Damn These Unproductive Daze(s)

In the computer world you can't move memory and use it at the same times, right? You can't run operations on something without moving it into a location where you use it, don't ask me the details because I'm too drunk to describe them properly but believe me it's true.

And is it the same with writing, can I process a thought and write about it at the same time? Can I ponder the mysteries that I wish to explore as I describe them, as I express them. That sounds impossible, thinking in logical terms.

So are these unproductive days so bad? The days spent sitting catatonic on couches watching comedy DVDs and hopelessly searching for a mindless computer game that can hold my attention for longer than it takes to download and install. I have ideas on these days, well, not even quite ideas but I can feel something jumble around inside my mind, things move into new positions, new perspectives are assumed and spent in those mindless moments where I wish I was able to work on my novel or even do anything constructive at all.

For example, I was watching Falling Down today. I enjoy that film, I really do, some things about it annoy me but overall I like its message. It's a story about man fixated on the past, trying to use force to bring back his self perceived golden age. He ends up becoming the bad guy of his story, that's it isn't it. Fighting reality makes us the bad guy.

And then I was watching my comedy DVD, The Armando Ianucci Shows. He had a particular sketch that said everybody is pretty much the same, just with different knowledge and that we are all just basically twats using that knowledge to gain advantage. I liked that.

There is more, things that occurred while I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling that I can't even remember right now. Well, in summation.

A moment lived in rationality and good faith is never a moment wasted. Even though you might not physically produce anything something is moving beneath the surface, something that will show itself when you find yourself in a position to process it.

Philip K. Dick - I Salute You!

I have to write this, I've been putting it off for over six months and I really have to write this. I've written about Philip K. Dick before in this blog but I've never really delved into how I really feel about his work. So here it is, Philip K. Dick - I salute you! I won't do him justice but I'll give it a go all the same.

Weapon of Choice: Some men fight with force, others are faster with their words but Philip has the ability to warp reality itself. The very fundamental rules of causality mean nothing to this man, parallel dimensions? No dimensions at all? Nothing is certain. Master of the feint Philip has you watching his left fist while his right obliterates your whole plane of existence.

Armour: How do you strike at something without form? Without rules there is no weakness, there is nothing to strike out at. Philip can reform at will because he taps into a deeper truth.

Special Move: Philip has pulled this one off against me a few times as I lay in bed at 5am finishing off one of his novels. There are few books that can make me interested in what's happening, fewer still that can invoke some kind of emotional response but there has only been one sort so far that can make my mind implode and lose a sense of reality, even for a few moments. Philip has been the only one to author this sort. There is craftsmanship in how he constructs his worlds, a terrible form of love that settles in every character. A cold displaced passion that echoes the real world while simultaneously mocking it. Worst of all it passes itself off as a possible legitimate interpretation. Philips special move is to inflict a literary hallucinogen on his readers and transcend the limits of the written word.

Weakness: Philip suffered a lot, and I'm not talking about his borderline poverty or constant stream of divorces. He suffered because he was trapped in sci fi and could never be taken seriously as a legitimate fiction writer. He was, in a way, a king trapped among fools. A heavy weight armor plated world champion class boxer stuck punching it out with feather-weights. Was this good for his work, probably not. In the long term the spark left his work and he never returned to golden age that brought us Do androids dream of electric sheep and Ubik.

It's an interesting one, in summation what does make Philip's work so great. I think it may have been an uncertainty that every lead character he had that the world they were in was really real. Like the author himself knew what it was like to be a character in a book and have a world written around him as he went.

Marketing

So my mind finally turns to the less glamorous side of writing.

Actually, no, it's not less glamorous. It's just less idealistic I suppose but it's not even that. I guess it's not as fun as writing novels and yet it kind of is.

Let's face it, selling work is hard. Out of everything I've ever done in the world of writing, from reading out my work to strangers, to having my work critiqued, the hardest has been writing blurbs. The hardest part has been writing those little ten line long introductions to your book. That's stupid isn't it?

I'm not that experienced but I have almost two complete novels under my belt now. I would have expected that sort of thing to be child's play, even too easy for me to bother with. So there you go, this must be my tenth post on this particular subject and I've never really found anything else nearly as difficult.

To your top right is my latest attempt and you'll notice I've changed tactics slightly. Gone are my attempts to encapsulate the entire mythology of the book, that definitely wasn't working. Gone is my attempt to introduce every single character. I've gone with two, a guy and a girl because I've realised something. When they say that sex sells they don't just mean in bed, it also includes love interests, female friends etc.

The human brain just naturally finds this interesting, don't ask me why. It reminds me of this time I saw two tourists who had obviously just met talking at a bus stop. If it had been two guys talking about what the Guinness was like nobody would have looked twice but because it was a guy and girl and they were awkward as hell everybody was looking and smiling like it was the most beautiful scene in the world.

And it kind of was, I'm just not sure why. Anyway, for that reason it's good to have that kind of energy when you want somebody to read something. Well, I'll report back if it works.