Saturday, October 28, 2017

holy crap it is all literally totally pointless

a close friend
who is an exceptionally smart person; not, i suppose--just since i'm laying this out--someone whose recreational habits include the careful parsing of narrative texts, but a very smart person
and a real genuine friend both of me and this work: a warm and consistent advocate, engaging and checking in on it

got to see him and his gf
dinner
asks me how it's going

i liked how...the, I don't know the literary word, the theme or
[we stumbled past this question of the right word]
where it's how when, things happen in the game, they happen in the real world.

oh my g*d. all is lost. i am not really kidding. the chasm of disconnection is so vast that it will never be bridged, and all my time's wasted, my ships are all sunk. i'm being hyperbolic, but not in a sarcastic or opposite sense. that is how complete this...so yes, it has been a minute since this smart good friend has read any Erra, of course. it's been a minute since anyone has.

but, a smart good friend attentive reader grasping for a "theme" or "motif" or--

THAT IS LITERALLY THE WHOLE POINT OF THE WHOLE ENTIRE STORY. THAT IS WHAT THE STORY IS ABOUT.

my failure to convey this as a central driving essence of the narrative is akin to the failure of sitting down to write (say) romeo & juliet and leaving a viewer saying

i liked, i thought how...i wasn't sure, but it seemed like, there was a kind of like theme, or commentary, about love? in the story. i liked that, i think, although i kind of last track of it in the play's latter half.

there is no asshole world in which this is on my friend, the []. or, i mean, i guess there is -- only because if modern public life teaches us nothing else it must be that any asshole world based on any old narcissistic need is conceivable and can be at least uttered. but there is no asshole world that i live in, or live adjacent to, in which this is on my friend. what i heard when i heard that was the complete and total extent of the failure and pointlessness of all of these efforts

what's maybe weird about that is that it neither discouraged nor "fired up" the fact that, this morning, as usual, i got up a bit before 5 and i've written for...idk, ~3 hours, so that i can go to bed tonight knowing i put 6-7 hours of real work into this

HOPELESS, POINTLESS, INCOMPREHENSIBLE

thing.

whatever. i will try to make some kind of living doing things
and to not be a totally useless human being to my society

and i guess i'll do this thing, too
writing
the thing i kind of identify with and care about
even though it is so demonstrably
stoopid.

wutevr

Sunday, October 8, 2017

magic

one of the most basic misunderstandings
and yes i am calling it that

that people with an amateur understanding of creating 'magic' in stories run into is
that they think that the 'magic' comes from the fantasy.

which is why you get salacious tv series that are violent soap operas with tanks and guns that are dragon-shaped, etc. but could not have less and wonder.

and why __--in which--is suffused with magic.

because the magic doesn't come from the fantasy elements.
the magic comes from the rules.
it comes from the limitations.

we live in a world and we know it as such; it has limits, we know or imagine those, too.

and magic--all 'magic'--happens at that border. once you're well in the territory; once you're in a world of (say) classroom politics just with spells...it really stops feeling magical. the rules are easy, accepted. it can be world-building, it can be imaginative, and it's 'fantasy' totes. it's genre.

but it's not magic.

_spirited away_ lives in this place
bluntly, the work of emily jane carmichael lives in this place

otherwise you're just genre. and genre is fine. but it's transportative effects are pornographic, fleeting, unconnected; it doesn't have threads that tie into your heart.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

the precision thing

"she" versus "emmy"

the syllables lead you

big theme; it's knotty, it's brainy--not meaning 'smart', meaning 'up in your head'.


form --> content

i think this is literally everything