Sediment and Silver

My to-do-list. D:

Never mind my last answer. I just remembered the best quote EVER!!! :D

So what if I just ran over to FB and copied this from my profile? I love these! :D

"All the scientists hope to do is describe the universe mathematically, predict it, and maybe control it. The philosopher, by contrast, seems unbecomingly ambitious. He wants to understand the universe; to get behind phenomena and operation and solve the logically prior riddles of being, knowledge, and value. But the artist, and in particular the novelist, in his essence wishes neither to explain nor to control nor to understand the universe. He wants to make one of his own, and may even aspire to make it more orderly, meaningful, beautiful, and interesting than the one God turned out. What's more, in the opinion of many readers of literature, he sometimes succeeds." — John Barth, 1930

“I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
some letter of that After-life to spell;
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
and answer'd: "I Myself am Heaven and Hell.”
— Omar Khayyam

"We recreate History not as it was, but as we wish it was." — Christopher Francis (??)

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, and not one bit simpler." — Albert Einstein

"There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign." — Robert Louis Stevenson.

Probably going to be the hardest post I've ever had to write. My "excuse" for my current and disappointing position in life. This biographical story is long overdue. The older I get----I turned 22 today----the more frequently and seriously I get cornered by my friends and family: "Why don't you have a job?" "Why haven't you learned to drive?" "Why aren't you in school? Why are you still living with your parents?" Why are you always late? Reading this even now, I bet you, Reader, think you already have the answer and are ready to move on from this post. When I try to tell this story in person, I always get interrupted with advice.

A step forward in any of those directions could very quickly become five or six steps backward in my circumstances. I'm sure you've heard before that, sometimes, the best strategy IS to wait. Like quicksand or a bog mire; People understand action, not inaction; If struggling makes you sink faster, at least nobody will blame you. Metaphor aside, waiting to save your life could cost nearly all your PR. All the advice you have to turn down.... All from people who care abut you... Need I get started on all the insults from the people who don't care, or that actually think insults will motivate you?!

If you know me, you know I'm not lazy, and I should hope that it's easy enough for anyone to tell I ain't stoopid. So, what's my problem? The same problems everybody has: "Money, family, and family with no money," but to a degree you'd never believe possible until you've been here yourself.

My past is extremely difficult for me to talk about because I get overwhelmed; It's a complex story, plus more mental anguish than a comic book villain. In public, I rarely speak, and I'm sure I have a blank stare most of the time------this is not introversion, this is shell-shock. I delight in the smallest daily pleasures----"stopping to smell the roses"-type things----because they are the only joy I have. Sometimes, though, that just makes me feel like a lunatic-----crying because I looked at the stars.

I'm never sure where to begin---chronologically, or problem-by-problem like a checklist? I've tried to write this tale a dozen times before, and have tried both ways always fail at explaining the web between a thousand causes and effects. Which is the whole point-----so other people can understand what I see in my mind so sharply. It's not that the way forward isn't clear, it's just difficult-----like passing your body through a solid brick wall molecule by molecule.

Well it do!

This year though I will be working on an all original story, so I will not be posting it online. I will often check in here though just to rant about how it's going. Or not going. Or going wrong. Or just going. :P

It's almost noon on the first day and I ain't even looked at my file yet. xD

I'm continuing from where I left off on the currently-7k-word draft of a story that I started to write last Sep for the 3 Day Novel marathon. It completely and utterly depresses me that I seem to need a scheduled marathon in order to make any REAL progress on anything. ( TT~TT )

On the other hand, since Sep, everyone who's read the 7k words, including myself, have been in dumbstruck awe of the visual descriptive power that I seem to have sprouted mysteriously.

Selected excerpt:

"Rainy as ever, however," Mab determined, pleased, extending a scarlet umbrella as she began her trek from the station. Against the gray
hues of the drenched city and somber faces of the weather-weary townsfolk, the little girl with her red umbrella stood out in stark contrast, like a giant poppy blossom adrift at sea.

My grandmother is a fairly professional editor, and in her exact words, my story "is full of it." (It slipped out several times, and we LOLed.)

I only fear that I may have lost that power or let it rust.

I hit a wall and couldn't finish the story because I have this very prominent anti-villain who's motive I can't quite settle on. He is a preteen with dark superpowers who picks fights with he hero and anti-hero. I just can't figure out why he would rather fight than solve his problem some other more sensible way. (I like to keep my characters, even the kids, highly intellectual in spite of weather that's realistic or not; I think kids need more roll-models with brains. Kids HAVE great brains, we're just trained not to use them, and let adults think for us at all times. Needless to say my kid characters are unrealistically independent in the world.)

