Another Self-experiment

Posted on November 2, 2008 by randomyriad

I think it is finally time for another self-experiment. I am going to call this one number 10 just for a round number. If you are one of the ten people that actually read my blog, you know that I participated in NaNoWriMo last November. This year I am doing the same, but my experiment will be to write approximately 1500 every day instead of writing 6,000 or more on the weekends to make up for 0 to 500 word days during the week. Also I am challenging myself to write my blog consistently without publishing my NanNoWriMo excerpts.

Last year I was able to finish my “novel.” It was not all that finished by the end and somehow in the encription process I lost my ending and was never able to adequately rewrite it. Maybe it just sucked, I don’t remember. I am still editing last years novel and trying to come up with a good ending, but I am going ahead with a new one. I hope to jump start a total creative rebirth in my life. I also have committed myself to working on some visual arts each day. So far yesterday was successful. Today has just begun and I am off to a good start. I wonder obstacles I will have to overcome to complete this task. Oh, well they will come and I will climb over, break through, go around, swim, dive, dig or build a bridge- whatever it takes to get to the other side. Obstacles are what make the journey interesting. I wonder what a bridge of words looks like? Maybe I will have to make some doors and windows go through too.

Posted in All part of the process, NaNoWriMo, novel projects, Self-Experiments, Telling Stories | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Soaking in the Long Ago Sun

Posted on November 1, 2008 by randomyriad

Today, on this cold, wet autumn day, I will sit with my back against the rough bark of the dark tree in the golden light and let the waves of late summer heat flow into me from the past. I will not enter the passage into the room where doors brightly invite me to look for answers. Today, I am a soaker not a seeker. Tomorrow will be a day for exploration and note taking. Today I will close my eyes and feel the day pass without comment.

Posted in autumn, Lazy daze, make your own world, pieces of the mirror, Telling Stories, time travel, whereever you go there you are | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A Road, A Tree, A Room of Bright Questions

Posted on October 30, 2008 by randomyriad

There is a lone tree in the middle of a rolling meadow of amber dry grass next to a dirt road that leads to an old gold rush town in the foothills of California. The tree is a bare black gash in the blue sky of late summer as if the day had been shattered from the other side. The fabric of darkness shows through the crack. Last night I walked into the darkness of that tree that stood in a day twenty years ago and found a passageway that led to circle room with many doors painted in bright colors lit by the sunlight that came gently through a glass ceiling. Each door asked me silent questions about my life. I could not decide which to open first. They were all important questions, but I knew I had time to try each door. It seems I had found the room at just the right moment in my life. As I turned to face each bright door, I was pleasantly thinking that I had built this room here in the middle of my life so long ago and left that lone tree as marker along the dirt road so that I would not miss it. Planning is so important when constructing a life. You just have to figure out how you are going to find the important places when you need them.

Posted in California, Of the Road and The River, pieces of the mirror, Questions and riddles, summer, Telling Stories, thinking in words, time travel, whereever you go there you are | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Golden Hair and Blue Smoke

Posted on October 29, 2008 by randomyriad

The Monkey King shifted on the bar stool and rubbed his hand over the deep golden hair on the top of his head before pulling a cigar from somewhere, casually striking a match that appeared from an equally mysterious location and gently puffed the slightly mashed stogy to life.

“So what’s this all about?” He asked in between puffs, his voice a bit rough around the edges.

“I’m not sure. I just wanted to get to know you a bit better,” I answered kind of feeling my way along the dark corridor of this conversation. “That smells awful, by the way.”

“I know. You really can’t get a decent cigar these days,” he said tapping the thing in the ashtray and then placing it in the corner of his mouth to hang and waggle as he spoke. “It’s a habit I just picked up recently, in the last hundred years or so.”

We both settled into a slightly awkward silence with throat clearing as the main ingredient.

“So, like I said before. What’s the deal? I heard you were asking around about me and wanted a little face to face.”

“I guess I was just wondering what it is your doing these days, and how you might fit into this piece I am working on.”

“People nowadays are mostly rehashing my old stories from way back. In their defense, I really don’t get out much anymore. I’ve been hangin’ out with my crew on the mountain, but I gotta tell ya that’s wearing a little thin these days.”

” So what are the kinds of things you are likely to do in a story? What do you see as your role?”

“Well I have awesome powers. Each golden hair on my body can act as a tool with multiple functions and I have perfect control of all of them, but I tend to be a loose cannon, a bit shifty, and easily distracted.

I am definitely a heroic type, a bit off beat, I guess, but I generally get the job done. It all depends on who you talk to though. In India I am a bit more reliable, but I still have my moments of high spirits and off the grid action.”

“Hmm, I can see definite possibilities. What’s your schedule look like for the next few months?”

“I am pretty much wide open. I have a few minor responsibilities but nothing epic on the horizon.”

“Great! How do I do I reach you?”

“Just give a shout. I might come if I not busy. You never can tell. You can call me Hanuman or Great Sage Equal to Heaven will do too. But more than likely I will just show up and make things interesting for you.”

We shook hands and he vanished in a puff of foul bluish smoke. I went back to my gin and tonic, my imagination lit up like a strip club at midnight. Yeh, it was the beginning of a beautiful collaboration. I felt it in my gut. This Hanuman might be just the ticket to get me on the express train to somewhere weird and unexpected, and that was just what I was lookin’ for.

Posted in conversations, developing relationships, Monkey King, Mythical and mysterious, pieces of the mirror, Telling Stories, Wacky World | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Down the Hall on Your Left

Posted on October 27, 2008 by randomyriad

In my dreams life is lived in a world house in which doors open onto rooms of almost infinite landscapes in a state of constant fluid change. The rooms change with my experiences in life, the places I live and people I meet.

Sometimes I think of my waking life in that way. When I get into my car in the morning to go to work, the road becomes a hallway and my classroom a door at the end that opens onto my work day. Then in the afternoon my car takes me back down the hall to the door leads to my life at home.

Yesterday on my way back down the hall from my day at work, a man leaned out of his car window and asked me directions to the nearest market that sold fruits and vegetables. I almost answered, “It’s just down the hall on the left.” Then I realized he was not inside my life’s house. He was in the house that contained his life and had not constructed the hallway that included the market. He was most likely adding a hastily constructed new wing which he called northwest vacation, or business trip.

“There’s one just up ahead on your left,” I yelled. “Two signals,” I held up two fingers to emphasize the number. I wished him good luck and went back into my life to continue my journey down the hall that takes me to my life at home.

Posted in Dreamtime, House and home, make your own world, Of the Road and The River, pieces of the mirror, thinking in words, whereever you go there you are, working world | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment