September 19, 2023
I must explore alone. I will redefine the quality of being alone for generations to come. The word “alone” will no longer suffice — “aloneness,” the feeling human isolation; “alonetivity,” the alienation from society; “subjectivitis,” the alienation from the objective word; “individualreality,” the division from the former self.
September 15, 2023
A story must be more than merely a story. It must be an examination, of the human heart, of the mind, of the spirit. Of experience and existence. A simple recapitulation of one’s personal past or the delusional suffering of a dysfunctional suburban American family have no merit. Overcoming the reality we believe we live in, debunking fiction and elevating the truth, that is worthwhile.
September 14, 2023
“Ad pulchritudinem tria requirunter:
integritas, consonantia, claritas”
“Three things are needed for beauty: wholeness, harmony, radiance.”
(as translated by “Stephen,” i.e., James Joyce.)
Or more simply integrity, consonance, clarity.
Note that the original is a bit longer, in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica:
Ad pulchritudinem tria requiruntur: Primo quidem integritas sive perfectio: quae enim diminuta sunt, hoc ipso turpia sunt. Et debita proportio sive consonantia. Et iterum claritas.
September 13, 2023
Sometimes I wish I could put my thoughts directly onto paper. I think all the time, about everything…I see pictures in my head, pictures of my past — exact details of what I saw and experienced. Déjà-vu often occurs to me. It’s strange, that feeling of already having been someplace. Sometimes I can tell what’s going to happen in a matter of minutes. I can’t stand things like that — they send chills up my spine.
September 11, 2023
Just because you aren’t paranoid doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you.
September 10, 2023
Way back in 2015, my good friend Rami Z Cohen came to me with an idea for a story. He had written two or three scenes about a group of asteroid hunters who stumbled upon something bizarre. The idea of mining asteroids was news at the time (and still is, although probably too expensive right now and not a worthwhile investment until we actually get some people in space who need metals without relying on NASA/ESA/JAXA/ISRO/etc).
I was more interested in philosophical aspects of finding that we are all (as the late great Carl Sagan loved to put it) “star stuff” (he meant carbon being created by supernovas, but we also know that asteroids are the way we got amino acids to rain down on ancient Earth).
So Rami and I began to email ideas back and forth for a few weeks, then we started to flesh out his characters and plot. I wrote a synopsis and outline and we hashed out the background.
Continue Reading
September 9, 2023
The short story accused of violating the national security law, “Our Time,” is set in a dystopian 2050. It tells of an authoritarian future in which vast swaths of Hong Kong history have been erased from both the city’s structures and the public consciousness, and all aspects of life are subsumed under the Chinese Communist Party.
https://qz.com/hong-kong-s-new-public-enemy-the-cantonese-language-1850780591
I’m not sure this is science fiction. Seems more like reality.
Every political entity wants power. When people resist being controlled, and they use a dialect or another form of the “official” language, those in charge try to eliminate the language of resistance.
When people write about a dystopian future in which they have no right to their own language, customs, ways of thinking and behaving, and political representation — and those in charge respond by banning the fiction — it really only shows the reality. And the reality is this:
Those in charge have small, frail, male egos that need constant stroking. Poor frail eggshell minds.
Language is power, because language is identity. Those in charge are always afraid of losing control over all three. And whenever they respond this way, they always get exactly the opposite of what they want.
September 8, 2023
The lecture about Irish folk songs [note: at the time, I was in the Gaeltacht, west of Galway, learning Irish language] last night, two nights ago, whichever (time has no meaning in this place), was wrong. Why do we write, the léachtóir asked; to communicate; the poet wants to communicate.
No.
That is not why I write. Sometimes I write for fun, to play at words, to play with feelings. Sometimes I try to work out my problems myself in writing (I can’t). Sometimes I write just to relieve tension. Sometimes I write because I have to, because if I don’t get these words out of me and onto paper they’ll rip their way out.
September 5, 2023
Today I talked to virtually no one for the first time in quite a while. It’s almost like meditation. Reminds me of what L said when we were out drinking Friday night (as usual). She and G were talking about scuba diving, about how being underwater hearing only your own breath and hardly being able to see anything unless it’s right in front of you gives you a feeling of being alone in the universe, a feeling of vulnerability and isolation, of insignificance. I commented, “That’s just like meditation.” No reaction.
I don’t need to go scuba diving in the Philippines to experience such a feeling.
September 3, 2023
Why do you blog?
Because I must.
If you ever ask a writer why they write…why they *must* write…there is only ever one answer.
Because they must.
No other answer is required.
And if you do not understand, you should not ask.
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