Tag Archives: Writing

imagination

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Can the imagination truly be a flight of ideas or is it a byproduct of an experiential base? Where does the idea of a flying car come from if you have no vehicle, chariot or the first ford?

The imagination is sparked by something that causes the leap into a fantastical idea that seems to have no bounds.

As i sit on the airplane and at times gaze out the window (from the aisle) i see the clouds and with a past filled with my experiences i see the rabbits and snakes and mountain tops and other objects my mind shows me as it tries to make sense of what it is beholding. Continue reading →

Long time no write…

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It’s been over a month now since I’ve written online (still writing in my journal) for one main reason.

I’ve been researching self-hosted vs a managed host for wordpress or just staying put. I recognize that I can over research information and this is one of those cases. I’ve had ideas for things I want to write about and while that isn’t an issue, putting media into a post has seemed like it would be tricky to move over to another site. Continue reading →

Put up or shut up!

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Talk is not cheap.

Words are not inexpensive.

Passion behind words can be just as draining as a physical activity. Many of us have had to speak in front of a group and felt drained after.

A speech from someone can invigorate your soul, emotionally charge you, give you energy and maybe even help heal you.

We read quotes, hear speeches. The pep talk can place you into a new mindset where the impossible can now be realized.

The energy given by one person multiplied again by each person that it touches. That which can motivate to a positive change or enflame people into a mob. History determines the outcome.

We have phrases. “Put up or shut up.” “The deeds make the man.” “The pen is mightier than the sword.” “Do or die.” “Actions speak louder than words.”

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

http://www.quotegarden.com/action.html

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/actions

Quote after quote tries to give the idea that the end action is the important aspect no matter what is said or thought.

But what about one who has ill thought and does an action that appears good. Is that person now good? What if the action that was done was not intended for good but the end effect was good? History may count that person as having done a good deed. Do those actions speak louder than words?

The wise thing to say would be to keep our thoughts and actions both good but even that is not enough when you see that these are still subjective notions we are trying to apply.

Perhaps my action was in the writing and hopefully these words aren’t cheap.

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

fiction in reality, reality in fiction, reality from fiction

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The way I see it books of fiction, not including fantasy, are based with experiences or imagination but modified. That’s why they aren’t non-fiction, although one could argue some non-fiction books based in history are subject to the research of the writer which itself can be tainted and not wholly factual. In the reality of the life in general people try and avoid it and lie to others and themselves to make it through day to day.

Reality in fiction

In any writing that I’ve done, either here or in pursuit of producing a work of literature more than a few pages, I take what I know and what I’ve learned, or think I know and learned, and try to apply it to a fictional world and life of someone else to make a new fictional reality, one in which I hope that someone reading it would lose themselves and experience a possibility that I tried to relate to and they might find themselves empathizing with. Wow. Long sentence and probably grammatically wrong in there somewhere.

Poetry, short stories, novellas, plays, novels. All the same as far as writing goes for me and how I approached them as above. A better writer may do more research to create their world and characters. If/when I get around to either cleaning up something I’ve written or more likely writing something new, maybe I’ll find out for myself if I can do it from my head and ego or do I need to do some intense research to make it through my own fake world.

Fiction in Reality

*Disclaimer* I have a tv but I can’t remember the last show I actually followed or watched. It was a choice to stop since I found myself trying to keep up with shows instead of living my life and that darn HDDVR seemed to become the center of my world. The struggle to get through the shows before it filled up and deleted something I hadn’t seen. Now I rarely turn on the tv for a show. It’s mainly for watching movies.

Why are there so many reality tv shows out there? Why are we fascinated by the lives of others that are possibly so removed from our own that we can’t really make a connection? I can’t say that I empathize with a rich single attractive bachelor with scores of (mostly) hot women that seem to be willing to do just about anything to have him pick her for a lifetime of supposedly blissful happiness. The thing is I’ve probably only seen a handful episodes and only then because someone else was watching it at the time. The bachelorette, survivor, 16 and pregnant, toddlers and tiaras, the amazing race, the biggest loser, kate (and john) plus 8, top chef, hells’ kitchen, extreme home makeover, undercover boss, cops, celebrity apprentice, and the list can go on and on.

