odds, ends
(An odds and ends post of fragmented thoughts. Apologies if this is hopelessly scattered)
I mentioned I’d been listening to some podcasts lately, so I’ve added a little “podroll” in the sidebar. At the moment most of these (well, all of these) are either gaming or geeky sci-fi type podcasts. Hey, they were there. These links will take you to the homepage of the podcast, rather than to the RSS feed, which I think is a more useful link.
Something has struck me about the gaming podcasts — these guys have way more time to play boardgames than I do. Forget roleplaying games; I haven’t had the opportunity to play one in years. I’m really envious actually. I’m embarrassed to admit how many boardgames I actually own that I haven’t gotten to play yet, let alone those I don’t own. Yeesh.
I’ve grown very fond of Fuller’s ESB beer lately. It’s not my favorite beer of all time, but it’s rock-solid and I find its dependability reassuring. The London Porter is also a fave of mine, but my local Whole Foods has a nasty tendency to run out all the time.
Of late I’ve been sorting through all the junk that’s accumulated over the years. There’s something liberating, freeing, about sorting through what you have, weeding it out, giving bits away, selling other bits; it’s like lightening a load you’ve been lugging around on your back. There can be a bittersweet edge to it, though; sorting through bits from your past, even your recent past, can remind you of things about yourself that you’d forgotten, that you’d laid aside. Being suddenly reconnected with these things can be overwhelming, force you to see all the different divergent paths and decisions you’ve made over the years about when and how you’ve spent your time.
At least, this bittersweet quality always happens to me when I weed through stuff I’ve stored away for any length of time. But working through this bittersweetness, and divesting yourself of bits and pieces representing paths perhaps you chose not to take, can also be liberating and freeing, because it reminds you why you’ve chosen to spend your time the way you have, and why you’ve made the decisions you did. By tossing out all the junk moldering in closets and in boxes in the garage, you’re also cleaning out junk in your head.
Whatever anonymous poster has been putting the archived series of Family Ties up on the Usenet — thanks, mate! One of my very favorite shows as a kid, despite the fact that it was not the most even of sitcoms in terms of quality, and despite its occasional foray into trite “issue” episodes, this show still means a great deal to me. The different characters in the family mirrored personality traits in families in my real life more than any other show of the time, and it’s been a real treat to be able to go back and see them again, many for the first time in well over a decade. I was stupid and lazy when TV Land broadcast them a few years ago, and didn’t tape them for myself. I’m glad that someone who did bother to tape them has had the graciousness to put them up on the newsgroups to share with people like me.
As a kind of exercise, I’ve been writing super-short stories lately, like 2000 words or less. These post an interesting challenge, because you cannot rely on the more conventional narrative structuring of a tale with a beginning, middle, and end as you can with short stories of 6000-7000 words (let alone novels and screenplays). At least, most super-short stories are more experimental in structure. What I’ve been trying to do is devise different tactics to tell more conventional beginning-middle-end stories in very brief lengths, and still make it work; for example, starting the story right in the middle of the action and using clues to key the reader in on what’s happened before, even as we’re racing toward the conclusion.
It’s really been quite fun. And it’s a good exercise, because short stories in general, and super-short stories in particular, have never been a field of great experience with me. I’d much rather be writing longform works with complex plots and strong structures. It’s what I’ve taught myself to do, and it’s what I think I’m best at. So stretching myself into territories where I feel less comfortable would seem to be a healthy exercise. There’s also something satisfying about completing a writing project so damned quickly — sometimes, in just an hour. Compared with the thousands of hours that can often be put into a script, this is like nothing. It’s quite refreshing to work with material which is so compact and easily handled, like working with a novel in microcosm.
I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll market these to buyers, or just keep them as exercises. Either way, I won’t feel like I’ve wasted my time.