Filed under: Writing
I’m on Twitter now, better late than never. All of my tweets will instantaneously appear on the sidebar of this blog. Technology is FUN!
It’s official. I’m participating for the first time ever in NaNoWriMo. Just sort of fell into it without a forethought. Without a plan or even a main character. This will truly be spontaneous. I’m already dreading the outcome. Some of these participants are hardcore!! It’s kind of intimidating.
I was going to take a sabbatical from writing here, mostly because I felt I had jumped the shark on Internet endeavors. There’s just so much to do in the City – from little solitary things like taking walks with my camera to crazy social things like beer lunches and spontaneous outdoor music venues. Each carries its own stimuli, and I’ve bottled them in for the greater part of this year. Time to pop the cork.
The idea was to write for an hour every day and to post snippets of my garbage here. One entry per day – the first time I’ve ever committed to a daily entry in my tenure here at WordPress. Buuuut, then again I’ve never been so good at sticking with plans, so … thinking the better of it, I have decided to make my manuscript available only at the official NaNoWriMo web site. It’ll be uploaded after November 25th.
It’s safe to say that Winter will be the Writing Wave. Summer and Fall, of course, was the Photography Wave and Spring the Illustration Wave. Here and there lay remnants of various other waves, like the October Armchair Biologist Wave coupled with Let’s Wig Out On DVDs Wave. I know there’s more but they’re a jumble right now. I’m just trying not to look too far back, trying not to hunt for a wave of inspiration that will carry me for the next thirty days. After all, I’ve gotten into this without a plan- but knowing full well that I can swim through it. Just like I always do.
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Edited November 7, 2008
Filed under: Writing
Bodega Bay last Sunday was a real nice day trip. It was super low tide and I even saw a sailboat stranded on a shoal in the middle of the shallow harbor, leaning keel up like a forgotten toy. There were two large sea lions circling under the pier by Lucas Wharf and so many waterfowl – loons, ducks, cormorants, seagulls. Alfred Hitchcock would’ve been proud. The party boats were still out, loaded with fishermen hoping to catch quality cod. Stacks of crab pots piled up in the parking lot. Near the marina the locals were clamming on the mudflats and casting their crab nets off the breakwater. Afterwards, drove a short distance to Doran Regional Park near the opening of the harbor. Its south-facing beach packed with so many families lounging and picnicking near the surf. It was a rare sunny day with a bit of wind – just enough for the kite fliers. Closer to the jetties a line of baby crab carapaces littered the sand. I picked one up and it was so delicate. Tiny grooves over its fingernail-thin surface, two pinhead sized holes for the eyes. I drew the curve of the beach with the grassy hills in the background, kites in the air and beachcombers on the sand.
Drove home along hilly backroads, watching the sheep and cattle graze. Rows of grapevines, bare and hibernating. Hard to believe a place so simple and quiet just two hours north of the city.
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Anyway, spreading out my journal entries and practicing careful (more thorough) reflections before putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). I have so much to write about but if I wait a while longer before writing it out I find that I can better convey my thoughts and descriptions. In the same way my drawings have improved. They’re not the 30-minute “power lunch style” rushed scribble like they were last year. I’m taking the time to look at things before I sketch them and the results are promising. I still need to work on perspective and texture but things are steadily improving. Measuring proportions a little better than last time, employing more tonal values, relying less on initial outlining. My main goal is to properly illustrate (by words or image) each thing I’ve experienced through the whole of my six senses without letting preconceived notions invade the mix. A Zen-inspired approach, I guess. Something I forgot about in the haste that was last year.
I know I promised samples of my work and I will share some soon. Just let me pick a drawing that isn’t ghastly.
Filed under: Writing
I have always been fascinated with comics, sequential art, film and illustration. My goal for 2008 is to develop my illustration skills and teach myself how to paint. Not just literally but figuratively too. Paint with words, releasing myself from the mindflow, the inner view, and focusing on the outer view. When I describe something I want to describe it, not what it evokes within me. I’ve done enough of that inward reflecting that I’ve actually grown tired of doing so. Maybe that’s why my writing, my poetry, has waned this past year. Looking back at my older works I see plenty reflecting. Plenty emotional release. I had some lines written down in one of my paper journals once about how tired I was on writing like that and how much more eager I was to just getting out there and living.** It got me adventurous, it got me as far as Honolulu in May and then back to work. All those weeks, every ride on the train and each step along Drumm Street – sensations building up to overload. And above, that fragment written above is what happened last night. It looks like the hiatus is over.
