Thursday, January 22, 2009

the thing about fiction is...


D
e
construct
i
o
n

Male: My mind is playing tricks on me.
Female: The nights are very long.
Male: No light can save us now.

When the mood strikes, writing is less rewarding than when it is forced. The fiction of inspiration is what makes fiction fictional. Application of meaning does not bestow meaning. Intention of meaning rarely endows meaning. Is there really such thing as fiction then?

Fic or non?
What's the difference?

The story of one man's Gulliverian travels through space and time and light and sound in the endless, desperate, meaningful, cathartic, hopeless, futile, sprawling, epic, heroic, meaningless, ultimately chaotic, relentlessly dark, eventually uplifting, always recurringly Faustian, Freudian, and Jungian, relentlessly Wagnerian, ever-so post-modern, but still quite classical, archetypal, historic (and pre-historic) search for meaning.

Continuity defies de construct ion. Or reinforces it. Use (or non-use) of grammar, syntax, diction, onomatopoeia, meter, metaphor, irony, simile, satire, tragedy, dramatic irony, comedy, rhythm, alliteration, pathetic irony, rhyme, close-rhyme, near-rhyme, punctuation, tense, capitalization, and/or spacing does not impart meaning.

So the question remains: Fiction? Or Not? None of this is true. Or all of this is true. But true or non, this is not fiction nor non. A noun is a person, place, or thing (or idea). This is fiction or non-fiction (or idea). I stand alone. The cheese stands alone. The mouse has been prematurely eaten by the cat, breaking the chain. There's always a bigger fish.

Perspective makes the fish bigger. We are tiny but the world is huge. But the world is tiny, the sun is huge. But the sun is tiny, the solar system is huge. But the solar system is tiny, the galaxy is huge. But the galaxy is tiny, the universe is... finite. Endless turtles standing on the backs of turtles would say that the universe is tiny. So what do we care? Our imaginations are bigger than our surroundings. If we can envision it, then it shall be done. A man will walk on the moon. There is life on other planets. We will learn the laws of space and time, and bend them to our punishing will. Always under control, but demanding control. The only way to get around physics is quantum physics.

Quantum Physics: Where Your Wildest Dreams Can Come True!

The electron cloud. Theory and practice. The act of observation and its effect on the observed space is an under/overestimated force. It's the presence of the eye that's the problem. Even in quantum physics, the question always remains: if a tree falls in a forest with no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? The world may never know.

If time is a dimension, then time travel must be possible.

Avoid pastiche. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't make it okay. Everyone can tell if you're trying too hard. Look for fortunate accidents rather than intentional mistakes. This is not inspiration. Force the fortunate. Inspiration is not an accident. It is a con structure. Standing around, waiting for a train that will never come. But more often than not, waiting for inspiration (as one would wait for Godot [Ah! Pastiche! Such a force is unavoidable!]) forces the forcing. Inspiration never comes until the last second; then, and only then, when we are physically (or psychologically) forced to act. We define this last second rescue as inspiration, when in fact it comes from within ourselves. There is no divine intervention, no omniscient unification of the creative cosmos, no. There is no God. There is only You.





we are all alone





If one was to expose the 'photograph' of one's life, one would be in sharp focus but surrounded by the blurs of those come and gone. The imagery speaks for itself, if it's clear enough.

Constructions and structures:
God
Creativity
Atheism
Art
Pop Art
Non-Art
Intellectualism
The Intellect
Darwinism
Creationism
Classicism
Modernism
Post-Anything
Isms
Grammar
Traffic Jams
Patterns
The World and How It Works
Structuralism

Everyone has an ism. There is a right and wrong (although, really, there is no such thing). I am not anti- much. I believe, both in the Mulder-ian sense and in the theistic sense. It's all a matter of getting out of your comfort zone. Isms are your comfort zone. The decaying of an ism is radioactive. That's why there's a black President.

Stream-of-consciousness does not infer meaning. Being Irish or English or German or South African or Australian or Russian or Atlantean does not convey meaning.

Anything can be everything to somebody. The saying, as it goes: One man's trash... And the rest. You know the rest. A common axiom. Idiom. Turn of phrase. Play on words. None of the above. Fill in the blank. Idiomatic structuralism. Vocabularic inventivism. English is a beautiful thing. Use it wisely and remember its history, lest you be doomed to... You know.

So the thing about fiction is...




This has been a textual experiment by no one you've ever heard of.

1 comment:

Joel Walkowski said...

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

How'd that even come into existence?!? Not like, your process, but y'know... the other thing.

Color me tickled pink with impressed.