Sketch Wars

I conceived of the Sketch Wars in order to allow Lisa and me to practice what we love doing most: drawing and writing, respectively. The word "sketch" here is of course a term adapted from the realm of the visual arts, but applied in a general sense to mean "a piece created during a short period of time, with minimal planning." Lisa choses the topic I am to write about; I choose the subjects Lisa will draw. We learn to think on our feet, and to make a game out of simple little works.

This is where I put all of my results in the Sketch Wars. The format of presentation is subject, date, and whether my sketch won or lost against Lisa's. I write the sketches in my notebook first, then type them on the computer. This allows for the usual portability afforded by handwriting.

Cable

24 May 2008

(win.)

The fillers had come to me, and I was great with them, grateful to have them, but most of all, mad with the structural unsoundness of all they told me. A word was an ongoing beat driven in the wind, whistling on that rock for ever and ever. I'd think about it for a moment wanting to discover the beginning, and believing I had done so, but it was merely the isolation of yet another, yet a larger pattern that had extended to that moment from an infinite point in the past. Filling time with a thing. I could pick it up any little hour now and feel a solemn connection to the unfabricated past, a frowning happiness (have you ever taken pleasure in holding in that emotion?) that felt so warm, so beautiful, that I could not put it down so long as I was conscious of it. Inevitably, I will myself to lose that consciousness that I may begin again with freshness in this loving memory. With the fillers, my lack of direction and control became the very thing that drove me! They spread their arms, not to embrace me, or to bar my way, but as though to say, we are as helpless as you are—and that is far less than you think. I could feel the hands on my skull. My hands? I have never found out. But that image, a head aimed by long fingers entwined in hair I don't have, long hair with a ponytail, and they line up with something out of my sight, and I still remain calm, expectant. You can only stand on a ball for so long before you must move in a direction. Fillers of that space near me. But although they seem supernatural and intangible—things that affect me, but not the other way—I am in minute mastery. For they belong to me, much like soldiers to a leader. The soldiers are stronger, but they bow out of a strange respect. To what? The sharp voice then tells me I will never know again, rising, rising ever in a half-echo blankness. Don't think I have no appreciation. Picking up the endless pulse vein, it's alive as a thought and to much avail. The motion is in that relative to me; I am moving contrariwise only to myself, as is plain. The surface and I are locked, so my grip on the flowing time simulates a step, and so on. If I am my present, the continuous filling in my hand is both past and future: in the past I know what will become. It's just an expanding loop of things we all know, all man. Then a sharp spasm runs through my elbows and forearms, I jerk the conduit out of place, I see it fly out, but the pulse settles it back in. I find assurance there. The fillers have gone now, but I shall always love their arms. Really, truly, they have no faces, triangle bodies, square shoulders, but the arms and hands are ellipses, vast but I can't use them to stop. Because I'm not going in the first place. It's is only through the pulse that we all move. Thank you, pulse.

The Pen

18 January 2008

(win.)

He wrote. That was his complete sentence, and it was him, complete. He wrote what he wished, for a time, and so he was what he wished. But others felt his writing was too much of him, and they tried to install in him some code that was not him; it wasn't even them, but an amalgam of their existence, and they thought this right and kind. It was not healthy, they told him, to invest one's self so completely in a thing; what he in his inmost thoughts called ``devoted'' they called ``single-minded,'' and eventually ``obsessed.''

Yet, those wars on his being, waged solely inside him, where he was always on the high ground, never changed him. Only under certain circumstances can others ask a person to stop existing; none of the right circumstances had come to him, and so he kept living. Kept writing.

In the good of their hearts, they believed they were helping him. But they should have known that the good of their hearts was not equal to the good of his. In their misguided fervorm they sought the involvement of an outside party, a mind man. He was to analyze the writing man and find out how to turn him to the path of the others.

Of all people, the mind man should have known it was wrong. How could he overlook such an obvious tenet of life? But he had received only the highest training, and his analysis was pessimistic. He called the writing man before him with the latter's life work—his life, him—scattered across a desk. ``Some of your work disturbs us.'' ``But,'' said the writing man, ``not all of it.'' ``No,'' said the mind man. ``And still, I conclude that you are wrong. We shall endeavour to make you right.'' ``I am no such thing.'' And the writing man took out his pen to write, because he had to. ``That won't do.'' They took the pen from him and led him to a cell. ``Don't worry. You'll feel better,'' said mind man.

