Category Archives: Writing

Renaissance Festival

By lytspeed Posted in Geek, General, Writing Leave a reply

Today was my wife’s birthday, and we celebrated by going to the Colorado Renaissance Festival. We had a great time, and saw Ded Bob and his dummy smuj for the first time in a couple of years. (Evidently Bob’s not very happy with the “cheap bastards” and the “golf claps” at the Colorado Renaissance Festival. All I can say is that I contributed my $5 …)

We also saw Rick Stratton’s hypnotist show, and I was one of the subjects chosen to get on stage under hypnosis. I had mentioned to my wife before the show that I wanted to be hypnotized, and it came through. For me, the most interesting revelation about stage hypnosis was that it was old hat. I’ve been in that state many times; I just didn’t know it was hypnosis. I’ve done enough meditation and visualization exercises that it was easy for me to drop into a deep relaxation; the big difference between the stage hypnosis and the visualizations I’ve done before is that I was not being directed to do things under the visualizations.

Here are a few observations about stage hypnosis as I experienced it.

1.) I was fully conscious of everything going on around me at all times. When I was “asleep” and limp on the stage, I was not really asleep, just relaxed enough not to care what position I was in or who I was leaning on.

2.) I was fully able to choose whether to do anything that Stratton suggested, and in fact I don’t perform a couple of the actions that he suggested to us because they were against my basic nature. However, I did not feel resistance to most of the suggestions, even though they were not things I would do under normal circumstances.

3.) If I had been in the audience, I would have been rolling on the ground laughing. However, on stage, I did not laugh at the hilarious things going on around me (except when Stratton planted a suggestion about laughter.) I was definitely in a different state of consciousness in which my interpretation of humor had changed.

4.) I was very tired and a little out of it for about an hour afterward, despite Stratton’s suggestion that I would feel awake and refreshed. I felt drained.

I’ll add more observations as I think about them.

Later in the evening, I managed to squeeze in some time to critique the chapters for the Old Possum’s Writing Group tomorrow.

Goodbye, Phil

By lytspeed Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Writing Leave a reply

I did hear back from Brian Plante after sending him feedback on the GVW Chronicles. I’m pleased to say that he was very pleasant and civil, and that he addressed some of my concerns about the anonymity of the group to my satisfaction. I still have some issues with the moral implications of what he’s doing, but I told him I would keep reading the chronicles based on the reply he gave me.

Yesterday, I sat down to write the review of Zen Guitar and got some shocking news about its author. Evidently Phil Sudo died while I was in the process of reading his book.

When I read a book, I get a sense that I’m sharing something personal with the writer. That was especially the case in this book, since it was written in the framework of a martial arts dojo. I felt like Phil was teaching me while I was reading. When I found out that he had died of cancer in June, I experienced a stillness in my thoughts. I felt as if I had been conversing with a ghost for the last month without realizing it.

I wish Phil’s family the best, and I want them to know that Zen Guitar gave me focus in my playing, and the book will stay by my bedside and in my gig bag for some time to come.

Plante’s in the Garden

By lytspeed Posted in Opinion, Writing Leave a reply

When I checked Brian Plante’s Chronicles of the Garden Variety Writers today, he had posted a new entry for the July 3rd session. He started the entry by acknowledging that he had received feedback from people stating that he was being unfair to the writers in the group, so I was encouraged. Unfortunately, he then went on to say the following:

“I’ve already stated these chronicles will contain, by necessity, a lot of my personal opinions, so maybe you should just take things with a grain of salt. You’ve been warned. I am mostly at peace with what I am doing.”

 

At this point, I decided I should send him an e-mail. I resisted doing that when I posted about this blog in my June 27th creativity journal entry. It will be interesting to see if he responds.

When it comes right down to it, he has the right to cover any topics he wants in his weblog. That’s part of what blogging is all about. But I’m concerned that he may have crossed the line in terms of this writing group, and his portrayal of some of the members as “tourists,” who don’t do anything to further the productivity of the group in his eyes. I’m also concerned that he posted the group’s charter online without their permission.

Moving on.

(Later in the day.)

No, I’m not moving on. I thought about this some more, and it struck me that I’m not having a problem reading the logs of some people who are attending Clarion East and Clarion West right now. Essentially, they are journaling in much more detail about the events in their workshops than Brian is. So why is it bothering me that he’s journaling about a small group in … oops, I almost gave away the secret location of the Garden Variety Writers group.

I think it has to do with the deception. Bluejack and Dierdre, above, are writing their online journals with the full knowledge of the other participants. Also, they are not pretending to be something they aren’t in order to gain access to their groups. (In fact, they paid a hefty entry fee to get in. It’s a great deal for six weeks of intensive writer training, but it’s still hefty!) Not only is Brian intentionally withholding his publishing history, he hasn’t disclosed anything to them about the fact that he’s archiving their activities.

