Sorry!

Sorry! Dear readers, I broke the promise to write you everyday. I'm my defense, but not as an excuse, I haven't been sleeping much lately. Insomnia! In the last five days if I slept for sixteen hours it was too much. Being dreprived of sleeping costed me my good sense, my interpretations skills, and kept me away from fullfing my latests commandments. But, from now on I will do so, not blindly, but inteligently.

The writing of fiction book, starts by discussing why do we keep from doing what we want to do the most: writing. I believe I have addressed this topic before with a broader sense. The answer the book provides, in my opinion also has a broader scope: FEAR. When we write we are affraid of what may emmerge, of "what it may reveal about our inner lives" as the book puts it. This pretty much describes this week's dilemma, related to my writing, my actions, by being: my life. Luckly, I'm intelligent enough to reach this conclusion and to start next week as a braver and smarter human being.

Resuming with the techniques to free the writing self, I will illustrate freewriting, that I mentioned in my last post. You write everything that comes to your mind, without rationalizing it. Like you are a machine that register the stream of thoughts that come to your mind as you think them, without any concern about being grammaticaly correct, spell correct, etc. Let me show you.

The sun wasn't anywhere to see, althought it wasnt night people were waaking up and sown the street liiking for an answert . they didn't understand what happned. Todya wI will start follwoing the diet my nutricionist made me. I will go out and buy whatever is mssing for me to start it. But,there were no clounds in the sky eihter. it wan't night but the sun was not there. they felt fear fear for their lives fear of the unkown, fear of change was that world without a sun survive? would they survive? My alarm went off, eight rhirty in the morning. I will go out and exercise.


The paragraph above depicts an outcome of a freewriting exercise. It is fun to read them after two or three days.

Toninght I slept like a baby, alone, but like a baby. I'm relieved that all my senses and reasons are back with me.

Regards.

Writing fiction: exercises

I started reading the book Writing Fiction. It has a more practical approach to my goal. It proposes a lot of exercises to free the self writer. One of them is keep a journal. Since this is what this blog is about, check again. The other one is freewriting, as you may expect this technique expects you to free your mind. More tomorrow!

The values ascension?

Tracing a parallel with Eagleton's English Ascension perspective with our reality, it is not difficult to realize that the values that once were concentrated in a specific society, for example the English society, were abruptally pulverized by the globalization phenomenon. The boundaries that limited the meaning of Literature itselft no longer existed, consequently breaking all the common sense of what Literature was. We witnessed passively, during the late 80's and the 90's, reaching the apogee in the first decade of this century, the unparallel and uncontrolled values metamorphosis directly proportional to the integration of the communication systems. The more the world was connected, the more acute were the values changes and, not completely harmless they were.

The mass communication vehicles promoted values globally that were not completely aligned with the social common sense of a greater good (God! I hate using this expression), but the velocity of information access compared to the velocity of the compilation of these information to create new values did not give time to society to fully or correctly assimilate them. In simple words, we were being fed more food than we, as a society, were able to eat or process implicating inevitably in value losses. How critic they were, we are not yet capable of measuring because the modus operandi is still the same. How can one evaluate the effects of some specific food in one's system, if he or she is constantly being fed at higher rates?

Whether or not this is the natural course of evolution leading us to a better world, we do not know and we never will: evolution and progress is a one roller coster ride, whether good or don't.

The english ascension

"Wow", may not be literature, but is the better way to express my experience reading this chapter of Eagleton's book. It's delightful. Difficult, but pleasant.

It made me recall a popular saying that one judges others by oneself. One only perceives values that they already have. And, for one to perceive different values, a revolution, not only social but cultural, must occur. One should revolutionize oneself.

So today, I bring something I wrote for one's delight.

The one and the other

The one saw the other standing there, ready to leave. The one said they were leaving, suggesting they were leaving together. But, when he did, he did it alone. He moved as fast as if the other was following him, as if he was being chased by some criminal. Stalked. The other was right behind him. The other was lost, as was before.

The next day the other looked at the one, puzzled, never really understanding what really happened. Still lost, still fragile, still broken, the other observed the one all day. The one kept his distance as if the other was a maniac, eventually teasing the other and misunderstanding the other's expectations. The other, that once was broken, now, was destroyed.

The other stared at the one and saw goodness, saw himself, so, he could never hurt the one. He judged the one as the other. So, it seems, the one judged the other as himself.

