Week 7 -- Characters (Again)

Humans are complex, inconsistent, and cursed beings. Depending on any given sequence of events, different tones may come out of a person. The faithful priest may in the next moment be covered in the blood of saints, the homeless drunkard may in the next sentence disprove the words of a professor, and a virgin may become the world's greatest prostitute. Often what we define as ourselves are just roles; these roles help us to configure the world around us, give us obligations, and some sort of disfigured identity. We can stay strapped into a flat character mold, or traverse through a myriad of masks... some masks may be more fitting than others, but what is truly underneath the mask?

The same things are in all of us: brokenness, heartache, shame, joy, worry, poverty, blame, and mercy. Character isn't just a role. Character goes into the eidos. It's when we put the materialistic masks we call roles over ourselves that the true identities of who we are become shadows, copies of our true potential.

My greatest love for writing is strong characterization. A story will resonate forever in my mind and heart when the characters are brilliance beyond years. It's their choices that fascinate me. Whether a character is moving through tragedy or comedy, it's the choices that define them, not the world around them, except without that world there are no boundaries for characters to develop a sense of decision making.

I played video games growing up, and one of my favorites was the American Super Nintendo version of Final Fantasy III. One of the main female protagonists, Celes is revealed through a series of sequences on the true character of her nobility. At the beginning, she is in the hands of a global company bent on enslaving a magical race, but then she becomes the prisoner, the traitor, the heroine, and even an opera star. Her decisions take her through some wild places; she even comes close to the point of suicide. And yet still, it's through her decisions that people are able to group together and overthrow a powerful world dictator; in fact, he didn't just conquer the world, he destroyed it. He won, but eventually out of anarchy rose people hungry for the original home they had.

It's not the trends, quirks, and avant-garde styles that bring a character to life. If those things take precedence over the character themselves, it's like a present finely wrapped, but with nothing inside. The aesthetics are the aroma of art. Those gimmicks from chewing bubble gum, wearing plaid socks, comb-overs, red cowboy boots, and the like speak of other things that are much deeper than the surface. A true character does not allow a role to define them or a series of sequences, a job, education, and the other goods. A true character comes from navigating through these hurdles, by using them to get to the core of what matters most. They have innate qualities that implore them to fight for the cause of mercy, justice, love, death, beauty, and so much more. A flat character is someone who distracts themselves with the hurdles rather than using those hurdles to do the one thing we truly are: alive.

Sure, some business nuts are going to say this is ridiculous. "You have to have a job to make money. To put food on the table. To keep the bills paid." What if that job turns against you? What if as a woman your whole life you are raised to have children, but either your body won't allow it or the children you have end up destroying you? Men are not just jobs and women are not just sex objects and baby holders. When we start classifying ourselves this way, we demean ourselves. Family and work are blessings; if we allow them to cloak ourselves, define our entities, and so forth -- midlife crisis will be imminent, and mid-life crisis can lead to fatality, divorce, impulsive decision making, and depression of the worst kind.

The most important part about life is life. Paradise is now, so I implore each person to live exactly how they would if they were to extend into eternity. Are you happy with the choices you are making? Is this who you would want to be in a world of perfect ideals? What are you doing to transform the world to reach closer to eternity? The characters that last in our minds are not the ones who end at "happily ever after" in a realm of "There is nothing left within this character's life that is worth noting, for we have already told you the greatest portion of all." Good characterization has us constantly thinking about what will they do next, why isn't there more written about them, and who were they before it all began.

Have you ever listened to music where it is impossible to hold it in one genre? Are those not some of the most inviting and compelling pieces of all? For they transcend the mold.

Going back to the word eidos that I used earlier: eidos is the highest plain of reality according to Plato, it transcends the materialistic world. The material world is the flesh, the conveyor of the concepts. All characters are vectors; they have direction with the concepts they hold. When two concepts collide, the stronger of the two prevails.

It takes great strength to build character whether to the highest peak of heroism or villianism. Only one of great character can fend off another of great character.

Week 6 -- Music

Okay, I'm taking myself down a notch. I'm making this writing journal harder than need be. Often I do this at the start of something new.

You know what is a sad reality? Good storytelling is hard to come by. I think we're still striving for the best and not quite meeting the mark. I think we need innovative people to enlighten us so that we won't settle for garbage. The snobs need to rise up and declare war. I'm tired of going to a film and feeling bored.

The worst criticism for any type of storytelling isn't failure; it's boredom.

I think the key to my writing is listening to music. In the song world, where you are only allotted a handful of minutes to prove yourself, the lyrics, beats, so on and so forth, have to be brilliant to last beyond the cliche of a billboard chart. If you want a timeless tune, it has to speak beyond its own generation; it has to connect with people (duh).

