Exploding quietly

[vaneramos]

Owens Corning fibreglass plant, viewed from a children's playground, Guelph, Wednesday afternoon.

~~~~~~~~~~

I have hit a nexus of ideas, ones that apply to both personal growth and my ideas for writing.

Sometimes in the writer's garden, a project must lie fallow. After NaNoWriMo in 2003 I was overwhelmed by the challenges of revising Tendril Through Cyberspace: I didn't know enough about virtual communities to construct a convincing universe. I would need to do considerable research before rewriting Tendril's story. I was overwhelmed and set the project aside.

A year later here I am struggling to write the final chapters of Pilgrim's Cross, an entirely different story without science fiction elements and hardly any surrealism. But I've been changing the way I use the internet and process ideas. This week I keep running into ideas relevant to Tendril's world. avad pointed out the notion of memory palaces, using memory to reconstruct real spaces on virtual sites (So many useful/startling ideas come from you, girl!). Then I came across a blurb about an online game erupting into life, with gang violence and police arrests. Another article describes how scientists have created digital organisms that reproduce and mutate far faster than living things, allowing them to test problems of Darwin's theory.

These tidbits suggest elements of Tendril's world: a virtual landscape, wildlife and culture. Will her virtual antagonists emerge from a real city subway stop to perpetrate revenge? Will life forms mutate before her eyes?

Meanwhile, my thoughts about "letting go" and "giving up" are merging with a refreshed sense of "going with the flow." Today I read a friend of a friend's comment about a book by Thomas Moore, Dark Nights of the Soul. Another reminder that our inner seasons are natural, too. Rather than struggling with them, we need to pay attention.

I am an introvert strongly compelled by the creative impulse. To neglect it is perilous. I need to find ways of making it work for me, rather than solving life's problems according to conventional wisdom. I am trying to listen more to my own desires and utilize my strengths. None of this is particularly new, but it's coming from every direction today, like the universe imploding into a giant black hole. Maybe next I'll explode brilliantly.

Patience, man. I've got all life. Even the Big Bang lasted hundreds of thousands of years.





Another photo from Wednesday's walk: Eramosa River.

Comments

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Ooh! That's an interesting user icon!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that is one of my Prismacolor drawings, my personal favourite. You can see a near fullsize image by clicking on the thumbnail in this gallery:

http://216.94.45.246/didi/gallery.cfm?artists_pk=23&action=view

[avad.livejournal.com]

:)!!!
hee I don't know if it was prompted by this post but i just dreamt you visited me! SOmehow my dad was around and I introduced you and wanted to make some sort of connection with the writing (he has been loving writing lately) and art (he is also an artist).
But mostly you and I were just planning to go to a movie or something..very casual relaxed as if you visited often.:)

hey and relating to this post...more thoughts on the memory palace and 3d immersive on rokkitz
s journal HERE

join in?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

That is very cool! I don't remember many of my dreams, but I do know LJ people often enter them. I must pay more attention and see whether I dream about you. :-)

That journal is fascinating. I followed lots of threads from there. I hesitate to start following more journals just now. I'm trying to stay focused and balanced. It's not easy. There is hardly anyone I would want to cut from my friends list, and going beyond 100 has been a dangerous threshold for me in the past.

[avad.livejournal.com]

oh i just meant if you wanted to join in on the memory palace/virtual worlds discussion/notes on that particular post!no pressure! :)just wanted to direct you ther in case rokkitz and i got to more good brainstorming on the topic

[artricia.livejournal.com]

I'm loving your journal lately. The ideas are really hitting on a lot of things I've been thinking about, and helping me out a lot too. I hope that's not too selfish. I'll ass, too, that the ways the ideas are coming together are really beautiful.

I'm wondering, as an introvert, how you see going with the flow. I've often seen it as going along with other people, and now that my days are spent alone often (a big problem), I have troulbe with how to go with the flow. Is it mainly about being observant?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you, this week has been hard going keeping up the process—the feeling that I'm nearly running out of words. Your feedback helps!

Yes, being observant, attentive, mindful. Letting go and going with the flow means tuning out the litany of expectations about where my life is going, both the negative (anxieties and doubts) and positive (hopes and ambitions), and paying more attention to what I feel, want and need at this very moment, without judgment. I'm trying not to berate myself for bad habits -- or exert control -- but consider how I can achieve better balance.

The sorts of things I'm trying pay attention to more:

"I've spent too much time on the computer. I need a break."
"I want to work on that collage."
"I'm hungry."
"The dishes need to be done."
"I need to talk to somebody."
"I told Marian I would call her this evening."
"I'm feeling shut in. I need a walk."
"Ninety minutes working on the novel and then I can play solitaire."

And I'm trying to use my book calendar to plan more and study the way I use my time, paying attention to the rhythms of my mind and body.

I'll try to write more about this soon.

Photo

[(Anonymous)]

Great post, Van. I love that photo of the Corning plant from the park. I would like to see you reproduce it on a blue summer's day. Though the trick would be keeping it clear of people.

G

Re: Photo

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I pass this plant all the time and I've photographed it before, though never from this particular vantage. It would not be difficult to do what you suggested on a weekday in spring or fall. This park is pretty quiet except when there are ball games going on.

[detailbear.livejournal.com]

The metal piece seems very appropriate to your post, as well. Contrasting the straight-forward railway-track-like linearity with the helical path of going around the subject: it takes longer, but is more interesting.

I'm also reminded of the Warner Brothers cartoon with the no-nonsense bulldog forging ahead and the little dog jumping around him inanely, "Gee, Spike. What shall we do today? Eh, Spike?"

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I felt that the image connected with my post, too, and you put it into words very well. Committing one's self to creative expression requires belief in a play ethic every bit as much as the work ethic.

The choir's concert date is April 23. Hope you can come.

[detailbear.livejournal.com]

Marked on my calendar.