liquid06

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:49:34 -0800

This article is from last year (two years ago since it's 2010 now) but I hadn't seen it previously. I find the discussion of social connections and digital intimacy incredibly fascinating.

in Bb 2.0 - a collaborative music/spoken word project

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:22:36 -0800

It's really neat how the visitor to this site is watching and listening to something beautiful, but it's something they created themselves.

A thought on Twitter

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 17:47:49 -0800

Don't you ever look at your list of tweets on your home page and think about just how far you have to mentally jump to understand some of them? Then when you do get them, does the proximity of them ever cause you to try to relate them? One person is tweeting about their dead dog or how they went to visit their sick grandmother while another user just one tweet down the list has made a fart joke. So does it make that person insensitive and a jerk? They don't know they've been placed next to more somber messages. How does context (or lack thereof) change the message

Ginger and David - Married January 1, 2010!

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 09:08:06 -0800

We had a lovely wedding on New Years Day.

[untitled work in progress]

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:06:31 -0800

Sarandon had a big meeting in the morning. She was walking slowly to her room, hotel key in hand, suitcase rolling along behind her on its old-fashioned leash. Down the hallway of doors that all looked the same with different numbers on them, past a room-service cart and a few more 'do not disturb ' signs. **thought: it really is disorienting when your only unique physical landmark is something with wheels** She walked as if she were part of a wedding ceremony. Step-together, step-together, not too fast. Stay with your partner she thought about how much the contract would mean to the family business - a large catering company was interested in a contract with Sarandon's family business, a flowershop. Sarandon felt the weight of responsibility for the business. her parents transferred ownership two years ago, as a wedding gift. Sarandon's now-husband wasn't too interested in helping to run the business - he saw it as an investment. Jon was a banker - or rather, director of a bank. It was a branch of a national company, but Jon still felt proud to be the highest position at his office. It carried some responsibility, but not as much as Sarandon's job. It's hard to keep your employees happy when they're all members of your family! And it's hard to give your workers decent pay when there isn't a lot of work to be done. The flower shop was in really bad business shape. not many people seemed to need flowers lately. This contract would give the shop as much work as they could handle for years to come. The director of the catering company began her career as the owner of a family-run shop as well, and that was the common ground Sarandon hoped they would be able to build a working relationship on. Her family had given up a part of their salary this week so that Sarandon could go to the northern city to seek this meeting at the catering company's headquarters. Satandon thought about what their conversation might be like. She arrived at her room, put the key in and entered. She left her suitcase by the desk in the room and her key on the night table. She turned around and found herself facing a mirror. She practiced her pitch just one more time. She had rehearsed it som many times for her brothers and her aunt, but she didn't want it to seem rehearsed. Just natural and passionate. To really communicate in a genuine way all the reasons shy her family business would add a local, personal touch to every event the company catered, and it would add value to the company reputation because of Sarandon's connections in the community and the way customers knew her personally. If given the opportunity, she thought she might tell the story of the forlorn bride, whose flowers fell victim to a careless groomsman just an hour before the ceremony. As the bride-to-be stared in horror and disbelief at the bouquet, crushed by the derrierre of a rather large member of the wedding party, she reached for her phone. Sarandon had personally assembled a new bouquet, even more beautiful than the first and arrived at the wedding location just in time to present it to the bride. She wasn't distressed any more because she knew Sarandon and trusted that she would arrive with the new bouquet in time. That kind of trust, and being well known in the community was not something that a shiny new unfarmiliar franchise coule do on their own., And Sarandon hoped they could see that. Perhaps they already have - after all she had a meeting scheduled with the head of the Western division - this person's time is quite valuable. Sarandon wanted to plan out her talking points thoroughly because she was known for rambling at times. Observing her own dark complexion and black hair in the mirror, she tried again, as she had so many times rehearsed, to show an expression of confidence. She thought she was getting rather good at it, too. But she didn't want to have even a seed of doubt that her proposal would be rejected. She changed into her pajamas, climbed into the hotel bed and set the alarm clock. Then she re-read the proposal for the ninety-second time. Setting it aside, and turning over to sleep, Sarandon finally dreamed of how the meeting would go. She found herself alone in a long hallway. Shining black walls gave a slight glimpse of her reflection, her shoes clicked against a reflective white stone floor. One wall behind her meant there was only one way she could go - so she went. The hall was bare as far as she could see - and she coudn't see the end of the hall. she walked for quite awhile before she started to notice features creeping into the walls and ceiling. They started out small - tiny doors where a baseboard might be grew gradually taller and wider as she walked down the hallway. A tiny chandalier advanced from a tiny blip to nearly hitting Sarandon on the head as she walked. She watched her reflection in the shining wall as she went, now punctured by doors in a steady rhythm. The doors interrupting her line of vision caused her reflection to panic, and it mutated and stretched in ways that makde it no longer look like her. And they seemed to be moving faster and faster! Sarandon started getting dizzy and stopped short to examine her reflection, but the walls kept moving very fast.

a working library: Ritual and Repetition

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:43:24 -0800

Only in a repetitive ritual can one really know, practice, understand and mature in a craft/creative pursuit. Twyla Tharp writes that thinking of the activity as a ritual transforms the activity.