How is that different from what I’m doing? First, I’m not a professional (or semi-pro, even) writer. Second, I have announced at all of my writing groups that I’m keeping an online creativity journal and invited all of them to look at it. I haven’t specifically said that I mention the groups in this log, but since they are directly related to my creativity, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to find references to them here. Third, I’m not making negative judgments about the people in those groups.

I guess there is a difference. Now I need to figure out why I’m picking this battle, I think. It’s really none of my business what Brian says about people in the Garden Variety Writer’s group, despite the fact that he is posting the information in a public forum. And I certainly don’t think it’s my responsibility to try and protect these people who don’t even know what’s happening to them (and might not care.) So why am I getting so vocal about this?

I guess I can say this much about Brian Plante’s Chronicles: they have pushed an emotional button in me, and to that end, they are worthwhile. Whether that button is a valid one or a sensationalist one ….

Hold the phone.

I think I realize part of the lack of appeal. This is like the seedy side of television’s reality programming. I abhor reality programming because in it the tragic portions of people’s lives become nothing more than network TV entertainment. That’s part of what’s unsettling me. To be fair, I don’t think Brian is intentionally trying to emulate reality programming, but the fact that the participants in the group are not aware of what’s happening makes it feel like a sting operation.

And for me, that’s a good reason not to watch any more, no matter how much I want to see what happens when the group finds out about it.

Okay, really, moving on now.

Treading water

By lytspeed Posted in Computers, Writing Leave a reply

The Tem writing group went well again. We had a good turnout, and again discussed the responsibilities of the artist in using inspirations from real life so the other members could join in.

I also finished critiquing a manuscript for a friend today, but she didn’t have time to meet to discuss the critique.

I did meet with the staff of West Side Books and discuss the revision of their website. It sounds like they have some good ideas, and I should be able to get something up there soon that will satisfy their wants.

Similarities to Symmetrinas

By lytspeed Posted in Poetry Leave a reply

I worked on the assignment for Melanie Tem’s writing group at lunch today. Once again, it turned into a short-short story, and once again, I had no idea where it was going or how I was going to make it work. I’m not sure it does work, but if nothing else, it’s a cool idea for a comic book character!

I also learned about Bruce Holland Rogers‘ fixed form of writing called a symmetrina. The more I dig into this, the more fascinating it looks. It has elements of structured poetry, self-reference, and even a hint of fugue. It looks like the perfect form for what I had envisioned as a series of poems about Perspective. Dang it, Bruce, you just gave me another project!

As I read the description of the symmetrina, I thought about poems I have written that have some of the same qualities. Follow along with me if you are interested.

In Two Shifts Passing in the Night, I used line length, font color, font size, and a shift in point of view (from third person to second person) in one continuous sentence to convey a sense of motion and illustrate the Doppler Effect. (Oh, and on the surface, it works as a simple poem about an unrealized relationship.)

Tikkune is the closest I have come to making a truly rigid form, with 22 lines of iambic pentameter (ten syllables per line.) This poem is based on the Tree of Life from Hermetic Kabbalah, and as such, the numbers 22 (letters in the Hebrew alphabet and paths on the Tree) and 10 (number of sephiroth) are significant. The first and fourth stanzas contain three lines, the second and third contain eight lines each. Each stanza illustrates one of the four worlds, moving from worldly to divine (Assiah, Yetzirah, Briah, and Atziluth.) The symmetry of the stanzas is meant to convey the image of the Tree of Life before the loss of knowledge (Daath, the “eleventh” sephira) and the fall of the center structure of the Tree. The rhyme scheme is also fairly complicated, with rhymes fifteen syllables apart, and couples at the end of the eight line sections, though I don’t remember exactly why I built it that way.

(Note: Tikkune is my personal interpretation of how a person might use concepts from Kaballah to increase his self-awareness, and should not be seen as any kind of Kabbalistic reference or endorsement. I have studied Kabbalah a bit, and I’m fascinated by the philosophical aspects of it. But I am no expert or teacher, nor do I advocate anyone getting involved with Kabbalah — or any religious or philosophical system — beyond the level of academic research without serious soul searching and consideration.)

The poem Ornithology is a tribute to Charlie Parker, both in words and form. It’s a sort of musical acrostic, with each stanza having its own “key.” The first notes of each line, if played or sung, create a simple melody resolving in the final note, the key of the stanza. Each stanza’s key, if played as a chord, resolves in a IV-V-I progression in the key of C. The lines are staggered according to the relative horizontal positions of their beginning notes on the Circle of Fourths (also known as the Cycle of Fifths.) If all this makes any sense to you, you win a medal!

(The graphic above is from the Vision Music website.)