Your Own Worst Enemy

I did decide that entering NaNoWriMo without enthusiasm would not work, so I quit before I started, not needing the stress. Don't get me wrong - the right kind of pressure helped me complete the task for the last four years, but each of those times I felt excited, nervous, wired, and had those pre-show nerves that can help a great performance.

This year I just felt flat, daunted, bullied by unrealistic expectations of self, and decided not to beat myself up, or tell myself it would get easier after the initial push - even though that remains the ethos of NaNoWriMo.

I wish everyone well, as they enter the last week of November. I remember how it can feel!

Just taking a break.

I lost interest in writing, for the time being. Except for all this trivial posting, which seems more like chatting than attempting to create anything semi-permanent. These words resemble mere sandcastles, before the tide comes in to wash them away again.

Getting Down To It

I can see the 'write-a-novel-in-a-month' challenge looming on the horizon. I have done it, and completed the task, for four years now. This time I have literally no idea of what to write, or whether I even feel up to the task. I need to make a decision soon!

Meanwhile, I have migrated the data from a wiki that we created for the Illuminatus! study group, which never really took off as a collaborative tool. Instead of the wiki structure I have now started building the material as a website, so it does have much more of my own stamp on it. As before, the intention remains to re-read the book with close attention, and to elucidate some more of the puzzles it contains.

The autobiography drove into the sand again, and sits around looking hopeful, like a dog on a rainy day.

The history of NoFit State (another wiki that does not attract contributors) has proved helpful, at least, in so far as the Timeline has helped when we started sorting pictures for display at the 25th Birthday bash, which is coming up. The task has proved dauntingly complicated, and we have huge gaps in the material (posters, programmes, pictures) from the early days - and then an overwhelming amount of choice since the digital picture era.

Imaginary Readers

I guess one of the problems I have with completing a book arises from not having a clear image of any imaginary readers in the future.

In conversation I might have the ability to amuse most people for an hour or two. Some people will inevitably consider me stupid, boorish, arrogant, etc - but I have quite a lot of experience at 'tuning in' to a wide range of people, as teacher, street performer, hitch-hiker, public servant, etc.

Feedback from a listener might tell me to avoid (say) politics or football, religion or eating habits, fashion or beliefs, etc - but given that adaptability we could probably carry on an interesting exchange.


When writing I don't seem to have a clear view of the reader. I could aim it at one person (like a letter - those are the things we did before emails) but once I get past writing for one I seem to get very inhibited.

In real life I talk to people who never swear, and others who always do. My favourite mix probably remains not swearing as punctuation, but saving the occasional swear word to drop in for shock value, emphasis, or for laughs.

Similarly, my cynical approach to the media and public reaction to the Death of Lady Di(for example), or 9/11, might get me a punch on the nose in one situation, and a cheer from another. Nothing to do with feeling sorry for an individual human being, or for 3000 human beings, just saying out loud, or sharing, a sense of the hypocrisy of the media, or politicians, for instance.

In writing a book I don't want to avoid jokes that might only make my friends laugh, but get taken right out of context by some casual reader. As a minor celebrity (about F-List) I have that 'role model' responsibility for young people, so can hardly promote laziness, defend drug-taking, encourage anarchism, mention atheism as an obvious default position, etc without drawing comments from 'concerned parents'.

On the other hand (probably talking about an autobiography now) I can't really talk about how I got here without honesty about my opinions and approach to life - and some of my more exotic experiences. I don't want to offer a Disney version.

Chatting in a bar, or on a bus, I could tailor my anecdotes to suit you...editing on the fly. A book seems a really permanent object which can be held up in court...

I see this (like so many ideas) has bothered others:

My Imaginary Readers at Writing Resources

The Imaginary Reader: the imaginary reader, the real reader, the happy reader

Joyce Scholars, Editors and Imaginary Readers

Treehugger on paper books and e-books

My own worst enemy

I started off so highly motivated - writing projects in hand, the wonderful Scrivener software to play with, a couple of rough drafts to smooth, and/but somehow the year just got away from me.

