box_of_fire raze for whoever is reading this as it takes shape, i want to put a little disclaimer out there (on christmas day, no less). i am pretty much winging this whole thing as i go. i'm copying and pasting the em dash from a word document because i enjoy the look of it, but otherwise, each chapter is being written in the "says" box on blather, with me doing my best to proofread and then putting each piece out there as soon as it feels finished. in doing this, i've already made a few typos, and there are a few word choices i think i could have done a better job with (why didn't i use "supple" instead of "pretty" to describe jim's singing, when i'd just used the word "pretty" in the last paragraph? why?). such is the danger of having an itchy trigger finger and liking to work quickly, i s'pose. i hope these humanizing and occasionally awkward little moments don't take away from the story too much. i don't know if it qualifies as good writing exactly (i haven't tried to do anything even remotely like this in fifteen years, and i've never considered myself that good of a writer outside of music), nor am i entirely sure where the story is going to lead between now and the end. but i'm having a lot of fun with it, after not thinking i would ever be brave enough to do this sort of thing. it's a far cry from how fragmented and cryptic i used to be here, that's for sure... i also find myself putting a lot more cathartic personal stuff into this than i thought i was going to. for instance, almost all of those anxiety-related details in chapter three are word-for-word descriptions of things i've experienced — so much so that i almost triggered myself through writing. that was a little strange to experience. anyway. whatever the story ultimately turns into, whether it's dream logic-tinged pseudo-noir or foul-mouthed sub-danielle steel (not that i've ever read one of her books, but you know...), there's no other place i'd rather be letting it string me along. thank you all for being a part of it. with all the underscored phrases from around blather i'm trying to work into the story, i consider pretty much every 'skite to be something of a coauthor. 121225 ... raze note to self: you have written your domicile as a two-story shotgun shack. such things do exist, but they're rare. you're lucky. you will address this slight abnormality in the next chapter, or else angry kittens will claw at your feet. also, eat some cereal. 121227 ... PeeT i have a 1 year-old female chihuahua licking my toes on occasion. i feel it less as reprimand, more as praise. write_on johnny_west. 121227 ... raze thank you my friend. 121227 ... invisible sending smiles to the tundra 121227 ... raze conversation with self — voice inside head: you like writing dialogue, don't you? actual voice: well, it's just...i don't know, really. for some odd reason, i can let two characters talk to each other, and the words just happen. i could let them go on talking forever. i have no idea why that is, or where it comes from. plus, i like trying to subtly establish the ways different people speak, and how they change the *way* they speak depending on who they're speaking *to*. like, you might have a friend with whom you swear a lot. but then, with someone else you're just getting to know, you reroute those impulses and curb the profanity without really thinking. you reach for different words. voice inside head: interesting. actual voice: yes, you would say that, wouldn't you? voice inside head: i think you should try to write the next chapter with almost no dialogue at all, just as an experiment. work out some different muscles in your brain. actual voice: my brain has muscles? i thought it *was* a muscle. voice inside head: it's many things. some days it's a swimming pool. other days it's a real estate agent. actual voice: today i think it's an airplane. voice inside head: you would say that, wouldn't you? actual voice: yes, i suppose i would. voice inside head: so what do you say to my challenge? a whole long-ish chapter with very little or no dialogue? actual voice: i'll give it a try. voice inside head: that's what i like to hear. actual voice: you *would* say that, wouldn't you? 121227 ... raze second conversation with self — voice inside head: let's start a running list of corrections you wish you could make, but can't, because there is no "edit" function on blather. actual voice: yes, let's. chapter 2 — a typo and a double word snuck in there. boo-hiss. also, should have described stickman's hair as "untamed", since i go on to describe my own hair as "wild" in the next chapter. voice inside head: that's not too bad, though. next? actual voice: chapter 4 — in the first sentence of the first paragraph, "weirdly" should be "strangely". that's a better choice, i feel. also, the aforementioned bit where i describe jim's singing as "pretty" near the end of the chapter. shoulda been "supple". voice inside head: shoulda woulda coulda. next? actual voice: chapter 5 — in the 24th paragraph, i think, the sentence that begins "it seemed to melt" is a bit of a mess. that's the worst offender so far. it should say, "it seemed to melt from the heat and friction of movement, leaving less to hold onto each time either one of us tried to scale it." voice inside head: (stands and applauds) actual voice: voices can do that? voice inside head: voices can do anything they want. don't forget it. 121228 ... raze third conversation with self — voice inside head: what happened to this then? actual voice: i was riding a great wave of momentum, and then i fell back to earth. voice inside head: you're david bowie? actual voice: not quite. i'll pick it up again soon...i just feel like i've reached a pivot point, and i'm not sure where exactly i want to go from here, or where the story wants to take me. voice inside head: better to let it find its own way in its own time. actual voice: you said something wise! voice inside head: well, i felt i owed you. you did, after all, manage to pull off that chapter without any dialogue. actual voice: yeah. how about that shift to the present tense to fill in some back-story? how about it? voice inside head: i'm sorry...what was that? i wasn't paying any attention. i was busy trying to send subtle messages attempting to convince you that you should jump off a tall building. actual voice: what? voice inside head: i said, 'i was busy trying to send subtle messages attempting to convince you that you should hump a small bag of shillings.' actual voice: oh. alright then. 130110 ... PeeT Oh raze...where would we be without you? 130110 ... raze i want to say "prague"...but