BSG: Burnout

Just like Starbuck near the end of season three, I am absolutely burnt out on this show, and I still have a season to go.

To me, this show is nothing short of a master's class is television -- more so than Lost, more so than anything Mr. Whedon has done or will ever do. There has, to me, never been a show with so many characters with whom I feel desperately connected to. Through their experiences of loss and regret, through their times of adulation, love, ecstasy, I feel it right there with them. I believe that, of course, there is a significant amount of acting talent (and production, and everyone else), but I always take these interactions straight back to the writers of the show. It's definitely a bias, and I realize that, but without the amazing story arcs that fuse the audience to these character's psyches, you wouldn't have the same show that you have. Instead, you would have a normal, run-of-the-mill sci-fi program. The show transcends that -- not in a bad way, not that there is anything less exciting about transcending the genre, nor am I insinuating that genre shows are somehow inferior. What I am saying is that this is a show, based on space marines and starfighter pilots that asks and attempts to answer metaphysical questions. It isn't about the special effects -- it's about the people.

I could honestly go on for days. Days and days and days about this show. Anyone who will listen, I will laude and sing its praises. It deserves them all. Not only for the end product, but for all the incredible work that went into this experience that I am consuming a few years later than I would have liked to. But I am beginning to feel burnt out on it. Why is this happening?

I equate this to reading a very long, very good novel. It's spectacular. You can't get enough. And then, all of the sudden, you've had enough. It's like a punch in the gut while you sit there, looking at the words on the page, and you think I just don't care anymore. Or maybe it's not that. Maybe it's not that you don't care, but rather you simply can't care. A part of the experience has grown uneventful. Maybe you reach a lull (and in a 600-1000 page book is expected to have some digressionary longueur and metaphysical meandering) or a close inspection of a charcter or plotline you find very boring, tired, dull. "Okay," you think, "I get it. Why are you spending twenty pages/twenty minutes belaboring a beleagured point?"

It's important to the story. You secretly know that. You don't want to think that what you're reading is important, because you honestly want to skip over -- go to the next episode or chapter -- to forget this crap and move on, but you can't. Or at least I can't. Things need an order to them. I picked this up from my mother, and it has continued for as long as I can remember. Things with story arcs must be started from the beginning and end where they end, following every step along the way.

I am a believer in the narrative structure -- that sometimes, you have to read the uneventful stuff to make the eventful stuff cooler, more colorful. So, I humbly tread on, grumbling and delaying some base need to find joy on every page. I read pages and watch episodes in which I can clearly see the dominoes being lined up so that they may be knocked down, but that does not equate to excitement. It is just somewhat boring.

So that's where I am at now with BSG. I know that when I get past this one episode, everything will be honky-dorey, but I seem unable to watch this episode in one sitting. Instead, I am forcing myself to watch a few minutes here, and a few minutes there. Just trying to reach the end credits.

A Look into My World

I don't think the way I write is particularly novel, but I don't hear about many authors that do it the way that I do. So below is a quick rumination on how I begin short stories and chapters. It pretty much explains why most of my stuff has this one great part, filigreed with flimsy shit. I'd be interested to see if anyone else writes like this. It's the only way that I can start a new project, as outlines and other tools of the well-established and well-intentioned author can do to their heart's content.

STEPS TO WRITE WEIRD SHIT LIKE KEN:

1. Open a Microsoft Word blank document. It is absolutely imparative that the blank document should read "Document1 - Microsoft Word" in the top left hand corner. If it's any other number, you MUST close down the entire program, and restart so that it is 'Document 1.' This is because I am insane and therefore, by extension, so are you.
2. Make sure that the document is in Print Layout view, all margins are 1", left-justified, and change the font to 'Times,' not Times New Roman. Why? Because fuck Times New Roman, that's why. I'm bucking the establishment, people. Follow or get out of the way.
3. Now take a break. You've just tamed a digital beast. I recommend flipping through your "favorite words book" that currently resides on the corner of your desk next to six dirty coffee mugs that you keep there because you are a "nester." Flip through the book and laugh at particularly disgusting words. Great. Now we have some material.
4. Return to your 'Document1,' and write the first sentence that comes to mind. It can, quite honestly, be anything. (I did one yesterday where my first sentence was "Molten lead looks as though it should be squeezed from a frosting bag in the cavernous kitchen tucked cozily away in the lower levels of the Fortress of Solitude." I have no idea what that means.) If done correctly, you have tapped some unthought thought. It should sound awkward because you haven't been thinking about the unthought until now.
5. Now, expand that into 2 paragraphs. Read it. It should be thoroughly ridiculous.
6. Can you see anything in it? In the same way that people used to predict the future through mediums like tea leaves, I have found that some of my best work comes originally from an amalgamation of unthoughts that slowly solidify into something readable. However, sometimes it's just an absolute catastrophe. At that point, the best trick is to close Microsoft Word, reopen, and look! An untarnished Document1! (And you don't just backspace because the words were already there, of course. Duh. [Remember: insane.])
7. Now that you have the makings of a new short story, I recommend that you delete 'Document1'. Chances are you won't have any need for that particular one ever again.