I guess I will dive into the NaNoWriMo pool again this November - just because it has so far always proven a great way to stay motivated against all my own stubborn resistance. I have no idea why I can't do this for myself, by just setting a deadline.

But hey, I don't like spending time beating myself up. Maybe I really do have to retire from the day job...I've turned 65, and stagger on taking short-term contracts in this insecure job market.

Time to starve in an attic...perhaps...

It's not as if I have been doing nothing...

I know blogs need regular updates, and this one went inert a couple of months back, but hey, I have several blogs...and was writing offline, etc.

No excuses.

I have started savagely rewriting the other two scratch novels (NaNoWriMo) - Handwaving, and Does Not Compute) that I had in the drawer. They may even end up combined. It seems like a long, slow process.

These two I am approaching like zero drafts (that comes before even a first draft).

The first two - Foolproof, and Infinite Monkeys - got printed more or less as they arrived at my fingertips, but not because I thought they were great...just to complete the whole process of manifesting a book...and to figure out how Lulu works. Here's my Lulu 'shopfront'.

I also set up a Wiki, as the first steps in compiling a history of NoFit State Circus, but it doesn't seem to have reached critical mass (to attract other contributors), so it remains (more-or-less) a brief note of the first steps of research (scanned programmes, pictures, etc) than any serious writing (as yet). At least I made a timeline, so it's a start.

And the autobiography simmers away in my head, but no further work got done on it.

All of these projects have proven useful raw material for beta testing Scrivener for Windows.

Lulu, Pedia Press, etc

I decided to go refresh the intro page on Lulu, and perhaps reduce the verbiage.

I hope to add the next two Nano novels, which are currently being edited in the Scrivener for Windows Beta edition - at least to run off proof copies to play with, even if I don't ask Bobby to make me covers yet (as I did for the first two).

I also have the film script "White Crow" which I did for Script Frenzy, so I might put that up as a PDF, at least.

I have enjoyed ending up with portable paper copies, and I have tried most of the formats, from pocket book to A4 spiral-bound.

I don't expect people to actually buy this stuff just yet - as I consider myself a learner - but I need to practice not just writing, but also layout, design, online marketing, etc. I find it easier to learn by actually doing this stuff - and getting a tangible result.

Pedia Press

Apart from Lulu, I also discovered Pedia Press, who allow you to select a bunch of articles from Wikipedia, and then have them made up into a book! I got one copy of all my film work, my own Wikipedia entry (thanks to Colin McEvoy!) and entries for Jim Henson, George Lucas, etc. The paperback makes a convenient reference for when I go to conventions, etc.

An Interesting Distinction

I came across this thesis online (and there's a book at Amazon, too).

Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity

A Portrait of the Artist as a Very Young or Very Old Innovator: Creativity at the Extremes of the Life Cycle

David W. Galenson

in which he attempts to indicate a distinction between what he calls conceptual and experimental innovators.

Abstract

Orson Welles made Citizen Kane, his greatest movie, when he was 25 years old; Frank Lloyd Wright designed Fallingwater, his most famous house, when he was 70. Contrasts as great as this raise the question of whether there is a general explanation of when in their lives great innovators are most creative. For each of seven artistic disciplines, this paper examines a major innovation made by a very young artist, and another made by an old one, with the goal of understanding the role of the artist's age and experience in the accomplishment. The analysis shows why youth was necessary for the innovations of such conceptual artists as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Arthur Rimbaud, Maya Lin, and Orson Welles, all of whom produced their masterpieces before the age of 30, and why extensive experience was necessary for the innovations of such experimental artists as Piet Mondrian, Elizabeth Bishop, Henrik Ibsen, and Frank Lloyd Wright, all of whom made major contributions after the age of 60.

This paper demonstrates the generality of the distinction between conceptual and experimental innovators in artistic disciplines, and the value of the analysis in explaining the very different relationships between age and creativity for the two types of artist.