When writing, I listen to just about anything at least once. Depending on what type of setting or mode I'm trying to create, I'll listen to certain genres. If I can't get myself to write, I listen to the worst pop I can find -- although, I think my reservoir for this is on overload and I may just ban myself from public radio for the next year.

Here's the thing, I think the problem with most people, most things, most everything -- is that people are too freaked out to think, and then sometimes they embellish so much that their imagination doesn't know how to chart what's happening and turn what's occurring into something productive, and not just a landscape of unpolished creative ideas. It's important to both be free spirited and responsible. The imagination needs to be carved, not an ambiguous entity.

And leaving thy imagination alone creates dismal settings... the murder of my soul.

I think the first step for the author is to know that characters have lives of their own, and if you try to make them do exactly what you want, they're going to turn into boxed, second rate mess. So what I learned some time ago is that instead of trying to plan out every little piece of a character's life, I should instead listen to music, lay down, make sure there are no distractions, and allow my brain to make a story on the spot with whatever character I decide owns the story at that point, and huzzah -- recipe for success.

You can't truly know your characters until you throw them into the music world and force them to be active, just sitting there and trying to tact qualities is idle's play. What's your barbarian going to do if you turn on a hypnotic hippie song from the 60s?

During this time, I let my mind have a passion draft. If dragons are suddenly in westerns, then so be it. Sometimes I have to fight my mind when it thinks something is playing out rationally; the rational needs to be found later. In fact, if I listen long enough, lets say through a whole album of 12 songs or so, generally speaking a narrative forms itself whether or not I'm forcing it. But the important thing is to give the story to the characters, to let them show you who they are and what needs they have, what makes them vulnerable, and what makes them all around tick. The best advice I've ever been given is this:

"The great thing about advice is that you the listener are the one who decides what you are going to take out of another's advice."

Same goes for this exercise. Take what you can out of it.

Often times the best music is instrumental; I think if you're only trying to think in visuals, taking out the chance for words to preach helps significantly.

Anyway, as someone who fancies film, this not only helps in story building but in thinking visually. The mind should be something that challenges the film industry; it should be capable of making images in thought that we don't have the technology to match, and for whatever reason, music helps me to have a grip on my characters.

Also, music is structured just like any other form of storytelling. It has its beginning lines, its main message, its repetitive nature, and its limited cultural contexts. It works off pattern building, and right down to the second, it has to make everything matter to the ears or it will be turned off.

Week 5 -- Input / Output

I remember some physics teacher I had saying something along those lines of you output from what you input, and you always input more than you can actually output.

So, I'm going to keep this short and simple. Everyone who is creative needs to work on their input capabilities. With what you input, you take and turn into output energy. By watching several videos, listening to all kinds of music, and reading series of books, you are therein giving your a mind a supply of creative tools to work with.

With creativity, the mind summons memory at all times. Whatever is inside your brain you are able to work with, you can't play with tools your mind is not equipped with. Therefore, if you want to create good art, you need to know what good art is. So please, by all means, go out and explore different creative avenues. By doing so you are preparing your mind to create. A mind can't create when it is dry. So constantly bring back water, allow your mind to digest it, and have at it with creative-town.

Week 4 -- Writing about Writing: Easily Turned Rant

What have I learned about writing this week? Well, from reading several linguistics criticism theories for somewhere around fifteen plus hours, I must say that writing about writing is one of the most daunting and complex tasks in the entire universe. I just wrote a long paper on why this is so for another class, and I'm not one for making two of the same pieces, due to the obnoxious redundancy it creates for myself, mainly.

The basic gist is that what is difficult when defining what is writing -- and the truth behind words and how they are indicators of concepts -- is that words change with time, perception, and so much more. To get through understanding writing through the process of writing can almost look like madness in trying to keep riddles, rhetoric, and metaphors from conquering the author.

I think mentally the artist needs to train their self. The starving broke artist isn't broke because they're an artist; it's the art that keeps them alive while in the poverty. I have seen true poverty, I think I would be silly to say I've actually lived it. Just because you don't have material goods doesn't mean your life feels unsatisfied. I think we often put these material goods where other more fruitful concepts can alleviate the pains of a homesick mortal soul.

