More View For The Mountain

Two and a half weeks gone past in a flash.
Went to portugal for 7 days and, thus, the writing more or less stopped.

Going back to my diary I can see that I worked a bit on RIGOR MORTIS and LAST RITES before I went but also in various other things. Mainly transferring the ideas I had in Myanmar from longhand to word files...

Even before I went I managed to do that analogue copy paste thing and assembled all the files and began mixing things a bit but it soon became too convoluted for me to pursue it. So what I did was make some sort of little cards with the name of the file, page, scene, characters and brief synopsis of content and then shuffled it all around on the wall.

Today I manage to do all the copy pasting on a word file that is now 205 pages long. The comic itself is probably closer to 250... seems way too long but it may well work this way. I'm not interested in making it smaller just for the sake of it. I suppose this is one of the benefices of non comissioned work. I can just do whatever the heck I please!

But I've been very good with A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN. I've been working on it everyday and it hasn't left my mind a day since I came back from Myanmar.

I also finished polishing up the second draft for LAND OF FOG. Mainly cosmetics in relation to the first (spelling, phrase construction, you know...) and two new chapters. I think they round the story a bit more.

And now I only have to figure out what I'm going to do with all the other ideas that I had in Burma... I don't really feel like doing a sequel. But perhaps a few short stories. Or a long short story would be in order.

(not again!!!)

I've been reading a few of Gene Wolfe's amazing short stories and I'm trying attain a greater depth in my storytelling. The man is quite clearly a god of writing and he teaches his mastery at every phrase, at each page and word. There is much I still need to learn. Everything flows so well with him. There never seems to be any rush to get anywhere and, yet, the story is always there. It's always present, taking care of the reader.
I'd like to be able to write like this.

But I'll continue writing even if I don't!

Today I'm hoping I'll start patching the huge scenes quilt that I have managed to weave today. There are bits missing and I want simply to start at the beginning and start filling the gaps. Missing panels and missing links between certain scenes.
After that I'm going to go through my extensive list of notes and tick all the "objectives" for this story. All the themes/subjects that I wanted to cover.
Then I think I'll print it out and read it all over again, make whatever changes I feel necessary and, finally, deem it a first draft!

(I'm very curious about how many pages the comic will actually have... the is the biggest story I've attempted to write yet!)

peace.

Writing A Retreat Away

Even though my daily, early morning, meditation practice hasn't been the best lately, I have been complying to the type-up-your-retreat-stuff-quickly-so-that-you-can-move-to-do-other-stuff everyday.

But I already have 8 LIFE INSIDE MIND short comics (usually one or two pages long), 9 MINDFUL vs MINDLESS cartoon strips (four panels each, typically) and added some more stuff to LAND OF FOG, LOVE RITES, RIGOR MORTIS and LAST RITES among other things.

I'm typing everything up. Even the things I now feel don't work as well as when I felt them inside of me there and then. And I'm then creating the panel descriptions where needed. This is actually why it has taken me so long with some of the things. Most times, when I'm writing comics scripts, I simply focus on the dialogue with the odd note to the setting here and there. From all the stuff that I wrote in Myanmar, most is simply dialogue with a brief description of the general idea behind it - if needed.

Today I have also been planning the next few sessions for the Graphic Novels Reading Group and this idea I had about giving out wacky awards to our favourite comics creators.

If you're interested in finding out more about the group this is the place to go:

http://community.livejournal.com/lambeth_comics/

Tomorrow and friday I'm off so my plan is to type up and finish as much of the stuff that I did in Myanmar as possible and make a start on A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN. I have three print outs that I need to stitch together and then chop up and then combine... it's going to be a good arts and crafts day...

Apart from this another brief revision of LAND OF FOG seems to be in order. Maybe I'll do this before I leave today... after all it's only the last three chapters that I really need to look into...

peace.

Back From Old Burma

Yes, well, all things must change and thus, here I am, finding myself in a strangely familiar situation.

