An Explanation.

"An Explanation"

We call it

Western Zen:
Empty, well-styled rooms --
Opulent, but minimalist.

Airy, with perfect
Clean lines,
And hidden electrical jacks.

Hand-picked greenery,
Hand-made pottery --
Decor pornography
For the discerning.

But things change,

For now we face
The shambling dead,
We have been overrun
By grave-ripe corpses.

They have upset
The bowl of designer rocks,
And left cemetery stains
Upon the eco-friendly cork flooring.

I apologize.

I did not know
It would be
Such a bad day
To schedule
The "Dwell" photo shoot.

Twitter, twitter, tweet, tweet.

I am starting to love Twitter in the same way that I love haiku and other counted syllable poetic forms.

It makes me pare down my message to 140 characters. I must be succinct, pithy, and entertaining...all the while conveying what I originally intended to say. Challenging, but great fun.

So, feel free to check my Twitter page, and follow me if you are so inclined. It is far more entertaining that this blog, I assure you.

And pithier.

Lightning does strike twice...

"Tonka on Toilet Paper"

Quilted, soft, or rough,
The fate of the unspared square
Is always the same:
Circling its porcelain grave
An unmourned, frail paper wraith.

The rare poetic utterance.

I recently watched "Run Lola Run" for the umpteenth time (I have lines memorized in German...and I don't speak German -- that's how many times I've seen this movie), and this little senryu came tumbling out:

Suppositional
Rashomon, only German
With a chick running.

Do I get bonus points for using up an entire line's worth of syllables on a single word? I should.

Dia de los Muertos.

I am wearing my candy skull print shirt today, and contemplating this year's NaNoWriMo. I actually made my wordcount yesterday, and I feel pretty certain that I will do it again today.

I'm trying very hard not to develop the sort of overconfidence that plagued me in earlier attempts. I know that I may feel very differently tomorrow, or next week. I'm not sure what causes the disconnect -- why I'm filled with stories that I just can't seem to write down. I mean, I've been writing since I was 9 or 10 -- actual stories with plot and everything, even at that age (not that they were, ah, good) -- but I seem to have lost the ability to follow through somewhere along the way. I haven't even finished a decent short story since 1996.

I...I blame poetry.

After about 1996, I came to focus on poetry, and I think that's where I sabotaged myself. I came to value image over story, and brevity most of all. My mind is filled with stories, not stanzas, but I wrote stanzas for so many years that cohesive narrative is no longer my native tongue.

However, I have written less poetry in the last two years than I used to write in an average week. (Seriously.) Although I didn't set out to abandon poetry, that's sort of what happened, and in retrospect I think it was a good thing.

I'm hoping that it will lead me back to prose.

We'll see, as my Mom used to say...

Vampires suck?

Man, I am already regretting choosing my oldest vampire story for NaNoWriMo, and the month hasn't even started yet.

Vampires are just so...done. Everybody and their dog has a vampire story. And my vampire story? I made it up when I was 13. And why the hell was I writing a lesbian/vampire love triangle story when I was 13, anyway? (Let's refrain from examining the Freudian implications of that for the moment.)

But...I know how the story is supposed to go. And I really think knowing that will help. The first year I started with some notes and a little backstory, a couple of character sketches, and some good enthusiasm. I got past the half-way mark. The second year, I just jumped in with a vague idea of where I was going and who was along for the ride, and barely made it past an incredibly disturbing opening scene. (It was a good opening scene, but it was so demented that it disturbed me too much to go on. In fact, I did something very similar on my screenplay for the first Script Frenzy this summer -- when you start a movie with a dream sequence involving child rape...you pretty much come to the conclusion that you as a writer are seriously fucked up.) So, I'm thinking that knowing a lot about the story at hand -- characters, plot, and all -- might work better for me than the NaNoWriMo standard of just jumping in and seeing what happens.

At this point, I just need the discipline to sit down every day for 30 days and just write this stupid story that I have had clanking around in my brain for umpteen years.

And that's what I intend to do. It's just that it may be the lamest vampire story ever. Sigh...

Once more into the breach, as they say.

I seem to have lost my mind again, since I just signed up for a third round of racking failure at NaNoWriMo. I may not be very successful, but at least I am persistent, right?

I'm not really breaking the rules this year, although it sounds like I am. I've decided to revisit the very first novel I ever started, a vampire story called "Stained Glass." I started it when I was thirteen years old, which was [unintelligible coughing sound] years ago, but I never quite let it go. I've picked it up again at least twice, and rewritten entire sections of it -- but I never came anywhere close to finishing it. So...I'm going to make it my NaNoWriMo project. However, before anyone starts crying foul, I would like to point out that I am not using any existing material for this draft. I am starting from scratch, apart from the stuff in my brain.

In fact, I am changing it to a more modern story -- it originally took place in a turn of the (twentieth) century boarding school -- even though I am keeping most of the original plot as I imagined it.

I have no idea if I'll get anywhere with it, but...I'm going to try. I don't know, this might be my year to complete the challenge. My work schedule is under control, and I should be able to schedule adequate writing time (which I really couldn't do before). Plus, I've had a sign, I think. One of the pivotal plot points involves a very specific sort of chapel -- a chapel I imagined almost twenty years ago, when I lived in another state. We recently attended a wedding that took place in a chapel that could have been the exact chapel from my novel...except I had never been there before!

And that, my friends, was a pretty freaky coincidence -- particularly since I started thinking about using "Stained Glass" as my 2007 project a full month before that wedding.

So...wish me luck.

Name Game: Appliances 6, Sarah 0

Gotta say -- and I think I've said this before -- the best thing about having a mood disorder is those days when you're absolutely happy for no reason at all.

Today is thankfully one of those days, and I am grateful. I think I was due one of these...

Anyway, the script is chugging along, just slightly over the required daily word count. Exposition is starting to suck. We're about eight minutes in, give or take, and the main character is only just now embarking for her destination. At least half of those eight minutes constitute a harrowing flashback/dream sequence. I could totally deal with that in a real horror movie.

I'm still not sure what to call the cult leader, though. Why are characters so hard to name? It's crazy. I never have any trouble naming pets or electrical devices. (My iPod is named Ludwig, for instance, and my old laptop was named Jennifer Hewlett-Packard, which -- as a curious aside -- I constantly confused with an actress's actual name...) But man, characters are the worst. I mean, I've been looking at random spam names and checking baby names sites, and name meanings sites...but nothing. I've got nothing.

And I hate the names of all of the characters I've already dubbed.

Sigh. Where did that sunny mood go?

Oh, wait. I just left it over here. Never mind!

"My love for you is ticking clock..."

Okey-dokey. Script Frenzy has begun.

And I gotta say, so far at least, my predictions of sheer ease have been coming nicely true. I already have over 1300 words, and a good handle on on the plot. My biggest difficulty has been naming characters -- how sad is that? Sure, I could run out of momentum, I suppose. But I don't feel that it's likely.

I mean, this feels great. I'm not even intimidated by the formatting, because -- dude, I can always change that later. And from what I understand, screenplay formatting changes seasonally in Hollywood, mostly to separate insiders from newbies. So it's not likely that my format will be fashionable, even if it's correct. I chose a British format, for one thing, because I'm used to writing BBC standard radio scripts and it was fairly similar.

And it's so...easy. As fun as NaNoWriMo is, it's kind of torture -- even on the first day. I love that it makes you consistent with your writing, and it really gets you in the habit of writing every day. But I'm never 100% comfortable with it. I actually like to edit as I go (to some extent), and it's really hard to just aim for word count over everything else.

At least the script I'm writing, bad or not, has a full plot already. Also, it's a movie I would actually pay to see, if it were real.

Maybe that's the key. Maybe I've never chosen a novel idea that I would really like to read, if it happened to be a "real" book.

But that's an idea for next November. In the mean time, I have a tense conversation with the editor scene that I need to write, so I need to, ah, fade out this journal entry.

Heh. Fade out. I am such a loser.

"The rhythm...it moves my insides like sunshine jelly."

Perhaps today we will have a lesson in "not writing when your brain does not work."

