Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

All I've written lately is brief LJ entries, comments on other people's LJs, and snippets in my notebook (some of them dubious quotes from the material I'm proofreading, such as "Bi flora: there's nothing like it").

But I was IMing with barberio the other night, and he mentioned a wordcount, and somehow that inspired me to something resembling action (papersky's incredible recent wordcounts have inspired awe but not imitation). I now have, at least, a hardcopy of the (small bit of) one of the works-that-I'd-like-to-be-in-progress, and have tucked it into my notebook.

I even took it with me when I went to sit outside this afternoon after eating my sandwich. I then spent a profitable but not relevant ten or fifteen minutes watching ants crawl around. (By the nature of this story, any non-human species I can observe in the present is probably irrelevant to it.)

Anyone have a good books/reading/writing icon they'd be willing to share?

To yonmei, in response to her post "Reality is who you argue with":

This makes sense to me.

Argument is a species of conversation. It combines thought and emotion. Of course if I've argued with someone, they're real. I might not respect them--especially if I discover later that they were arguing just to try to get people angry--because some of the real people are obnoxious or stupid. That's true offline, and I wouldn't expect it to be any different online.

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To pleonastic, who was writing about what defines polyamory:

You are a wise fish.

That said, I think that there are weird, fuzzy boundary areas--for example, the people whose approach to serial monogamy is to continue with relationship A while shopping for partner B aren't really poly, because they don't actually love more than one person, they just want to hang on to the security, financial convenience, or sex with A whom they no longer love, or no longer love in that way. I'm also inclined to exclude the sort of cheaters for whom the secrecy is part of the allure: the ones who run away when a poly person says "yes, I'm interested, let's talk to my partner."

And I agree that acting on it isn't necessary to being polyamorous: lack of partners doesn't make someone not gay, or not bi, or not het either.

And my comments to elisem's post that sparked pleonastic's post (this version has been modified after thinking about an excellent comment papersky made to me. Addenda in dark blue):

The thing about defining polyamory as zie does there--as the capacity for romantically loving more than one person at a time--is that I suspect that's the default/common human condition, which we are trained not to act on, or to be guilty and secretive about (cheating is far more widely understood than open, honest, polyamory). This doesn't mean everyone wants, or has the energy for, more than one relationship at a time (some don't want any, and some happily choose to focus that energy on one person), but that many, perhaps most, of us can and will love more than one person at a time, though we may not act on all those loves. Given the history of the term, and who's using it, I think "polyamorous" does, and should, carry the meanings of "multiple acknowledged relationships". This doesn't mean you have to be out to the world; it does mean your partners all know about each other.

Communication is, imho, an essential tool for good relationships, poly or mono (and whether or not there's a sexual/romantic component), but I don't think it's inherent to the concept of faithfulness. Trust, consent, and communication connect to each other, and are all powerful, but my model doesn't have a single term for all three.

[At this point, a nod to Whitman's "Very well, I contradict myself".]

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In response to a long, thoughtful post by misia about writing, reading, and the choices made in those processes:
And if facts are like pearls, not only can they lose their luster, but it matters which we pick up, and what order we string them in. (I may have now confused everyone except misia, by continuing with the Le Guin quote.)

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In response to a comment by rysmiel to Misia's above-mentioned entry, and the question of how much the writer can, and should, describe/say/explain:

A consistent, coherent narrative, yes--though there are times that reality itself seems to be failing at that aim.

Sorry, where was I? Right. Consistent and coherent, but not necessarily complete. (Paging Kurt Gödel....) As for relevant, there's both "what does the reader find relevant?" and "How much am I prepared to share, or to explain?" With the former, the reader may not care about my aunt's hybrid cat, who lived to the age of 22--though if I mention that Dixie was bred by my aunt's ex-husband who also raised tigers, that may make it more relevant. Or may take us off to a digression on tigers and Duke and lemurs. The latter hits both "None of their business" lines and "I don't want to explain this, because most people already know it and will be bored."

Word count so far this morning, 148, not counting notes to myself. That's the first on this novel since last March, though; I also did some rereading to figure out about where things stand.

Further posts along this line will be in the "talk about writing" filter; if you're on my friends list and want to opt in, just say so.

Addendum: if you post regularly about writing, you're probably already in that filter.

