Notes from Nanoland
Camp Nano is a strange masochistic ritual. Taking time away from slinking around in Cyberia in order to dedicate sixty minutes or so to every day to squiggling and knowing damned well that all of it will end up gathering dust on some hard drive.
For while the serpent is disciplined when it comes to the word count, the stuff that comes after is just one enormous festival of procrastination. It’s been nearly five years now since first setting foot in the crazy place that is Nanoland.
Some 500, 000 words later nothing has made it past the first draft. Plotting and planning for the next adventure is just the perfect excuse to procrastinate on polishing previous efforts.
This tendency is almost a serpent trademark. The other serious addiction to rival squiggling is playing with tarot cards and of course collecting them. I had acquired two decks way back in the early nineties where their magical powers remained dormant until resurrected by a gift from a certain cat. The Fantastical Menagerie was the deck that started the current addiction. That was in 2007. Many more have found their way to the Lair since then. It provided an irresistible mix of art, symbolism and mystery. While at first it was hard to remember all the cards and their associations and meaning, eventually familiarity and osmosis worked their wonders. The best way to remember them was to use the images to tell stories regardless of any official meanings.
It was a strange and fascinating experience to actually visit a tarot reader. Unlike most folks who hang on to every word and treat it like gospel truth and remember only the matches not the misses, was able to watch the whole process like some sort of impartial Martian. Firstly to notice how many generic explanations were given that could be made to fit for just about everyone. Travel on the horizon or new studies are favorites on that front. Then there were the stack of fives which are a pretty bad bunch. The reader just completely ignored them. She’s hardly going to tell the customer to stop being such a cranky cantankerous bitch now is she?
The best thing was being able to reconstruct the whole layout shortly after the reading and then using that as a prompt for what was said. It was then possible to clearly see the misses, the false positives and the false alarms at one glance rather than just remembering the greatest hits.
This is where the inner beast raises its ugly head once again. There are so many folks out there who have dabbled with decks for a couple of months, watched a few videos online and then go out there hustling and doing the silly Gypsy Rose fortune telling routine. They convince themselves and they convince others of their amazing psychic talents and make lots of money doing so.
And there’s this timid little serpent watching from the sidelines too afraid to play the game. Aside from not being a people person it simply comes down to lack of nerve.
Then there’s the years spent doing that degree in accounting. The more I learned the less I felt I knew while others folks would be out there doing a six week Dodgy Brothers certificate and could convince the world that they were taxation or financial planning gurus and rake in the money to match.
There’s no regrets in the time spent studying since that time would have passed anyway. It’s the $15,000 spent on fees that could have been used to pay off the Lair a few years earlier that is the biggest regret.
To spend that sort of money on education and not to actually use it is truly a sign of some serious mental deficiency. Learned at least one lesson from that adventure. While it’s fun learning stuff, if it is not going to be actually used for anything then it’s best to stick to all those MOOC freebies.
It’s always the same obstacle be it with words or be it with cards. No matter what one does for a crust, at some stage selling and spruiking is involved. Banging the drum, singing your own praises and telling the world how absolutely wonderful, talented and special you are seems to be the expected thing these days. Those who cannot or will not play the game are doomed to a life of insignificance on the sidelines of life.
Even in a crappy job at the bottom of the social ladder, those who were always knocking on the boss’s door telling tales or blowing their own trumpet or even taking the credit for work done by others would be the ones who would get on while the folks who just do their job and mind their own business may as well not exist. It seems that the sizzle counts for far more than the steak these days.
Must be slinking off. There’s Camp Nano words to be squiggled. They will join the others in the Graveyard of Unfinished Books but it’s worth doing anyway if for no other reason than the sense of achievement earned from setting a goal and sticking to it.
For while the serpent is disciplined when it comes to the word count, the stuff that comes after is just one enormous festival of procrastination. It’s been nearly five years now since first setting foot in the crazy place that is Nanoland.
Some 500, 000 words later nothing has made it past the first draft. Plotting and planning for the next adventure is just the perfect excuse to procrastinate on polishing previous efforts.
This tendency is almost a serpent trademark. The other serious addiction to rival squiggling is playing with tarot cards and of course collecting them. I had acquired two decks way back in the early nineties where their magical powers remained dormant until resurrected by a gift from a certain cat. The Fantastical Menagerie was the deck that started the current addiction. That was in 2007. Many more have found their way to the Lair since then. It provided an irresistible mix of art, symbolism and mystery. While at first it was hard to remember all the cards and their associations and meaning, eventually familiarity and osmosis worked their wonders. The best way to remember them was to use the images to tell stories regardless of any official meanings.
It was a strange and fascinating experience to actually visit a tarot reader. Unlike most folks who hang on to every word and treat it like gospel truth and remember only the matches not the misses, was able to watch the whole process like some sort of impartial Martian. Firstly to notice how many generic explanations were given that could be made to fit for just about everyone. Travel on the horizon or new studies are favorites on that front. Then there were the stack of fives which are a pretty bad bunch. The reader just completely ignored them. She’s hardly going to tell the customer to stop being such a cranky cantankerous bitch now is she?
The best thing was being able to reconstruct the whole layout shortly after the reading and then using that as a prompt for what was said. It was then possible to clearly see the misses, the false positives and the false alarms at one glance rather than just remembering the greatest hits.
This is where the inner beast raises its ugly head once again. There are so many folks out there who have dabbled with decks for a couple of months, watched a few videos online and then go out there hustling and doing the silly Gypsy Rose fortune telling routine. They convince themselves and they convince others of their amazing psychic talents and make lots of money doing so.
And there’s this timid little serpent watching from the sidelines too afraid to play the game. Aside from not being a people person it simply comes down to lack of nerve.
Then there’s the years spent doing that degree in accounting. The more I learned the less I felt I knew while others folks would be out there doing a six week Dodgy Brothers certificate and could convince the world that they were taxation or financial planning gurus and rake in the money to match.
There’s no regrets in the time spent studying since that time would have passed anyway. It’s the $15,000 spent on fees that could have been used to pay off the Lair a few years earlier that is the biggest regret.
To spend that sort of money on education and not to actually use it is truly a sign of some serious mental deficiency. Learned at least one lesson from that adventure. While it’s fun learning stuff, if it is not going to be actually used for anything then it’s best to stick to all those MOOC freebies.
It’s always the same obstacle be it with words or be it with cards. No matter what one does for a crust, at some stage selling and spruiking is involved. Banging the drum, singing your own praises and telling the world how absolutely wonderful, talented and special you are seems to be the expected thing these days. Those who cannot or will not play the game are doomed to a life of insignificance on the sidelines of life.
Even in a crappy job at the bottom of the social ladder, those who were always knocking on the boss’s door telling tales or blowing their own trumpet or even taking the credit for work done by others would be the ones who would get on while the folks who just do their job and mind their own business may as well not exist. It seems that the sizzle counts for far more than the steak these days.
Must be slinking off. There’s Camp Nano words to be squiggled. They will join the others in the Graveyard of Unfinished Books but it’s worth doing anyway if for no other reason than the sense of achievement earned from setting a goal and sticking to it.