And that is all there is to it. For me, it's a great mental excersize. I always feel like I'm finding something out about myself by doing it this way. It's always interesting to see what your mind will come up with when given free reign to do whatever it wants to. I hope that you'll try it out and let me know how it goes.

-Ken

Sleep = Necessary Evil

Over the weekend, I was struck with a rather potent disease that has no name, and only one cure....

The disease is known as "Writer's Block." The cure is to run, not walk, away from your writing for a period of about a day and a half and play video games, read a book, and sleep. Emphasis is important here; please notice the word sleep is italicized. You will understand better in the next paragraph. Promise.

I like to see myself as a dedicated person. You may not always see me on the honor roll (hell, I never was) but I was always dedicated to something. I throw my whole being into something and do it as hard as I can. In my early days and into high school, it was baseball. In some weird interim between high school and some college existence, it was video games and its industry. Since then, it's been concerned primarily with telling stories through any medium, be it novels (my first and foremost love), short stories, screenplays, or even video games; I just love telling a good story. Sounds great, eh? Well, it is... until I get caught up and realize the sun is coming out because I have forgotten to sleep. (See?) I tend to neglect important things like food or sleep when I get going on something I'm passionate about, and that led to some problems over the past couple months, and honestly, led to a little bit of a burn-out for me. But do not fear! For it -- like a particularly awful kidney stone -- has passed... although not in the same manner.

It isn't a problem that I think is very common -- I think most people are not going to forego sleep to find out what is happening in their story, particularly because it is theirs, so how could they not, am I right? Well, I realized that my lack of sleep led to some truly spectacular output (end of the first draft is just over the horizon, people! get champaigne and streamers ready!) but it also wore on me. I learned that the simple things -- keeping your workspace clean, eating healthy, and sleeping are all terrific ways to keep yourself from burning out, and if you have already burned out, or just suffering from writer's block, it is a great way to resituate yourself in your environment, and get back to your story.

I think that was one of my friendliest blog-posts in a while...

-Ken

What Is This? (Or, Ken Flies off the Deep End)

To begin: This is SPARTA!!!!

Now, to the real post...

Recently, I've become a little fed up with a lot of blogs out there, claiming to purport the continuance and elevation of art, specifically within the realm of literature and writing. I have come to the conclusion that the majority of these blogs couldn't care less about that. All they really care about is growing some festering, gelatinous group of RSS followers to mindlessly accept whatever they eschew as canon. I'm not going to name names -- it doesn't really fix anything, it just turns into flame wars (which I would undoubtedly lose) -- but I would like to point out some of the irksome habits that the blogs, and its followers adhere to.

My Progress

Oy, lads 'n lasses!
No, no that was dumb... let me try that again...
Arrrr me hearties!
Shit, I don't like that one either....
Well, hi there Mr. and Mrs. Internet trolls!
Eh, too "Leave it to Beaver"...
Suuuuuup boiiiiiii?!?
Shit... no....
Hey guys, got a quick update on everything for y'all!
Perfect... perhaps without the y'all, but we'll roll with it.

Today is Friday (sweet, sweet, glorious Friday!) and I am psyched! I'm psyched because my girlfriend got into town last night (love you!) but I'm also psyched because writing is just becoming something that is part of me. After these last three months or so of writing damn near every day, I have become so accustomed to getting my one thousand words a day in that it becomes almost a second nature... let me explain with a little story.

