The Resonance Of Silence

Believe it or not, I've been working on my book...

These last few weeks have been crazy and I've been far from any sort of serious commitments to anything really...
Still, last saturday afternoon I managed to go to my friend Dickon's Zine Picnic held outside, on the Royal Festival Hall balcony!
Met some interesting chaps and basically talked the whole time... just scribbled a couple of ideas I had on my way there on a sheet of paper and that was it.

But I think the last week or so has been productive. I managed to finish 7 stories for the New Scientist competition.
I sent one today.
Not the one I had told people I was going to, but rather the one people kept mentioning.
So, Collapse, rather than Legacy.

What I'm planning on doing is posting here these stories one after another.

And I'm gonna leave Collapse and Legacy to the end...

Not all of the stories met the 350 word maximum that the competition hailed but, there you go... you got to let your ideas breathe!

So, without any other delay...


THE RESONANCE OF SILENCE
(491 word count)
The sun shone on the beach and, apart from the man that stood reading by the edge of the water, there was no one in sight.
Taking a deep breath he closed the book he held in his hands and looked around, observing the long deserted beach, the line of trees whispering in the wind and the rhythmic crash of the waves. And he found himself incredibly close to everything.
He shivered.
“Daddy! Daddy!” He heard his daughter call out behind him. “Mommy wants you!”
“Does she now?” He said. “And what is it this time?”
“It’s a surprise!” said the little girl, grabbing his hand, pulling him away from his reveries.
He smiled and began to follow up the pebbled path.
“How frail is memory”, he mused. “And how frail are we…”
The irregular trail led to an old asphalt road, gnawed away by the seasons.
“Gaia has proven quite resilient… to be expected I suppose...”
His daughter picked a red and blue flower from a crack in the pavement. Then she started to dance and swirl around with it, singing a melody that kept changing, including whatever sounds fancied her attention.
“-though we naturally tend to assume that simply because we have intelligence this somehow enables us to escape consequences.” He looked at the small child, taking in more than what his eyes could see.“I think we can say in all probability that, in fact, it’s the other way around. We create more consequence rather than escape it. Still… not all outcomes are bad…” He gave a short run and picked up the girl. She giggled in delight. Kissing her, he placed her on his shoulders.
“Honey, daddy is getting old.” He said. “And you’re getting heavy!”
She looked at him in childlike seriousness.
“I don’t feel heavy. Plus I exercise plenty.”
He smiled but said nothing.
“Daddy?”
“Hmm?”
“How was it like when you were growing up? Was it very different?”
He looked up, not knowing what to say. She peered down, grinning widely.
“Nah… I suppose it was more or less the same. Only with more people. And less water… But, people will be people. And water hasn’t changed that much either.” He looked up at her, smiling.
“So why are you always thinking?” she said.
“I don’t know. It’s not like I can change anything. But sometimes… sometimes I wonder if there truly ever was a choice.” He said. “Knowing ourselves as we do… perhaps this was what had to happen.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” She said, trying to stare at him from above.
“Really? What is it then?!”
“Mommy says it’s the silence. That’s what you really like.”
“Aah… maybe.” He said. “Maybe you’re right. It’s deeper and richer now. The silence is the only thing we didn’t leave behind.” He took another deep breath, gazing at the empty highway, stretching endlessly into the horizon. “The silence is our true legacy to the future…”
END

peace

God in all His ways

I've just finished revising the last two chapters of this section. One was about a priest and another about an old neighbour. I knew I couldn't keep them in the way they were structure and so this felt more like remixing than plain, straight forward revising.

Once again I had some pleasant surprises with the way the chapters unfolded. Writing does seem to take on a life of its own, especially when you start to believe in it even more than you think you could (or should...)

Today, while at work, I told a colleague of mine that the book was going to be more than 400 pages long. He said, cut it down... but, perhaps for the first time, I didn't really withdraw inside and worry about the possibility of doing it all wrong. It was more like, this is how this book is.

And that's what really matters.

That's why I started to write it.

I didn't write it thinking of a particular format, thinking of how it should be in formal terms. I just wanted to say something, to say it well and, above all, to actually let these things speak for themselves.

I want this book to feel alive.

And this is what I've been feeling sometimes. Through the hours where I'd rather be watching a film or reading someone else's book. Seeing time go by and this path ahead of me which, if I refuse to walk it, will never take me anywhere.

So I wrote today again amazed at the magic that sometimes happens on the page. In all honesty, I don't really feel that I'm doing it. I feel I'm the scribe more than the author. It's like looking at a puzzle. With time the pieces start to fit and make sense. But did you create it?

