reflecting on writing

During the course of all the time that I’ve endeavoured to create the stuff that has been released here, there have been certain self-reflective thoughts which bubbled-up as I examined what I was doing, while things were still “in-progress”.

Here are some of the notions which seem significant enough to impart:

1.)

Firstly,

if we start at the beginning,

one of the most monumental tasks in writing anything,

was naming the characters to be written about.

It is difficult to estimate how many times I’ve changed the names of certain characters, in a quest to perfect their “identifying factor”.

Generally, my tendency has been to focus on the “sound” of a name, rather than a name’s historical meaning & etymology.

Which also means I prefer names of my own devising, rather than selecting from “actual” names that already exist.

(Though, obviously, for stories which were to be based in a reality closely resembling our own, it became a necessity to utilize “real names” for those scenarios.)

However,

there are all sorts of other qualities that also factor into whether a name “feels right” for a character.

Certain sounds give off connotations of other already-existent words, which has deterred me from some choices in the past. Since such names would have evoked the other words, words which themselves have certain meanings, which would have then added unintended associations between a character’s name and the meaning of those other words, which might cast a character in a light that I did not want.

To quickly drum up a demonstrative example:

If I liked the “sound” of “Azbaad” for a certain character, but it occurred to me that such a name might evoke the words “ass” & “bad”, then it would get dropped as a potential name, even though the “sound” might be perfectly suitable for the character in question, if considered in a vacuum without context.

From there, another problem with the “sound” of a potential name relates to how unique that name seems in comparison to all the other names in the story.

When considering that a name is the major “identifying factor” of a character, if there is not sufficient uniqueness between them, then someone reading a certain story might get bogged down in trying to remember if “Grizgren” is the lizard-bug with moth wings & a cheerful demeanour, or if that was “Grijgreb”, who might have been the snake-spider with a melancholic attitude.

The idea of “name uniqueness” can also extend beyond one story, and begin to cross-reference against the names featured in all other stories I’ve created.

What’s more, “name uniqueness” can even be extended to the characters from other persons’ stories, which further complicates the situation, if desiring for these new characters to stand-out in relation to all the myriad creations that I’m personally aware of.

This process has certainly been mentally grueling at history’s current time-period, when so many people have created so many things across the ages, which limits what a new thing can even attempt to be, if “uniqueness in relation to other things” is a major consideration.

And again, that’s just the name!

A character is composed of so many details, and each aspect struggles to be memorable when placed in reference to everything that already exists.

But to stay on the topic of names, once a character’s basic conceptualization has come forth (either as a description or a drawing), then there is the challenge of whether the name itself even fits the character.

This is actually something that has prompted some thinking within me of the very intense implications of “name giving”.

Not only for writing, but even with the way people name their children.

Basically:

When parents assign their child a name, that child has not yet developed into the person they will ultimately become, so ANY choice made at the beginning will fail to reflect who they actually are.

Not only do most parents select a name that already exists, rather than creating one from scratch, but even if they choice a name based on its etymological meaning & historical usage, then they are still attaching their personal hopes for how that child might grow up to be perceived.

But that doesn’t necessarily match the true nature of the child in question. (Which will only manifest in his or her identity at a later time.)

And the same is true of characters.

While I might think a certain name is fitting,

in reality, there may be a combination of letters that PERFECTLY encapsulates everything that said character represents, which I’ve not conceived.

Which makes any name that I select for a character…

…more like “pinning on” a name, rather than revealing the true essence of them.

For instance, certain pictures that I drew back in 2003-2005 are still the same characters, who represent the same overall personality, but due to my ongoing process of creativity, they all received multiple name changes & tweaks.

In context of their stories, the changes probably make sense. But the heart of each character’s essence remains the same no matter what I name them.

This fills me with a very vague, yet acute feeling. As if this all alludes to something important, beyond the scope of imagining alternate realities & crafting narratives based on those daydreamings.

2.)

Secondly,

we arrive at the notion of how a creatively-inclined mind experiments with ever-changing ideas that continuously pull the rug out from beneath the foundation of stories.

This has accounted for my greatest hurdle in finishing the stories that mean the most to me.

Essentially, due to the fact that the worlds & characters represent what I wish things would be like in reality, these stories evolved as I grew up & learned more.

By experiencing more, and comprehending more, it shifted certain parts of what I considered “most desirable”, which then shifted what these most important stories should depict.

Forced to revise & rewrite everything over & over & over across many years, there have been numerous times where it seemed like it was pointless to continue, when new information & a changing perspective would inevitably cause the obsoletion of all my previous efforts… again…

This has resulted in several stories getting shortened, in the desperation to finish something & release it, before that process of revision invalidated them all over.

(“Soul Swarm Samsara” is a prime example.)

Besides coming up with new additions & expansions to a scenario, which might require such rewriting for continuity’s sake, the most major issue that has forced revision of long-time dreamt stories has been “the underlying message”.