On Tuesday, I put down my pen and texted E___. It said, essentially, that maybe I'm burned out on this, y'know? I write so much that maybe I should just give it a rest. Refresh my writerly well of creativity, and get a grip on my life beyond the strict confines of one-inch margins. I asked her what she thought of the idea...

I don't think she really cared, honestly. She said something about 'well, do what you want.' I can't blame her... I talk about it with her more than I should, I'm sure it's rather aggravating, but I know that she just wants me to be happy, and if taking time off would help -- then she would be all for it. So, I picked up a book I've been aching to read: Dan Chaon's you remind me of me (ostensibly all in lower-case as to make sure everyone knows that the book is a serious work of literary fiction... which it is), and read the whole thing in a period of two nights.

"Wow!" thought I, "what a tremendous book. I would like my book to be that beautiful!" So then, on Wednesday night (so I guess it was only 1.5 days of not writing) I spat out like, three thousand words without feeling the bottom of the well. It was like the whole thing was somehow magically refilled to the brim with silvery miasma that is... whatever it is you need to write. Is that drive, creativity, or something else? I don't know. I just call it like I see it.

Then, still drawing from that well last night, I wrote a ~3,000 word short story about a man who suffers from batophobia, or, the fear of standing next to something really tall; which I just found absolutely fascinating. I stuck him out in the middle of the grasslands and put him in a small ranch house -- all alone and ornery.

And now it's Friday. I don't know if I'll write anything today, but I would imagine at one point, I'll pick up my pen and jot down notes that will get me really keyed up. Then by the time that work is over, I'll be so bursting with story that if I don't tell it, I'd be liable to burst at the seams. Now that I write that, it seems an awful lot like foreplay... odd.

Anyway! I'm signing off. I think I may start posting stories on this sight that I don't really think will make it to competitions or publications. I do a lot of character peices that are only to help me think of new characters that I might use later as a sort of toolbox. Anyway, if I do, you'll start seeing those on here. If I decide not to, you won't. Enjoy your Friday, and get ready for the fete that is the weekend!

-Ken

This may come as a shock to you...

I'm writing some fun stuff right now, and I think I have stumbled across what may be the most providential moment in my writing history.  It is like a precipice that propels friendship down down down and dashes it against rocks.  I think it is so perfect, it may almost be in the realm of cliche.  It's just a simple sentence, but it does several things that I think make it so great, and I wrote it yesterday, so pardon the idiosyncratic nature of this post...

Maybe it comes as a shock to you, but I don't give two flying fucks about you or your motherfucking _______.

See?  How fucking wonderful that sentence is?  It's like a writer's madlib.  Just put in whatever, wherever when you need a big punch, and it works out great... here's some examples that I just came up with:

Maybe it comes as a shock to you, but I don't give two flying fucks about you or your motherfucking rubber ducky. (Bert finally letting Ernie have it in their three-room flat on the lower west-side.)

Maybe it comes as a shock to you, but I don't give two flying fucks about you or your motherfucking revolution. (What Benedict Arnold should have said to George Washington.)

Maybe it comes as a shock to you, but I don't give two flying fucks about your motherfucking last name.  (Admittedly not as poetic, but equally as effective utturance delivered by Romeo Montague to Juliet Capulet outside her bedroom window. The phrase is changed slightly.)

Maybe it comes as a shock to you, but I don't give two flying fucks about you or your motherfucking e-book pricing structure. (Macmillan to Amazon)

Maybe it comes as a shock to you, but I don't give two flying fucks about you or your motherfucking rules on what constitutes "decent fiction". (Micheal Chabon against the literary fiction monsters that love to hate.)

 Maybe it comes as a shock to you, but I don't give two flying fucks about you or your motherfucking fear of what others think about you. (Roarke to Keating in The Fountainhead.  That is essentially the Ken's Notes to the entire friggin' book, in case you were wondering.)

... and really, it all goes on from there.  Pretty heavy stuff, right?  Anyway, this wasn't too serious of an entry... but you know... you get what you get.

I have 3 followers now!  I feel like I'm heading places, Jerry!  I'm headin' all the way to the top!

That is all. 

-Ken

P.S. -- The thoughts and views shown in this blog do NOT portray the views of any other person other than the author of this blog.  Anything said here was a fictional representation and meant only to be funny.