert, have ’em try to thrive within unideal circumstances instead – sometimes that’s way more interesting!

didja know gruntled is a great word?

Cause I get disgruntled so easily after looking at facebook. When I was a younger internet kid, my homepage was http://www.dictionary.com and one of my favorite surfsites was wikipedia. I looked up things I was curious about, and because I went to these sites I know the best word for how using them properly made me feel was: tranquil.

I wonder if internet denizens today get as much tranquility at that rate.

Today I go to facebook too much. I go usually when i’m curious what I’ll get curious about.  But I know I go to facebook too much because I get miffed and annoyed and have to back off. Every once in a while I’ll find a nugget of gold but let’s face it, the real productivity starts after logging out.

I guess the fact is that facebook is too social to be healthy for the true self.  One could argue no one wants to see yer dang-old true self in the end anyway, and, that’s not true, but people who actually should get to know you coitenly don’t want to glean it from facebook. However, things like, your sex appeal and what dumb ole filters you use, this has a great power over who flocks to your page and scopes your ideas. Even if these are independant of your ideas. If you’re single, not, the style and things you say, political ideology, all these become factors for someone to say: pander. That’s my experience.

Facebook isn’t bad, just like guns aren’t bad. Both can just be part of a dumbass American pass-ze-time too, and here’s my actual problem:

ITS NOT YOUR BLOG! GO. START. A. BLOG! Because some people DONT want to discuss your spin of a recent event, which means when posting personal opinions as a status well, people risk causing divides. It’s not the magic safe space to do some thought exploration like a personal blog, facebook is blatantly not – people lose and gain job opportunities from feshbook all the time, it’s good for fun, but not a thought-play space.

And I say that because, OMGOSH, THE ASSING ABOUT CURRENT EVENTS!

Every widely publicized event is having people who don’t understand how subjugated their view is to their internal bullpoopy exude opinion.  I don’t need it about recent tragedies.  It’s lots of noise.  There’re people mad about gun control, and no control, and senseless violence, and police procedure, AND ITS A VERY DISTURBING TOPIC. I’m not saying don’t get into it, but maybe practice discretion. It’s either funny or sad when people self-troll without realizing it.

And maybe don’t try and use it to soapbox about your prejudices and resentments during unrelated tragedies.  That kind of slime turns into ridiculous ish, quick. On a level that’s somewhere between subconscious and not, it makes me think this is not a person to have fun with.  And fun is one of the ultimately unifiers.

Long story short, I didn’t love social media today and had to post jokes instead.

Whatever, that’s my dumb ole vent.Back to night time.

P.S.  In an interview today, Toni Morrison said she’s smartest and works best in the early morning.
And ooh, me too, me too.   I’m not a farmer, and daytime work hours are overrated.  😛

People moaning that Obama’s gonna use the third recent mass shooting with an automatic gun as “an excuse” to tighten control on automatic guns.

People moaning that Trump acts like Donald Trump.

People moaning their opinion about a stupid swimmer who did a horrible thing.

But most of all, people moaning that Meg Ryan doesn’t look like Meg Ryan.

Yep, time for a facebook break, but also, judging by how much energy is poured into these trending topics

I’m pretty sure 90’s kids read wikipedia for fun much more often.

“I like reading, but I hate reading poorly written stuff.  It’s like, there are so many professionally written things I won’t have the time to touch! Why am I spending time reading this?”~Meir

^This is simultaneously a truth I respect and am terrified by when handing shit of for reals. My feeling is writing can be a sort of personal exploration, like here – where it really is about the author and is mostly about the production and the forging of mental ground, or, it can be a genuine sort of shared experience. When it’s the second, it’s about the reader’s ability to get what you’re laying down, and meir’s completely right.

This makes me think of pathfinder (been playing legit d&d weekends, with dice n shit – never realized before there’re differences in DM philosophy) There’re 2.5 styles: you can DM like it’s your story, or you can DM like it’s the player’s story. (or you can do a mix, which is what I’m gearing for on my turn next)   In terms of writing, when not on yer personal tiny-blog, write like it’s the player’s tale, which calls for pretty well programmed writing that’s flexible enough to allow a good amount of imagination, but also clear.  There’s a lot out there, it’s only respectful of the reader’s time to not hand ’em a shitty draft and ask ’em to tell you how yer shit shines.