Anyway, two chapters that didn't seem to have much going for them have turned into something deeply interwoven into the book.

(and if I ever get an editor for this book I'm gonna have a tough time to cut stuff out...)

Besides this I read vols. 26 and 27 of Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond.
No reviews for any of these yet. I love this series so much that I'm not the least worried in doing what would probably prove itself to be a rushed review. I think I'll probably wait until the series ends (within a few years) and, from the vantage point of completion, then discuss it in some length. Suffice to say that this series has taken me through some terrible and yet very beautiful places. It all makes sense. You just gotta let it breathe...

It's past 3am. I should be sleeping. I have to wake up at 7.30am.

I shouldn't be here talking to you.

But I am.

peace.

Two girls, a gravedigger and someone that knows the dead better than the living...

I arrived home later than I expected but eager to get my mittens on those pages...

I didn't do that many pages (only 7) but i still manage to re-write 3 chapters.

The first one was about two friends that chat in Bairro Alto about decisions and the unwillingness of the past to go away.

The second one is about an old lady that spends more time with the dead than with the living. Obviously a chat with a gravedigger is more or less in order...

The third one is about the gravedigger himself, as he fills yet another grave, taking pride in his work - even if the living don't care anymore.

These are short chapters (especially the last two) but I think all of them round up the story more by giving the reader a clearer picture of the characters. I want a feeling of completeness to exude from this book. I think it is important and makes sense in the broader scope i'm aiming this book towards.

Before all this however, I read Grant Morrison's and Klaus Janson's Batman: Gothic.

I think I read it many years ago, when i was 16 or 17, quite possibly in a Brazilian edition bought in Portugal. I remembered the story only vaguely but enough to know that this had been one of those comics that had shifted my perspective about them.
Even after all this time, it was still a very powerful journey.
I wrote a review about it as well. Also to be posted in the near future...

Tomorrow may well be another long day at work but I'm determined to sink my teeth in another chapter or two as soon as I get home...

Until then...

peace

Inside a Car the World Melts

This is what happens inside the first chapter that I was working on today. A boy and a girl, inside a car, facing the sea, in a cold january night. Politics, fueled by isolation and intimacy turn into sensual overflow.

The second chapter of today dealt with another of the main character's friends. Here it's the mood enhancers and the momentum of going for a night out that carries a dialogue of quasi stream of consciousness throughout.
But there's also a girl with golden grey eyes.
Very much in need of affection.
Just like the boy.

There was a chapter in between these two but its content actually did not belong to this section and so I transferred it to the section dubbed Amigos (or Friends)

The final chapter was actually broken in two. The first part also belongs to the Friends section. I reworked it so that it could be easily included there and more or less re-wrote the other part so that it fits inside this section: Campa (or Grave)

I also read another comic. Scalped vol. 1 Indian Country. By Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra. Quite enjoyed it even though I wasn't really in the mood for a gritty crime story... I also wrote a review for it. Also to be published on the GNRG webpage at some point in the future.

I wrote a couple of posts but one is still on draft mode. It's good to pursue one's intuitions and best intentions but, sometimes, they don't seem to take us anywhere after we jump on them...

I also wrote a first draft for another short story for the New Scientist competition. I called this one Legacy. I really like it. It's told from a time far in the future, looking back at the remnants of the 22nd century. In my head this story was amazingly powerful and clear but, as soon as I started typing it, that feeling seemed to dissolve... I guess that's just how it goes sometimes...
or somedays...
In any case, I hope i will be able to look to it more objectively tomorrow or in a couple of days. This might be a good candidate to be sent...

I had the idea last night, while in bed. I lied there, musing if I should get up and write it down or if I could just see it clearly enough to be able to write it the next day.
Eventually I fell asleep...
But since I managed to remember it today that kind of graduates it to the kind of stories that hook me from the beginning. And those are usually the best.

I also read a bit of a book that I'm using to do research for a potential project to this years NaNoWriMo, in November.
Basically there are two ideas floating about.
One is to be written in English and I don't think I'll have to do any research to write it (though I could afterwards, if only to make some aspects a bit more plausible). I've already planned quite a few scenes for it and there's even a sketch of a structure for it.
I'm calling it NUME for the time being.

The other is to be written in Portuguese and there's quite a bit of research needed. So I was thinking of reading those books during NaNoWriMo and, hopefully, write the two books.
It may sound ambitious but I think that it is possible.
I don't want them to be very long. And, in actual fact, the two books are kind of the mirror image of the other.
At least in my head it makes sense for the two to go together...

