iStress

I had a rather horrifying scare with my iPod NaNo today (I am considering calling it iStress instead of Bubblerock). I plugged it in to recharge it and it switched itself on ... and then nothing. No "Do not disconnect" screen, no "What are you doing plugging a device like this into a 1.1 USB port?" warning label, nothing. And I couldn't get iStress to do anything. I honestly thought I'd killed it and was preparing myself for Apple Store trip from hell. Finally went Googling to see if anyone else had this problem, and apparently, yeah, the NaNo freezes up sometimes. I did a soft reboot (hold down MENU and the centre button) and managed not only to get iStress restarted and connected to the Frankenbox, but managed not to lose anything. *phew*

Right. Now back to car chases, drive-by shootings and assorted criminal malarkey. I only have three hours to get some work done before I meet dodgyhoodoo at the Tokyo Diner (again; his suggestion. I did good) so we can have some food before heading out to the NaNoWriMo launch party. Three days 'til NaNo, and I'm too busy to care...

Stream of 'Consciousness'

I had a good time tonight. However, after seeing this 365 Tomorrows site recently linked to by cholten99, I'm kind of in a ranty frame of mind again.

Allow me to explain. Tonight was the NaNoWriMo London Launch Party, and I went with dodgyhoodoo and had a particularly excellent time. I saw a lot of old familiar faces (including the one guy who turned up to the North London NaNo meet last weekend) and met some new ones, and may be attending a write-in in Holloway as Vanessa, one of the municipal liaisons, is going to try to get a venue with a back room or corner with a few outlets and as many power strips as she can lay hands on. Of course, a lot of the conversation was about the NaNo ideas. Who had plot, who had a vague idea, what's the general genre... You know, fairly standard stuff. Fact is, all we're worried about, as a group, is story and word count and having a good time. You know, writing for writing's sake.

And then I read this speculative fiction and I think to myself, "I want to read a story, not the literary equivalent of a money shot". The piece of fiction on the front page, for example, just ... argh. Where's the story? Why do I care about any of this? And yet it's apparently supposed to be counted as brilliant fiction because it's got imagery. Yeah, great, but if the imagery isn't backing something, what the hell's the point? I mean, it's not all that bad. "Enlightenment" is actually pretty good, all things considered. But it has dialogue and characters and it's not trying to be pretentious wank. Hence the 'literary equivalent of a money shot' line. I don't want to approach a story only to be blinded by the metaphorical semen of some elitist twerp writing some "I just got out of a creative writing class and am going to write something earth-shakingly meaningful" crap with no damn plot to speak of, driving themselves into some orgiastic, orgasmic frenzy of imagery, fifty-cent words and literary tricks with no damn meat to them. I don't want ephemeral imagery bollocks and pretty words unless there is living, breathing story in there. Please, please, literary people of the future, stop phoning in a story for the sake of an idea.

cholten99 wrote a story of his own on some sort of short story meme thing that he and alobear came up with, but I'm not going to pass comment on its content. A lot of that's to do with the fact that I couldn't really read it on the grounds of pure mechanics. I tend to find -- and I hope I'm not alone here -- that dialogue is rather difficult to read if it's not divided up so that each person speaking has their own short paragraph in which to do so. It gives a feeling of transition, like you're turning your head to look at the person who's speaking, rather than generally overhearing people sitting out of your line of sight.

I'd actually take part in the meme (it's a writing challenge, after all, and I like those) but I'm no good at speculative fiction and I know it. I can write now, I can write before, and I can write worlds that never were and never will be, but dealing with the future of this world just bothers me. I think I'd be afraid of being derivative, or overly pessimistic, or both. Maybe I'll be able to think of something tomorrow when I'm less tired, though. There's actually already an idea pinging around the back of my head.

My muse is far too hyper and must go on calmative drugs. After NaNo, this may happen.