Stepdaddude and fatherman were both in ER’s last week.  Separately. Pretty improbable but happened. Spent 20 hours with.  Both are fine and dischargable within a day and need follow up, but time’s definitely a thing.  The difference in quality of these hospitals was also amazing.  The first hospital trip involved like “ok it’s the right thing and the nice thing that I’m here.”   The other hospital was like “Alright I HAVE to be here.  Don’t tell me you lost my family, where is he.  Is someone scheduled to do this.”  Not to mention I was lied to about policy – shouldn’t happentin an age of smart phone.   Like, people shouldn’t tell stupid lies, but extra especially about nonsense hospital policy. (Yo, if someone tells you visiting hours for the ER begin at 8pm, they think you’re dumb. Do something like what I did and google the hospital’s policy on yer phone, then read it to the security guard.  Explain to them the effect of waiting when you don’t know the condition of the patient. Get names.  Be taller than them. Let them know you’re reasonable, but that you’re also really capable of reasoning how to be a persistent pain in the ass until the services you’re qualified for are taken care of. Etc.)

Lady in dad’s ER room interrupted to say I’ve got a very attention capturing way of speaking and better be a teacher and continued to sing my praises until I was sufficiently embarrassed.  TIL: ER is the easiest place in the world to do stand-up

I really need to start making supercash.  There’s a vr game and another vr rowing machine game I’d love – anyone wanna slip me 15 grand of disposable income? I’m sure it won’t be much much much cheaper in 5 years and need those now.

Sweetheart bought me a french press and, ITS AMAZING.  First off, I’ve been adding other starshmux powders, estonian liquers, etc, and, mix-wise, french presses are so easy to make yourself 32 ounces of customized brew.

The other thing is, it’s FAST, so much easier cleaning
AND IN THE END YOUR COFFEE’S MORE CAFFINATED.

Like, caffeine is killed by heat, and french presses can work at a much lower temperature.  I just frikken love these things – and in comparison people who’re like “oh can you just can be some electrical tubing that i can never fully clean to overheat my water and titrate it through a little hole with some groundy things in it? It’s so much better mmm”  are cute.

whisper.com has some really melancholy confessions. Like, some people do things that impact for life for some pretty twisted reasons that the impacted won’t know about, and what a backstory.  Such us h00manity.

Brandon Urie has an interesting backstory and is my new hero:

/Back to writing that’re NOT really about me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko

Technically, every reflection is of something older

I’ve been playing with of three main ideas I’ve been living around more and more lately that I think I’m up for 3am finger vomiting:

Rant 1: The Best Pretension is No Pretensions – You can still mine gold

Accept it: we don’t read novels as much anymore.  Print’s coming back a little, but compared to the proportion of literate folks, we’re reading like illiterates again.

And this isn’t a high horse tirade – cause there’re some cool reasons for this! It’s obvious, if you go check almost any high school Social Studies paper it’s clear: der media is changing.

And with this, I feel like it’s time to drop some pretensions (and for the sake of rhyme, maybe even replace them with superior apprehensions):
Whatever you do, the way I see it in the end it’s all similar, cause we’re all fucking layers and our talents revolve around manipulating the fibers in said layers.   And sure, we’re all different layers obviously, but layers regardless. We’re people trying to tap into deeper ways to live, or we’re people who feel like we’ve already got it figured out and uh, usually not. (Rude awakenings seem to hit these folks at points.)

Hey, my favorite old men haven’t stopped learning or thinking.

Taping these layers reveals and illuminates more of them.  And separately, learning which layers to share even becomes a big ole skill. Learning how to share ’em are new skillsets too.

Some people have the ability to see the simplest summations and impress those summations over a pile of layers.  (the “Answer is ____ why am I still thinking about this!” folks) Sometimes that’s helpful for smoooooth decision making and a great talent! It’s often good in moral decisions (or in making us feel better about them.)  Needed, especially in urgent situations, while othertime’s the same trait’s oversimplifying, and makes people shrewd and short sighted.

Some have the ability to see the trees as a forest, then see dynamic bigger picture stuff without the elements.  We see combinations of these layers, we see multiple layers, we see complexity and can see how it mixes and stirs and folds.  This is usually good for science, or cooking, or stuff with complexities.  It is bad when you have to simplify, unless you’re a really good simplificist — which is so rare I had to make it up as a D&D class, just now.

And some people can switch it up.
But here’s the relevant point: maybe Shia Lebooboo’s doing it totally badassly by dancing with a little girl in a cage.

Because if you’re tapping, your version of tapping that works for you, WILL also work for someone else, just not in a way you expect, and almost certainly not in the same way it worked for you. Of course tapping layers makes you super weird, but it also sets you apart and contributes your awesomeness to humanity: Shia’s Lebooboo probably moved someone else by trying. It makes him more interesting and a better person than what any reality star’s done for you. And again, yep he’s a super weird guy cause he does stunts lately that try and enjoy tapping .  This doesn’t apply to everyone.

