Starting stuff, and finishing stuff

"When you aren't in school, you should be working. Getting money."--John (paraphrased)

I do a lot of stuff by feeling. Writing especially. If things feel right, I go with them. If I come to a spot and I find that I'm trying too hard for the words to come out, often I find that means I'm doing something that doesn't fit. Usually I'll plow through, come back to it later. But a lot of the times that means a hang-up of hours, or days, or months.

I spent November revising a story. This morning, I metaphorically put it in an envelope, slapped some stamps on it, and a return address sticker with an ostrich chicky on it, then put it in the mail. (Metaphorically did the first three. I put the return address and the mailing address on't a week ago, and the stamps on't last Saturday. Only mailed it today. Waited for the weekend in case I forgot anything.) It is done. I have a feeling. Not only that, I have begun thinking about, like, other things. OTHER THINGS, I tell you. Last night, I imagined this short story in two or so parts about cool stuff, and...and...and this other one I can't remember. But the point is, my instincts tell me that, for now at least, this story that I sent to a magazine is well and truly finished. I have no nagging doubts about its content, and I cannot think of anything which I should have changed.

A calmness and clearness of mind that could be dashed to insecure nail-biting in half a sentence by any of the group, no doubt. But it feels nice now.

What does that have to do with John saying, "Go, grift for money,"? Nothing whatever. I'm motivating myself to get a job.

Strong Coffee octothorpe one

Unfiltered stream of consciousness: Start time: 2:35.

Ready...go!

Hannibal [the two famous Hannibals: Hannibal called Canibal, and Hannibal who attacked the Romans over the alps on elephants and thusly took them completely by surprise. They expected Hannibal, they expected the alps. The elephants took them completely agawp]. whoop, have a banana. The alps are a mountain range in, near, around, and outside of Sitzerland. Swiss cheese. Switzerland had the Swiss, and they didn't speak Swedish. Sweden speakers of the Swedish. Swedes weren't neutral. I don't even know if Sweden had been invented when there were any World Wars. Switzerland was neutral. They were neutral, and so all the people from The Great Escape wanted to go to Switzerland and buy Swiss Army Knives and holey cheese. Not holy. Holy meaning sanctified. (Not sanctimonious. Nor sacrosanct. Although sacrosanct would, conceivably, be closer. Sacrement and sanctify and sacrosanct seem to have things in common.) The Great Escape, where the Aussie got away without incident. Coincidence? Probably. Australia, like siberia, was the place where bastard imperialists of ancient days sent their criminals. The criminals proliferated, and now they have their own countries. Australia has the lowest murder rate--apparently--and Siberia has tigers. [Tigers of siberia are more bigger than Tigers of India. India has all the small versions of bigger animals. Like elephants.] Where did Hannibal, not a canibal, get his elephants? There aren't any elephants in Europe. He must have imported them from India. Where everyone is castrated, and that's why they speak in high voices. {David Beckham. Craig Furguson. Broken DVD player. Fixed DVD player. Uncle needs a hard drive.}

Ending time: 2:45.

Whoa...

Doctrine: noun

"These students are, with one exception, all traditional, fresh out of high school, students. Fresh out of the public K-12 education system which indoctrinates all students in The Writing Process (Yup, it's capitalized, and singular) in which there is a right and wrong way to do everything from come up with an idea to presenting the final, five-paragraph, product."--Ali's blog.

Main Entry:
doc·trine
Pronunciation:
\ˈdäk-trən\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French, from Latin doctrina, from doctor
Date:
14th century

1 archaic : teaching, instruction
2 a: something that is taught b: a principle or position or the body of principles in a branch of knowledge or system of belief : dogma c: a principle of law established through past decisions d: a statement of fundamental government policy especially in international relations e: a military principle or set of strategies

Courtesy of Merriam and Webster's online dictionary. Thanks guys.

I don't know the doctrines of the K-12 writerly education program. Why? I have not one small ounce of experience with them. Until I was eighteen years old, I didn't have the smaugiest idea what sort of thing might be taught at a school about wording. I wasn't curious, because I was doing the dandy dance on my own, and with help from friends and family whenever I found myself at a loss for word choice, as it were.

How, then, did I learn what subtle nuances and such strangities for to constitute the written wording? Reading, mostly. And listening--spoken stresses associated with grammar and punctuation are telling. Then through a great deal of emulation. Emulation being the important step. Through it I learned accuracy and what style is. After learning, therefore, this accuracy and the constitute parts of style, I could begin on this lengthy, bredthy, wigging quest for that remarkable creature: originallity.

That was my wording education. Gee, it was fun. Honing, I'm on the honing stage now, I think. I inherited from my grandfather--a writering chappy as well--a good many college textbooks of grammar and such. I have been going through them, and learning names for things. Quite educating.

This process will not work for everyone. Some people are dunces, and need doctrine. Some people are dunces, and should leave writing well enough alone. But this worked for me.

A strange datum: Elseplace in the blog that Ali wrote, which I have quoted above, she said something about these same indoctrinated dunces writing brainstorming papers in paragraphs. And I found myself confused. My brainstorming takes the form of paragraphs, some of the time. About half the time. Most of the brainstorming sessions I have which I write down are written in paragraphs. The ones on only one or two or three or four subjects are divided into paragraphs. My worry went thus: does my tendency to divide logical divisions of my thinking with a paragraph break make me an indoctrinated dunce?

Answer being, with some strange balance of crazy and logical: no. I have never recieved a doctrine, not when I was young and impressionable anyway. And afterwards, doctrines on wording all appeared little more than opinions. Opinions of the opinionated, who were getting paid to preach.

So yeah. That was weird.

Marv

I just watched Sin City. Freaking cool movie. Weird, violent, but cool. I liked that it was about the city, so they could do a bunch of short stories and they didn't need to hold together.

My favorite character was Marv. I loved the kind of crazy he had. Made his story possible.

It was funny, in a weird and strange way, the whole movie was. Sometime people say, "the stuff that nightmares are made of." Or maybe just I say that. Either way, it's something to say which implies scariness. I realized, though, watching Sin City that every time I've used that phrase "the stuff that nightmares are made of," I wasn't using it right. I was using it for scary things that I never once dreamed about. Sin City, though, looked in the way it was shot and the way people were moving and the things they were doing and the way they were talking and the level of sound effects, like all my worst nightmares. Weird.

How I'm doin', tiny.

NaNo. Sixty thousand words, thirty days. Two thousand words a day. Fifty words a minute. Forty minutes a day.

Good luck, tinies.