Growing a new tree to rustle
I'm still alive.
Since my last entry some six weeks ago, the poinciana saga has concluded. The minor damage to a gutter has been fixed, the tree is nothing more than sawdust and roots, and a new tree, a Eumundi quandong, has been planted next to the subterranean remains of the old tree's trunk. I did say there'd be pictures, but none ever came, mainly because I find the process of maintaing a flickr as an utter bore. Despite this, I feel that it is a pertinent topic as to what this journal is actually about. I partly watched a program on TV tonight that documented a bloke's ascetic experience out in a desert, and in the strange mess of neurons that my brain is, a spark leapt from one to another and this happened.
First, let's have a history lesson, to everyone who may not be aware. Years ago, I took part in something my compatriot in the endeavour called an interactive story, where one writer does a chapter, then another continues the story with the next chapter, and then another goes on to do the same, and individual storylines weave together to form a somewhat cohesive whole. Some of the people reading this took part in it, or were at least aware of When We Meet Again. Read at your own risk to your sense of sanity and patience (especially since most of us writing it were under 18 at the time and did not have the skill of mature writers) but take heart that I'm actually doing the work for you and creating a summary of my storyline and its appropriate feeds-in, and will be published to DTYvK Productions soon. At its conclusion in early 2002, a new interactive story began, called Twilighter Council, set five years after the first. But, what of the meantime? My storyline in WWMA left a couple of loose ends that needed to be tied up, especially in regards to the secondary character I had created, called Tob. I shall not go into much detail about him or his circumstances - and I ask that those who know his story don't spoil it for those who have not read it - but I felt that he created a ripple large enough to warrant my own personal sequel to WWMA, called Rustling Leaves.
The problem with RL, though, was that I often regarded it as a "second-rate project". At the time of its creation, I was focused on the then new and exciting TCIS and once it calmed down, I put efforts towards Lich's autobiography, Light and Metaphor, which, actually, I finished in September of 2004. As for those other writing projects...others lost interest in TCIS, especially as we all grew apart from the head writer, and as for Rustling Leaves? Its reasons are many, I guess, but the last chapter emerged in 2007 and I hit a major writer's block that I've not been able to summit ever since. So, it fell by the wayside, I put my energies elsewhere, and I don't think any sort of creative writing has emerged from my keyboards (of which I've had a few in that time) ever since.
Rustling Leaves was still there all along, taunting me with its non-completion. Occasionally I would go back and re-read what I've written, and it would strike me in the face that a lot of what I'd written was really good: it shows a maturity and depth to my writing, and it paints the characters in the tale, especially Lich and Ark, in light and darkness and exciting tones. Amidst all this wonder, was one fatal flaw: it had no direction. It still has no direction. It is a story that I left to write itself, a process I admit to enjoying, but will eventually lose its momentum. Oh, yes, I knew where I wanted to go with it, but much in the same way of saying "I'm going to California" and leaving it at that. California is a big place, is vastly different from one part to the next and the places within California are little worlds of their own. In getting there, especially from the east, you have to take vastly different routes to end up in the exact place where you want to get to. Even from my side of the world, you're given the option of landing at LAX or SFO. "Whereabouts in California?" "I don't know". Add to this the fact that I started this journey back in 2002, and though my vehicle has remained the same, the model has been upgraded many times but is now a veritable, incoherent mess, using tools and parts that are now substandard to what I have and because I didn't have a map. I look at the first couple of chapters and cringe, but then I look at later chapters, especially those featuring my favourite character I've ever written, and I smile.
This leads me back to the documentary. Like in the past, I've found inspiration for the story from various sources, from Alias to La Boheme, and this will lend its input in its own way and be twisted by my mind into something different. Notably, it goes back to the first words I wrote in the prologue eight years ago:
Many stories deal with deserts. A journey across its vast, featureless, sandy landscape is always seen as a metaphor for the struggles of life. Deserts are holy places - religions are born in the cradles of the shifting dunes. Deserts are lonely places, and for those who travel across them, it provides much opportunity for thought.
For the first time ever in my writing, I'm going back and doing it again. That's right, I'm rewriting Rustling Leaves, and I'm going to finish it. I will apply the maturity and skills I now possess to its chapters; but more importantly, I will have a roadmap. Though my WWMA summary will be completed before I publish my new chapters, I am looking forward to being able to announce its progression. I feel inspired to write for the first time in years.
