the joy of text
04.03.03 @ 10:32 p.m.
I feel delightfully snobbish after reading my Philosophy of the Arts assignment. It was primarily about writing and the experience of a fiction writer, how characters have to stay true to the personality set down for them by the writer or it feels artificial and, to loosely paraphrase what Gardner said at one point, that characters have a will of their own and tend to surprise their creators with their actions.
Lately, I've begun to think of the urge to write as a genteel form of schizophrenia*. All these people are living in my head and they want to lead their own lives without my imposing my intended plots on them, thankyouverymuch. Traveler is evolving from a talented 32 year old to a cynical, grizzled man who seems older than his 40-50 something years. And I haven't even *done* anything with his story in ages. Somehow he's evolving in my subconscious without me even realizing. This holds true for the characters of Riverwood Park. One of my intended main characters packed her bags and fled to Bath within a few days of NaNoWriMo. She deigned to send my main character the occasional letter, but you knew her heart wasn't in it. Richard Steadmond, a minor antagonist, went from being an annoying jackass to a frighteningly disturbed young man. If I continued Riverwood (with signifigantly less angst than I've been writing a continuation of it), I could create a Regency stalker with him. I can easily see him terrorizing my main character just as things are going along with her courtship until his eventual untimely death. I think I should probably NOT keep extending the plot of Riverwood. I think I ended on a nice note. All I really would need to do in editing is stabilize the wildly fluctuating characters of Miss Anne Carmichael and early Duncan Stuart. Oh, and two sisters traded personalities halfway through the novel.
*I'm probably misusing 'schizophrenia'.
Anyway, I saw a lot of truth in this man's arguments that I would not have seen if I had not undertaken what was for me a very large work of fiction.
Funny, four hours ago I felt so brilliant, my mind felt like lightning was coursing through it and now I feel kind of stupid and dull. And I didn't even enjoy CSI because I wasn't really paying attention. Damnit.
And now my mom will probably be cut MORE days, which I think has my dad a little panicky. He talked today about having to get a job (he works from home, managing and taking care of the kennels) and me having to get a job (a given and something I really need to deal with) and unreasonably, he thinks I need to come home this summer. E* and I have been talking about renting a house and taking classes this summer (or at least ME taking classes this summer, she'll be in Dublin for a month helping with Special Olympics (her dad is some kind of big shot in the Chinese Special Olympics program)) which is WAY cheaper than taking classes during the regular school year. You would think he'd be all for me getting things out of the way quickly and cheaply. Then he was trying to extract promises from me to pay back the money that he and Mom are borrowing to help pay my tuition.
Well, I still have some stuff to read, a chapter in Becoming a Creative Thinker. Oh yes, that sounds fun.
PS- I think my title for this entry is a bad pun on the Joy of Sex. I'm not quite sure why certain things come out of my brain. Also, re: the dishwasher entry: I got that photo from an ad in a 1964 National Geographic. It was so absurd that I simply had to have it, so I cut it out and glued it in my sketchbook. Joining it are a creepy picture of a cop wearing a mirrored face mask (also an advertisement) and a full page ad extolling the virtues of sugar.
I love old magazines. I have a boxful of clippings just waiting to become art. Or at least crafts.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