The truth, however, was that writing man could not write, and he could not be. At first, he wrote in his mind, and that preserved him. Then he found he could not hold it all, and he lost those things. He lost himself, drop by drop. They warned him of similar friends who had resorted to using their blood to write. ``It turned out poorly for them.'' To the disappearing writing man, even then, it seemed uncouth, and even worse, unwieldy. How could any person hope to write like that?

So, he saw the mind man quite a bit. During the time when he still existed, writing man asked for his pen when he saw mind man. Mind man refused every time. Thus, writing man ceased to exist. He became ``man'' only, not much more than an animal. ``You have been cured.''

Have been, but no longer to be. That pronouncement gobbled at the last hidden piece of man; he lashed out at mind man with his long arm and cracked mind man's skull open.

His brain leaking onto his desk, mind man asked a question with his eyes: ``Why?''

The answer came from the sunken sockets of his patient: ``You deprived me of my existence. I became man without writing, and you will soon be man without mind. You have been, have been cured too.''

Our Bricks

6 December 2007

Win?

You consider the character of the ``writer'' and the first thing you think probably involves the word ``alone'' or some related idea. ``Solitary'' is the positive way to say it; ``anti-social'' is the more common, and perhaps more accurate, description. It's not this characteristic that I think of between prosateurs and every other kind of person—I always envision a writer's isolation from his peers.

One factor in this lonely livelihood is the rarity of writers. It is hard to find someone who claims more than a passing interest in the sport. I don't dare claim that we are the only desolate niche of creation—painters are probably even less common, and so on—but in a place where a large number of people ``study business'' in college, and even those who plunge their disgusting collective phallus into the English department end up as the most rancorous of assholes (literary critics?), it's a love that takes a thinner slice of the pie than others.

Once a writer meets another of his kind, the two must overcome an immense obstacle: indifference. All too often, neither has any interest in the other's work. I've most often found the greatest gap between writers of the opposite sex—men and women seem to focus often on different things, and a quick glance at my shelf shows that I have very few books written by women. There may be some sexism that has generally held women back, but I don't care and I'm not sure it applies here. Even other male writers have mostly failed to hold my attention. The few I've met in college bored me. I've avoided reading prose from both sexes, content that it was interesting in theory, but not to me.

If the two writers do manage to destroy the barrier of indifference between them, their passion often mutates into some kind of animosity. Criticism of style, subject matter, philosophy, and other personal things may be genuine, or it may be an attempt to choke the thought of competition. The initial pleasantries spiral into a contest of who can stab into the finest-grained flaws or differences of opinion.

This is why I try to keep to myself as a writer, extending my hand to others like me only during certain phases of editing, when I want it to be slapped. Lisa has expressed, at times, a deep desire to interact with others in the visual arts—others who understand her challenges, complaints, and all such things. I have used the expressions to ride into my own scenario, living in a brotherhood of writers, and I realize every time that it would be utter hell. I can't say much about a workshop of writers, which certainly has the benefit of its temporary nature, but a tight, long-standing web of writers would be a nightmare.

You may read about the more famous writers and their relationships with others of the same era—friends, lovers—but I can't really believe that many of them were close. But enough about history. The most important brick in the writer's tower of solitude is probably this: he is so egotistical that he is reluctant to grant any other person the hallowed status that he grants himself. Those of undeniable talent are impossibly high above, while those of equal or lesser talent are deplorably far below.

Pursuit

20 November 2007

(off the record)

A giant man was chasing us, or just a giant. Those eyes, red like the lips, seemed fixed in one direction, veering off to his left, our left because we faced the same direction as we fled, so his head veered to the right to compensate. The arms did not move; they were frozen in what I assume was preparation to seize the prey—us—and this position, I can recount, was the shoulder socket pointing the upper arm bak while the elbow bent the forearm forward a bit more, and those hands, somewhere between fists and talons.

Now, we couldn't be sure why he chose to pursue us. From the tongue that raced back and forth across his lips, he seemed to want us for food, but he was plenty fat and needed nothing more to eat. But the fat spoke of a certain gluttony, so maybe he was thin instead, and in that way not greedy enough to eat. Either way, his general form was in some manner at odds with the mouth.

Indeed, the chase was slow! I would, thinking to it now, say that it was leisurely, as though he had merely fallen in step behind us as we strolled through a garden. In step with all of us: his webbed feet—webbed more like a spider's silk than like a bat's wings, meaning that the space between those awkward bones was filled with nebulous fibers—were so large that every step he took happened to be in the same span as all our steps.