The myanmar meditation retreat was excellent. As always. Lots of ups and downs and remembering things I had forgotten, re-learning things that I still remembered and finding new things altogether.
So much so that a part of me wants to type up the journey and publish it online.
Perhaps even adding stuff from my previous retreat.
But I must be realistic and say - not for now! It's more important that I actually focus on that book about it rather than in creating more work. The important thing is the content and that book really has all the key things. My hope is that it will reflect not only my experiences - only important because they serve as examples for the practice - but also the deep relevance of the practice.
You'll be hearing about it soon...

Obviously, as I meditated I had a bunch of ideas...
Some of these are cartoons about the practice (which I have called Mindfull Versus Mindless) and are quite comical.
But some of the other stuff contains not only ideas for stories that I had already been working on but also a couple of new things. A series of one page comics called Life Inside Mind and yet another, more lenghtier series called either Rigor Mortis or Shunted Light... I still haven't got my head around it.

In any case I think I have learned a few valuable lessons this time. Part of me really wants to share them but I don't know if this is really the space. What I will do is write an email, both in english and in portuguese and send that out to some friends.
Maybe I'll post it here.
Maybe.

I had some new ideas for LAND OF FOG and so, now the book has two more chapters.
(3 or 4 pages more)
And there are also a couple of ideas for a couple of short stories that take place after the events in LAND OF FOG.
And they end up tying in with another book I started writing last year but that won't see the light of day anytime soon. This is probably the conceptually most daring thing I've ever considered doing and I want to be more mature in order to make it all that I think it can be. A deep exercise in creativity. I think it will write itself through the upcoming years.

So. I've been polishing a new draft for LAND OF FOG but also some letters that I wrote to friends while away. Also a series of comedy sketches in portuguese... and, of course, RIGOR MORTIS that simply just doesn't get out of my head. I'd like it to be a 60 or 70 page comic but I feel that the potential is really for an ongoing series. At the same time I think doing a series is just milking it a bit. It needs to be dense and powerdul. Actually it could also work as a feature film. Quite well I would say. The only problem is the ending. For the time being it's an open ending. There's really no punchline. Or, the punchline is, things are as they are: we merely choose when faced with them. And the journey is ongoing.

Things to do for the next few days;
Get back on track with A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN, finish LAND OF FOG and write up a first draft for MS, a children's book.
And a bit more on RIGOR MORTIS.
And finish those comedy sketches...

Hope you are all well!
peace

LAND OF FOG - chapter one

Sorry. I don't have time to edit this a bit and reformat it for this blog...
I'll do it when i get back though!

This story is 56 750 words. About 92 word doc pages.

