A Memory Musing

Let me tell you of a place in my mind.

It is Huntington Beach, or at least it is of one that I have pulled from memory. The sand is hot because it is midday and, unlike most places in my mind, the sky is very sunny. I step onto the sand with no shoes on. It does not burn. There are a lot of thick callouses on my feet. I am seven-years-old, and I walk barefoot almost any chance I get. Even the broken glass underneath the sand does not bother me, they just dent my scaly feet. It is 1989 in the middle of July. There is a lot of broken glass these days. This is the Orange County that I remember. This is the Orange County that I will recall should I tell you that I lived there.

The sun sets as soon as I have both feet in the sand. There is a fire burning in a fire pit. I do not know if there were fire pits in 1989. I do not remember any. So, I submit this paragraph as imagination - an ideal. I walk to the fire pit. The heat from the fire begins to sting and broken glass still pokes at my feet. The fire itself is bright. It is all that I can see in this darkness. I am short at seven-years-old, the fire is as tall as my shoulders. There is a murmur behind the fire. They are the mixed voices of my family: parents, their siblings, my siblings, cousins, and their friends. Their sounds fill the quiet like an unseen wind ensemble. Only the fire snaps its resistance to the music.

This next part is also imagination. I reach the fire and sit next to it. I still can not see my family behind the fire. I do not know if they can see me. They do not speak to me. I do not bother to talk. My face grows hot from the fire. I close my eyes as I lean toward the fire. I feel all the dirt and salt and sand burn off my face. Warmth enters my lungs and bleeds into the rest of my body. I am coated by heat, surrounded by voices I can not hear, darkness I can not see, and glass shards I can not feel. My thoughts are gone. The only presence is the fire - its smoke holds a taint of sweetness from the burned wood.

Just Short

Perhaps, like my stature, my ability to communicate is rather short.

I think big when I go through my day. I think about, especially when I was younger, cool situations that I could be in, like I was in a TV show. And there has been more than one instance when I came to some kind of philosophical thought that was worth a good essay or two. But in the end, all I'm willing to put down is a summary of my thoughts, messily packed in a few sentences.

I don't even know if I'm making any sense at this moment, and I've kept myself from acting because of it. Am I afraid? Am I confused? Maybe a little bit of both. I've been so used to having other people tell me what to do that I freeze in place when I want to command myself.

Does any of this make sense? Probably not, but I suppose I shouldn't care.

In publishing this, do I look like a fool? Should I care if I do?

Again, I suppose I shouldn't, but this goes against my feelings.

Late Night Musing

Note the singular.

I'm sitting around - on a computer, in UCR, after 1AM.

This is a quick post since I haven't had the time to reflect... What I can say right now is that I feel a bit of nostalgia, regret, and confusion as I walk through the campus. Now, why do you think that is?

An Old Dinosaur

I was feeling self conscious this morning, so I looked up my name on the internet and found this old thing. It's pretty bad stuff, but I figure it's worth sharing for a chuckle or two.

However, even though the writing is crude, I can remember the passion that drove me to create. I'm a better at the craft now, but I've lost that energy.

I didn't know any better then, so I had blindly put down words on the page without much regard to rhythm, images, or even comprehension - which is probably why I enjoyed making the contents for that web page. I know more now, but my writing has slowed down in a big way.

At any rate, enjoy the past while I try to figure out the login for the site, because it's going down as soon as I find it. If I ever do...

Temporary Silence

I just want to let you, my readers (both real and theoretical), know that I will be with limited internet access until Sunday. So, that means few or no updates until then.

See you next week!

I'll Need a New Character Sheet

Characters have been the focus of my freewrites lately. I manage to write down a character's appearance, favorite childhood toy, sexual orientation, therapy bills, politics, savings accounts, and other things that come to mind, all in ten minutes. It's easy for me because I used to churn out these character statistics for sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.

These character sketches are not written well enough to make biographies, as I connect these traits through word/phrase association. Sometimes the combinations are pretty crazy thanks to my strange world view (e.g. a navy brat who likes to scratch her back with a philips screwdriver). Yet, they work out in the end. So, I've finally found a productive way to freewrite, which excites me.

This means that I can write new stories. I'm not very good with plotting ahead, so I rely on my characters to lead me through it. If the characters are strong enough, with many strange, yet believable quirks, they'll end up in good stories. At least, that's what I hope will happen. No worries.

I try not to stress over it. I've done that before, and it's only led me to nothing. So, I'm going to trust in the "practice makes perfect" cliché and stick to it. That's what I want to do. Maybe, that's all I can do.


Oh yeah, one more thing:

I have considered a change in my blog labels because they might be too generic. For example, there are posts that contain rants about my writing, and others that contain tips on writing - but they're both labeled "writing" because they're about my experience in writing. Do you think this is appropriate, or should I diversify my labels? Suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Thanks!

OMG It's a Blog!

I always love first posts because I never have anything to say. I can't talk about anything that happened to me today. Nor could I express my opinion on something. It just doesn't feel right. If I were to talk about these things in my first post there would be this feeling of emptiness.

It's like pretending that there was never a beginning. Sometimes I'll go through someone's blog or forum post, talking about their formula to make people immortal or whatnot, and wonder "Hey! This person's pretty smart, I wonder what she or he is like. I bet I can find it in the first post!". And when I see that their oldest post details their plans to find a cure for cancer, I find myself disappointed. Sure, it's possible that they've had other blogs to hone their craft, and it's still indicative of what they were like way back when. However, I'd like to know things like this in a more concise manner.

Opening posts like this one let us know where you came from. It doesn't necessarily have to be long, nor have much detail. But it does give one the sense of a beginning (or another beginning if you've done this before). While it doesn't necessarily set the whole mood of the blog, it does give us a more clear idea of who the poster is. For example, by the time you've come to this part of the blog, you probably figured that I'm an egotistical moron who obviously doesn't have anything to contribute to modern human society and likes to create blogs just to chastise those who create blogs in a manner that doesn't suit him.

I would prefer that you didn't think that way of me. I'm just writing this opening post because I really don't have much to say. Hopefully I'll be able to post something meaningful in the future.

But now that's all done I'd just like to say one thing: I'm glad to be here. I'm sure we'll have fun.