On a personal level I find some of these shows not to be so bad and others make me want to puke and question if man will one day be ‘civilized’ before we die off from a nuclear disaster or a biological experiment gone wrong. Not necessarily bioterrorism. It could be something genetically modified that is thought to be harmless.

What about those shows that aren’t ‘reality’ themed in nature but just a regular tv show. Breaking bad, in plain sight, heroes, six feet under, mad men, etc. I think I could argue these are in their own way reality style shows. It seems to be a difference in the level of fakeness. In heroes, there is a fictional reality based in the possible sci-fi of genetics. In the sopranos, they took a fictional mob family and ran with it. Both of these are based on some sense of a past, present or future reality. How is that much different from the biggest loser where people are placed in a fictional world where all expenses are taken care of, they don’t work or have to pay for meals and the services of a personal trainer to possibly lose me in weight. Then they go home at some point either from losing or at the end and they must maintain themselves. I don’t know how many actually continue on their own and keep off the weight. It still seems like a constructed fake reality. I can empathize with the desire and need to get back into shape and I face the reality of it each and every moment. I remember my father and his weight and I struggle to force myself into a better shape. For my own health, as an example to others and because I superficially just want to look better in the mirror.

Reality from Fiction

The reality in the fiction of any denial I have is that I have work to do. There is no fiction in this reality on mine that I can avoid. While reading and education can help me learn how to help myself, no amount of tv watching or news reading will take a single calorie off my gut if I don’t do it myself. But perhaps, just maybe, sometimes we can use fiction to create a new reality. The elite athlete might lie to himself by saying that he is the best or fastest to get his mind into the right place and maybe create a reality where he does win. A state of mind helping one to achieve a goal. I can envision myself in a time and place where I was thin and in good shape and could run a sub-20 minute 5k and can use that to motivate myself to keep working on myself. I was there once, why can’t I get close to it again? I don’t think I’ll easily get back to that person but why not make a good effort at it.

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

In the end the turkey still loses

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Why the following has latched onto my brain I don’t know, but I feel like this is leading to some great epiphany or a great madness. Either could be a fun ride.

Stuffing. Such a simple word. Yet it can mean three different things.

The act, the food, the stuff in objects.

Here we go. I am stuffing the stuffing into the turkey. I am stuffing the stuffing into the cushion.

Language is so interesting sometimes when I actually pay attention to it as I use it but really when I hear or read it from someone else. I have a facebook friend that chooses to write in what seems like a foreign twisted version of the english language. The thing is I can actually understand what she writes, mostly. Even though I had never seen those letters combined in such a way, they mostly made sense. I’m perplexed. I don’t know why I’m perplexed but I am.

Isn’t that somewhat how language works?

You start making your own sounds and hearing from others and you watch people talking and you watch those lip movements. You then start to mimic these. You get feedback and repetition. Then the dreaded alphabet. We have it lucky. If my random knowledge holds, I think the Chinese language has about 10,000 characters. Right? We have 26 to use to make words. 10,000! I think my brain just had a seizure. I can’t imagine someone knowing all of the characters AND the words they make up. But I’m sure they need to know more than 26 characters.

It’s still interesting that the English/American language (I don’t say footpath) is still considered a complicated language. I do get it. I read (present tense) things from people who live here that can’t use basic language skills. Like college level people who are still working on writing a complete sentence and paragraph. Not to say I don’t make mistakes when I write. I do. I also take liberties with the language. I don’t always write complete sentences.

If you get a chance to talk to someone who wasn’t born here or had a very proper education you can immediately tell the difference. The spelling and grammar are usually spot on. Unfortunately maybe because we don’t write so good it can seem mechanical and too precise. Like the way most real-life animated creatures are obviously fake and we’re ok with that but those animated creatures that are getting closer to acting/looking like humans just creep us out. They are on the edge but just not good enough yet. We can still spot the difference.

