STATION IDENT 011313

Source:  Christina Kourkoulou


Whew.

So.

It's like walking up an elevated freeway exit.  I spend a lot of my time focused on what's immediately around me, exerting effort and attention in a space that sometimes feels deserted, while the occasional threat of a serious problem or timesuck occasionally rushes me like headlights in the dark.  And it seems kind of like a bad idea, or foolish, to be walking this way - one step at a time, while pros cruise by me as though I were at a standstill.  I glimpse their faces on books and in interview articles like happy faces in warm, lighted car windows, going places I could never reach if I started running now.

But.

Sometimes I look over the side of this ramp, and I can see...

I'm way up higher on this path, the path I always kept in sight, than I used to be. Surprisingly far.  I can see all the lights in the distance, spread out in a map I couldn't have seen a year ago.  Feels a damn sight better than being stuck in traffic where I was.  When I'm not worrying about oncoming threats, I feel more peaceful up here.  More in command of where I'm going.  More able to taste the wind.

It feels good.

I can see signs for another exit coming up in a little ways.  I'm starting to think about what comes next.

Got any suggestions?

STATION IDENT 010613

Source



*Home Stretch Talk In The Mental Locker Room*

Come on, motherfucker.  Get up and write.

Two entries yesterday.  Some more today.  Faster, not slower.  Faster, not slower.

Get off your ass and type.

You're a bad 80 WPM sonofabitch with keystrokes for blood and a metaphysics theory engine between your ears.  This isn't even focused work, this is playtime.  This ain't shit.  Quit sandbagging.  Everyone you idolize has been doing this longer than you and better than you.  There is no more time.  One word after another, one two, one two three four, connect the dots.  There is something alien and beautiful under the world's skin, and you are going to rip it out barehanded and show it to people, one dream at a time.  Hup, hup, hup.  Caffeinate, connect the dots, finish the pattern.  Knock it out.

Go, you complete fucking dork.  Go.

STATION IDENT 123012

Source



Oh, such grand plans I had.  Before all hell broke loose and I spent a month paddling against the current.

Progress continues apace.  End of January seems like a more reasonable goal now.  Knowing me, I'll overwrite EVEN MORE and end up busy until end of February anyway, but I'll try to restrain myself.  Getting some more words knocked out as we speak.

Oh also, that thing I said last week about that being the last Station Ident of the year?  Apparently I can't read calendars.  So I've got that going for me.

STATION IDENT 122312

via neuromaencer


Oh wow.  Getting this interface to work via iPad is taking a bit of bludgeoning; I think the poor device might be close to having a seizure.

Well, it may look a little ugly, but nonetheless I wanted to get some weekend music and imagery in here before the weekend was quite over.  Mission accomplished, hopefully!  Enjoy the holiday season, wherever you happen to be.  The next STATION ID happens in the new year - see you then.

STATION IDENT 121612

Assembler, by Kosmur.



December has just sucker-punched me.  I admit, I was asking for it.  And I'll benefit from at least learning to meet the myriad challenges that have sprung up, even if I'm not successful at all of them. But holy shit, things have been a bit intense.  And tragedy has visited a lot of people in a lot of ways - some strangers to me, others near and dear.

My self-concept has ever been the Curious Stranger - the figure who drifts in from the edge of the woods to watch the humans at play, and bemused or delighted by what he sees, puts on the ol' human-suit and tries to mimic them with varying degrees of success.  Until of course he gets in over his head, and then the woods begin to look much more appealing than they did before - but the way back is no longer clear.

I basically always feel in over my head.

We mostly think of Halloween as the day of spirits, but really, isn't any holiday - holy day - a day when the divine out-of-context came knocking at the doors of the world so hard that everyone remembers the occasion?

Hang tough out there.  Don't forget to act like people.

STATION IDENT 120912

Neil Noland, via touchdisky


breathe

maintain focus

don't sweat the factors that are out of your control

don't stint on the effort of which you're capable

you have a state of mind to defeat

once this is done, all doors shall open for the initiate

STATION IDENT 120212

The Cell and the Pyramid, via bldgblog


“Non- Euclidean calculus and quantum physics are enough to stretch any brain; and when one mixes them with folklore, and tries to trace a strange background of multi-dimensional reality behind the ghoulish hints of Gothic tales and the wild whispers of the chimney-corner, one can hardly expect to be wholly free from mental tension.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories

STATION IDENT 112512

Metropolis, Fritz Lang.  via io9



The holiday weekend was a much needed period of battery recharging, but let's see if I can creep ahead another ~4-5 days today.  If I can do that, and maybe kick up a final extra push during the work week - well, I won't quite scratch 2 months of excess content, but I'll be within spitting distance.