Words spiraling down like coins in that yellow donation tub at Wal-Mart. The one children like to play with because they want to see if two coins released simultaneously would eventually collide and mess up the flow. That’s how I want to write. Lines colliding together, messing up the flow.
I took most of this day to organize some of the things in my head and write them out, beginning with memories. Chose strong ones to develop further, listed the rest and scanned them for prompts, details that needed filling in. Then I went to the library and found a book called Panel Discussions, a series of interviews with comic and sequential artists/writers. I checked it out and got even more ideas. Something tangible to work on for months to come: illustration! Maybe something good will actually come out of my lifelong propensity to daydream to music or a photograph. I do that often, forming visual stories in my head that breathed and emoted well but translated horribly whenever I tried to write them down. I was filling in the blanks with too much process. Not enough description. I’m going to change that soon. It will probably look like a Spider-man comic at first. Lots of unconventional angles and bawdy dialog. But it will improve.
A colleague of mine told me about a series of life drawing classes at a community center in the Mission. It begins with a short lecture and continues with a session using a live model and any medium the student chooses to illustrate with. That class is high on my list of things to do in January. I can draw figures okay but when it comes to getting the proportions correct or the facial features down I need some instruction. At $5 per class I think its a steal. I’ve got my materials together – charcoal pencils, 4B graphite sticks, a special Prismacolor pencil set of various skin tones and hair colors, and all manner of erasers not for correcting mistakes but for blending lines and enhancing light from shade. If I can get my drawing skills down I will move to paints. Then after paints will come sculpting.
I want art to rule my life next year.
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** I think that sentiment, as of later today, has further evolved into an I don’t want to just write (my thoughts and feelings), I want to illustrate through writing. I want to illustrate it as if it were a living thing that exists before me now and not simply as a perception in my head, an abstract with wont of expression. There. I think I confused everyone else reading this except myself.
They are on to me. The girl and the boy. I saw them again this afternoon when I sat down directly in front of the girl and her latest book. She held it flat on her lap so that I could not read the title. She pursed her lips upon turning the page, adjusted her glasses and stared sidelong at the lady giving directions for a rendezvous through her cell phone until the call ended. One of these days I’ll ask the girl what she’s reading because it might be worth checking out. In the meantime she had glanced up at me momentarily with a look in her gray eyes that said, “Oh. You,” before resuming reading. And again the boy arrived to assume his usual post, two stops later, clockwork. Only this time he wore a brown baseball cap and slightly longer hair.
And again I slept.
They are boarding the train same as me. The regulars. Couple in matching black leather jackets. Big man in big brown loafers. Contractor in t-shirt and mustache who talks to Student in shorts and full beard. Each one selecting their respective seats or standing room spaces, clockwork. They are on to me, my furrowed eyebrows, spikes and sleepiness. Standing always at the rear with eyes closed as the train enters the tunnel.
I’ve had a half a dozen haircuts since I started riding this train for work. Wore the black trenchcoat for each of the foggy days – there were many. The tan trenchcoat for a Spring shower three times. Friday blue jeans, clockwork. Seven different pairs of shoes and two different messenger bags, not counting the two times I’ve had to supplement with the company computer tote. Six different power suits rotated over countless different power meetings. Jackets. Many jackets. Many shirts. I wore a hockey jersey on Thursday that turned a lot of heads. But never a baseball cap. I can’t deal with hat hair.
The seasons have cycled from cold to hot to cold and rain is coming once again in a few days’ time. When this month ends so will my time with the regulars. I’m changing gears, moving work closer to home and further from the office. It’s better that way, easier on the wallet. It gives me more time to write, draw, shoot, print and travel. I want it like that. I will miss them, the regulars. They will probably take my standing space. Such is the way of the rush hour. My life in the city in this year.