Hope you like it!
peace

LAND OF FOG

DAY ONE
AFTERNOON
THE SUN OPENS
It was a sunny day. A gloriously sunny day. One of those where you know you could see till the ends of the Earth if it were at least flat and kept easy on the mountains. On the crest of the hill facing the sea, I could see from miles around. The sharpness of light and form searing silently into my brain as I breathed in the landscape, making it coalesce inside my mind.
The whole of the bay to the south shimmered in the sun like a mirror waiting for that final, god like polishing. I was standing on one of the green hills overlooking not only the bay but also a small village, tucked away to one corner, below and away of me, as if afraid of both the steep rocky hills ahead and the sea below with its continuous false promise of infinity.
I breathed the fresh sea breeze one more time. I grabbed my back pack and my old battered tent and made my way down to the small village. I made my way via a small path that ran along the hill and that I presumed would take me down at some point. I felt tired and I needed a good rest badly. So, even without knowing anything whatsoever about this town (I had stumbled into it by chance, after a ride that I’d hitched that hadn’t gone well and more than 5 miles walk already on my back). Seeing something like this. A quiet town by the ocean was more or less equated as bliss in my current disposition. Too many nights on the road, camping here and there – wherever I pleased really. I needed a shave, a bath, a warm meal and the deep ingrained knowledge that a real bed could last for more than a thought.
I kept going downhill amidst the oddly bent trees and scattered bushes. Did anyone ever use this route?
I entered the town through, I assumed, its northern side. From above the village had seemed like a well kept secret by the coast but now… now I walked through empty streets with more ruins than buildings - if I didn’t know better I would’ve said that the village had been abandoned at the height of the tourist season. Was I really going to find a pension or hotel or whatever it was this place had? Or merely the place where it once had been? Unwittingly I started preparing myself for another night inside my tent.
At least the sights were interesting. Most of the buildings were very old and decayed. The gums of time really showed here. Eating away the shell but keeping the core relatively intact.
Was there a single house where somebody actually lived? I was beginning to doubt it. It was either ruined sites or traces of ruined sites. The streets had no names whatsoever. There were no plaques. This was a ghost town for sure. But how could it be? It was so close to the sea. It was a beautiful beach bathed by a bay at least 5 miles in diameter. It was sunny and warm. Well, at least this time of year it was.
How could it be deserted? If not for anything else, some of those who’d wander here by accident would surely stay. I know I would.
The obvious conclusion was therefore: there must be someone. I just needed to find out where.
I really wanted a shower. A real one and not just one on the sea.
That’s what I’ve been having for the past week.
And, salt water and soap, if you don’t know, don’t really mix.
Try and make some decent foam with that.
And even if you dry yourself well, well, some of the salt still stays.
And it itches.
Especially after a week. The skin is permanently dry. And itchy.
I thought I’d get used to it.
I thought wrong.
But, since I was here, I decided to look around as best as I could. I mean if necessary I could always turn back and try to hitch a ride out of here.
Or camp out.

I pushed those thoughts away and continued to peer at the damaged structures all around me. Most were stone masonry. Most that still stood at any rate. One could almost see – or at least feel – the forces that had destroyed them. Each seemed to hold a unique story of destruction. All looked old. At least more than one hundred years old.
Here the remnants of what must’ve been a great stone farm house eaten by a great fire. There a meadow surrounded by a broken down wall, directing my eyes away from the village. Here a house of the late Italian Renaissance period. It was missing its roof and it was filled with sand and sea shells. As if it had spent years submerged and then miraculously brought back. Here remnants of small stone houses clustered together in a sort of circular shape. A smaller village within the village, probably pre-dating it. Here what looked like a small amphitheatre with a few stubs of roman pillars scattered around it. Here the only house I’d seen so far not half a century old. It was cracked in two, as if some strange earthquake had crossed underneath it or some giant hands had tear it apart like a loaf of bread. As if it had cracked after taking some serious beating from the weather.
And then the strangest ruin of all. I had to stare at it for a while to actually believe what I was seeing was real.
In front of me, and close to the steep stony crag I’d crossed minutes ago – I realised know that I’d been walking in a semi-circle without knowing it – was a house crushed by a gigantic stone ball. The wind clearly swirled around it for dust cavorted around the ruins, making it look as if the destruction had just happened moments ago, were it not for the weeds and ivies growing here and there.
Fucking sight, right?
I turned around and saw a man in his late thirties coming towards me, his blond hair waving in the wind but his eyes glued to the ruins.
Uh… yeah, I said.
Terry.
Hi. I said, forgetting to tell him my name. He paused beside me. Clearly more interested in what stood in front of us than in me.
Nobody knows what happened. He looked at me and smiled. Before you ask. Because that’s what always happens. People always ask how come that huge, almost perfectly spherical boulder came to crush this house? He paused.
And I always say that most people think it simply fell from the cliff face. But that’s impossible, of course. You’d have to carve it first. And then throw it for about 200 metres to get it where it is now. He paused again.
And, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anything that could do that. Anything, that is, but the tide. He winked, grinning.
Yeah. Right, I said.
Come, he said, tapping me on the shoulder, as if nudging me awake, You must be looking for a place to stay, right?
Yeah, in actual fact I am.
I’ll take you to Anne Marie’s. It’s the only place in here where you can find a spare room to bunk for the night. And then, noticing what I was carrying, And it’s not expensive either.
Thanks. That was precisely what I was looking for. I smiled. Finally, some good news!
And you’ll love her cooking. Everybody does. He grabbed my tent that I had apparently dropped on the ground and started moving away from me.
It sure looks like you need a shower, he said. Been on the road for long?
I adjusted my rucksack on my back and hasted to follow him.
Does it show that bad?
The road always shows for those that keep away from it. He kept moving without bothering to wait for me. He walked fast. But so did I.
I can’t really thank you enough for this. I was starting to think this was a ghost town, I said, making conversation.
Well you weren’t too off the mark on that one. Only a few of us live here. It’s mostly ruins and silence. And the sea, of course. And the fog.
Why is that? This looks such a beautiful place.
We got a lot of fog around these parts. He stopped so abruptly that I almost bumped into him. He looked at me with eerie intensity. A lot. And started moving almost as abruptly as when he had stopped.
We walked for a while without talking. I kept gazing left and right, not only trying to see where the heck I was going but also what other surprises the ruins held. We passed by a street where all the houses on one side seemed devoured by vegetation. Trees sprouted from windows and doors and roofs. Ivy covered most of the walls. And yet, on the other side of the road, there were old manor houses side by side with the walls crumbling and no traces of vegetation whatsoever.
What happened here? I asked. He didn’t turn.
Sea breeze.
We continued to walk through the small village without exchanging unnecessary words anymore. I was sure that at the hotel, inn, whatever it was, I could always ask for more information about the village.
Even seeing a house toppled on its side and yet another whose outer walls had almost perfectly collapsed in four opposite directions, I kept my silence.
Finally we arrived to what looked like a small inn with a sign saying Bed & Break. The rest was missing.
He dropped my tent on the ground.
There you go. You’re here. Go inside and ask for Anne Marie. She’s the owner. If she isn’t inside it’s probably because she went out to Mavis to get some supplies or the post. And he began to walk away.
Uh. Thanks, I said, raising my voice slightly. Would you like a drink or something? I said, but he seemed not to have listened to my words and was simply walking away.
O-kay, I muttered. At least I’m here. Let’s get a room now and worry about whatever just happened later.

