The Unknown Thoughts of the Education Transportation Monster

The Education Monster is coming!

It looks as if school's on a delay today; it's just about nine and I see the kids and the Day-Glo green pinney of the crossing guard at the corner. Two or three kids stand close together, as if in conference about something. And then the big yellow bus creeps into view, coming to a stop in front of the gaggle of kids. When it pulls away, they're gone, consumed by the education transportation monster. Don't worry though: by the end of the day that monster will have decided it's had quite enough of kids and will put them back where it found them, just in time for the weekend. Even monsters need a break.

Other than that somewhat whimsical bit, I've precious little in mind to write about today. I've had a busy, mostly happy week, and I'm looking forward to a happy weekend as well.

Editing While Writing: Not Advised.

I've found myself thinking about things I'm picking up from Self-Editing For Writers whenever I read something. Mostly with respect to my own work, but sometimes I read someone else's and think, "Ooh, bit of weak language there," or "Hey, easy with the semicolons, buster." I've also realised I've become a bit confused as to what should or shouldn't be done with my novel or my short stories, which have been woefully neglected so far this week.

I mentioned previously that I've struggled with editing as I write my short story, striving to keep it tight and short while in the process of creating it, which is not a good thing. I fear that if I sprawl too much in the initial writing phase that editing and revising the piece will be a lot harder. I'm finding out how much of a mess it is to try to rein in a NaNoWriMo novel, which is designed to be written pell-mell and in a hectic fashion. How much harder will it be to go through that with a short story? And should I do it anyway, for the work of it and to perhaps learn something?

I must say, though, that I am, in my own geeky way, enjoying grabbing a highlighter and marking out mechanics, as advised by Self-Editing: beats, narrative summary (not too much of that, now!), etc. Self-Editing is one of those books I may well grab for myself rather than endlessly checking it out of the library. They've even got me coming around on the subject of -ly words. A little. Kinda. Where was I? Oh yes - break out the highlighters, there's work to be done! Hyah! *whipcrack*

It's clear to me that I was in one certain mood when I began this post yesterday and now I am in a rather different state of mind. I'll be busy today and it's better to be a bit wired and weird (anagram!) than sullen and grrar.

I must now away. Have a good weekend. Write/draw/paint/sculpt/compose something this weekend! It will make it better, I promise.

Pursuing Your Secret Dreams

Greetings, my little ones! I'm glad to see you all here today. Let me hand out your graham cracker snacks to keep your busy little hands occupied whilst I get things going.

I spent a couple hours last night learning a new Jonathan Coulton song on the guitar, so I'm a bit more random and abstract than perhaps is normal for me in this blog. But then ... yesterday was pretty out there, too, wasn't it?

It seems when I let my inner artist/inner goofball out to play, what follows is a period of lightheartedness and sometimes weirdness. Spending two hours listening to and playing a song about an evil genius who makes half-pony half-monkey monsters for his love, whom he keeps captive in his secret lair, may be partly to blame for that.

Songwriting is something I've never considered myself good at. I love to play guitar and sing, and I frequently find myself making up snippets of songs for no good reason. The Artist's Way invites the reader to list some alternate lives, lives you think might be fun to try out. Whether your secret dream is or was to become a cowboy, an opera singer, or a comic book artist, Julia Cameron asks you to pursue a tiny piece of those dreams, just to get a taste. Maybe you can't move to Texas and become an actual cowboy, but can you take a horseback riding lesson? Perhaps it's not possible for you to be a drummer in a famous rock band, but can you get your hands on some secondhand drums and play them in your basement when no one's around to hear? Indulging your secret dreams can please your inner artist and be a fun diversion from your workaday life. You might even find an opportunity to live them on a higher level, if you get the opportunity to vacation on a ranch, or bump into a couple of musicians who'd be willing to jam with you one Sunday a month.

When I indulge a passion I don't focus on, like my guitar playing, it can open up windows through which other creative juices flow. I get something different out of each of my moods. My writing style varies, as does my subject matter, depending on whether I'm feeling down or happy, pedantic or just plain weird.

Think about your secret dreams today. Can you tap into them, even just for an afternoon? You might discover a whole new side of yourself.

A Morning for Meandering

I've spent half an hour playing around on Toasted Cheese's site instead of writing in here. I am a bad, bad, blog writer. I also have typoitis today, apparently. My rate of typos is up about seventy-five percent. Possibly more. I don't chart these things, but it's a lot worse than usual. I blame squirrels.

As usual, I'm working in Kubuntu in the not-quite-as-warm-as-usual study, with my classical music stream streaming along in VLC. I decided on a whim to reduce the opacity of my text editor window so I can see my desktop through it, so it looks like I'm typing over top of a beautiful Caribbean beach. "Look!" say the tourists behind the camera, "there are words floating in the air, being typed with a plethora of typos which are then being backspaced over and corrected, before my very eyes! Hey, mysterious typer in the sky, you got some typo issues, don't'cha?"

Yeah, we covered that already. But I suppose you were too busy ordering your girly drink to have noticed the beginning of this document, eh?

Clearly, I am in some kind of odd mood today. But this is my privilege, as I am a writer, and weird-ass moods are where we get some of our best stuff.

As I was perusing Toasted Cheese, I recalled Jasper Fforde's series of books about the Bookworld. I've touted the Bookworld in other journals I've kept online before, but let me do so here: go read these books. Begin with "An Eyre Affair" and move onward from there. Ever wonder what the characters in your favourite stories do when they're not being read? I didn't think so. Read. You'll find out. Fforde's stories are hilarious and brilliant. Anyone who loves to read should grab them up straight away. Go! Go to your local library and seize them!

Ahem. See aforementioned odd mood. Yeah. This is probably the least professional-looking blog I've done in here since deciding to dedicated myself to writing about writing (almost) every day.

I mentioned the Bookworld novels because Toasted Cheese had for sale a tote bag emblazoned with the words 'Boojum Hunter'. The word 'boojum', in Fforde's novels, refers to a jurisfiction agent (read the books) who gets lost in a previously unexplored novel. It's used as a verb in the Bookworld, but, having not read the books in a while, I had the thought that there was a something called a boojum which attacked bookpeople. I don't think this is true, and if you go read the books, you'll be able to tell me if I'm wrong!

Anyway, my apologies for taking time from your day to be random at you. But this, too, is an aspect of my writing life: the 'what the heck /is/ this, really?' bit where ideas float around in the air near my head like twisted, broken little dragonflies, each whispering fragments of coherent thoughts which are lost in the incessant twittering of the mass of them. May your dragonflies fly in formation today.