Telling the story

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:15:40 -0800

Have you ever looked back through an old journal or at a blog post from a long time ago and not quite understood why you wrote what you did? You think: okay, on the 23rd of January I rode in the back seat of the car, and mom and I went to the grocery store on the corner of Hazel and Tam. So, what was so important about that? I have a lot of unsuspecting scenarios like that as I go through my daily routine. There's nothing outwardly special about them, but sometimes they have strong symbolism that I tend to remember. Some experiences have distant references to things that happened months, years, I don't know how long ago. These things could have happened in a dream for all my foggy memory knows, but the feeling is the same, and that triggers a memory ghost. When I write about these things and read them back to myself, it doesn't sound like anything even remotely interesting - it sounds like an everyday journal. And I see that words, simply read aloud, do not conjure the visions and feeling of the history and memory that I attribute to them on their own. These particular strings of words, certain events, people or situations that have meaning to me mean nothing to others because they're on the outside of the joke. They have no idea why the word 'kiwi' is funny or why saying 'bofus' after 'focus' makes perfect sense. As someone who keeps a journal and who is trying to improve at writing, recently I've been thinking about the space between the story in its raw form, as it happened in my words, and the way that the audience is able to share that feeling. I find the dilemma similar to that of being a professor or teacher. How do you interpret the gap between what you've taught to students and what they do with the skill or knowledge they've gained? I guess my role as a writer is a bit like the job of a teacher. To explore the story until I uncover and can articulate the essence. Then once I have the essence of the experience, I have to think about how to transform it into a story with just enough information to let readers feel it. I've never really thought of an audience in this way before, but really they cause you to think about the essence of the message you're trying to communicate. And by being there (if you remember they're there, anyway) they help frame the feeling you want to transfer so it's more likely to be received. I'll be leaving the more difficult parts that don't make sense to most people (even me) obscured in an old journal. Then if someone comes across the raw story in an attic or dumpster somewhere years from now, even if they read the whole thing they would not understand its significance. I guess that's why I feel that journaling about personal experiences is important - because these are made unique by a backstory that only you know. It's just an inside joke for one.

Why hello there!

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 13:37:21 -0800

Why hello there!

Up too late, think I'm getting sick...

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:46:35 -0800

Up too late, think I'm getting sick...

Oh hello, fail whale!

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:23:18 -0800

Oh hello, fail whale!

I forgot to update that I was a winner! Now what to do with these 63 pages...

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:44:39 -0800

I forgot to update that I was a winner! Now what to do with these 63 pages of messy writing? :)

Ugh. Salon takeover marathon thing. Yuck. Need some noise canceling...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:11:57 -0800

Ugh. Salon takeover marathon thing. Yuck. Need some noise canceling headphones...

Watching David play Dragon Age. It's such a good game!

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:19:54 -0800

Watching David play Dragon Age. It's such a good game!

Posemaniacs.com

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:33:24 -0800

Amazing resource for figure drawing references!

Whew! The Nano counter shows that I have fewer words than Writer says, but...

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:37:30 -0800

Whew! The Nano counter shows that I have fewer words than Writer says, but that's OK, I'm just about caught up anyway. :)

Limericks for Naughty Children No. 2

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:20:42 -0800

I keep getting distracted by awesome stuff. Like this!

8,733 words behind - yikes! type type type

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:52:24 -0800

8,733 words behind - yikes! *type type type*

I just realized that even though my story takes place in a small town where...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:05:47 -0800

I just realized that even though my story takes place in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, there are quite a few characters who I haven't named. I'm so bad with names!

Up far too early for my own good.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:00:34 -0800

Up far too early for my own good.

Editing plans

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:00:59 -0800

One of the things I like about the internet and uploading my own work is that finality. An invisible audience on which I can project critiques and expectations that force me to improve my work when I'm creating something for them. And the internet is a big part of the strength of nanowrimo as well - the online support is amazing, and I have a desire to post what I have written for the sake of completing it - of playing my story against that invisible audience. But my story is all over the place. I've started on a fantasy with no outline, so I find myself with disproportionate and at times ridiculous amounts of exposition scattered throughout the action. I have light dialogue and not much action in some parts, and the balance needs to be shifted so it's not completely boring to read. I thought of an ending first, so I wrote that and now I'm adding to the middle. What a mess! Since I don't have time for editing during November (and that's not the point anyway), I've decided to devote December through February to editing and rework. December - Make an outline and organize the major events in the story. This is working backwards because I didn't start out with an overall outline, but I really need to re-organize some of the action and I may need to change some major events that occur in the story. January - Divide outline into chapters and balance out the exposition. What does the reader need to know when? How can the story stay interesting and keep the reader immersed all the details of the surroundings and the backstory? February - Chapter-level editing. Grammar, rhythm, transitions, typos, deleting things that are awful and reworking things that don't make sense. (I expect that not too much of what I've written will make sense, so I'm planning for a lot of re-work). And promising here to an almost-completely-invisible virtual audience will make it all the more likely that I'll carry out my plan of editing action. So thank you, virtual non-readers, for helping me achieve my goals. :)