Off To Meditatabout

The New Year has arrived.
I don't know what all of you have been up to but let me tell you that I spent most of my time during the holidays either playing Nintendo Wii with my little cousins or sleeping or seeing films or (yes, even a bit of that) writing.

So, how are things looking writs wise?

Well, I'm about to complete the first draft of my fourth book called LAND OF FOG.

(just give me an hour or so and you'll have another post in here with the first chapter)

And I managed to more or less type up everything with A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN.

But...
(the catch is...)
Tomorrow I'm off to Myanmar for a meditation retreat at Panditarama Forest Monastery!

http://www.saddhamma.org/index.html

Hopefully this will clear my head a bit more!

I'll be back in early february to continue with the writings. So, apologies if you try to get in touch with me in the meantime and I don't reply: I'll be without internet connection for a month.
And no mobiles either.
Or letters.
Thus giving plenty of room for contemplation.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday and that you are well and happy!
Always!

peace

Our Love To Admire

Yes. It's a rip off from the Interpol album.
But...
just the title!

Actually, this is my least favourite of the Interpol trilogy (so far...)
But I do love the title.
And, when I was writing the story (the initial title was Death At A Funeral - not very inspired, I know), this title just seemed to fit it all too well...

There's a lot of stuff that I like in this story. I like the way the characters are kind of dual. Even the father has his moment. And even Jeff, the main character, the guy who's supposed to know it all, wavers a bit, perhaps not externally, but internally.
As I was writing it, I was missing the subtleties. I wrote a first draft that was below 3000 words but, as soon as I started working on it it started growing. It's now just under 5000. Which is a nice size. I think it has all that the story needs.
Took me two days to re-write it. Which seems like an awful lot of time. Something like 12 hours to do something that only takes a bit over 2 hours to type...

