Log 1/4.16: High Voltage.

Personal Reflection: Why did I start this thing? What motivates me?

all the monkeys in all the world could jump and my back and they wouldn't be ready for this...

[I've never read any of the Invisibles. Or sandman. I just appear to be in that vein.]

Diatribe 1:

"some of the things i do can be dangerous. generally i don't sit around playing playstation - at times i have been tempted, of course, but it never happens. i never move in that direction. when i take into consideration my improvised ritual workings - the spaceship, for example, my drift - and those borrowed workings - the three liquids being the most powerful, back in 2004, round about the same time i was working through Liber ABA without much of an idea of what i was doing - it becomes important to provide the right context for the expression of these things. some of the experiences i've had are enough to make a grown man go crazy.

this isn't a fashion statement. these things i do aren't clothes. there is a fine line between the ridiculous and the inspired, and i believe that line is integrity.

even though i spent some time in an institution, the simple fact of the matter is that no one could decide upon a diagnosis. a few things were thrown around - expressly to "get [me] out of trouble", as i was there solely on a criminal charge, a section 14 - and eventually the good doctors ended up with egg on their faces, poor sods, terribly embarassed, when all charges were dropped (amid missing paper work yadda yadda) and subsequently they had no right to detain me. The police, however, were adament that they would arrest me simply for existing were i to leave. catch 22.

intelligence, as i define it, is the capacity to form connections when there may not be any apparent connections. this is similar to madness, except that madness is a reaction rather than an action, and a brief look at our history will show that intelligence and madness are often treated in the same way. with fear and ridicule.

While in the institution, Schizophrenia and Paranoia were never mentioned. Their best bet was Hypomania, an ecstatic state. The terms of my release were that I was to be supervised for a year by a doctor and a social worker. The social worker, after two months - maybe less - told me that he didn't have much time for me since he had "real patients". he stopped even calling after 5 months. I saw the doctor once.

I'm not saying I was in a fit state of mind - things got a little out of control. I was arrested for a fire arms charge after all.

i once overdosed on ketamine after a long train ride. this is particularly odd, since i hadn't taken any ketamine. i very almost died. while i was prone in a hospital bed, the good doctors told my mother I most likely would never be able to form a coherent sentence ever again. but, guess what - i keep coming back.

nothing in all my life has made me happier than persuing my passion for words, and writing, and generating engaging ways of re-invisioning the world. that's what i'm doing now, but it can take great chunks from me each time i pick up a pen. the territories i explore, the interests - dream, paranoia, the hidden, parallels, multiples, augmented realities, these things take their toll on me. The creative high is matched only by the sometimes grim aftermath of realising that i've spent the last four weeks isolated and alone. At times like these I'm tempted to do stupid things like jump into bed with anyone (tell my deepest darkest secrets to anyone) - but, those were the old days. I have pretty high standards now (whether I deserve them or not is another matter), and I find that ignoring my basic instincts only heightens my awareness anyhow.

I'm loyal to a fault. I've had one relationship in the last five years, and it was one that i only enjoyed for about three weeks out of each year. Cut out entertainment, drunkenness and sex - you may lose your mind.

connection is hard work. it is so much easier to remain detached. choosing to inhabit this world can be like choosing to hang over the edge of a cliff, suspended only by your valuables.

ah, yes, and i'm still waiting for those "plain clothes" policemen to revisit me. "we have no record of a visit" the station said "you're not wanted for anything. you'll just have to wait for them to come back". sometime.

some people don't like me."

"They didn't want me in hell, and they don't need me in heaven".

Log 4.9 A Complex Dream, A Simple Character. Fuse.

Three things of interest have happened today. The first is that I've been distracted - it's been a while since I was distracted by anything. I've had quite a run - a good month of solid focus.

The second was using the exercise of speaking my writing, giving voice to my characters. I did this with the superhero's monologue which opens the story, trying to get a feel for whether it was natural. Quickly I established what belonged to the character and what belonged to me-as-author. Some of what I'd written was information rather than expression of a character, and I cut it out with some success.

While contemplating doing this exercise I realised that I was too distracted to focus on it wholeheartedly. I was also afraid of speaking the character because I felt that it would just sound trite, so I tried to get into character first. Before being able to get into my character I realised I had to get out of myself. This was a significant learning, and it is the reason that meditation is becoming a part of my writing practice more than it is a part of my health of wellbeing practice (which, truth be told, I don't really have).

This bought about the third interesting part of today. I realised I need to organise my space better. I have been writing, reading, reflecting, meditating, researching, plotting, mapping, planning, breathing, eating, sleeping, and getting into character all in one space - a space that takes up about a third of my room. I need to set aside different spaces for different parts of the work, and also make sure that I can keep life and work separate. I decided upon an experiment to this end - blacking out a portion of my room using fabric, black so that there are no associations, no imagery, no colours, in order to both meditate and explore characters, scenes, phrases. The difficulty is that I don't have the space to have an area for "IN" and an area for "OUT" so I will have to devise some sort of boundary marking techniques. It has reminded me that I should definitely get around to building that spaceship.