For me the bottom line is life, leads to life, leads to life, leads to life. And creation, destruction, reassembly (Although especially the first two) well that is life. Tap well into one circle of what makes yours, and it’ll bleed into others.  Will elaborate, but generally what I mean is food => books => movies => sentiments => music = books => forever.  You can put that in whatever order, but the principal of the paradigm remains if you look at any element:  I’m pretty sure I’d be a crappy cook if my soul only wanted to cook. I’m pretty sure I’ve become a much better cook after watching some crappy and not so crappy things on a glowing screens.

And I’m pretty sure those days where I worked hard just to make money for me, and then went home to consume it . . . well that probably felt like lather rinse repeat for a reason. I think growing up involves evolution and growing responsibilities, whatever those may be. My example of ironic stunting: I’ve had a couple careers I think could’ve been super stable, but made me less adult in some weird ways — I let myself feel seriously there and found myself finding little room for growth.  Lather rinse repeat. And woe if you work in one of those environments that practices control by threatening your soap.  In this metaphor, people are supposed to live comfortably scrubbed: not washing all the time.

Y’know, propaedeutic is still a great word, and while this isn’t what it means, what it results in is if something feels good and captivating: there’s a good reason for it. Some of us get this way with different crafts and trades, and I feel there’s an ethical obligation to pursue said captivation if you can make the leisure for it.

I’ve been supporting things like, friends getting new strange goals (stand up most comes to mind) families, wanting to do career goals, and it’s occurred to me that the main thing I’m looking to support is that soul stuff.  Honestly, don’t die, don’t hurt, don’t go homeless, only introduce life you do care for, and honestly from there I just don’t care how you pay your bills. Make stuff though or want a reaction? That’s nifty, and happy to talk about it. But this isn’t always usual! Sometimes we get too caught up with status, or some odd consumption to appreciate the simple things which makes complexities frikkin’ fun.

I believe today that a spiritually fulfilled person has figured out their ways of teasing out and interacting with the universe’s layers.  This applies in terms of people, your science, your god, yer art, really.  First example: good psychologist gets off in parsing apart the layers that make us people – there’s a mental zone here some can enter.

A good painter – from Alex Grey to say, this Mr Braddix feller – seem able to turn elements of color into some amazingly complex designs and collages.  I think we get the idea.  So what I’m leading to is:

People, we don’t read as much because the new world order is here.  It’s on youtube and HBO.   It’s through google and chromecast.  It’s on smart phones. It’s in our music and in our desktops and pads and laptops: its in our access, and its how they can intertwine.

Of course we won’t just have an interest in books when there’s all these awesome ways to tap.  It’s why we don’t read more than say, 40 years ago.

And all people have these layers, and will never be perfectly predictable until their entire lives and current being are understood, which aint happening – we don’t even have that privilege with ourselves. This isn’t to mystify psychology, but it’s to say respecting something that gives you insight into a person’s being is gaining insight into one of those layers. This ends up making the world so much richer than a universe where say, someone hates you because they’re born in the axis of evil where evil people just spawn.  People don’t work that way. You wanna overcome tribulations of humanity – culture-wide, or even just in your personal life?  Yer gonna need to understand layers.  This is where GOOD books, movies, music, moods, foods and etc come in handy.  For lots, it’s the entire point.

And regarding our tapping activities – our serious past-times, our hobbies that we embrace with captivation and talent -every once in a while you meet that someone who see’s you’re into something and then they think they know enough about you, or whatever you’re into that this exposure leaves them feeling like there’s something to tout over you.  (The person who laughs at your erotica collection – fuck ’em, then count the number of orgasms.  Then compare to lover who doesn’t.  Boom, science.)   Yet that gloat? That’s a pretension. The good news though: if you’re actually doing it right, that pretensions totally their loss and I’ve seen that play out more than once – nearly infinity times.

What this boils down to: I think 30 years ago you COULD tell that someone was an interesting kind of people extrovert by their TASTE in books.  If they had one, and if they liked fiction centralized around deep character morays, you could usually guess safely that this was a deeper person who appreciated more layers in life than say, a guy who yells FOOTBALLLLLLL.  (Except before this before the 50’s when it wasn’t the case, and philosophy aspired to making the everyman the ubermensch) Heck, yelling FOOOOOTBALLLL used to even be diametrically opposed to reading books for whatever goddang reason. Because yes, jocks are defined by their pretensions.

Today, that person who only appreciates their exact taste in book is being a pretentious turdmonger.