Don't I make it sound splendid? It was not; else, why would we have wanted to escape? Several glances over my shoulder, and each gave me a different report on his location and speed, but I always knew the eyes crooked to mine each time. I felt sick from that bizarre thunk-slap that issued from his feet. It wasn't loud or anything, but somehow ended up inside my eardrum and squeezed it uncomfortably.

Well, his clothes did not exist. Neither did his flesh, I might say, but a mixture of all sorts of organic and inorganic material. Had there been others near, they would have snapped photographs of the giant. Lucky for them, they wouldn't have been able to remember it on their own. We, on the other hand, want un-cameras that may take un-photos of an un-giant—how else will the memory go away?

You might ask how this all turned out. First. you must ask what happened in the middle. The answer is, ``not anything at all, really.'' The streets we used to evade the giant (without success) changed into gray rubber, jelly, or perhaps wet sand. In any case, at that rate, the city became a wobbling mass in no time. We dared not say a word or point, for we feared he would guess our route. However, there were eventually no routes and we looked over a railing at the sea beyond.

Ah, the ending. At the railing, we were forced to stop. The giant drew back his dendroid leg—the right one—and kicked us into the water.

Natural Setting

20 October 2007

(pending)

Having accomplished the Rank, I am familiar with nature. Campling in warm, in cold—few things will allow you to know it better. My preference is, of course, the fall season. At this time, leaves cover every part of the ground; some are still colorful and moist, some brown and dry.

Walking in either creates a sound, although which sound depends on the dryness of the medium. I like the heavy, slow, dragging steps that sweep through the color-leaves. Each heave in the red, yellow, orange snow thrusts a shovelful up causing a pleasant switch; if you walk slowly enough, an aroma of sweet decay accompanies the action. The brown leaves make high hollow, best for betraying friends trying to hide or sneak in the forest. Unique to those dry ones, however, is the crunch.

These same sensual leaves create danger. One must be cautious when hiking on a leafy trail; countless thick boot-toes make countless thuds against submerged stones.

Leaf-fall varies with wind; when there are still leaves on the trees, breeze wafts the odor to you. Without those leaves, it scrapes cold over bare branch skin until it hits your nose with a chill-scented puff.

The autumn trails seem more desolate, and losing sight of others isolates you as you either stroll to enjoy the peace or quicken to regain your friends.

Fall is quiet. Insects are a rare bother. Birds are too busy to sing. I get lost in thoughts deeper than wells, even now, thinking back across the years to times spent alone for a minute or two as I went between a wood source and camp. Something good outside, something good inside: a desirable state.

Chilly fingertips still make me smile.

To Be Me

8 October 2007

(lose)

With such an expansive topic comes a great volume of prose, so I will limit it to the realm of thoughts: how is it to think as I do.

They come from nowhere, mostly. They might find inspiration and origin somewhere, but I have never observed the birth of a thought. It slides in from a dark palce and once it's in my head, it completes its formation. Continues its formation.

Therefore, I feel that I do not create thought. I might be able to explain with this the frustration I experience when I try to formulate a new story, or force myself to think about it, coming out empty-handed. But does this put me in a place of disadvantage? How many people find thoughts, rather than create them?

When I process the contents for my mind, things seem to form naturally into chains. My sensory input forges a connection with my inmost thoughts and memories because of the chains. I amuse myself often by stopping chain formation and tracing it back to the origin. I believe one of my notebooks describes or mentions the behavior.

For me, there are two naturally-occurring kinds of cognition: verbal and non-verbal. For many years, I thought without words, merely in raw personal meanings. Since the time I decided to write for my own pleasure, words entered my formerly wordless space, often as narratives. I found myself making stories about everything I did.

I miss the time before the words came; however, it is fortunate that I still have mental impulses absent of language. These mostly come when I think of something else in words, so I have parallel processes that rarely coincide with each other.

I believe that the introduction of language provides limitations, but that it was also necessary for me to be able to communicate with others in the way that a writer must. The negative consequences manifest in a loss of thought speed; linear, words go through the mind one at a time, and there always seems to be a limit on the number that remain reliably in the brain at once. The thoughts without language were faster. However, once I form words, their imprint is longer-lasting, especially if I write the thought.

