Sunday 31 October 2010

Saturday Sun and Rain

Yesterday was a good day albeit I didn't get as much writing done as I'd liked... guess what? You're right - work!

8.30-9.30, 1h Meditation
9.30-11.30, 2h Wandering Mind Meditation Post, Short Story Submission
11.30-23.30, 12h Demo and Work
23.30-00.30, 1h Food!

A straighforward schedule isn't it?!
Meditation has been floaty at best even though there have been some really good moments of concentration. But, like a friend said yesterday, the important thing is simply to sit and be there. Well, at least that I'm doing...
;)

Afterwards I managed to revise the Is Meditation Difficult post and publish it online. Because I still had some time before I left the house I submitted The Running Man one more time. I also received my very first "not interested" reply.
Guess that accounts for some sort of triumph... it's getting out there!

I went to a small demo in Brixton about the ongoing public service job cuts situation before going to work...

Work was good. We showed The Dhamma Brothers today. A film about the introduction of Vipassana Meditation in a maximum security prison in the USA (Alabama of all places...). It's a powerfully moving account of the human ability for personal transformation. Even though it was the second time I saw it, it was as at least as moving as the first time. If you can, watch it. It's the real thing.

After work I had a couple of ideas whilst biking on the way home. (in fact I think I remembered a couple of ideas I had whilst going to the demo and had another one).
Of these I only remember one now. One which I will endeavour to write straight after this post.
But I'm hoping I'll remember the others - they were related to the stuff I want to do this year for NaNoWriMo (which I want to start typing coming midnight tonight...)

I was really knackered when I got home and so it was simply time for some food, for a few pages of Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight (I didn't even manage to finish the chapter!) and sleep - lights on and everything - not all my lying posture meditations worked exactly the way I'd like...

But, today, is another day!

Writing rules!

Peace!

Integral Replies and the Difficulties of Meditation

Friday was a more compressed day than I'd wished... sometimes you're just carrying a good momentum and... well, you just wanna keep at it, ain't it?!

Here's the schedule:
9-10, 1h Meditation
10-11, 1h Food + Emails
11-12, 1h Blog posts
12-14, 2h Reply to Ken Wilber's The Meaning Of Enlightenment Part I: Past, Present and Future
14-00, 10h Work
00-01, 1h Wandering Mind blog post. Is Meditation Difficult?

This a good day even if I didn't have that much time for writing as much as I wished. Particularly I did manage to write out most of the stuff I wanted to say about Ken Wilber's video. The stuff he has to say is quite interesting but, from my perspective, also substantially incorrect.
And I think the reason for that stems simply from a fact he himself mentions, that he is a Pandit, a theoretical teacher rather than a guru, one who practices. This is why he gets so caught up in the ideas, the reasons, the logic, the reasoning, the intellectual debate. It is very refreshing to hear him but I fear people might take it as being the truth, which it isn't, not by a long shot, on a practical way. My attempt is to correct that as best I can - albeit it being from a theoretical point of view also...

Because it concerns so directly with meditation I will post this on the Wandering Mind, Wondering Soul blog.

On my way from work I had this idea for another post for this blog and so that's what I did when I arrived home...

And then it was time for sleep...

Peace!

Friday 29 October 2010

One Moment Left

Dear ones,

Yesterday was a much shorter writing day that I would've liked.
I had to go to work (and it went well!).
But I still had a schedule...

07-08, 1h - Meditation
08-18, 10h - Work
18-19, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
19-20, 1h - Eat
20-21, 1h - Revise and send One Moment Left
21-22, 2h - Organise NaNoWriMo
22-24, 2h - FILM (first episode of Caprica and a 10 min short from LOST)
24-01, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog

Well, I had trouble sleeping the previous night and so, after some 3 and half solid hours of sleep, I promptly got up to meditate and sat for about 5 minutes. So that was that...
Work went well even though it was quite busy.
I came back later than I expected (which is what usually happens...) I showered and ate and did a bit of revision. Slow but thorough I believe.

And then I sat and wrote another bit to One Moment Left, something that'd been dangling on my head that day, clarifying a somewhat veiled thing in the story (TREN). I think the story is better because of it.
I did a short revision of those couple of paragraphs and then set out to read and revise the whole thing.
It stands at roughly 4800 words.
Just reading all of that took the better part of an hour...

But I did a few minor changes and went into the Creative Commons website and sorted out the licensing, revised the email about this short that I'd typed out already and clicked SEND.

And away we go...