The other said he was leaving, meaning leaving alone. Going to his misery. But, the one was afraid the other would wait and stalk him. But, the other wasn't going to. To avoid the rendevous, the one said to the other: "Sit, here is your chair". The other saw inside the one, he knew the one's plan and played along: he sat and talked to others. When the one thought the other was not looking, he left. The other saw the one leave, stood up and left right behind him, head down, cheap, exposed, blocked. The other still sees goodness in the one and in others: the goodness inside himself.

- Ruiz.


One can only lead the horses to the water...

It's six-thirty in the morning and I haven't slept yet. So, I will shave and go to work. Have a good one.

Just a tiny hiccup!

I was ready to move on the "English Ascension" chapter of Eagleton's book, when a tiny hiccup kept me from doing so. Why do we find distractions to keep us from what we want to do. Is that because what we think we want to do is not what we really want? Never mind!

Today, I had a big distraction! Why is that sometimes some people play with others? Why do they show every intent they want something, and then, just like that, they don't? This is I, playing tricks with myself, and if I do, surely others, too. So, I will play it cool and let the chips fall wherever they may and I will not hope them to fall where I want them to. But, my fate is mine to decide, so I will leave you now and read the chapter. Maybe tomorrow I will be a smarter man.

Regards.

Wait up... technical problems

I was about to break my promise to write to you everyday, whoever you are. Sorry, car problems! I ran home, so I could post this to tell that I'm writing as you read. But, I'm posting it today, not tomorrow, which is five minutes from now. Good evening and good morning!

I have spent my Sunday in the constant companion of Terry Eagleton, when I was not re-reading his first chapter "What is Literature?", I was thinking about him, the questions answered, and even more important, the inumerous raised. When I bought his book I was expecting a formal academic approach to Literature, and, having an exact sciences background, I confess that I was expecting stable paradigms, proven theories and the whole package that an engineer expects. How surprised I was, when there was nothing of sort.

Terry conducted me from imaginative fiction, to linguistic violence, from there to non-pragmatic speech, then to the valued and beautiful writings and finally to the maintenance of social power, in other words, "status quo", to explain what Literature is. Fomulating hypotesis after hypotesis to contradict them one after the other, leaving us with an idea of what Literature may be and with the almost certainty that no one actually knows what it really is. I'm looking forward to moving to the next chapter where I believe he will ilustrate the last hypotesis formulated.

Being real in the real world, I have already developed three plots for romances. The first is a crime fiction, the second is a fantasy fiction and the third is a love story that happens in a real conturbated historic time in Brazil. I do want to tell you in details what they are about, but before I could do so, I need to understand how copyright works, how to protect an idea that is not yet concrete.

In the next few days, I will develop a research to understand this world of rights and wrongs, of ideas and books, of laws and crimes in order to protect whatever work or idea I may have on this roller coaster ride.

See you, tomorrow. Oops: today!

The start

I think I was not very clear with you yesterday. I do want to write a book but, just not any book. I want to create Literary work. Having said that, I, as a project manager, would say: Kid, you just enlarged the scope of your project siginificantly, beware! I'm well aware! But what can I do: I'm ambitious.

So, I'm currently dwelling in understanding what exactly is Literature. I bought and started reading the book Literary Theory by Terry Eagleton. The first chapter "What is Literature?" is very iluminating and scaring. The first, because I have never thought there were so many perspectives around this subject. The way that Terry lead me through the many facets of how to define Literature is so facinating that made me thrill, ec·stat·ic! The second, because even though the first assertive is true, I was left with more questions than I began with.

Being a project manager may seem like a handicap to someone who wants to write Literature. Running with the exact sciences for so long may lead you to think that I may not achieve my goal. But, I will. I can make the odds favor me, since I can project manage my roller coaster ride to make all the bumps in it less painfull and more fun.

I will separate the ride into five groups of tasks: Learn and study Literature; Brainstorm with myself what I want to write about and choose among the stories I want to tell you, the one to start: the debut; learn about the techniques of the writing process; read great authors, and last, but surely not least: start creating, start leading you through the tales to tell.

Today, I will resume reading Eagleton. I also bought the book "Writing Fiction - A guide to Narrative Craft" by Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French, to address the third group of tasks.

I invite you to give me suggestions of books to read, feedbacks on the books I'm reading, and to advise me in any way you saw fit. I will comment on every book I read, on every thing I learn. Your help is welcome, if you are out there. Are you?

Have a nice saturday.