The second one is called OS ANOS PERDIDOS (The Lost Years)

And, for now, I won't say anything else about them!

peace.

Teachers and Friends

Just a quick word on today's writing activities.

Like I said yesterday, I worked on the teacher's chapter. It was a difficult one and I realised I had to alter some of the stuff that I had written yesterday. It wasn't realistic enough.

I was suprised to find some eerie but interesting overtones on the teachers ramblings... still don't know if I should make them clearer or simply leave them that way. Suffice to say that it reminded me a bit of what William Golding does on his sea trilogy. Insinuating rather than revealing and leaving words open to interpretation that depends more upon the reader rather than my personal intentions. This was definitely something that I had not planned but it does make a lot of sense. The clues are there, throughout the story. And that I'll perhaps reinforce from now on...

In any case I moved to a chapter where a friend of his, a girl, is confronted with the second birthday of his death. it's almost like, after his death, they grow closer and, to a certain extent, she starts replacing him.
Or him her.

(i'm really enjoying some of the things that are happening here...)

I managed to finish that one and the next. Which is with another girl that's having a somewhat disturbing dream. Disturbing on what happens but, especially on how that makes her feel.

Amidst all this I also read a graphic novel by Brad Meltzer (writer) and Ed Benes (penciller) called JLA The Tornado's Path. Also did the review for that which I will post in the GNRG community webpage at some point in the future... I enjoyed it somehow but not nearly as much as I had anticipated. It didn't really add anything to either the characters or storytelling. I guess I'm getting too old for covers with lots of people in super tights...
(there's the writing and then the revising... and I still need to finish another series first...)

I think all the chapters with his friends are going to have the theme of sex. And of mirrors when it concerns women. I won't venture any interpretations but there sure are a few out there.

The great thing about this is that at the same that i feel I'm closer than ever to this story, I'm finally beginning to feel more distance between myself and this story. It feels good. Somehow I'm getting there.

I'm on page 32. Still have 35 more before I finish this section. Don't know if I can do it tomorrow, even though I think there will be a chapter or two that I'm simply going to eliminate.
But I also have to more or less re-write a whole chapter. This guy just talks about politics and that's more or less out of the loop now...

Now it's sexuality my friends...

peace.

Competitions and Revisions

you know, i really want to return to posting stuff more regularly.
this space is now more than one year old and i think it's time to be here more often.
So...

a few days ago i received my weekly New Scientist email. In it there was news of a flash fiction competition.

You can find out more about it here.

But, basically, if you're interested, you've got to write up to a maximum of 350 words under the theme How the world will be in 100 years?
The deadline is 5pm on the 15th of october 2009 and only one entry per person.
They're going to select one of these short stories to publish on their weekly paper edition and then a few other to be published online.
Do read the terms and conditions. It's quite short and to the point.

I've already written 5 short stories.
Resonance
The Moment
Our Tomorrows
Collapse
CloudSquared

The themes vary but my aim has been to insinuate rather than tell.
You see, I read the eight short stories that were posted online and i wasn't that happy with most of them. I liked the ideas but almost all of them lacked either wit or subtlety, or both.

Well... to be honest, I don't know if I've managed to make that happen with mine but that was the goal!

In any case, these are only the first drafts. I've been trying to work on my book and thus haven't been working on them. I know that, if necessary, if not before, I can do those on the 14th of October at midnight...

Today I spent a good deal of my time reading and revising the chapters relating to the father and the brother visiting the main characters grave.
The father chapter was a bit difficult because i didn't want it to sound too emotionally one sided. I don't know if I succeeded but I think it's a deep one and I think it will easily carry the reader through as well as hint at a very different perspective of the story.

The brother chapter had more or less the same problem. It kind of drifted from one side to the other. Halfway through it I was thinking that maybe this isn't cohesive enough but, on a second thought, perhaps that's just what it needs, that floaty emotionality. I feel it's a kind of flash forwarding kind of chapter. For me the brother starts talking in his early teens but finishes in his adult life.

Now I'm facing the teacher chapter. This is another of the guys visiting the dead guys grave, figuring out his own perspective on life, death and, obviously, the incident.

The problem is that a good deal of the text I've written doesn't really fit in the sense that it's a dialogue between two teachers, only then moving towards the internal, almost merciless monologue that characterises these chapters (they all belong under the work heading Grave).

So here's what I'm thinking of doing (and only because the stuff contained inside the dialogue is actually useful):
I'm gonna separate the dialogue from the monologue and thus create two different chapters. One to be the prologue of the other.
The first will be about two teachers talking (still don't know the location) about a third one that will end up going the funeral we've seen on the first chapter of the book.
The second will be about him actually being there, again giving us a new perspective on the main character and his predicaments.