Especially after being introduced to various spiritual traditions, and starting to understand why people live the way they live, and how people can still ennoble themselves further, it has again forced me to reconsider what purpose my own creations actually serve.

That has then resulted in altering “the message” to be transmitted.

Whether it was an overarching them in the background, or a major element in the very forefront, I’ve had to confront “the message” of each story and determine if it was assisting the increase of goodness in this world or not.

I have been forced to make several sizable choices in regards to this issue.

Choices which I shall keep the specifics private, and only comment that it is absolutely vital that we all become aware of the potential repercussions of everything we do.

Because even if we don’t intend to actively “do evil”, it still hinders the advancement towards lasting happiness for ALL if we work towards things that waste time & energy that could be better spent.

3.)

Thirdly,

once the “worthiness” of “the message”

in each story has been evaluated,

there still lies another underlying issue with creativity.

As I already wrote to an online-friend earlier this year,

all art is an imperfect documentation of whatever we intend or dream it to be.

I daydream faster than I can speak. I speak faster than I can write. I write faster than I can draw. I draw faster than I can record.

And each medium of art still ends up producing a result that only captures the gist of what I had originally conceived with such rapidity in my mind.

It takes so very little effort to imagine a character. Standing in their full glory, with three dimensions & vitality.

Yet once it comes to transmitting an artistic approximation…

…it takes SO MUCH effort and time…

…with each moment getting infinitely further away from the "ideal" conception that had manifested internally with effortlessness…

…and the final piece is still not alive.

There are a lot of implications in this. And it taps into a lot of what troubled me, when I first came into contact with the spiritual beliefs of a different online-friend. Because it essentially rendered all artistic expression as a waste of time. “Demiurgical” activities that would always be a degenerated copy of the self-arising perfection.

4.)

Fourthly,

all these artistic expressions are influenced by worldly impressions.

Impressions made on us, before we’ve even become aware they were shaping the direction of what we would do, before we even decided to do it.

Subtle insinuations about what was worthwhile to accomplish, or not.

For instance, a teenager might never decide to exert time & effort in starting a band with his or her friends, if not for being influenced by the activities of those who had already made their way in the world through that activity.

But that impression,

the idea that “this is a good way to live”,

then leads to other choices which might be even more compromised.

For instance,

to play in that teenage band,

you’d need an instrument.

To get that instrument,

you’d need money.

To get money,

you’d need a job.

Then the teenager becomes immersed in all sorts of systems,

in the effort to get the money, to get the instrument, to play music.

And that’s before said teenager has even conceived of the songs they’ll be playing.

Songs,

which then transmit a message.

But,

because of entering into all those compromising systems…

…systems that directly influence behavior, in order to acquire what was desired…

…the message itself might be compromised.

Obviously,

the communal act of making music is a good thing.

But the circumstances of society have exploited that activity,

and turned it into something that assists in the perpetuation of what I personally feel to be a bad way of life.

And that’s not even considering the various messages being espoused through recorded music itself, which further entrenches all sorts of assumptions about what is worthwhile to accomplish in this world.

Each song is the sum of numerous unspoken impressions on the artists who crafted it.

Some lyrics might be swiped from a book. Other lyrics might be lifted from a philosophical text. Some lyrics might be something an anonymous person other than the artist said.

Yet, when reassembled into the form of a song, there is the impression of originality.

Originality, which itself is a composite of many smaller copied things.

Whole-sale plagiarism is generally considered “bad”, but it is almost never acknowledged just how much influence exists in even “original” things.

To shift from music, back to writing…

…even the basic premises and genres are templates and copies…

…with the impetus for writing in such a framework at all… being something unquestioned…

To create something original, you would have to forego ALL worldly impressions.

You couldn’t use ANYTHING pre-existant.

You couldn’t use the memory of trees, or of rivers, or of the Sun, or of humans, or of whatever language you were writing in…

For it to be 100% truly original, you would first have to recede completely from this reality… and then design your very own parameters from the very base.

Parameters for how things should be, before even getting to the advanced dimensional concepts that would even allow writing to take place…

Then you’d have to design your own language, and use those letters to write about things that you yourself designed…

…but even then…

…after quite literally “building a world”…

…the impetus for DOING any of that, would still reside in your impressions originating in another world that you didn’t make…

…which led to the initial assumption back there, that creating your own original world was a good idea to begin with.

(((While I can’t speak for other writers, the reason that this all seemed like a good idea, for me personally, lies in the notion of making a more preferable world to exist within. But I must note, that I am aware that a “more preferable world” might still be flawed and not attain 100% perfection. Hence how I described my works as “stepping-stones, not destinations” in my Statement Of Intent post from back in February.)))

…

This tangent could splinter off into so many existential issues that it is mind-boggling.

Therefore,

rather than get bogged down any further,

I shall just end this post here.

Hopefully,

something within all of the above is helpful to someone.