What I've realised is that if I don't embody the character and really get to know it on a personal level, it remains trite, just words and thoughts.

I'm also having difficulty with my five other characters. I managed to run the script parallel which is interesting as a dream sequence, but the story is weak. As an example, the Scientist is being interviewed by a television company and speaking about the N.U.I., thus delivering strictly factual information. There is no nuance of character, and she is nothing more than a plot device.

Perhaps I should start in medias res, and then have her converse with another character but in the same manner that she talks to the interviewers, as if her being in the world is defined by delivering factual information. Better yet, forget the interview altogether, and have two characters discussing the machine who have an different agenda from the protagonist/supe - media moguls, for example, who see the potential of using the machine as an entertainment device.

In conclusion; the superhero is going well, not yet fully formed but going in a good direction. After writing this I will return to paper and pen and dissect his monologue, paying attention to his language.

There are two important defining elements to his character: a) that he is of dream, and b) that he is primal. Thus there is a need to create very, very simple and emotive language. The use of the word "riddle" and the word "labyrinth" concern me a little. They are dream words, true, but they are not simple. Here is the conundrum: creating a character "of dream", which is complex, who is simple - single minded, primal. That is something I will enjoy, I think.

For now, with regard to the course itself, it is enough to focus on this character with this approach. If i can fit in just one or two other characters but the end of the month, that will be even better, but not if it is at the expense of the superhero whose form is rich and becoming richer.

Memorable characters have something in common:

A juxtaposition evolving into a sublimation thus creating nuance.

Examples:

1. Ordinary Joe becomes super-spy (The Filth)

2. Preacher becomes gunslinger possessed (Preacher)

3. Soldier becomes holy man (The Sadhu).

So far I have this: detective goes on the run. The hunger becomes the hunted, probably the oldest juxataposition in the book.

So - strictly rational detective goes a) on the run, b) in search of god, c) by becoming a renegade sufi clown conjuror. Ah, fuck it, I'm going to bed.

Log 4.2. Stuff

I'm torn. I've got a good intro to part two of what is now the graphic novel which is now titled PSYCHONAUT which is now becoming this months obsession which is now leading to burn out and has thrown me back onto the meditation cushion after a 6 month break from practice.

Why the graphic novel format? It simplifies my writing, and makes dialogue richer. And oddly i like the format - the script. I didn't expect that. The thing with graphic novels is you have to know WHAT is going to happen next. Ya cannae jist blether fer fourteen pagees.

Language and style is this months project, so initially I've created a character who uses a technology that he doesn't understand. He's an ex-soldier and truth be told I don't know why he's doing the job he's doing this has to be worked out. Anyway, he's now a detective, using this technology to find suspects, to increase the "psychic" resonance between them. Bottom line is he doesn't have to understand the technology, any more than I have to know algorithms to use the internet.

But here I'm torn because part of me feels like this isn't a "real" story. That I should be writing about a bunch of young people in a squat fucking with demons as a twist on the superhero story. Finding themselves in alternate realities and that. But I guess I'm stuck with my soldier motif for reasons I don't quite understand.

Ah, bollocks to it. All I have to do is firm up the protagonists backstory, which I'm working on as a flashback, and his motivations for what he does.

How did he end up out of the army and in a detectives job?

What does he want from the job?

Too tired for this....

Log:2.2.1-3D4 ISSUES.

After many hours I've done the exercise for the second part of the second project of the course. Reflecting the character in the scenery and the scenery in the character. Its the most difficult exercise so far.

In the end I used two character sketches, created two characters and put them at a funeral. Trouble was, the scenery was only described once, in one paragraph. The characters are reflected in their relation to the other guests - the guests, in a sense are the scenery.

Really, though, I've written a completely new piece. I start writing, it comes together, and the scenery isn't so important. What do I do then?

Fuck, I don't even have any lengthy analysis to give. I'm finding it difficult to adhere to the mix of scenery and character. It only takes a sentence to give a scene, and only a sentence to describe a character.

In the end I described the emotion of the protagonist through his relationship to the other guests. What am I supposed to do now? Rewrite the whole damn thing and lose all the good bits because I want some goddam scenery?

Hell, I even gave him possessions, which described his personality/psychology, and that exercise isn't until the next part of the project - I did it anyway, because it needed to be done. I hadn't read the exercise when I did it. So I have relationships, two characters that work well together, a history, motivation, possessions, and action but no fucking scenery.

My god, its endless. I'll have to just leave it as it is and move on to the next exercise, otherwise I'll end up in the same predicament as last time when I worked endlessly on drafts and didn't do any sketches. But its really troubling me. Whats important in this scene is whats happening - am i supposed to just bin that because I didn't get enough scenery in, or is one paragraph enough? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Argh. Bollocks.

Fuck it.

I should write what I want to write and get feedback on that, not try and write what I should write. I should copy and paste that sentence and pin it on my wall, because thats what writing is - if you have something to say, you say it, and then you get feedback on how to say it better.