Don't know if I'll have time to finish it today but I still have the next two days off so... to work!

It would REALLY be nice if I could finish revising this section by wednesday night...

peace.

Book revising and writs and blots

You probably thought that i had fallen through the wishing well, into the black void, out into the unexpected and lost from the land of the gnawing wall.

well I didn't.

(so far...)

In fact i've had a few busy months. Working and revision have taken up a good part of my time and I've just been lazy to tell you about it.
In fact, I spent most of august revising Morto and finding out that I needed to write an entire new section.
The thing just keeps getting bigger.
Fortunately I also feel it's getting better!
There's a lot of stuff put into this book. A lot of which is not entirely visible. There are a few experiments (in fact main storyline of the book is such a thing) in relation to plot devices and character construction that I'm curious to see how they work with the readers.

In august I revised most of the book. two thirds of it probably. I had a good rhythm and some discipline.

September however, it has been a different matter...

you see, I wanted to have it ready by the end of august... but i just couldn't do it. Especially when a new section needed to be added. I've got more than 120 pages of notes that I still need to type and there's probably some 30 or 40 more still to come...
Which is what I've been doing... slowly.

In any case, November is drawing dangerously close and i want to have empty headspace so that I can write something else on that month. Maybe even two new somethings... more on that later...

So, until then the plan is to more or less stick to this one, get it ready (come on! only 120 more pages of text to revise and some 10 or 20 more to write...) and get it out of the way.
As soon as the whole thing is typed and compiled I'm gonna print it out once again, read it again (no major revisions allowed just speelling and the odd sentence) along with whatever I deem necessary corrections, print it again and send it out to whatever book competition is running in portugal - as well as sending it to a few publishers.

So, I've got a month to do all that. Not as much as it seems.
Especially because October is going to be quite demanding work wise...

One of the problems that I've been having is this stifling of creativity that I sometimes feel while revising. I mean, for better or for worse, I jumped from revising Land Of Fog to revising Morto. And I miss writing something simple and short that gets out of the way in just a couple of days...
And I miss writing scripts...

So, yesterday, after a talk i had with a good friend of mine in Colombo's FNAC in Lisbon, I decided to write that Hulk story that can serve as a prequel to a larger series i'd envisioned a while ago.

I've called it Strange Ways and it's simply a chase sequence that will begin setting the stage for the Bruce Banner/Hulk relationship.
I envision the series as being a What If? type of story, ie, set outside the normal continuity.

The Incredible Hulk was probably the very first super-hero that I identified with.
Just a few days ago I was holding and showing a friend of mine the very first super-hero comic I ever bought and, you're right, it was an Incredible Hulk one.
I read it once again a couple of years ago and, even though it create an impact as big as that first time, it still retained all it's importance for me.
This is one of the things I've always enjoyed about comics. The ability to talk about the big themes in a perfectly simple and direct way.
I've read many Hulk stories through the years - and a few good ones - but I'm yet to see a series that really brings the character home.
I've liked Jeph Loeb's stories. The late seventies/early eighties (correct me if i'm wrong!) storyline where the Hulk is trapped in a labyrinthic dimension where each road takes him to a particular world, doomed (for a time at least...) to roam possibilities and strange existences.

This was my favourite time of the comic. Each story had some uniqueness to it and, in all of them, it was that crushing feeling of loneliness, of not belonging, of being an outsider that ran underneath everything. Even the episodic humour or the regular strangeness.

There were also a couple of "psychological type" comics that I enjoyed. Can't really remember which, but that's just me...
There have also been some stories that have tried to endow the series with as much realism as possible and, even though I think this is a good approach i think it doesn't fit the character entirely.

The Incredible Hulk is this wonderful bridge for the scientific mind to reach and make contact with the deeply ingrained emotions. In fact, Bruce Banner is the one who is lost, striving to find and regain his identity via the body which the Hulk so admirably represents. His story is pure hero quest. Only that his goal can only be on the inside.

It's also a story about purity. Purity of the mind. and purity of emotions - in their rawness, as expressed by the Hulk.

There are more things to say, of course, but I just don't want to reveal too much at this point.

In closing, I'd just want to say that, even after so many years and so many stories, I still haven't found one that has really filled and sated me. But I know I could write it.

So, what I did yesterday was to write down this short story, with very little dialogue, in hopes that this Portuguese Marvel penciller will read it and be interested and kind enough to want to know more about it.

Peace.