Going back to my point: an artist not only needs to be trained in their craft of choice, but they have to be willing to strengthen their mind. If one allows their body to be sedentary, you don't just gain weight, you also gain tension, soreness, and often times, depression. Once you start stretching, even though at the time sounds like the worst idea, it actually helps to free up all the stress one carries. We carry stress in our mind; it's a battleground of concepts, memories, dreams, and other related psychosis. Without alleviating the stress that allows the mind to run free, the mind reverts to a state of confusion, of feeling like it's lost to a jungle without any tool to combat all the dangers. Exercising after a long lifestyle disease of sedentary living often feels painful, as do most things when they go through a purification process, like being thrown into fire to strengthen the sword -- this is bringing up some crazy religious notions in my mind. I need to slow down.

So what is a healthy mind? Defining that is complex because we have to use our minds to figure out what that is, and since we are in part liars it becomes an abstract set of statistics that may or may not prove pertinent.

This is part of the problem in writing about writing, for you see if you do not give writing about writing proper direction it does in fact turn into madness, and by madness I mean having all the information but not being able to balance it properly for it to be solved into a cohesive text. For me to straight up tell anyone how to have a healthy mind should always be questionable, and since each human brain has its own distinct entity, yet commonalities with other minds, giving a universal remedy for the health of a mind is fairly convoluted, if not arguably insulting (considering it removes personal touch).

I think in writing well, and I mean extremely well, and not the tripe candy we all may enjoy from childhood on up, I mean writing that actually enables you to have genius -- I think to write genius you must experience genius. Discovering genius writing is not an easy task. It's a chaotic field to seek through, and even more so, it is hard to come up with a system whereby you find patches of literature that have inspired readers, philosophers, mystics, fools, and kings. We could look to the anthropomorphic texts of our past and ask ourselves how have they carried on into the future, or perhaps best seller lists, but again these texts are hit or miss depending on the audience. I'm not here to say look at what sells, at least this time, because the future does some weird things to art that when people are dead transcends money. Franz Kafka wanted his work destroyed and most of his work wasn't brought to the attention of literary circles until after his death... and yet there's been a fortune made off it. Be thought provoking, not for the sake of money because money doesn't always satisfy what the heart needs.

Be thought provoking because genius helps us to relieve the stress of our minds. It's those eureka moments that bring such insane amounts of joy that actually makes life worth living, even in the darkest of times. To know that there is truth out there, to know that there are answers to our existence is fascinating and in all happiness, a huge relief in that there's actually some sort of logic in the way our lives move forward. Even if our pasts are foggy, even if trying to find our origins with the scattered puzzle pieces is terrifying, the shards of evidence in bringing truth together helps us all.

The brain needs to be treated well in order for it to create. There is a relationship to our inputs and outputs and the way it affects us. If you want to enjoy what's been given between your ears, you have to treat it well regardless of what circumstances may offer to lessen one's personal dreams.

Writing is summoned at all times through the power of memory. Each letter was learned through systematic memorization and as you develop as a human being, concepts come into understanding. Through the significance of memory, writing grows. Writing is the epoch of all forms of thinking for it is the conveyor of concepts, human thoughts, science, mathematics -- all of it is connected together in one piece that relates to each other, both aiding in solving out the complexities of the other individualized parts.

How would we come to any understanding of science without rhetoric? How could we make sense of science without language? And how could we come to any sense of language without science existing at all?

If you want to be a better writer you have to take care of your mind. Enable your mind to find significance in life and eventually one will be able to fashion words together. From order breaking a part, we have chaos, and when we put chaos back together, we have order.

I think this will suffice for now. I just have to make sure to catch up with these posts, because somehow this winter has gotten the best of me.



It's often through writing we find edification. Whether or not our minds are paralyzed with disease, the nutrients of our generations' drugs, or the synedoches of misconception -- writing things out and seeing it before our own eyes helps to push out of the jungle and into the open air.

Week #3 -- Self Awareness Writing

Snow days are perfect.

They help me to finally do the things I dream of doing after leaving idle for months.

I also had some mental constipation and didn't do some required things... yay for me. I'm actually behind on this journal so I'm going to try and catch up. I seem to be suffering from... writer's block.

I don't know if this is just a writer's block or a multi-faceted creative block. People say a lot of stupid things about this erm, phenomenon. Writing about it is actually fairly annoying.

Here's the truth, writer's block is a lack of motivation followed by a dosage of fear. It's also this compulsion to delete everything, like the very words I'm writing now. I think the truth is that when you don't want to write something it's like going to the dentist to get a tooth filled. When you enjoy writing a certain tale, you may have a flood of ideas. And then there's the overwhelming novel that pops into your mind... and it's not that you don't know how to get started it's just... like going to the gym after a long spell, and you've gained some weight around your waist (rather, you have some waste).