then my nonexistent self would be envious and want to tag along, to get back in touch with my czech roots. ha! 130110 ... raze fourth conversation with self — voice inside head: i've been thinking about this thing you started but never finished. actual voice: yeah? voice inside head: yeah. want to know what i think? actual voice: i bit off more than i could chew. voice inside head: maybe. but that's not what i think. actual voice: what do you think? voice inside head: i think even if it's never going to be finished, you should take a second pass at what's there. tighten it. hone it. that intro bit...it really shouldn't exist. it's like the voice-over narration at the beginning of the theatrical cut of "dark city". it tells too much too soon, and tonally it doesn't work. better to pick things up in medias res, at the start of the second chapter. actual voice: yeah? voice inside head: yeah. i think there are some good ideas there, but the first time through you were blinded by that onslaught of inspiration and your execution was sloppy. in the near-year that's passed since you gave up on it, your writing has changed. it's leaner now. tougher. actual voice: you think i'm tough? voice inside head: oh yeah. you're our last true action hero. (that's sarcasm, in case you can't tell.) actual voice: i like it when you talk to me in parentheses! voice inside head: i know. you're easy like that. actual voice: but seriously. you think i should take a shot at rewriting what's there, even if i don't know where the story should go and it's only ever going to be a large fragment in search of itself? excise the typos and clunky bits, and shave away the flabby stuff? voice inside head: yeah. where do you keep your razor? actual voice: i've just got one of those electric shavers. voice inside head: you would. 131125 ... raze i never did rewrite or tighten any of this. i decided it was a failed experiment and tried to forget all about it. for the longest time i was relieved it was buried deep beneath a thick pile of red_blather dust. last night i thought i'd reread it just so i could have an excuse to make fun of myself. it wasn't as embarrassing as i thought it would be. i wasn't expecting that. here's what happened: in late 2012, i fell back in love with blather after being in and out for quite a while. as silly as i knew it was, all that "the world is going to end at the end of the year" doomsday theory hooey that was floating around started to get in my head. and i thought, "well, what_if?" if it was all going to go kablooey in a week or two, i thought i might as well do something i never had the guts to do here before and try to spin some sort of novel-length interconnected story out of nothing. something that combined my love of dreams and dream imagery with noir, a bit of magic realism, and a bit of music. i was inspired by some of the brilliant long-form things i read by other 'skites over the years — things like birdmad's "blurring the edges" on blue and a number of things unhinged wrote both over there and over here (like prodigal_emotions_). i got really into it for a while. but when i had everything set up and it was time for the plot to start moving into its meatiest parts, i hit a wall. and that was the end of that. i still don't know where i would go with the story when it gets to that pivot point even if i tried to build on it now. i can't see the next move. maybe that's the price you pay sometimes for making it up as you go and getting a little too ambitious for your own good. it isn't great writing by any stretch of the imagination. i was trying too hard to create a voice when i should have just been writing in my own voice, whatever that was at the time. there are some really clunky moments. i mean "heavy boots falling down the stairs and breaking an expensive vase before getting tangled up in a string of christmas lights and starting a fire that burns the whole house down" clunky. and it's irrefutable proof that long-form fiction just isn't something i can do very well at all. __siblings__ worked a little better because it was nonfiction disguised as fiction. and because it wasn't tied into any sketchy mythology or driven by any serious plot machinery, it could end on an ambiguous note without feeling like a copout. with this thing, i really should have hashed out at least the skeleton of a story beforehand to keep myself oriented. i knew how i wanted it to end. i even know what song i wanted to play over the imaginary end credits. i just didn't know how to get there, and that was my undoing. (skyline_diamonds is a piece of something i wanted to stitch into the story somehow. now i have no idea how i ever thought it was going to work.) and yet ... reading it again all this time later made me remember how much FUN i had writing it before i smacked into that wall. the whole thing took on a life of its own and surprised me a few times. i really started to feel like i was onto something by the time i got to the "jasminum sambac" chapter and everything started to slide into place. it's kind of neat to see how some bits of real life wormed their way into things, too, though in truth changez was a much more colourful place than i give it credit for in the brief mention it gets. there's even a moment from the_way_we_slept that shows up almost a decade early, a year or two after it really happened. anyway. as much as this feels like saying, "hey, here's a picture of what a horrible mess my bedroom was before i cleaned it up and made it look all nice and spiffy for you," if anyone ever wants to read the lumpy, doomed thing, it starts here: box_of_fire_1_can_i_get_a_witness and the links will take you through the rest of the chapters until everything grinds to a halt. 210810 ... kerry doesn't fun matter more than "failure"? can you fail at writing/making? i really doubt it. writing was fun for me until i took classes and workshops and that was when FAILURE entered the room. it's a beast but if you can muster up some more Fun, it shrivels up and goes back to its little hidey-hole. 210811 ... raze yes. all the yeses that can be yes'd. (and i'm now making it my mission to drop "hidey-hole" into casual conversation, whether it fits or not.) 210811 ... unhinged last september where i live was practically the most polluted place on earth because of intersecting wildfire smoke masses and lack of any wind. i didn't leave my apartment for two weeks. the ominous yellow grey sky and the need to keep all the windows shut to keep the particulate pollution out made me stir crazy. thinks of summer as fire season now 210811 what's it to you? who go blather from