I'm happy with this story - but not entirely so. There's a lot in it and I think it has a similar problem to what I felt in Morto and Land Of Fog - it doesn't flow smoothly. It goes up and down, loses and gains speed. It still feels a bit pacthy - from my perspective at least.
But, it is a first draft.
And this is as much as I'm willing to spend editing it for now. In any case, the story is partially aimed at being patchy, this will hopefully enhance the feel of how Kharther's perspective on life is.

Now I want to start with the third short... really wanted to do this today but there are a couple of other things I feel I should do before that...

One is these posts. Another is to revise some more of Land Of Fog. Another is to write a reply to a video I partially watched yesterday. A talk given by Ken Wilber about the nature of enlightenment and the direction of spirituality.
That's what I'm gonna do after this and I'm hoping to email/post it straight after.

And then I'm gonna go to work.

So, let's get on with it, shall we?!

Peace!

Revisions Closing In

Dear ones,

It seems like this whole affair of creating a daily schedule does help a bit to keep things going - well, at the very least it reminds me of things I've done during the day, thus enhancing the sense of accomplishment...

Here's my schedule for the 27th:

09-10, 1h - Meditation
10-11, 1h - Eat
11-12, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
12-13, 1h - Mobile phone/shoppi
13-14, 1h - Revise Short
14-15, 1h - Email friends
15-16, 1h - Eat
16-17, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
17-19, 2h - Organise NaNoWriMo
19-20, 1h - Eat
20-21, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
21-22, 1h - Revise Short Story
22-24, 2h - FILM (Ninth Gate)
24-01, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog/Blog Post

Well, a few things got left out (NaNoWriMo and the final revision/blogging....)
All in all it was a productive day. One Moment Left became much closer to completion. I wrote quite a bit - an important scene in Land Of Fog wasn't flowing that well and I realised I needed to change it quite a bit - which I did...

Most of the things I set out to do happened at different times that I'd initially planned but, they were sorted, and that's what matters.

I enjoyed Polanski's film but found it deeply disturbing. The colours, the theme, just sucked me in (as I'm guessing it was supposed to...).

Peace.

Wednesday 27 October 2010

The Short And Long Of It

Hey there,

Long time no see! Seems like that's how it's gonna be hey?
Well, it will until it ain't, right?!

So here's the news.

Last week I finished a short called The Running Man, just under 2500 words. It tells the story of man that becomes obsessed with death, all the strategies he comes up to dodge it and the result of all that.

I wanted (and still want!) to send something regularly to friends and family. It's a nice way to keep in touch, to hopefully give them something that they'll enjoy and to help myself finish some shorter stuff. I believe that this also helps in finishing the longer stuff.

I've been revising Land Of Fog, as you know, and this long winded process can be pretty frustrating, especially because, for a long time (in my case at least) you can feel that you're not moving. You spend three or four hours revising a single page and then, when you look to the number of the page, and you realise it's page 21 of 230, it might make you feel like you wanna go do something else. There's that certainty of a whole bunch of three and four hours still to come... you don't even know if you're gonna be alive by then!

With a short things are much simpler in many ways. It's like the short is all nicely packed inside your brain and you can see it all of it in more or less one go. Even if you have to spend ten or twelve hours dabbling with it, it's still much easier than the hundreds or thousands you may spend with a book (and believe you me, these numbers come from experience...)

The other thing I wanted to do with the shorts is send them to competitions.

Which I did do yesterday.

Yesterday was an easier day for writing because of what I did the previous night.
I came up with a schedule.

And the schedule was this:

08-09, 1h - Meditation
09-10, 1h - Eat
10-11, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
11-12, 1h - Post Office
12-13, 1h - Revise Short
13-14, 1h - Email friends
14-15, 1h - Eat
15-16, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
16-17, 1h - Sort out mobile phone
17-19, 2h - Organise NaNoWriMo
19-20, 1h - Eat
20-21, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
21-22, 1h - Submit Short Story
22-24, 2h - LOST
24-01, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog

Well, let me tell you what I didn't do. I didn't organise any of the stuff for this year's NaNoWriMo. I didn't sort out my phone. And I missed one of the Land Of Fog revision times (we watched Lost's final episodes yesterday and we just couldn't stop...
I also swapped a couple of things around but, essentially, I stuck to the plan.
And it worked.
It gave structure to my day.

So I did it again yesterday night and, I'm hoping, I'll do it every night and keep things rolling...

The great thing about this is that it primes your mind so when you actually get to the moments you need, your mind is more pliable to actually do the things it's required, rather than just be thrown in the water and expected to swim.
I don't think minds like surprises for the most part...