The next phase is to read it out aloud, with a mic plugged to my computer and then see how it sounds. And I'll probably play some guitar as background as well - if it sounds alright.

I've done it before and, since lately I've been writing and playing guitar alternately, it kind of makes sense to put the two together once more. After all my guitar playing naturally divides itself between a "rock song" format and "soundscapes" so, why not use them?

So Land Of Fog and A View Of The Mountain have been on hold during these last few days. My excuse is that I've been running around quite a lot and I needed smaller things to focus on. So, Our Love To Admire and another smaller story (though it's now just above 8000) have been my two pet projects for this last week or so. As soon as they're ready (and I'm thinking tomorow and sunday to finish them off) I'll return to the two biggies...

Don't know if I'll be able to post a couple of mp3 tracks for Our Love To Admire (I'm not the most technical of persons - as you've probably noticed...) in this here blog but it would be fun!

Peace

Through the Fog, up the Mountain

The last few days hve been full of surprises, of various flavours and forms.

On thursday I went to a conference which helped me substantially with one of my projects where I made quite a few interesting contacts and learned some very interesting facts. And where a few ideas became clearer.



On wednesday I had found out that my gran had died in one of the strangest ways ever. While having some soup she choked on it, some of the soup went into her lungs, the firemen and the ambulance fortunately came in time and managed to keep her alive with oxygen, enough to take to hospital but, due to yet another stroke (probably her 6th or 7th major one) she was rendered very weak and, after a few hours, she passed away.

I was sad but perhaps not as much as I'd expected. After all, she'd been bed ridden for quite a few years and it was clear that she was never going to recover and that she was slowly drifting away from life.



So, on friday, early morning, i was on my way to luton, heading to Lisbon and then to Sao Martinho do Porto where the funeral was being held.

I started writing a short story on my way there that I finished on my way back. It mixed some of the elements of the situation and some lessons that sometimes I feel people could use with really learning.



The strangest thing happened while waiting in line to get into the airplane. Someone collapsed while waiting in line and, to date, i do not know if the person made it or not. I mean, there i was, going to my gran's funeral and, suddenly it seems that the subject of death comes "alive" somewhere ahead of me.

I was instantly consumed by the fear and the pain and the powerlessness of the situation. Even thinking about it now still bringsthat intensity somewhat back.



This whole situation helped clarify what I actually feel about death.



Inside me there is still some fear and quite a lot of resistance to the prospect. But, at the same time, there is also a core certainty of the beauty of the moment - if we are given time to contemplate. And this, I know it within my heart, transcends and overwhelms all the fear that I could possibly feel.

I've had some weird experiences in the past and they have all led me to the conclusion that death can be an amazing experience. In fact, that death can be (as Neil Gaiman so brilliantly put it) The Time Of Our Life. When the whole of our system knows that this is it, suddenly all the boundaries that have been in place to "keep us safe", can be discarded and the world's of experience can really be opened up. I firmly believe that in those last few moments we can live more than we ever thought possible. I don't think any experience whatsoever could possibly compare to it.



In any case, there I was, waiting in line, powerless as somebody fought for life. Hearing the despair, surprised at the inefficiency of response services within the airport. It felt as if it was more important to to keep up appearances than actually help the person (for a while people were crying out for a doctor or nurse amidst the passengers and, yet, there was no information on the speakers - or, rather, the speakers continued to blare the usual stuff about flights and delays).



What I felt was that it was the being in that moment, sharing that transition, and especially the fear and concern and pain and support that people were demonstrating with their body language, that really affected me.

I say this because when I was looking to my gran, lying in her coffin, I couldn't feel much. It was clear to me that she wasn't there. That that body wasn't her. That she was gone. It was so clear that I couldn't do anything about it that no attachment was present.



My relation with my family and with my own feelings has always been somewhat complicated. So many contradictions that sometimes I am lost amidst them.



This time I was so absorbed in being there that I didn't really notice the usual "they cry for themselves rather than the dead".