Perhaps not.

I am very excited about Script Frenzy. This will, of course, wear off -- and probably soon, possibly even before it actually begins. But for the moment I am running with it. I have gathered two different sets of film script templates, and will be trying both to see which I like better, and I have doctored the NaNoWriMo progress tracking spreadsheet for the new process. Believe me, 667 words a day seems a lot more reachable than 1667. I'm still feeling those cakewalk feelings -- along with a terrible disappointment that the daily word goal is not 666, the word count of the devil.

You feel me?

Did I just type "You feel me?" Wow. Bad sign.

Anyway, I have an outline for the basic plot points, and a good background on my main character. She's gonna come to a bad end, I'm afraid -- but it is horror that I'm writing, so that's to be expected.

I think the best part is remembering how much I really enjoy writing scripts. Sure, I like prose (and I love attempting to write novels), but scriptwriting feels nearly effortless -- at least compared to other things. You know, things like getting out of bed or going to work...

To close, I leave you with a quote from the song "PJ + Vincent & Matthew + Björk" by Rasputina:
"If hopping into a live volcano feels right, I say do it!"

Yet another hand injury waiting to happen.

I am doing something new in June. I will be writing a screenplay in 30 days. Of course, this is from the same people who do National Novel Writing Month, but...um, I have actual script writing experience, as opposed to vague unfinished novel experience.

However, all of the scripts I've ever written were both short and either stage or radio plays -- so full length screenwriting is new.

So, I'm feeling very cocky about finishing a screenplay in 30 days. First of all, scripting is a normal process for me (although screen is a new format), and I can crank out a script like nobody's business. Just ask anyone who worked at Radio Theatre with me -- I am nothing if not prolific. And I'm not half bad, either -- my piece "In the City" was a finalist for the 2005 Golden Reel award for radio theatre. And they're using 20,000 words as the finishing goal -- which just plain sounds like a cakewalk. Or, if not a cakewalk, a lot easier than 50,000 words for a novel.

And I can write dialogue all day long, man. All frickin' day. Check it...

SARAH:

Dude, this Script Frenzy business is going to be so easy...

DEVIL'S ADVOCATE:

Whoa, there. You totally thought writing a novel in a month was going to be easy, too -- right?

SARAH:

Yeah, but this is really not the same. I mean, I used to write scripts all the time, and I've never finished a novel.

DEVIL'S ADVOCATE:

Sure, but those were short scripts. And you're really not much of a "finisher." (Makes "quote marks" in the air)

SARAH:

That's not fair! I wrote scripts according to the time constraints I was given. (Pouts) And I finish things all the time.

DEVIL'S ADVOCATE:

(Sarcastically) Uh-huh. Like that novel you started when you were thirteen.

SARAH:

I was thirteen, for cryin' out loud! Nobody finishes the novels they start when they're thirteen!

See? Totally easy. I am so excited...

Senseless Juxtoposition.

Why does this website weigh on me so?

I mean, you either write for an audience (and I have no audience), or you write for yourself (and, okay, I'm pretty sure I have a self)...but why do I write for myself on the internet? It doesn't make sense.

My last website did pretty darned well for a website with little to say and nothing to sell. It got a respectable 8000-13,000 hits a month at its peak, and probably would have done even better if it had had a point (and/or some marketing), but I just got tired of it. So I bought a new domain and started a new journal, but...I'm just not feeling it. I have no "zazz." (And we all know how important "zazz" is.)

But...I still want a website.

I think part of the problem is that I'm a dabbler. I don't have any one particular area that I want to focus on here, and that's what people have come to expect. (My last page was primarily about my poetry and a sort of humorous diary.) Blogging has become the predominant form of web writing, and that's okay -- I guess. I mean, at least it proves that many people can still construct semi-coherent sentences -- and the sheer amount of subject matter available in blog form is awe inspiring. But most blogs (that survive for any amount of time) are generally one-topic-never-ending essays. You can read blogs about conspiracies or blogs about knitting, but you rarely (if ever) find a good blog about conspiracies and knitting, and the politics of Bea Arthur, you know? I kind of think that's a shame.

