The relationship I have with this blog is so weird. The feedback on it has been virtually non-existent, which, I'll be honest, I expected (as I expect to be the biggest fan of EVERYTHING I ever do), yet, I felt so guilty when I missed my posting date on Tuesday. As if someone cares. As if folks are waiting, bated breath, to know just what the hell I'm going to say.
Let's not lose perspective here, sir. This blog is for you. Yes, this blog is public, however, while a conscious choice by me (for 98% pure vanity's sake, I admit), that is almost incidental. As a writer I've always needed a place, a thought dumpster, just for creative catharsis. I have so many voices in my head, all the time, and I enjoy them, but I also have one of my own-and when that voice gets so loud, just...fucking screaming, I have to put it in a place, capture it, just so that voice will quiet the fuck down so I can hear everyone else again. I have a feeling that often, when I don't do this, when I let things sit, it lends itself to periods of writers bloc, just because I have too many problems of my own to deal with imaginary ones.
Because, if I'm honest, truly honest, I'm not really a writer at all. I am an undiagnosed, functional, schizophrenic with an occupational obsession and an inappropriate, morbid level of curiosity. About everything.
Yes, no.
Right.
I just wanted to put that out there.
Anywho, the reason I missed my blog date on Tuesday is because I have switched to Ye Olde Night Shift, 7pm -7am, which is fine, I'm nocturnally oriented anyway, but it's always been creatively motivated. I may be up at 4 am (feeling guilty about leaving my wife alone in the bed), but it's always been because of The Fight, y'know, Me vs Page, round whatever, let's go! And, like I said, I'm used to it, but what I'm not familiar with is that now I'm forced to...find room for my creative endeavors. A daylight schedule, especially around the traditional daylight hours of others has been really difficult to manufacture this week. I've been trying to find enough time to...exist, and I'm sure I'll get the hang of it, but, there's also the fact that the nighttime hours, to me at least, seemed like the bigger half of the day. So much time to get shit done during the hours when the normies sleep.
Or maybe it's just easier to operating 20 hours a day from the other side of the sun.
Probably. Maybe that.
I have, however, been keeping up with the book. Created a new character, Eve, after a friend brought up a very important point about female-to-male ratio at an orgy. She also brought up a point I hadn't, let's say, fully considered, that, women are always in charge of whether sex happens or not (unless, you know, rape). So, in this case, it couldn't just be Anise manipulating the orgy from behind-the-scenes, Lizzie has to be involved, which, lead to me discovering some sort of back-alley alliance between the two that stemmed from something that happened, off screen, the previous year.
I smell a flashback.
Creating Eve also opened a few doors, and, oddly, forced me to consider the time frame in which the book takes place. It seems very strange that, 30-odd pages in, I hadn't really considered such a thing, but, hey, that's me. She, Eve, began to move the story forward, as in, toward the endgame, which forced me to think of it in more than just the broad stroke of: And Then There's an Orgy (Great title by the way).
So, you know...that's good.
I also haven't watched much of anything this week. I know I'm only following an abbreviated 1-2-7-14 formula, but it's another one of those things in my life that I miss when it's gone, like, ice cream or sex, I certainly don't need movies to live, but I prefer a steady diet of them to keep me sated. I did, however, catch the pilot to The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin's new show on HBO, and, I'm sorry to say, some of the vitriol from folks hating on it. Most of it, thought I admit, I'm a die-hard Sorkin groupie, is unfounded. If you don't like his style, then really, what's the point in posting a review? So you can highlight just what it is that you don't like? Sure, or you could reorganize your sock drawer or take up saxophone lessons? Something productive, maybe.
Then there's the worst of the haters, these people who accuse Sorkin of "speechifying" or preaching through his characters, saying, A.) People don't talk like that and B.) How dare he? To which I disagree I disagree with on 3 points:
First, yes people do talk like that. The other night I listened to a co-worker go on for about 10 minutes, uninterrupted, about a touching story where he described the death of a loved one. It was something where I could tell he had to get through it, his way, and it would have been fucking rude of me to bombard him with questions or interject through it. Sorkin's dialog is a lot like that. Someone goes off like they tend to do, it's usually for a heartfelt or personal reason and should other characters start spouting off through it, it would feel disrespectful. The only time I have a problem with it is if it's BORING. Which brings me to my second point:
THIS IS A GODDAMN TV SHOW! People don't talk like that? Of course they don't, idiot! It's for our benefit! We are coming, cold, into the lives of a lot of different people and it simply wouldn't make sense for them to carry on as if we know what the fuck is going on! Are you unaware of the the typical conventions of watching a television show? Do you actually think that David Boreanaz is a vampire detective or perhaps an FBI agent? They do not speak as we do because they aren't, you know, real people. Their words come from something called a screenwriter, someone WHO IS a real person, one with thoughts and opinions, which brings me to my third point:
Are you not allowed, as a writer, to have a opinion and express it through your art? I sorta thought that was the point? Otherwise I'm doing it all wrong. What about those kids who keep writing about Obama's supposed aims for the country. Am I to believe these are factual texts? Am I to believe that the writers of Breaking Bad are all former meth dealers making a documentary?
Whatever, man. I'm not saying it was a perfect pilot either: the music is borderline (and sometimes over the line) saccharine and has inappropriate timing. But it's an enjoyable hour of television and that's pretty much its goddamn job. End rant.
For that matter, end entry. I'll get out of here before I try to squeeze my review of the new Linkin Park album into this entry.
"And Then There's an Orgy!" (formerly "Truth in a Hat")
By Gene Rol, coming 2013
(Truth in a Hat)
(Day 9 of 73)
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