The best part comes when the two merge: I read my thoughts in language, but they translate immediately into the wordless kind, and the words on the page aren't there.

No pictures; just words or nothing.

Home——Stretch

3 October 2007

(win by default)

We'll say I like what I'm doing. An avalanche of energy mounting behind me because I'm enjoying myself, and my eagerness to complete the task slips more power into the system.

One direction in time pulls, the other pushes; they work together.

Long time in finishing, must share it with my friends, so it's not relief I feel before the end, but even more tension, although it's tension productive. Oh, how good it will be to gaze upon my work in its entirety!

Take my stories. First halves are always difficult, for I have less bearing on anything, but I fight until my poor hand cramps up at the last page or paragraph and I get the rare feelning that my body is in the way.

To measure this period of time, I say two-thirds finished.

Now I understand that I disliked this time or at least don't like it—stress is one of my mortal enemies—but the past and future, infinitely longer than the present, provide bountiful reward.

My mind is a needle through a frenzy haze, thoughts maybe, or fatigue: the edge of my vision is misty but the acute, acture angle of the focused eye's field of vision is enough to let me function and maintain communication with my hand on the pen. Inside, I store values, trying to hold it all in and in ecstasy when something slips away.

Why? Perhaps the slipping reminds me of the thought's existence. Or it's just a sign that my brain prospers.

Painful state? Sure.

And of course I mustn't go into detail about the moment of finishing, when the infinitesimal pinhole present clicks on the equally tiny border between doing and done—I consider that end to be separate from the time before it and shame on you anyway because my description is enough.

Enough it is to say with definition that I prefer ``after'' to ``during'' in this case, and maybe in every case, now that I think of it, since after is after success/during is the time that requires dedication in some part to working for success.

However, as always, these ratios are practically unimportant and if I try, I can make the experiences equal.

Science Ficton & Images

1 October 2007

(win by default)

The first part of such a meditation, which leads to the second, is: why science fiction? I suppose the basis of my science fiction aspirations comes from science. As a boy, I liked the sciences far more than I liked the arts. Yes, quite a bit has changed. When I began to grow conscious of the idea of the GENRE, it was the science that led me to enjoy the fiction.

What are some of the images that caused me to embrace literature (or, at least, writing) in this way? The most powerful single concept is the L.A.S.E.R. as a weapon. From ``ray guns'' to lightsabers, harmful coherent light is a fascinating idea. It's light-weight, instant death.

Second: the concept of worlds other than Earth. I still wish to see the day we move to other planets—if not take part in the process. Even now, my belief is that humanity will only survive past the next century or two if it colonizes other planets.

Third: aliens. Some might be friends, some might be enemies; either way, the universe is more lively when we aren't the only race in it.

These early images have one very important common aspect: they are so exciting because none exists in the idealized form that appears in the genre. Our lasers are industrial, our space travel is barely interplanetary, and our aliens are microbes at best. To a child, any world but this one is easily exciting. (Side note: when I was very young, I thought lunar travel and colonization were common!)

Then, I read Foundation. What mattered in that marvel was not the technology itself, but the way it made mankind's horizon broader. It is still human thought and action that carry the day; in some ways, the technology was not necessary at all.

What I find most exciting about writing science fiction is this same quality: there are new avenues open to explore human themes, and the limit is largely influenced only by the writer's imagination.

Even a story with no human characters allows us to examine, or at least to keep in mind, human behavior, for no matter who the characters are, they will evoke comparison with us.

I certainly find this more attractive than the latest ``bestseller'' based on petty modern-day events.

Clear Dream

27 September 2007

(who gives a damn)

One of the most vivid and clear dreams of my life was an early nightmare from my childhood.

There was a clean, well-lit room. Room was square, table was square. The lights fluorescent came from below—along the floor, edge of the table. I wandered for a moment, then saw a fish tank on the table. No fish, just water, a water tank. I could see bubbles.

A cackle. Turning to its source, I recoiled at the sight of a brown monster: he was skinny and child-sized, my-sized. Intelligent eyes devoured my frightened stare. The limbs were long, the body short. He had claws and scary fingers attached. My vocabulary at that age was very limited, but it was by looking at those hands that I understood the meaning of ``grasp.''

My horror proves well-founded. A movement too quick for my child-reflexes. Snap-lunge to my trunk, the jaws close upon my navel and bite down. He pulls his head away and my stomach with it and I'm crying. Powerless. He laughs again as I double myself and sink to the ground. Munches my entrails while that awful snicker feeds my ears.