I mean, I don't want to be constricted by one subject. I have no overarching topic that my entire life revolves around (besides complaining bitterly, which is less endearing than it sounds), and I don't want that sort of myopic view to prevail here.

I guess my point is that I have no point.

I find that online journaling serves the same purpose for me that old fashioned private journaling probably serves for most writers: It makes me write, and regularly.

Most of the crap I write here (and elsewhere) is less than good. But some of it is, and that's all that matters. It's brain exercise, and occasionally amusing to others. So I'm going to stick it out, for a while.

I have an ergonomic keyboard -- and no nasty hand cramps from writing with a pen -- and some free time. So feel free to read about conspiracies, knitting, and terrible references to aged actresses...all in one place.

I am not "loosing" my mind.

There are words (and word usages) I just can't bear.

I cannot abide the word "grok." It makes me itchy all over, and cranky.

I will not tolerate the word "party" being used as a verb. It is a NOUN! I won't have it!

I can't stand another single instance of people using "it's" as possessive. I can't bear it...

And I know that I am guilty of many, many language sins myself. My sense of grammar is shoddy at best, and my spelling is atrocious. (I only know how to spell atrocious because it describes my spelling so aptly.) I use too many adverbs, and sometimes my phrasing vacillates between Victorian stuffiness and surfer dude confusion.

But still.

I read something in the comments section of a conspiracy blog last night (don't ask), in which the poster actually spelled "lose" correctly. It had been so long since I had seen "lose" spelled correctly online that I did a double take and just stared at the screen for a long time.

It's so hard to remember that there are non-language-heathens lurking in cyberspace. Amazing.

When Typewriters Attack, Next on Fox.

Okay, just hypothetically now, let's say you're having a dream, and that dream is pretty normal (at least normal for a dream), and after the cave creatures chase you through the abandoned mansion and your Mom tries to trick you into going to El Salvador, which results in a beating by luggage for both your Mom and your Grandmother (who may or may not have been in on the vacation plot), you discover that you desperately need to type something. So you ask a complete stranger to use their office, and they say sure.

Anyway, so let's say you walk into their office, which seems normal enough, except that there's no computer, just an old fashioned typewriter. And I mean REALLY old fashioned -- not electric, but the kind with the round raised keys that you have to hit really hard just to make a mark. And you think, okay, that's difficult but still doable.

But when you sit down, the Rolodex starts hopping up and down and squeaking like a mouse. Still, you think, that's probably got a perfectly rational explanation. So you type your emergency document (the nature of which escapes you as you wake, unfortunately), and once you've finished and removed your hard won paper from the machine, it coughs and says, "You are a harlot! And a hussy! And a no-talent hack! You're so worthless you may as well become a THEATRE CRITIC!"

And then, let's say just hypothetically, you wake up.

What does that mean? I mean, just hypothetically. Heh-heh.

Stop the raving, Donald Pleasence!

Man, I haven't written a poem in a very long time, but I just watched "THX-1138" -- which I had never seen -- and it inspired the following tanka.

Robert Duvall is Naked and Angry

Before George Lucas
Went mad with Ewok Power,
He explored worlds of
Dystopic technocracy,
Shaved heads, and white emptiness.

Hah! I know it's less of a poem and more of a syllabically restrained movie synopsis, but hey -- beggars can't be choosers. Right?

Are you still a writer if you don't write anything?

Man, I need to get back to writing. Once again, I was derailed in November, but this time I was not derailed specifically by NaNoWriMo (as I have been previously), but by the fact that I got cast in a play.

I had to quit the play (nice long story there, or rather not so long -- I'm just not going into it today), and I didn't get far at all on the novel, but I am still not writing. And it's not like I am fresh out of ideas. I have fiction and non-fiction bubbling around in the old grey matter. I'm just...not writing. I mean, this is barely a post, and I'm struggling with that.

I think I actually have too much to say, and I'm feeling intimidated by the sheer volume of it.

Ah, well. Never mind. There are many, many invoices to enter here at work.

Maybe that's why I'm not writing...