More than that, I don't feel tired.  I feel good.  I feel antsy because my progress this week was slow.  I feel ready to keep moving at this pace.  If I do that throughout December, I will definitely finish Draft 1 before the year is over.

“When writing a novel, that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: 'House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

― Neil Gaiman

STATION IDENT 111812

Galaxy Soho in Beijing, via Perduellis.



Buffer count:  +22 days material
Goal for end of weekend:  +27
Emotional goal:  Acknowledge and be okay with the fact that while the entire effort is rubbish, it's rubbish the like of which has never been seen before.
Local temporal goal:  Clean up the lair, welcome fam to town, eat food, get CRUNK!
Mid-range temporal goal:  Finish novel.  Start another.  Do this again.  And again.  And again.
Long-range temporal goal:  Be the semiotic window to madness that a handful of adventurers turned to in a desperate hour.  Become legend.

I was in the middle of unpacking groceries when the internet caught me, and when I came to I was writing this and all my shit is still sitting out melting on the floor.  Also I had another stupid story breakthrough idea which I swore to forget last night and relax but now I still remember it and I have to write it down argh need caffeine.

STATION IDENT 111112

The Rain Room,by rAndom International, via Design Fetish


Keeping it moving.  At +11 days of pre-scheduled content, hoping to be at +15 or better before the evening's through.  That's roughly 6000 extra words, on top of the roughly 2800 words I would have normally generated in this period.  If I maintain roughly this output level, I'll be in the neighborhood of 30K words for the month.  That's 20K shy of a valid Nanowrimo novel, and less than 30 Characters will be created in that time, but even if I don't hit those marks, I'll still be pretty proud of myself.

As usual, work is being a beast so I've been putting late hours in at the office as well.  But fuck it.  Sleep and social interaction are for the weak.  Time to get back to it.  Coffee is on, music is streaming, here we go.

STATION IDENT 110312

Source

November is a chrysalis.  When you emerge, you'll be better than you were before.

I've mentioned this here and there, but never on this blog itself - I'm going to pick up my pace a little bit during November, in solidarity with everyone doing 30 characters and NaNoWriMo.  You won't see it on the surface, because the posting schedule will stay the same, but I'll be putting more effort into building up a buffer, writing more than I post in order to get a bit ahead.  

This is somewhat necessary because I know the holiday months are going to be a little bit disrupted with holidays and travel, but I want to do better than stay on schedule - I want to see if I can beat it, generate the amount of text that I said I would but do it in a shorter timeframe, and use the remaining time to start in on an editing pass.  

8 months down, 2/3 and counting.  Afterburners engaged.  

STATION IDENT 102812

Milky Way Part 2 by Surrogate Self



“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Potential Contains

Sample from Ehaema. For more information, please contact the author

---

And so they fell.  And as they fell, they fought.  

Perhaps ‘fought’ was the wrong word.  Perhaps it was the right word and we have come to use it in a shallow way.  There was no physicality involved in what was happening to them.  It was a clash of personalities, of assumptions.  It was a probing of each other’s certainties, in the hopes of uncovering one that turned out to be an uncertainty.  It was a Dialogue.  In a realm of software, they were free to abandon the position of advocates, so that they could become living models of the things they believed.  

Elan

believed

in soft, black earth with a delicious itch made of living things, a fever taking hold, threads of meaning and nourishment expanding like three dimensional fibrous fractures beneath the surface, pressure and moisture giving way to ecstatic eruption, a green and shivering newness aware in the air, tasting of light for the first time until that taste became a riot in the body, in the cells, a dew-kissed and buzzing affirmation of the value of being until the folds inside unfold and Elan presents a bloom, and the bloom feeds the air, feeds the world on the divine wind which is breath, which contains the cyclic process nested within itself, all possibility, all potential

potential contains beauty

Avernus believed

that potential contains horror

potential contains nothing.  Are there, or are there not  

chromosomal nightmares, cells dividing and dividing into monstrous growths in the body’s most vulnerable places, attacking the mind as they attack the body, attacking the spirit as they attack the mind, the horror of the night, the petrified stare of a poet dead in a locked room, mouldering under piss and shit and the sound of the television which has been on for a year, a year and counting in this yellowing tenement where rot has become immortalized in dust and the crusted remains in a hypodermic needle cradled in the arm like a baby, and the ashes of a poem, her last poem, invisible but potential, dead on the page, senseless ruin of beauty, of the mind, of order, of everything, and it does not have to be

we can be better

we can defy this arbitrary loss, and become a new infinite Real in which pain is but the kiss of victory that we keep in a folded scrapbook, to remind us of how we lived before Bliss.  

STATION IDENT 102112

Stephan Martiniere via facel3ss.