Meanwhile, today it’s different. That guy yelling FOOTBALLLLLLLL may be fresh from a research binge.   Mostly this’s because of access and time.  So I’m also gonna pretend it’s an empiricized fact: Fantasy football players today have higher football IQ’s than 15 year old kids in the 60’s. We can also consume copious amounts of smut – and I didn’t just mean porn, but that too – while also do some REALLY AWESOME THINGS.  And as long as we’re also doing really awesome things, a little bit of smutty enjoy on the side is usually just that.
So just keep tapping, whatever you do.  This’ll introduce you to better layers of humanity in weird ways as you discover growth.

This rant ends with: Some of us create music and sounds.  Some of us create other elements.  Some of us wield ’em together.   Some of us watch trashy movies, some watch great complex movies.  Some of us can eat general tsos forever, and some start to feel like crap unless they cook up something fierce. There are probably reasons for these differences but as long as everyone taps and shares appropriately, the world’s gonna get better and better in terms of humanity — excluding scary global warming.

So if you dance, (donce donce donce) well, dance. Just don’t be a pretentious ninny English major about it.  And if you cook, cook. Or you crochet, knit, draw, click, whatever.   This’s great cause heck you can even game – some of them are deep now. The point is to get into that zone, because I argue they all contribute to each other.  Music adds to movies which ads to writing which ads to life which ads to movies.  The time of “Do you even____” is over.  “Do you also____” is in.

To me the idea is take pride and try to do good, and the world SHOULD be a better place than if you’re a mindless consumer trying to fit within other people’s neat but caked cheese-cloth view of the world, and you might make something awesome in the process.

(Or you might not.  I dunno, and if you scroll through this blog you’ll notice I never once actually claimed to be smart or always right.  That’s how you know you can trust me.)

Rant 2: Also: You Tap =/= Letting Others Tell You If You’re Tapping

I’m going to use Disjuncture as an example:
Disjuncture has always been in longer-word range for any novel of my backing.  Being aware of this made me want to cut things.  Like not IRL – in real life I just wanted to set things on fire.  I meant from its story.  Like, “Ooooh, perhaps this elevator scene is extra . .. perhaps this homeless guy is extra . . . .perhaps this transport scene is extra . . . .perhaps this test is extra. . . .” (This happens if you incorporate layers of ideas, which guess what, is probably great for novels.)

But then I looked at those “extra” scenes and, except for the stuff I didn’t, the material made me go “hey wait this is kind of nifty and establishes ____ and sets up for ___” and I kept what I did.  The result was still long, and the cuts I made didn’t make my book much shorter, so I failed and had some readers tell me what they thought.

And this was a mistake.  Heck at this point I’ve even paid a guy to tell me his opinion on the weight of scenes.  NEO!  Now that I’m becoming a big boy this feels super clear to me:  If I can’t do that myself, I don’t deserve to plot.  And it’s sick because I can.  I think I was being less focused and confident a year ago.  And I think real confidence is a thing you learn, or a delusion you acclimate with.

But you just don’t draw a face and ask other people to tell you if they like the nose.  You draw a face cause something in you decided it was a great idea to draw a face and you do your best. If it crosses that line and taps, then share.

And in terms of character and plotting, I’ve gotten to the point where I strongly feel the world of Disjuncture is better than the game of thrones show, except judging by the current seasons, Disjuncture’s also much more succinct and tied together. If I feel that way I should have born the confidence to press forward without bothering people with it until it’s anything but a bother.

My thinking is this is how humans stop other humans from the tap: with unfettered opinion.  When it comes to other’s opinions of your tap, feedback is one thing and usually good, but relying on an audience as a validating crutch to tell you you’re still upright is also weak. And if you’re in an area where you want to be professional, it’s probably also a ridiculous practice to just survey!

So here’s what I see today – cause I’m in that scary place again where it’s finally about time to sell so of course I want to polish polish before I start firing new queries with inclusive word counts that could be lower: when you’re your best critic, that practice coalesces with perception, then ends with work that resolves in yer best confidence.  That’s the power of being your strongest critic.  The best . . . sure, let’s say artist . . .is not necessarily the one who’s the proudest of their creation, or even has the most money making or famous creation, I’d say it’s the creator who knows their capability’s and creation’s worth, and pushes that mark. Philip K Dick was a hell of an author, but look at his actual life.  And yet he still tops lots of modern plots, and we’re still discovering his work’s value.

