thoughts and a Kafka-esque re-appropriation
Returning to my blog after a brief break always seems to bring novel thoughts about the process of blogging my work and the more general idea of forming and participating in an online community. I am in a constant state of reflection as to how I feel about posting and creating online as opposed to in “the real world.” Practically I suppose it makes sense to use the tools we have available to us - in this case, blogging has been re-cast for me as a source for learning (through communication) to take place within the context of writing courses. And even as I find the blog useful in this context (and also an unexpected unleasher of new creative processes), I am struck by an unwillingness to fully dive into the process of blogging itself… I keep expecting for the “ah-hah!” moment to hit me as I read a comment or make another post (and I admit, there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that at least somebody else is reading my writing.) Yet there is also a state of personal uneasiness that strikes me as I type away in my text-box. In the same way I think Facebook is damaging my generation psycho-socially (have a discussion with me in person about the topic), I wonder if my blogging is somehow removing me from the creative process even farther. Sometimes I feel as though I end up spending hours in front of a screen - writing, e-mailing, blogging - and I can’t help but wonder what I would be doing with my work (and time and creativity) if there wasn’t a screen there for support. (?)
Perhaps I now should admit that even while writing this a miniature “ah-hah” moment has, indeed, occurred. This is what blogging is about. This piece of writing. Reflection and communication and sharing. I didn’t set out to write this piece, I felt compelled to say something about what I’m actually DOING here (eventually posting some work from break) before doing it. And if a whole group of people gets together and starts to use this space to form a sort-of “creative collective,” there might be the chance to grow and create more vividly in the real world from our collective experience in a virtual one.
When BG explained blogging to me in J-Term, I nodded my head in theoretical understanding - I certainly could intellectualize what going online with my writing was supposed to do for me. But it’s not until I have been with my blog for nearly 12 weeks that I have come to understand more deeply how I can use this tool in my creative life. This isn’t to say that I’m totally comfortable with it or that I’m going to be a super-blogger for the rest of my life (or that I think Facebook is creating thriving online communities) but it does point to a rediscovery of what it feels like to learn outside of a classroom setting and the different forms communities can take in our very (post)modern age. And now to my original intent: fiction.
Kafka-esque fiction:
Echoes were left by unwilling ears and watching became gazing. He stares into a pool and wanted nothing more but to look, his eyes the only senses attuned to a face beyond reach. Narcissus dips low and watches as the water meets his eyes and slithers into his head and all his thoughts drown.
Two sentence story:
His eyes sunk back into his head and he fumbled with another tonic, watching from a bar in Terminal A as planes docked for the night in their berths and a janitor swept and people drove in lines back to their homes. She walked in barely able to stand on her own, elegance lost to three years of her own tonics and asked him to buy her one and when his head thudded on the counter and the bar stool clattered on the floor she turned around, vomited in a fake plant and caught a taxi back home.
April 1, 2008 at 3:25 pm
[...] a great post in which he answers his own question about the purpose of blogging . You can go read the full post over on his own blog, but I’m also going to excerpt almost all of it here, to weave his thoughts into the [...]
April 1, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I just blogged about your lovely post, Kyle: http://tinyurl.com/3cyue3
April 2, 2008 at 8:07 am
I also am not the most comfortable on this online forum for thought. Surprise. Writing through it I didn’t think of. Airport drinking, I definitely understand (and when I got into Mexico, I kept witnessing it). As for constructive commentary… in your 2 sentences of brilliance, if their is a way to make the first sentence flow more than just trying to get all the thoughts in by adding and, and.
April 2, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I love the stranger story. The ending, though, seems a little abrupt; if you set it apart somehow from the rest rather than making it part of the continuous feel of the last sentence (semicolon, dash, whatever) I think that would help. As for your re-appropriation, I liked it but wasn’t sure what to make of the changes in tense; the last image is extremely powerful though.
April 2, 2008 at 5:59 pm
i agree with sean about the switch in tenses…i think that having the first line separate works, but i would change the “wanted” to “wants.” i think you did a really good job mimicking the “sirens” piece that we read…especially by holding off on naming the character until the end.
i really like your stranger story–not what you’d expect to see in an airport at all. and i really enjoy imaging what these people were like, and what you actually witnessed them doing to have come up with such an interesting story about them. i’m not wild about the continuosity (not a word, i know) of the end. i think i would like it better if it were broken up after “one.” I would make “his head…” a separate sentence and then also break after floor. i like that you were trying something different, but to me, this moment doesn’t seem like a continuous flow of events, at least, not the way you have written it. i think it’s crying for some punctuation. you might be able to reword it, though, in a way that begs to be read rapidly, which would be super cool.
April 20, 2008 at 9:51 pm
[...] And this is also what makes it fun. So starting out slow was a good thing. Beginning with our two sentence stories, based upon stranger studies, I think taught me at the most basic level, that a story needs [...]