That's when I would awaken. I'd be clutching at my middle, gasping, still young enough to blur reality and dreams together. The problem with this nightmare was its recurrence. Several variations seized me during my youth and brought me so much terror that I had to sleep face-down so he couldn't get to my stomach.

I can still see him watching me and enjoying it when I recognize his existence.

Cat

26 September 2007

(lose)

What do I admire most about cats? Their shape. It implies grace. From there come the other good attributes.

I'll concentrate now on the image of a ghostly feline. This particular animal stalks its small prey in a long-abandoned house.

Paws honed over eons house the killing claws, yet allow the animal to move silently. For balance and body language it has the tail, but the tail also gives it a ghost form; it creates the tapered, slim end that now means silence. We took the eyes, which have such a quality that they have their own name—cats' eyes.

Few animals are as efficient. House boards creak and scrabble as the cat walks,

They get bigger, but the strage ones are also small. They watch from alleys; the one in this house silently disapproves of its visitors. It's there. It's gone, moving on, unconcerned by a strange person.

Eyes and feet, eyes and feet, tail too. Might as well have no body, for I see nothing else in my mind. But now its ears prick flick forward, and they join the picture. Equipment to hunt you with. Superiority built-in. We both see it, the cat and I.

For a moment, eye meets eye and you see it peering into your brain. It can't understand what it sees. Moment over.

Fading Epiphany

25 September 2007

(win)

That must be one concept to which I never paid much attention. The epiphany itself is supposed to be the most important aspect. I admit that my thoughts post-epiphany are either about the revelations I just had, or at a point soon after, about other, unrelated things—business to tend to.

As far as the feelings related to the epiphany: the miniscule event itself is mostly in a vast torrent of panic, either as a result of the knowledge gleaned, or because I rush to acknowledge the knowledge. Afterwards—well, I can't say I feel relief. I think most would say there's a receding euphoria, but I think I really feel nothing. It consists of something wholly abstract (I'll call it ``emotion'') becoming concrete knowledge; what one could only feel or sense by intuition is suddenly a set of words, or translatable concepts at the least.

Those familiar with cosmology might be comfortable with an analogy involving the Big Bang, but instead of the epiphany as the instant of expansion and release of energy that marks the end of the ``GUT era.'' To those unfamiliar, it means that the ``energy'' before the epiphany was contained in much higher concentration and had a short duration; afterwards, everything became less muddled and the ``elementary particles'' of writing and reasoning came to be.

Enough of that. To me, there is no aspect of fading when it comes to an epiphany: the emotions disappear in an instant, but the knowledge persists. Maybe those who experience the ``fade'' simply average disappearance and persistence into something gradual.

Dandelion Puff

24 September 2007

(win)

It's an odd structure, the puff. If you just look at the miniature stems—the anchors, I guess—and ignore any soft qualities, the dandelion puff is a sort of geodesic wonder. Did you ever realize that? But it's not a puff without the puff. I've never really cared for that part of it; the intact structure, with its seedling multitudes, the hard lines beneath a silly and useless halo, that's what I liked. I always felt a little sorry when I kicked one of them; not only would more weeds soon grow nearby, but htere was a ragged half-or no-ball where there once was a fluffy deadlion.

I know some people have allergies to the seed-fluff, but it never bothers me. In the south, where snow is in some ways mythological, the dandy seeds sometimes serve as a spring snowfall. With a beautiful gust of wind will come countless small floaters; I smile because I feel like smiling at the snow allusion rather than disapproving of its weedy implications.

As a child, I tried to make my own little snow storms by blowing in the classic manner: lips pursed, thumb and forefinger on the stem, you know. It was to my displeasure that some anchors were more fast than others. The irregularity of the puff-flight only made me blow harder to attempt more flight motivation, but the effect was almost the same as when one hurries to create a soap bubble: an unsatisfying pop. Who knows, maybe I simply did not practice the art of puffing. It didn't seem like a skill that required training.

And, as I said, I like the dander to remain on its stem; not only is the shape interesting, but the naked stem looks ridiculous. Where the flower once was is now a waxy white disk. Frankly, I don't know who would trade a puff of geometry for an ugly disk, except a kid. Some might say they enjoy freeing the seeds, but I have to believe they are simply taking a stab at romanticism. After all, my snowpuff memories are sentimental, just like them.