What I observed that really turned me inside out a bit, anger boiling alongside a somewhat cool contemplation of it, was with me listening to the priest saying the mass. This was the first time that I heard most of it. And I felt completely betrayed. I couldn't stop seeing and feling the deception being played.

(I'm not saying that it was, just that that was how it felt to me)

i understand everybody's need to come to terms with that indefatigable event taht no one seems to be able to dodge, but the way the priest was performing that service just felt, ultimately, as an act of subtle cruelty.

The key to all this was the tone of voice. So artificial and rehearsed that I felt at points like choking the guy.

I guess people prefer to listen to what they wish they could believe than in what they actually feel. I guess that, when confronted with death, we all need a supporting parent. But seeing someone taking advantage of that vulnerability was becoming unbearable. Feeling and knowing what I was feeling, both enhanced my ability to control my emotions and to more fully express them inside myself.



This is my issue of course. My inability to accept when people do not talk from their hearts or even from their minds but from something they simply have been told to believe.



So why am i enraged at everybody else's relinquishing of their inner freedom to find their own truth?



Partially beacuse I know that I am afraid of being exactly like them, only in a different way. Instead of having a seemingly solid external system to back me up, I have a, perhaps steam like interior system backing me up.

Also because I quite obviously and egotistically believe that my beliefs are better than other people's.

In sum, because i, like most people, have a warped vision of reality. This being caused by the existence of an ego, to a great extent. If there is an I, if there is something that recognises itself as being separate from the rest, then this I will tend to see itself as most important than the rest purely as a survival mechanism.



Why am I writing this?

I honestly don't know. For many reasons I guess. Probably all the ones you can think about are probably true to one extent or another. It doesn't really matter.

Partially I wanted to give a background for these last few days writing and to record in some way the transformation of my perception.



This probably has to do with a sensation/thought that I had on the 436 going back to lewisham this afternoon. I had the clear impression that after (or before) the funeral of my other gran, almost 3 years ago, that I had had a vision or a dream or something that i was at the funeral of this gran that died a few days ago. It was a deja vu, of course, but this one had a memory attached to it of actually having written down this sensation all this time ago.

Obviously I don't have the faintest idea where I wrote this.

In any case, it was simple. I had the feeling I had dreamt or foresaw the whole situation around having to rush back to portugal for my gran's funeral after having been only a week ago.



i know that deja vu feelings are simply a way of dealing with our pain, with a situation that we feel we cannot resolve. But this one clearly felt different from the usual ones.



Anyway...



On wednesday I reviewed a bit more of LAND OF FOG. I had felt that I was spending so much time lately with A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN and not so much with this project (that I still want to have a first draft ready before the year ends - actually, before x-mas comes....). Not much and quite slowly. I spent more time playing the guitar (and recording various tracks) than reviewing. Sometimes it's just the way it goes. I didn't feel like I should force myself too much on that day. And so I played thinking of my dead grandparents and let what I felt out in my own way. Turning the emotion into some sort of grandeur. Death should not be small and squandered. It should be celebrated and be able to lift us up even closer to life. Those tracks were a bit a bout that. Starting with simple structures of half a dozen notes, repeating themselves in loops but with some rhythmic variances that gave them fluidity and vertigo. And then, at some point, thinking of The Go-Betweens, i shifted the scale and made them all happier and lighter. In some i returned to the beginning riff, in order i did not. Above all I just wanted to use that liberating energy that i was feeling and captured it somehow so that perhaps one day I can share it and help others reach that state. maybe telling them the story of how those songs came to be and then playing them so that we can all participate in an experience of communion and some degree of truth.



Today I finished typing up the rest of the stuff for A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN. There are still some more panels to write up but I think I can do them all in a day. Maybe this coming wednesday. It would be nice if, by the end of this weekend, I could have both first drafts finished. It's quite possible, but I have to be more focussed than I have been in the last week or so.



And this is how things are at the moment.



Hope you are well and happy.

Always.



Peace