Being A Cretin

She looks strangely inhuman. Her body looks almost like a statue, she's so perfectly lean and muscular, but in an almost inhuman way. Her eyes are strangely colored, and her skin has pieces of machinery sticking out of her. She's more human looking then the cyborgs you tend to see throughout the city, but there's something most people consider off about her. People always act uncomfortable around her, especially since her body language is kind of stilted, and her face doesn't show emotion, it makes her think of herself as less human than she is.

She's strangely skittish due to her past. Robots always scare her, even ones you consider small and cute. Occasionally she'll see someone with a visor covering their face and she'll want to avoid them due to some memory she has about that. She can't sleep when spaceships are passing overhead, and you'll have to hold her and comfort her until the sound ends.

Most people you meet just walking around the city think of her as being sort of creepy. A lot of your freinds talk behind her back about how she's killed people before. A lot of people think she doesn't feel emotions just because her body doesn't show them, a lot of people think it's impossible for her to love you.

You do your best to make her feel safe. You pet her skin, and kiss her a lot, and play with her hair. You feel the need to make her feel comfortable again. Whoever made her into what she is now took away her ability to feel sexual pleasure, but she seems to enjoy pleasuring you. She wants to cry when she lays her head agaisnt your breast, but her eyes can't do that anymore.

You get to hang out with a lot of neat people down here. Your roommate when you first get an apartment in hell is a girl who died medieval Venice. Apparently she spent a lot of time dressed as a man and may have drowned a priest because of a girl they were mutually trying to seduce. She knows a lot of the best places to hang out in hell, which is basically just one giant city at this point because there's not that much space in any given afterlife and there are a lot of people here.

There are some truly terrible people down here. You met someone who made a living selling fake cures for syphilis. And you nearly got into a fist fight with a crusader whose down here for consuming human meat. But generally most sinners you meet are chill people who just sort of had nowhere else to go.

Not much happens in hell. Occasionally the demons give people activities, but for the most part you're just on your own. But that makes it kind of chill, nobody eats or sleeps or has sex or anything, you just kind of hang out and talk, and watch a lot of movies and read books. Nobody has to work, sometimes you create art because you have the time but that's not the same as a job.

Its fun swapping stories with people from the past. Everyone understands eachothers languages for whatever reason, so you can talk to eachother without an issue. You feel so connected to human history, there are so many people down here with interesting lives.

Occasionally you'll meet someone historically famous, like Joan of Arc, Thomas Jefferson, and Steve Jobs all live down here and you might just run into them. And you find that cool. You saw HP Lovecraft crying on the side of the street near your apartment, you think he just does that sometimes.

George Leonnec

The Ride

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the artist’s way, week one

a book for the people that are “creative in spasms. creative as an act of will and ego. creative, yes, but in spurts like blood forma a severed artery”

the basics: 1. write three morning pages everyday (stream of consciousness, to free your brain space and be able to focus on what you care most), 2. take yourself out in an artist date every weekend (to reward and inspire you)

pay attention to the changes in yourself and the synchronicities, note the negative feelings that rise up; non-attachment to the result of your art, rather learn to live in the process

Here's a very well-maintained resource by the SFWA (Science-Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association) that lists contests/editors/small presses/etc. with predatory behaviours:

Keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer

Trying for theme is important, however you won’t see what the story is about until you’re at the end of the story. Got it? Now rewrite.

Once upon a time there was ____. Every day, ____. One day, _____. Because of that, _____. Because of that, _____. Until finally, ____.

Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

What is your character good at or comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at him. Challenge him. How does he deal with it?

Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard. Get yours working up front.

Finish your story. Let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

When you’re stuck, make a list of what wouldn’t happen next. More often than not, the material that gets you unstuck appears.

Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in there is a part of you. Recognize it before you use it.

Why must you tell this story in particular? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

Discount the first thing that comes to mind. And the second, third, fourth, fifth—get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

Give your characters opinions. A character being passive or malleable is easy for you as a writer, but it’s poison to your audience.

What’s the essence of your story? What’s the most economical way of telling it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty leads credibility to unbelievable situations.

What are the stakes? Give a reason to root for the character. What happens if he doesn’t succeed? Stack the odds against him.

No work is ever wasted. And if it’s not working, let go and move on — if it’s useful, it’ll show up again.

You have to know yourself, and know the difference between doing your best and being fussy. Story is testing, not refining.

Coincidences that get characters into trouble are great. Coincidences that get them out of it is cheating.

Excercise. Take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How would you rearrange them into what you DO like?

Identify with your situation/characters. Don’t write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

In Metamorphosis, the main character, Gregor Samsa, is transformed into a giant bug. Once the breadwinner, he becomes a burden on his family. They can’t understand him. He cannot work. He cannot leave his room. They increasingly forget about his existence even as he remains an ever present stressor. Just before he dies, his family decides that the bug is no longer Gregor. Their conversation is analytical, almost devoid of emotion to their transformed (and presumably deceased) son and brother. When Samsa finally dies, there is very little grief. The family leaves him behind, relief, if not joy, surrounds them.

The fantasy in this case is the fantasy that one is a burden, that when one dies there will only be relief and ultimately, their life will not have mattered much except as a footnote in the lives of the ones they troubled. One becomes more than their loved ones can bear. They become something loathsome, unable to looked upon, disgusting. And when one finally dies, there is no grief, only ease.

In Donnie Darko, it is the fantasy that one’s death can only improve the world, and the release of culpability for one’s own demise. When he spins back time, he creates a new timeline, one in which he dies, but which ultimately saves the lives of many of his loved ones and people he does not know. It is a mostly heroic sacrifice. There is grief, of course, but his death, in their eyes, is not his fault. To them, he has not committed suicide; his death is a random, horrible, freak accident. He bears no blame for it. He dies, lives are saved (though they likely don’t know it), he is tragically deceased, but no one is to blame. His death is not wholly good of course - the handsome pedophilic preacher/self help author doesn’t get outed for instance- but on the whole, the narrative supports his decision. He dies, and his death improves the world.

When one fantasizes about dying, in my experience, one often imagines a scenario in which they are not the one who carries out the deed. A car crash. An aneurism. Tackling a mass murderer. Not always heroic (though occasionally), but quick, clean, unambiguous, blameless. And one imagines the aftermath. A funeral, of course. (How many people show up that really care?) (How many show up that actually knew you?) But after that, their lives improve. Loved ones no longer have to accommodate for the wants and needs of the deceased. The deceased takes up no space but a cemetery plot, uses no resources and occupies little of their loved ones thoughts. As with Gregor Samsa, one imagines their death to ultimately be a relief. One less mouth to feed, one less carbon emitter, one less mess to clean up after, one less person they have to care about and cater to.

Artist's Statement #2: The things that horrify and revolt us are often natural and sacred.