Fucking hell, though - I said "when he arrived at the hospital" because thats all that needs to be said. Not "he arrived at the greying concrete box of the isolated hospital" because all of thats in the mood. Shit, when did anyone need to point out that a hospital isn't a good place to be, especially when arriving at 2am (not at "the small, cold hours of the morning").

NO - fuck it again - I AM GOING TO REWRITE IT. I'm going to go through with a red pen and pinpoint all the places where a measly little bit of geography might make the space a bit clearer. But then its going to fuck with the flow.

HOW AM I MEANT TO DO THIS IN AN HOUR FOR CHIRST SAKE?

There are all kinds of awkward bits and pieces, like a camera that turns up. I'm now going to have to go through it again to substantiate the camera. Even if it only takes a single word, thats still 15 minutes of thinking and jigging about. I want to meet some of these students that manage to do these things in an hour. I don't believe they exist.

LOG:2.1.5-1/2 How do other writers describe a character?

I have one half of the first exercise 5 in project two left to do, so this is it. The question is: how do other writers describe characters.

I've been reading a good bit over the last few months, so I will start with first thoughts:

1. I have noticed that the protagonist in novels is often not described at all. Not physically, anyhow. It seems that protagonists are a good example of showing rather than telling, since it is their reactions to events that inform us of what they're made of. Occasionally we learn why they do or don't like rocky road ice cream, you learn what kind of car they have and what, if any, credit cards, and I wonder whether this absence of physical description is designed to make the character more accessible, or whether it is simply a case of showing rather than telling.

2. I read Chuck Palanwhatsits "Pigmy" a couple of months ago and noticed that the most immediate way he describes a character is by the inner monologue, which is in broken english. It is often short, sharp, stocatto, full of references to obscure and fantastically named kung fu moves, and has a militant brevity to it. You get the sense of someone in the thick of a mission from page one, someone who is thinking as they have been trained to think.

3. I began a novel called "Jeremiah 8:20" and it is one of the few over the last few months where the protagonist is described; fat, insecure. I found it boring. The character was sort of one-dimensional.

4. In the 'Anansi Boys' by Neil Gaiman, the protagonist is called "Fat Charlie". Thats one way of describing a character. We learn that he is no longer fact, and wasn't fat for very long, through a brief sojourn into history. Refreshingly, its narrated in the third person - I keep finding new books written in the 1st person, and wonder whether its a trend or fashion in vogue at the moment, or whether its always been that way.

Fat Charlies Father is the god Anansi, and is described quite colourfully, from his leprechaunesque clothes to his death by karaoke and flirtation with the young women at the karaoke band. He appears in a hospital with a full brass band, but isn't playing anything. It's not so much his dress, which is briefly mentioned, but what he does that defines him.

5. In Buchanan's "The 39 Steps", which I've just started, there is an element of history again. A brief account of the protagonists time in London (I guess..) is coloured by his listless and sickened response to it, which is simply described as "I was sick of it". That interested me - the introduction really tells a lot, in the first person, rather than showing it. It is as if Buchanan has a lot of ideas he wants to get off the ground, and is giving the reader a briefing. It works because it isn't drawn out, and again a lot happens.

Having said that, the character is outstaged by the vagrant that visits him in the first chapter - a character who gets much more description. What sticks in my mind is the description of his nervous movements, his ticks, his looking over his shoulder, and his hiding away in a study. Perhaps this being outstaged is part of the authors wider plan, since the protagonist is, after all, rather despondent when first met.

In Conclusion: it seems that what a character DOES, and how they RESPOND to events, is what really gets a character colourful - often there is something that happens immediately that draws you into the character. In the case of "Pygmy" its the broken english and threat of kung fu around every corner - from the first secondary character we meet, the airport guard, Pygmy is planning a way to kill him. This happens with every single character, and - while at times I got bored - I couldn't help wondering who he would eventually kill, and how.

In Anansi, Fat Charlies Dad dies within a couple of pages. Even during this time there is a dog that has an unfortunate reputation established with amusing consequences, the scene in the hospital with the band - by the by, Fat Charlie isn't fat, and you don't often get bands, so there is a continuity here where the action is mirrored in the characters responses, and the responses are mirrored in the action, and there is a harmony of themes within these elements that I have yet to adequately define. I digress ---

In "The End of Mr. Y" (which I read on recommendation) the very first thing that happens is that the university where Mrs. Y works sinks into the ground. You then learn about how curious she is as to what happened, what shes does when it does happen, what she does after; within all of this a routine is established - the drinking of coffee with the neighbour - and interests and motivations are introduced. No where is there a physical description, as far as I can remember.

In short, the creation of a character is a complex thing. The character is not just your response to them, but their response to the world they inhabit. Its what they look like, but its also how they feel, what their history is. I think in every book I've read there has been a brief history of the character right at the start, entwined with or followed by - but rarely pre-empted by - a series of events that illustrate the characters interests and motivations. Within this there is a description of the world through the characters eyes.