Getting back…

After the alphabet, we work on combining them into things we call words. C. A. T. = ?

It’s ok if you missed that one. Everyone needs a goal to strive for. But it’s not just how you put those letters together. It’s the other words around it that can give it meaning and how to pronounce it. I have read (red) it. I will read (reed) it. Then there are the words that sound alike. I will right the problems when I write about rites. This is a quintuple doozy since right and write and rite sound alike and right can be to correct, the direction, and a claim. You read the sentence and if you know of the rules you can understand what it means. It’s the rules and the corollaries to the rules and the exceptions to the rules and the exceptions to the exceptions (I made this last one up), that confuse the crap out of people who trying to figure out the language. A perverse reason I wish we could read and write american better as a country.

As this year progresses ponder on the nature of the word and be thankful at thanksgiving that we can communicate. And as I said, in the end the turkey still loses, unless it’s tofurkey.

Yeah I know, I stretched at the end to bring it back to the title. I can’t say it deviated from the intent since this one grew as I put thought to electron.

Hoping for a more educated world.

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

Resurrection

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I remember a time in life, high school specifically, when I knew I wanted to be a writer. No matter what anyone else said or put in my path, I was pointed in one direction and marching forward, be damned the obstacles in my way. I never cared to be a great student. Too much work for an A+ when a B+ or A- left me to do other things.

I remember a national writing contest when I was in AP English. My dreams were coming true. I was going to take something I had written and polish it up and submit it. I would be recognized and maybe someone would help me to become that much of a better writer. I would show everyone who said that I couldn’t do it or that I’d never make a life of it.

For about four months I spent most nights working to clean up one chapter of a book I had already started working on. It wasn’t the first thing I had started but the first that I had dedicated myself to for that length of time and pages.

Night after night. Page after page I went line by line and tried to make sure the story was clear, the dialogue made sense, characters were introduced and growing. Like many first chapters this was the beginning, of the book and my future. I filled out the application, printed off the chapter and reread it one more time for anything major I would need to correct before handing it to my teacher to look over and submit.

Gently placing it all in a manila envelope I handed it off to her with plenty of time in my mind. Time to wait. Time to agonize over what someone else thought of it. First the teacher then the competition. No one had ever read anything I had written before unless it was in secret without my knowledge.

Weeks went by after the deadline then a couple of months. I was nervous at this time. I took the time to approach the teacher to see if she had heard back or if there was a problem.

She told me she never got around to it and therefore never submitted it.

Stunned would be such a low approximation of that moment. I wanted to yell at her after I recovered.

I was crushed. Everyone was right. This writing crap was a waste of time and energy and I would never amount to anything.

In college I took a few writing classes. Poetry and short fiction. I produced some nice pieces in my mind but it was just work for class. I was dead inside.

I’ve been working on my journal/blog for a relatively short time now and it’s always felt good to write. When I produced Agapeopsis it felt better than good. It felt great. I was alive. Resurrected into a new life and opportunities. It’s not the same as before. Then it was a goal to be a full-time writer. Now it will continue to be something I do when I can. A refound love. A worthy sacrifice.

I’ve been writing for myself really all this time. A cleansing of the spirit. But today with my fifth follower, I was glowing. I remember the passion and joy now in knowing someone else was interested in something I had to say. These people CHOSE to follow me. Ok. Four of the five did. I won’t count family. But four people I don’t know somewhere in the world wanted to see what I wrote. Hot damn! I still plan on writing for myself but I have a new drive as well. Not to gain new followers although that would be nice but to give peace and joy to another even if there was only one other.

Thanks to everyone that reads and I would appreciate comments just to know if what I’m writing is even making sense or touching you. That’s better than a follower but you’re welcome to do both. :)

-Santa’s Fallen Angel