books, books, and Still more books.

June has been a busy week. It started with down time with my mom and quickly sped up and has remained at a more or less breakneck pace. I can't wait until tomorrow and it is officially July and I can breathe again.
Still, it will be a more or less momentary reprieve. Work is just that kind of pace in the summer, and so I have to deal.

Once the semester starts I will be happy again and feeling more or less in something resembling control, or so I hope. Until then I get to think about My text books and perhaps slowly but surely buy them a check at a time. Looks like a lot of books eh? Well I have a lot of classes:
American Public Policy
International Relations
Political Attitudes and Behaviors
Physical Oceanography
World Geography
and kill me now but: Fitness for Life

No seriously. Apparently, it's required to the point of not being able to be waived, ever.

I have to admit though, I'm more tempted by the other books on my amazon list...there is this undeniable nerd in me that just screams for solid state physics.


Needless to say, however, that I have not been writing these past couple of weeks. And I'm irritated by it. I still haven't moved past the spot I was last update.
I did however have a very enjoyable lunch with a former professor of mine, food was decent, company was better.
Non sequitur much? (Firefox is advising me that sequitur is not a word...)
Eh, the logic makes sense in my head, but I suppose it only would if you were there.

I do enjoy him though, even if his chosen subject is one that literally hurts my brain, and it does, it's quite painful. (Still, I passed and worked my fingers down to bloody nubs to do it.) Mathematics is something that seeks to describe the universe, I can't help but respect that, though I've always gone about the study of the universe and its inhabitants in a different manner.
Still, it absolutely hurts this brain.

It's worth it, though.


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Listening to: Tool - Parabola
via FoxyTunes

Perhaps I am rigid.

I hate being stuck. Truly. But there sometimes happens that I lose all motivations and momentum in a piece and it can be days, weeks, months, even years before I have it again.
I find it happens when I'm on the verge of a place I want to be a plot spike. I get nervous about making it what I see in my head, what I hear. I want it to live up to my vision of it.
I've been disappointed lately by my progress. I'm getting to the climax of TGTD--which will be a three part climax, separate spikes, I've gotten through two and I'm rather irritated and frustrated with them. They will be revised, but now I am even more nervous about the third.
Of course, I'm generally hard on myself when it comes to prose. What I really need is feedback, but yeah, that is understandably hard to come back 80k words into a sequel novel.
Soon, I'll get through it, I know. Until then, I'll just be frustrated and bury myself in dA work, poetry revision, and perhaps devote a good section of my thought to the primary question that I've sought to answer, though mostly for myself.
I am curious, by which should we judge a man's value and virtue, by his intent, or by his deeds?

That is, assuming each free from each other, an accidental deed vs an actionless intent.

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Listening to: Dead Can Dance - The Host of Seraphim
via FoxyTunes

A Breakdown of Stone

Piece I'm currently trying to focus on for revision as I find myself terribly stuck with TGTD (Sequel to The Betrayer's Promise) at 82,755 words.

"Stone"

On the seventh day of the same clothes,
I tell her to get up and pull her body from the cushion
the specters of "HaMakom Yenachem..."
pulling at her hair in silver chains as she stands.

In the washroom, I undress her,
her body weak and vacant
too frail and heavy to do it herself.
I tip her head back beneath the water
wash the scent of tears from her hair
praying that the salt of them will dislodge the ghosts that grip the strands
trapping the fresh and warming smell of child
and threaten to pull her soul down the drain with them.

With hyssop and rose I cleanse her skin
she begs in a whisper for me to use the pumice.
I cannot deny her
I am too gentle and suddenly she is full of energy
seizes the stone from me
scrubs until the water runs red
and the specters are gone.

I dress her-- she sucks air in her teeth
the starched shirt too stiff on her new skin, and we
step into the light of the day and squint,
our shutter sensitive eyes pounding.

We stand before the dried mound of earth
she shoves her raw hand in a pocket
fingers a small stone, bringing it to the light.
“This is the place,” she says and places the stone.
It is the only one.


----
It's very rough, only having been through one edit so far.

I find myself struggling not only with the above in technical terms but TGTD in content terms. I don't think I can quite articulate my frustration at this point. My characters are being very difficult and I find myself being quite distracted by my own life events and they seem to be seeping into TGTD. It's annoying.
My other projects have found some attention since this stall, including one that will be quite difficult but interesting. It will be a collaboration, and more challenging, one that will cross two standards, American and Australian. How will we negotiate that? Somehow I don't think it will be a problem. The honesty of the piece, now that's another question.

The hardest hurdle in any piece is being honest enough. What do I mean?
Too often we sugar coat things, we dance around meaning, talk around it, soften it's edges, and really, not only is that an insult to the reader but a detriment to the piece itself.

Why do we do this? Perhaps fear and anxiety. It's difficult to take things and put them into that harsh light of realism in part because a writer is just as much of a person as the next. In the back of our minds is the look our mother would give us when she read a piece, it's not exactly pleasant. Solution? Push past it.
Or have a crass mother like mine, that works just as well.

Why this?

This will be a largely private place for my rants, I think. Though we shall see. It's only been about three years since I've had any kind of journal outside of deviantArt.com, I think it is time that I branch out from that again as my role on dA has become much more of the professional like and has stifled me from getting out thoughts that are unrelated to dA. It is just, quite simply, a different mindset. Even now I find myself in a different diction because I'm thinking of all things dA.
But!
If you're interested in my more public life go to my DeviantArt page.
I really do love the place, truly.