If I didn't train in kenjutsu myself, I wouldn't have a clue about his motive. The only clue I got, though, is extremely esoteric. Fighting is like handwriting. And like one can learn much about a person by examining the minutia of their handwriting, a master of swordsmanship can learn much about the life ways of his or her opponent by dueling with him or her. This was attempted in reverse in the Jet Li movie HERO, where the character Li plays tried to learn about another swordsman's fighting style by examining his calligraphy.

IF I succeed in portraying that point, this story will come out EPIC. Like Disney meets Matrix. If I try and fail, my entire plot will seem weak, even futile. :-(

Not feudal.

Funny you ask. 10 seconds ago I was showing my bro this video my Jujutsu sensei shared with his class today. xD

I was just about to post this when I decided to stop and answer the QotT. ("What 3 books have changed ur life?")

I save my post, then view the entry. There's only half of it displayed. I freak out, hit the back button, luck out that my old text was still there, and copy-&-paste the HTML view into a txt document. I review the code-----while stricken horribly with the hiccups myself!-----find nothing wrong, and proceed to battle with the stupid website for 10 more minutes trying to get the rest of my post to display in my Journal. Conclusion: Since LJ " u*p*d*a*t*e*d " their word-processor, their services has become practically worthless.

"Update" ~ secret code for fixin something that ain't broke.

I can only hope that all or even PART of this rant will make it through, let alone what I really wanted to say in the first place.

---

Been skimming Germanic folktales all night. In all, I found two, maybe three that I actually liked. But one in particular stood out. As the very end of one proposed version, I recognized an instance of actual, true depth. Ague with me if you will.

Most classic fairytales popular in today's culture are simply repolished HORROR stories, more often than not filled with beheadings, rape, and the like. Unless one can mistake visceral nausea for the feeling of supreme intelligence (I've witnessed people do it) I'd fully agree that connoisseurs like the Brothers Grimm and filmmakers such as Disney did us---and all of history---a favor by revising them. Sure, save copies of the originals for study, but delight in the remakes.

Anyways, in that vein, I feel I might one day like to rewrite the ancient lay "Heer Halewijn" as a poetic novella. :)

So, Heer Halewijn, legends of the Leanan Sidhe, and The Little Seal Skin are pretty much my favorite unsung myths. 'Unsung' as in less than mainstream; Not like Disney-Princesses-on-your-underwear mainstream, of course.

Got half a mind to write a vampire story just to show by comparison how retarded they've generally become. I'm already attempting that with fairies and angels in my major projects. Heck, I even have a plan for a story that should do that with steampunk. (Commencing Rant: Steampunkers really ought to commit themselves to higher standards of quality before they bandy around the label like they're serious about it. It's like starting all your poems with "roses are red" and equating yourself to the Greats, living and deceased, the sole exceptions being Verne, Poe, Wells, and Lovecraft. *lampshade comment is a lampshade*)

Anyways, hope this whole post makes it through LJ's new mincing technology. D:

Arrr, alas, no jokes, but this fine day would ne'er be complete w'tout trampling the decks a bit to the likes o dis spirited tune. p-)



An' wit all that Ol' Jules Vern is said to 'ave foreseen, it tickles me giddy to think tha' even 'e might ne'er 'ave seen this commin!
"20,000 Leaguse Under the Sea" was Walt Disney's first all live-action feature film in 1956. Not sure specifically who's ideas they were, but this song and Captain Nemo's pet sealion were NOT in Jules Vern's book. Disney & his co. invented them. I care cuz this is one of my favorite movies, and lately I've been trying to learn the difference between what Disney himself made and what movies his company made in his name. Even in his lifetime, Walt Disney apparently had trouble being taken seriously because people thought his movies were for just kids. But, compared to what crock the film industry is saturated with nowadays, even my little bro (with just such a bias against Disney) is starting to appreciate the man's rare genius. He still wont watch any "Disney" movies, but he frequently walks up behind me when I'm watching one and laments how filmmakers back then clearly "cared more" than filmmakers nowadays. All I can say to him is that movies are made to gross, not made to last. Not anymore. Except maybe if the director is devoted to a cause and a bit deluded. Causes can date a film, you know.

Ah, I have been meaning to make such a list recently... Been wonering what it would look like if they all teamed up. O__O

Scorpina (Power Rangers)
Queen Mab (Merlin 1998)
Zira (Lion King II)
Ansem (Kingdom Hearts 1)
The Mysterious Woman (Sky Captain)
Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty)

.......I'm bored. I'll come back to this later. :q