I am so out of shape; maybe not, no really... I'm in excellent shape and maybe having too much time with ellipsis. I'm deceiving myself. I know what I can do and that alone is a scary recognition, especially as I uncover more of the truth in knowing my strengths, capabilities, road blocks, and incompatibilities.

I think my best writing is when I allow it to be free. I'm not trying to force words to suffice an end, but as I am thinking of a particular story my emotions react to what I write. I may laugh at the absurdities that spring forth or I may be in awe at a sudden metaphor. The worst of the worst is a block that says: write exactly into this space eleven lines of crap for this awesome and life altering prompt. Well, thank you for telling me what to do and not giving me the chance to run across the galaxy.

These boxes didn't make me perish as a writer growing up; they did as a singer. When I studied music at a younger age I didn't realize how some of the songs required for class were actually very unfitting for my voice. Once the box was removed, I was free to go, free to tell stories the way I saw fit, actually free to use the emotions I understood rather than trying to sing about love or death at the very pure, innocent age of sixteen where any concept of love at that point was a fabrication, at least on my part. And maybe I just wasn't a very good liar.

I don't want to write about anymore lessons at the moment. I just kind of want to scramble around with half-made-up words. I think for just one prompt I'm going to go free association style. I don't know how to transition into this...

Here's one way:

Sample of absurd writing (free association style) :

And go:

Language is a distortion of reality. It tries to convey what is happening and set it into a handful of characters to contain concepts. Perception is a focalizer. But words are much more fascinating when we take the leash off, take the collar off and throw them into a volcano to burn and disintegrate so that words can dance their way into whatever way they please, just like writing equations in math, all they are is the codes to a certain kind of reality whether its one we have the chance to experience or one we are making up to explore.

We can never abandon it all the way because we have to use from what we know to build something new; all new things have at least some particles of the old because how can anything that is of existence, something that is an entire new "is"? There's definitely better ways to write these butterflies out, but this isn't the time for rewriting. That will come in due time.

I want to abandon all these concepts and theories for a moment. I'm being all meta, or rather I'm laying out my plans instead of doing what I actually can with words. This is all secondary. I want something primary. I don't know why I'm failing to do this. I really don't know. It's some kind of writer's block and all writer's block centralizes around two things 1.) A lack of motivation 2.) fear. (Repeating myself, it's like a coda.)

If cats could swim through oceans with ballerina shoes, they probably would only get as far as the sand. Some old lady may ask why those cats have ballerina shoes on, but to these cats they never had anything more luxurious so why take it away from them now? The floor suffices as a bed. There's many, upon many material things that can just be tossed aside and once those extra fatty marsupials are thrown to the wayside, than the true kickboxing kangaroos can take a stand, and what more could we ask for in the Raging Bull of boxing?

I've never pictured a kangaroo playing a piano, till just now. For the Australian beast, I generally imagine something less dramatic and classical, something you would hear on the open plains like a guitar, a non-classical guitar. That seems more suitable for a Joey. I wonder if old women, who don't like cats to wear ballerina shoes, I wonder if they ever snap their fingers and think of their past when they had younger, smoother fingers that could snap the perfect pop. Now they're hands are all shaky and they can barely keep it together, isn't it sad? The littlest things we don't appreciate. Today is now the day to seize, not tomorrow because asking and requesting that you have a tomorrow is far more than any of us deserve.

Eggs can be made into so many shapes. Each with a different taste. Each with a different name, but really they're all just eggs. What difference does it make? Why be so picky about food? I imagine your digestive system will take it the same way any which way one decides.

Anything past third person becomes a gossip. Gossip is bad. Don't write in fourth or fifth person; it's unnecessary. Getting meta and secondary again...

Okay, if I were to travel through the stars I would want to float. I would want it to be perfect. I would want to move as fast as possible, and I would want to see all kinds of familiar objects drifting at all new rates, like feathers, marbles, water... Why is the universe so big?

I like to think of space like an ocean. I would never swim to the bottom of the sea, and I would never travel in space. There's so much danger, so much pressure, and I'm a chicken, and I don't know, it would be so lonely, and so far away. I would just want to go home. I would want green grass and sunshine no matter how silly that may seem. There's beauty in the everyday things, and it's all taken for granted until one day, it's not there. Cliches are attacking my brain; they like to be overlords and cease the outlier thoughts from escaping and showing any sense of enlightenment. Cliches want to be kings, but they're really servants, little streams to the bigger ponds that are full of delicious ideas.

What is texture in writing? Is it the density? The thickening of language and narrative? Language and narrative are tied together in perfect matrimony.

I think I will stop here.

THE END.