String Theory

I’ve not been living up to my Writer’s Creed from the very moment I penned it. That’s not a great start to being the best writer I can be. I landed a proper adult job that gets in the way of what was already a rather sporadic writing schedule and thus over the last five weeks or so my writing’s been a matter of strings – tiny little vibrations of ideas that would make up grand mindscapes if someone would make the effort to braid them together. I’ve had some moments of inspiration that I imagine could’ve turned out well if I’d taken the time to nurture them. My overall excuse is that I don’t have time, but that’s not true, all the weird other shit I get up to considered. I’m writing this on the bus home right now because this long trip right here is time that I can use for writing instead of looking out of the window for half an hour. Even though it's the first rain of Spring and the view is gorgeous.

‘…over the last five weeks or so my writing’s been a matter of strings – tiny little vibrations of ideas that would make up grand mindscapes if someone would make the effort to braid them together…’

Since my writing’s been reduced to the quantum level of strings and all things very small it’s best that I make plans to conquer the dimension that is Time first before moving back to Space. I’ve never been all that great with my Time management but that has to change if I’m to get all the things I need done out of the way, things like:

·         Work (sustaining engine of my life and all)
·         R.E.D. October (pretend you know what that is)
·         Reading (I've been reading Toll the Hounds forever!)
·         Writing
·         Gym
·         People (I need to cut down on people I don't like though, they're bad for my health or 

          something equally sinister) 
·         Family
·         Movies
·         Series
·         Gaming
·         Eating (a very pleasurable pass time this)

The rain outside is distracting me quite a lot – it's transforming the ugly CBD to something quite lovely. Anyway, Time, I'm addressing you personally now. No, don't try hide behind your impressive silver beard! This thing we've been doing you and I, it needs to have some sort of a structure that benefits us both, you know. Even if it's a floppy sort of structure, I don't mind, as long as we get through 24 hours of you and we can look back and nod satisfactorily that we didn't waste all that much of you staring at the ceiling, although, it must be said, it's a very beautiful ceiling.

I'm not sure how one goes about the whole setting up a schedule business so we'll need to find out how that's done and do it. Any ideas who we can consult? Or am I doing all the research again? For all your ticking and tocking you're a lazy bugger.

'No, don't try hide behind your impressive silver beard!'

(Aside... askance…? Askew…? That sort of thing. Nthabiseng said to talk to 5 and ask 5 to come sooner. Around about half past 4 will do. So, hi, 5, b3an_Champ here. Could we get that done please, the whole half past 4 business and all. Thanks. I'm busy working with your father to conquer him so you know, family friend and all that. Cool.)

Once I conquer Time I can focus on the dimensions of up and down, backwards and forwards, left and right and inside out.

***

Skip forward a week; add some days and nights and here I am in a hospital waiting room. My mom has a standing (more likely sleeping though) problem with her liver – failure and what not. She had an episode tonight and here we are. I'm scared a little but she seems okay right now. Since I'm here I decided to go over the ol' writing pad on my phone and saw this. I'm quite disappointed in myself. I let a whole week and some days and nights pass without doing much of this writing business save for two middling poems. Really? It takes a goddam hospital room to get me trying. That's just wrong. I want to do better than that, be better than that. I want to be my own muse.

That is all.

"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write." 

The Writer's Creed

Islam, Judaism, Christianity and even the Brotherhood of Assassins, they all have creeds. People who subscribe to these and other sects live by these creeds and die by these creeds. I am a writer and I need a creed that will be the force that drives me in that magical moment when fingers tap keyboard or thumb and forefinger clutch pen to jot down my brain noodles and present them as useful thought. I need a creed that'll set a fire to my mind and transform the words I conjure from mere to more.

I kneel here, in the darkest cavern of my mind, all voodoo ritual-like, and swear my fealty to my Muse: that from this day forth I shall live by this keyboard and pen, I shall die clutching these writers' tools and if I were to be resurrected by the likes of Dr Victor Frankenstein that I'll be a zombie whose hands are perpetually ink stained. With my last breath, as I stand facing Death I'll assualt her with a barrage of words worthy of a scroll in a dusty library. Thus I will be welcome in the mighty company of the legendary scribes.

I promise to write everyday, whether I'm feeling blue, green or grey. I promise to do battle with that white sheet of paper (digital or tangible) even though I know I will suffer defeat more often than not. I want to weather that 'long defeat' like Tolkien's Elves of old did their war against Morgoth, that darkest of lords. Like Liesel Meminger, the book thief, I want to fall in love with words; I want to stand up and hate them and always endeavour to make them right. 

"all voodoo ritual-like"

I write to tell my stories, the stories of people whose lives breathe and at times bleed into mine; I write to share my mind, heart and soul with other minds, hearts and souls. I write selfishly and I write selflessly. I seek to make sense of life and to be understood in life. I write nonsense when I find I cannot make sense and I'm misunderstood or I stand under amiss. I write with a lot of fear - it's always near, whispering caution and poison in my ear. I negotiate personal space with fear, it's a lifelong tug of war for the real estate of my mind. I write to play well (leg godt) with words like people play with LEGO bricks. I stick words together to construct grand structures I often have no names for but they make sense somehow - their lack of conventional sense make them so. As I've said before, I'm a wordslinger, my words, the pieces of my heart, are the bullets with which I shoot at readers and pierce souls. I aim for a gutshot and, ironically, I'm the one who spills my guts (blood and shit all over a page). My headshots rejuvenate brains instead of spilling them like secrets, like b3ans. I write to spread good rumours like a disease, but without the dis- affixed, I do it with ease. I give readers a good infection. I construct my words in simile in the hope that readers deconstruct them with a smile.

I am a writer. I always try my imaginary best. I frequent the Well at the World's End: I am well-read, well-informed and well-written.