This week:

• Handed off an impromptu piece to a friend that may end up as part of their branding. 
• Won a contest at work based on an idea I had, that I am now getting paid to work on a bit every day.  
• Hatched plans to ramp up the writing effort during the month of November

I mean, plenty of crappy stuff happened too but I'm pretty sure the universe does that on purpose; if the wheels didn't come off of things periodically I'd just drive right into the ocean.

If things are going well for you, then continue to rock.  If they're not going so well, just remember it is all fuel for the fire that you will use to manifest.  Light it up.  We'll be right there with you, trying to keep warm by the heat of our mistakes, all through the dark season.

STATION IDENT 101412

Emanation, by Sukhi Barber



October is a month that plays merry hell with the identity.  Spirits speak up.  Harvests are brought in, leaving the harvest bringers to face down the reaper, and the question of what the upcoming dark months will turn them into, now that the earth is done rewarding them.  Masks appear, changing revelers into the people they wish they were, or the creatures they're afraid that they are.

In America it is both Cyber Security awareness month and LGBT History month - so we consider the questions of online identity and sexual identity as they undergo transformation in global conversation, and our self-concepts undergo transfiguration consequently.

It is also Filipino history month in the US, and Black history month in the UK.  Suits me just about right.

7.5 months of Ehaema, this year of twilight evolution, the year that I bridge realities, from the one in which I imagine having written a book, to the one in which I imagine having written a REALLY GOOD book.  :D  Happy Harvest Season, friends and readers.  Enjoy yourselves at the masquerade.

--K

STATION IDENT 100712

Kristen Nicole via Silicon Angle



April: How can you do that? How can you remember every story ever told?

The Teller: The secret is to tell them often, and to tell them in your own words, not the words of your ancestors.

April: Doesn't that mean that the stories change with every generation?

The Teller: Yes, as all Tales must. Change is important, otherwise the Tales will have no meaning to us... They will be just words, and we do not care about the words. We care about what the words tell us.

- The Longest Journey, Ragnar Tornquist

In Equal Measure

Sample from Ehaema. For more information, please contact the author

---

“Seriously.  Do I come and do this in your house?”

“Whatever man.  Maybe.”  Zip.  “In this country I’m thinking yeah, maybe Jesus does piss a little bit in everyone’s house.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a wretched human being, Vanya?”

The Martyr’s tongue lolled free from his coyote teeth.  Laying a hand on the small crucified being’s shoulder, he leaned uncomfortably close in and whispered, “I think something very strange is happening.”

“Man, you’re telling me.”  His audience looked more than a little disturbed.

“Listen.  I think I need a favor.”

Tiny Jesus sighed.  “Would you believe I’ve heard this one before?  Shocking, I know.  Word to the wise, though, Vanya - this is maybe not the best favor-asking technique ever invented. I don’t think it’s really even in the top ten, let me check - nope, not even close.  But let’s hear it, since obviously I’m not going anywhere at the moment.”  The little figure shrugged, which on a crucifix is quite a trick.

“That’s it!  That’s it.”  Vanya leapt back, bounced off a pew and doubled over, smacking a fist into his forehead a few times as if to beat back a revelation attempting to spring forth.  Tiny Jesus invented a new expression that borrowed from both relieved and perplexed in equal measure as he waited for the man to express himself in more verbal, less kinetic terms.

“The walls between things - they’ve gotten thin, too thin.  I think something’s broken.  You gotta come with me.”

“I have to do what now?  Hey, no look - aww, you haven’t even washed your hands!  Come on, man!”  The Martyr was already prying the idol loose from the wall.

“You going to help me get that chalice.  And then with it, we can start to repair whatever is going wrong with space-time.  That’s the favor.  Come on, get off of there.”

“Vanya, why do you think I need to come with you?  I’m just an object.”

“Everything is just an object.  Why you think you need to stay here?”  With a faint crunch of protesting plaster, Tiny Jesus left the wall and disappeared into a large hip pocket of the Martyr’s coat.  

“Fair point.  I don’t have a patent on working in mysterious ways, after all -- oh WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN KEEPING IN HERE?”  

“Dreams,” answered the Martyr.  “Let’s go do some good deeds.”

With that, he sauntered up to the front of the church, and after a few curses and some struggling with the uncooperative lock, breezed unsteadily out through the front door with his newfound companion, leaving only their voices behind.

“Any guarantee these deeds are actually going to be good?”

“Aw, hell no.”   

STATION IDENT 093012

Noah Sheldon, via Wired


Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

-Edgar Allan Poe

STATION IDENT 092312

Fresh Air by Jessica Lloyd-Jones




FTL is amazing.

STATION IDENT 091612

by Андрей Машнич



Inventory

Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

-- Dorothy Parker