OK, now what? I thought this scene was going to be a hinge, but it's left Olivia no closer to a decision. It's a hinge for Mrs. Fish, and maybe for the story, but the only decision my protagonist has made in this section is to call her office and say she'll be in late.

Word count: this chapter, 1565 so far; today, 1132 and possibly counting; total, 63,208

I'm working on one of the hinge points, where Mrs. Fish has reached her decision and the other aliens have to discuss it with her. Not sure what they decide, and what she does will be based on what Crescent says. At the instant, I think I need some outside event, either someone intruding or a medical problem (the alien equivalent of anything from a faint to a heart attack). Mutter mutter mutter, while cattitude paces with an O'Reilly reference book in hand.

I've set up a friends group for "discussion of writing." It's small, mostly people who also post about their writing process. If you want to be in it--or don't and think you may already be--let me know.

I've rounded out one (short) chapter that was in progress from December, and begun another. Wordcount so far today is 565, the first actual pieces of the novel I've written since 22 December.

In general, I'm feeling much better physically and mentally than I was yesterday.

I wasn't going to make any New Year's resolutions, and I haven't, but papersky and rysmiel and Zorinth and I were discussing plans for this year, and I said--and still mean, this morning--that I plan to finish at least a first draft of the novel-in-progress. It is cool discussing works in progress with other people who write, and being taken seriously. cattitude is very supportive, but we don't have the same kind of conversations about writing that I can have with Papersky and Rysmiel.

Part of why I'm hesitant to make too many plans is that somewhere in October, I made the plan to do Nanowrimo, figuring that was a plan for November,and it's grown. And it is a good thing that is growing here, but I don't have room for too many good things of that size, especially since I need to either continue to do a bunch of freelance work, or find a full-time job.

There are cons I want to go to, and I will get to some of them, but details depend in part on how work falls out. (And the latest email from Rafiq includes a change of personnel at that end, and a request that we include a list of sources. I'm willing, but I wasn't tracking that as I went, and how do you source "I've known this since I got my degree in this field"?)

(I may write about the Varna exhibit, and navigating on ice, and the Biodome, when I'm back in New York.)

elisem asked people to post their contributions to her haiku/earring not-exactly-contest to her journal. I wound up with two sets of earrings. For the second set, Twilight's Beacons (each has one large hollow bone
bead, with star-shaped holes carved into it; two blue and one copper bead above, one blue below), I wasn't happy with my haiku. After thought and discussion, I wound up with this prose poem:

Twilight's Beacons

Emerging from the chaos and endless waiting of the terminal, we boarded a coach, over roads never seen before, but the birds are the same, the trees are the trees of home, and the sky on my planet is still blue, only a deep purple through the front window, above the same green world. Road names speak of other places--Harlem, Shattuck--as the twilight settles upon us.

Darkness ahead, of rain much beloved, but also feared. Lightning leaps for the clouds, leading us onward, and the sky on my world is a pale nameless not-quite-blue as the red setting sun shows me the place my people are calling home, for a little while.

Vicki Rosenzweig
Madison, 27 May 2001

I think I know what I want to do next: I want to be Molly Ivins. Unfortunately, the job is taken.

Okay, I don't want to live in Texas. But I want a column like hers, on politics and related subject, with a broad, syndicated readership, and people who'll buy the books.

Is there any way to get there without a journalism degree?

Elise's haiku challenge was a poetry game: she put out pairs of earrings, and if you liked a pair, you could ask their name. From that, we created haiku: either with those words, or something close to them, as part of the poem, or something related to them. Enough structure to be interesting and useful, and nobody had to play.

The pair I'm wearing today are named "Twilight Beacon." Beads of blue glass and carved water-buffalo bone.

I'm still fiddling with the haiku, trying to get it right. Having a quiet half hour in the Green Room--the other two people there were sitting and writing--I also wrote a prose poem on the theme. With two words and a pair of earrings, an overly difficult trip to Wiscon became something else, a piece of the voyage home, and the color of the sky.

Elise and I handed a piece of paper back and forth, editing as we went, with occasional comments like "I know you love that word"; "no, I love the two around it" and "how about a comma here?" while Mike and Lise talked theatre at the same dinner table.

There are a lot of reasons I love Wiscon--this is a new one, or a new cluster of them.

Here's one version, pulled together this morning because I left all the papers at home:

Past alien fields

Home at last. Lightning flashes

a twilight beacon.

[The date and time above are Sunday evening of Wiscon.]