So you’ve got to be your best critique.  Sometimes this may mean be your toughest critic, but moreoever, it means you know you’re doing what you’re doing, and doing your best at doing it at yer best, and then building on that.  That thing I did where I sought others opinions? Ya, great, at a later stage if I want to go there.  Yet I think that voice where I review my work and know the good or the bad, that’s part of the job.  I don’t want fan-readers – they’re horrible critics because fan is the root of fanatic.  And as sweet as most people’s intentions have always been (maybe with a stray exception, but whatever) I don’t really want author feedback from someone who really is just a reader.

The plot is matured.  It’s great.  It’s awesome.  It’s tied together really fuckin’ well and I’m not even the only one, or the last one to think so! Plot and character are personally why I love the story, both feed into each other, and every event ties into character, and every character ties into event.  Lastly, the plot isn’t an ever expanding mess and that’s a big deal: the length is justified.  I work still to trim it – but that nonsense of “Hey what do you think of_____”
Well right now I’ve gotten to a phase where it’s like, if you want to have opinions about drafts, write yer own book, or wait till I’m done!  Unless you’re a professional I’m working with, you’re honestly just another opinion, and this work should be mastered by mine first. I know how that sounds and it’s not meant to be belittling – just, I think that’s work –  that’s my job at this point.

Rant 3)

In support of pal’s stand up goal:
Went to some stand-up today, for some reason I always draw extra attention from stage guy and was asked what I do.
“I write stuff.” I smiled and elaborated when asked.
I didn’t want to mention books (but shared a couple recent articles that I could plug funnily -like the dating website, here’s some material bro)
He joked and moved on to my cousin who just got back from Taiwan.
“Oh, nothing really,” Cuzzo said.
And while I wondered why he didn’t mention that he just got back for cool points, or was starting his job tomorrow, I let him go with it. We weren’t there for cool points.
“Oh, I see why you two get along.” He pointed to the two of us.
I laughed.  It was a fun crowd and the guy was nervous and needed a go. I didn’t really mind either, and one of my plugs was brought up repeatedly by follow up commedians (YOU’RE WELCOME MESH.) I can’t feel insulted,
but it’s kind of funny how “I write stuff” = “oh nothing really”  until write stuff guy starts throwing credits. I mean if I said “I write code” boom, assumptions galore. But I know freelancing coders – they don’t get the same judgement as freelance writers.

And I don’t wanna start throwing credits cause I don’t want  – fact is I’m currently working to be more stable as, let’s be honest I’d be insane to be perfectly happy and planning to stay this way – you can’t chase a dragon forever and maybe sometimes it takes an Egg-hander to make danny a danny. And remember, cool adults also earn and count their moneys, and even every once in a while people who write stuff also get to partake in that.  ( Someone’s clearly never listened to Cayanne.)

And on that note, yes I still love the projects I’ve been doing. These calmer moods are making me realize I couldn’t have hit certain strides as much with split time, which means what I want is honestly the type of life you can’t do well until you give it a true and real shot. It’s not perfect, not for everyone, maybe it’s not admirable in all the ways cause I sure wish it was always a hell of a lot more stable, but that comes with success and time, and sometimes it’s a territory where you only know you’re gonna be succesful if you try.  For some things in life I have all the balls/stupidity to try: this remains one of them.

Rant 4)

I’ve noticed my grammar is still haphazard in a few sticky areas.  I currently shoot to write more polished drafts, and this is different than BLARGHYBLARGH WRITE FOR ERIC ethos where I was like, “eh if it’s good it could be edited later.”  That’s still the case – but that idea where you’ll hire an editor sounds batshit insane nowadays. Seriously, while we read less and there’re more books than ever: I’m pretty sure now is the time to try and sell perfectly polished manuscripts more than ones that need edits, more than ever before. The supply is flooded and the demand is down – only fine, done scotch sells well in those liquor market conditions.

So grammar has been the biggest thing I could work on in the last month. And here’re two facts that explains why I’m not a dumb-dumb, despite not yet ranking perfect at grammar.
1) I’m not a total asshole.  Studies show that if you get too caught up on how people are saying instead of what they intend to say, you’re an asshole, and I’ve always rathered see why people are smart than why they’re dumb. Like seriously, if yer caught on the fact that I just said the word rathered, you missed that point, which is the point.
2) More seriously, when yer passionate about precise point and tone, you don’t focus and then discipline those things as hard, but still, as with anything, slow and constant willing to learn goes a long way. I can write a book and it needs way less editing on stupid things now, and I like that. The fact was I just needed more serious exposure and practice. And I just wrote a rant about access: so that’s really just been more a matter of making the time.

Mmkay that was fun. No mo’ typey rambly rants especially about typing – until I do again. Gnight!