Day 97

Spoiler Alert! May contain planning-stage plot/character details or other spoilers!

12 May 2016

So that got… weird.

The trouble with this pace of writing is that characterization keeps shifting. Amy Morris is infantilized, which could be an honest emotional response to her situation, but doesn’t sync up with previous chapters, while Lily Morris Sr./Angelique is by turns controlling, abusive, and absent-minded; again, none of which are impossible, but all of which come up as surprises.

Lily keeps getting sharper and more mature in her thinking, too, making her age almost impossible to place; with Itri, she acts like a small child; maybe around age six. Now, she’s acting and thinking like a ten-year-old and trending up from there…

On the one hand, I love the creative challenge of this sort of work; taking a scenario and fleshing it out, discovering all the things that go into a set of actions/interactions. On the other hand, I may be getting a little too freeform with it, as though every chapter is stand-alone. Or something along those lines. Rewrites rewrites rewrites.

However, the end (of phase 1: first draft) is creeping closer all the time. Only four more sections (based on the current summary) left to go; a week, barring any surprises. Less, if I can get another chunk done tomorrow too. Which I should, because my parents are finished at the office today and out of town tomorrow; next week marks the start of a new rhythm or lack-thereof. Here’s hoping it’s a more productive one than I’ve found thus-far.

While sitting at home being minimally productive, alone for hours every day, is actually the closest thing to a native, well-suited lifestyle that could possibly exist for me, its days are almost certainly numbered. I’ve been stumbling across all this material about the new ‘digital nomad’ lifestyle. (Thanks, Product Hunt!) It seems to be (young) people moving all over the place for fairly brief periods of time to do remote work from interesting locations. Which sounds pretty ideal, except for the part where they all seem to cluster together in frat-house type enclaves. Which is probably a sensible way of dealing with the isolation and lack of supportive relationships that come with travel, but doesn’t seem to be as cost-effective as one would think.

I’m sort of struggling with incompatible desires right now. I read about brilliant, risk-taking, box-breaking original thinkers who do things in a way that makes sense, while breaking all the rules, and I feel dissatisfied with my paint-inside-the-lines life… I mean, it’s clear that the current system(s) are broken. Education, employment, capitalism… it all just feeds a cycle of abuse in the real world, however well-designed the theory was. So why follow the system? Why study, work, buy, sell, acquire, stockpile, strive? If you’re not an abuser yourself, you inevitably work for one…

I’m not an adventure seeker in the typical sense of the label. I couldn’t care less about backpacking SE Asia, skydiving or swimming with sharks, or whatever it is kids do for a rush these days (lol) - but I’m not satisfied with a ‘basic’ life, either. I dream of rugged coastlines and a simple life, while at the same time, acknowledging that I’m pretty optimized for condo-living, and that money means freedom, power and agency. I will not be controlled, but I don’t enjoy conflict or challenging authority. I will not be chained, but I value things that mostly, I don’t actually enjoy. Community, relationship, support. People in all their peopleness. I believe it is good, even while seeking an escape route. So I don’t really know what I’m doing next. I believe in making a difference, making things better; while at the same time acknowledging the utter futility of fighting the inertia, the cycle of decay, the weight of evil.

And yet, I believe in fighting anyways, in struggling and striving and trying, never giving up (even though I have given up), in being a warrior, a crusader for a cause that is clearly a losing one. And so I tangle my hands in the threads of human mess and try to unravel the knots, while at the same time looking over my shoulder with longing at an impossible dream of paradise.

And then I laugh at the self-aware but unrepentant adolescent mind that insists on overblown self-indulgent fantasy. Welcome to my world; don’t stay too long. It will ruin you.

Thursday

Start Time: 10:30 am

Location: couch/living room

Drinking: Bowmore Islay Scotch

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