Anyway, I shouldn't be here writing this: I should be reading some more of Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight (and if you haven't read it you should - it's one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I've come across in recent times - and probably more than that by the time I finish it... he's one of the best writers around, and more!)

(I could easily do another post just about the joys that this book has given me, in particular yesterday but I won't - I really want you to read it THAT BAD!)

I hope you are all well.

Peace.

PS - I forgot to say. The short I'm sending around is called The Running Man. The one I'm working on (and that I hope to finish today) is called One Moment Left.
(yep, I think that's the title that's gonna stay...)
If you want to read The Running Man just post a comment or something and I'll get back in touch with you and email it to you - because I'm sending it to competitions and magazines I can't really publish it here for the time being. A lot of these publications have the caveat that stories can't have been published anywhere else...

Be well!

Friday 8 October 2010

Short Stories

Been a while huh?

Summer holidays, the getting-back-to-work period where everything seems to happen at once.
Then more holidays. More work. Friends staying over...

(no excuses though...)

so. What have been up to more recently? (my memory doesn't go all the way back to almost two months ago...)

Good question!

Well, several things.
I've written a short piece for an art exhibit I went whilst in Lisbon this last July. It's for an artist called João Palla and I'm just waiting for his reply to a few questions of mine before I sent it to him.

I've also written a relatively long text to a good friend of mine, Joana Bértholo. She's a writer (published!) and she's participating in THIS.
She sent me questions 2, 15, 18, 21, 22, 23 and 24 and I wrote anything that I felt might be relevant to her debate.
And, because of question 24 (about genetic manipulation, human beings and artificial life) I might be doing a book for this year's NaNoWriMo around this theme, an idea that's been in my head for probably some ten years now...
(if it doesn't let go it's because it needs to be written...)

I've written three short stories (from 2000 to 3000 words each) with death as the main theme. I'm planning on sending them to a few friends just for fun - but I've been lazy to compile the mailing list...
I'd really like to send at least one thing a month but... knowing my rhythms, this is probably another chimera of mine...
In any case, the first story is about a guy addicted to running. The other is about a being that knows the entirety of his life (echoes of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five...). The final one is, of the three, the one closest to what I ultimately want to offer a glimpse at, which is the realisation of death. But, of the three is the one that still needs more work - even though I do like the structure. There's an ongoing narration of an event with sudden flashbacks. Somehow these devices seem to work pretty well. For me at least...

Land Of Fog Revision continues! Of course. What do we care about deadlines?!
To be perfectly honest, I thought that this third (or is it fourth?!) draft would be easier. But, it seems to me that until I get to a fourth draft it's never gonna be easy...

For a good while I was incredibly frustrated with this. Which in turn caused revision to slow down (that and the fact that I was somewhat jaded with the material...). But I'm accepting the slowness of this process and trying not to worry too much about it. It'd be nice to have it ready before November but, if it doesn't happen, I'll just plunge head on to NaNoWriMo and think about it later.

My only question is if I should write the second part (of three) of the Fog trilogy. It's to be called Land Of Mists. I've already written quite a few ideas for it and I know exactly where it must end.
The advantage of doing this is that the setting and where I want to take this story is very present in me.
The downside is that I want to leave it behind for a while.

But, in fact, writing this down has made me think that the first option is better than the second. I can hold on for another couple of months. Unavoidably in January (if I do go to my meditation retreat) I'll have to leave all these stories behind so... might as well take advantage of having the story so clear in my head. Hopefully the new storyline and the new characters will refresh the whole thing.

I've also written some other short stories that I'm compiling for my little cousins. They're falling under the umbrella of BBT (I don't want to give out the title should they be reading this by some chance...) and they're more or less playful adventure stories with some twists and weird stuff thrown into the mix. My initial idea was to have a story per little cousin (that'd be five...) in which each of them would get to play the hero and be the main character. The tough thing was to find something that echoed their personality - which was a hard thing to do for I tend to play with them more than anything. I don't really know that much about their personal tastes and dreams - we meet only rarely. But I think I've got things that they'll identify with and enjoy.
And I was very happy when my oldest cousin suggested to me the setting that I was already envisioning in my head!
Right now I must have some seven or eight stories. A couple I've written beginning to end, either dialogue or plot. But most are still in an embryonic stage. There's also stuff written down on paper, scattered around... However I try to organise, inspiration comes when it pleases and not always I have a keyboard close by... Probably some five or ten thousand words by now - which I think will be enough to work into a small book (thirty to forty thousand). There is no end in sight. In fact what I wanted the most was to create a setting for stories for them.

At least that I have got. Now it's time.
And work!

Peace.