I have a lot to do, and I am beginning that right now.
Since my last entry some six weeks ago, the poinciana saga has concluded. The minor damage to a gutter has been fixed, the tree is nothing more than sawdust and roots, and a new tree, a Eumundi quandong, has been planted next to the subterranean remains of the old tree's trunk. I did say there'd be pictures, but none ever came, mainly because I find the process of maintaing a flickr as an utter bore. Despite this, I feel that it is a pertinent topic as to what this journal is actually about. I partly watched a program on TV tonight that documented a bloke's ascetic experience out in a desert, and in the strange mess of neurons that my brain is, a spark leapt from one to another and this happened.
First, let's have a history lesson, to everyone who may not be aware. Years ago, I took part in something my compatriot in the endeavour called an interactive story, where one writer does a chapter, then another continues the story with the next chapter, and then another goes on to do the same, and individual storylines weave together to form a somewhat cohesive whole. Some of the people reading this took part in it, or were at least aware of When We Meet Again. Read at your own risk to your sense of sanity and patience (especially since most of us writing it were under 18 at the time and did not have the skill of mature writers) but take heart that I'm actually doing the work for you and creating a summary of my storyline and its appropriate feeds-in, and will be published to DTYvK Productions soon. At its conclusion in early 2002, a new interactive story began, called Twilighter Council, set five years after the first. But, what of the meantime? My storyline in WWMA left a couple of loose ends that needed to be tied up, especially in regards to the secondary character I had created, called Tob. I shall not go into much detail about him or his circumstances - and I ask that those who know his story don't spoil it for those who have not read it - but I felt that he created a ripple large enough to warrant my own personal sequel to WWMA, called Rustling Leaves.
The problem with RL, though, was that I often regarded it as a "second-rate project". At the time of its creation, I was focused on the then new and exciting TCIS and once it calmed down, I put efforts towards Lich's autobiography, Light and Metaphor, which, actually, I finished in September of 2004. As for those other writing projects...others lost interest in TCIS, especially as we all grew apart from the head writer, and as for Rustling Leaves? Its reasons are many, I guess, but the last chapter emerged in 2007 and I hit a major writer's block that I've not been able to summit ever since. So, it fell by the wayside, I put my energies elsewhere, and I don't think any sort of creative writing has emerged from my keyboards (of which I've had a few in that time) ever since.
Rustling Leaves was still there all along, taunting me with its non-completion. Occasionally I would go back and re-read what I've written, and it would strike me in the face that a lot of what I'd written was really good: it shows a maturity and depth to my writing, and it paints the characters in the tale, especially Lich and Ark, in light and darkness and exciting tones. Amidst all this wonder, was one fatal flaw: it had no direction. It still has no direction. It is a story that I left to write itself, a process I admit to enjoying, but will eventually lose its momentum. Oh, yes, I knew where I wanted to go with it, but much in the same way of saying "I'm going to California" and leaving it at that. California is a big place, is vastly different from one part to the next and the places within California are little worlds of their own. In getting there, especially from the east, you have to take vastly different routes to end up in the exact place where you want to get to. Even from my side of the world, you're given the option of landing at LAX or SFO. "Whereabouts in California?" "I don't know". Add to this the fact that I started this journey back in 2002, and though my vehicle has remained the same, the model has been upgraded many times but is now a veritable, incoherent mess, using tools and parts that are now substandard to what I have and because I didn't have a map. I look at the first couple of chapters and cringe, but then I look at later chapters, especially those featuring my favourite character I've ever written, and I smile.
This leads me back to the documentary. Like in the past, I've found inspiration for the story from various sources, from Alias to La Boheme, and this will lend its input in its own way and be twisted by my mind into something different. Notably, it goes back to the first words I wrote in the prologue eight years ago:
Many stories deal with deserts. A journey across its vast, featureless, sandy landscape is always seen as a metaphor for the struggles of life. Deserts are holy places - religions are born in the cradles of the shifting dunes. Deserts are lonely places, and for those who travel across them, it provides much opportunity for thought.
For the first time ever in my writing, I'm going back and doing it again. That's right, I'm rewriting Rustling Leaves, and I'm going to finish it. I will apply the maturity and skills I now possess to its chapters; but more importantly, I will have a roadmap. Though my WWMA summary will be completed before I publish my new chapters, I am looking forward to being able to announce its progression. I feel inspired to write for the first time in years.
I have a lot to do, and I am beginning that right now.