Swirling Chaos in my brain...
Here's the solution to the whole Intelligent Design theory debate. All of you UFO Conspiracy Theorists get your butts down to Dover, PA and support the Intelligent Design debate. After all, WE ALL KNOW THAT ALIENS SEEDED THE EARTH WITH DNA. Clearly, life here was created by an intelligence that we can't even begin to imagine. ;)
Actually, I'm kind of suprised that the religious right is embracing this debate at all. Clearly, from their choice of political leadership, they've proven that there is no intelligence in this country... or, at least, 55% of the people of this country aren't very smart.
Look at it this way... at least the guy in the Texas White House hasn't yet proposed Tom Cruise for the remaining Supreme Court seat. Now that would really be scary!
Considering all the bad news swirling around the world lately, its nice to know that God continues to give us the perfect antidote - sunsets, beaches, trees, rivers, and man made snow hills on hot days (which one of these is not like the other...) We should enjoy life, embrace one another, and most importantly, chill out. We're not all that nor a bag of chips.
Be good to each other, and have a nice weekend. Si jah en Lunes!
Friday, September 30, 2005
Wanted: Babysitter To Raise My Child
For the past 20 years, I have been raising a child. From the first twinkling in my minds eye, until its actual birth in May, my child has grown steadily. In May, when I finally got a look at my beautiful complete and wonderful child, I suddenly realized that I had no idea what the hell I was doing. My child weighed in at 1155 pages, and was allegedly written in English.
Cliche's aside, being a writer is a great deal like being a parent, with one glaring exception - the conception is not nearly as fun. I spend years agonizing over the birth of my next child. And when, on that glorious day, birth is finally achieved and I'm holding a brand new story in my hands, I am always filled with both joy for its birth, and fear for its future.
But I've never written a novel before - at least not a serious one that was 1155 pages long. Talk about labour pains - it took me 3 years to write this book. And when I was done, I celebrated. But as quickly as the celebration died down, the fears surfaced. What the hell do I do now?
I've been going through a sort of post-partem depression of the literary variety. I never knew how hard it was to write a novel until I sat down to do it. For 18 months straight, I sat down in front of my computer and poured my heart and soul into my computer. The novel took me to places I didn't want to go. I laughed. I cried. I banged my head on the wall more than once. And when I was done, I was completely drained. I couldn't look at this new child of mine. I couldn't love it. And when I tried to look at it, all I could see was its flaws. All I could find was its warts.
But like all parents, our children correct us through education. While we do our best to improve our children, our children work in ways to educate us. We learn far more than our children do. I've learned so much about myself through the process of writing, and now editing my book - things I would have never known without doing it. Flaws that I had taken for granted for years suddenly became strengths. Strengths suddenly became debilitating. Everything I thought I knew about writing was revealed to me as such a paltry sum. My child tried to look cute and remind me of all the promises its birth had once held for me, but all I could see was my flaws shining through its eyes.
I've realized now that I can't keep this child to myself. It can't grow. It can't accomplish anything. It can't be what it was meant to be, if I don't let it out of my sight. My child wants to, needs to, must see the world. It must grow. It must accompish what it can. It must become what it was meant to become. Its time I let it go.
So what I need is a babysitter with special skills. I need someone who has raised children before and knows what sort of corrections need to be made. I need someone who has experience placing these children in good homes so that they can achieve wonderful things. It will be hard to let my child go. It will be scary to send it off into the real world. But it would be cruel to keep it to myself.
And besides... there's always my next child.
Cliche's aside, being a writer is a great deal like being a parent, with one glaring exception - the conception is not nearly as fun. I spend years agonizing over the birth of my next child. And when, on that glorious day, birth is finally achieved and I'm holding a brand new story in my hands, I am always filled with both joy for its birth, and fear for its future.
But I've never written a novel before - at least not a serious one that was 1155 pages long. Talk about labour pains - it took me 3 years to write this book. And when I was done, I celebrated. But as quickly as the celebration died down, the fears surfaced. What the hell do I do now?
I've been going through a sort of post-partem depression of the literary variety. I never knew how hard it was to write a novel until I sat down to do it. For 18 months straight, I sat down in front of my computer and poured my heart and soul into my computer. The novel took me to places I didn't want to go. I laughed. I cried. I banged my head on the wall more than once. And when I was done, I was completely drained. I couldn't look at this new child of mine. I couldn't love it. And when I tried to look at it, all I could see was its flaws. All I could find was its warts.
But like all parents, our children correct us through education. While we do our best to improve our children, our children work in ways to educate us. We learn far more than our children do. I've learned so much about myself through the process of writing, and now editing my book - things I would have never known without doing it. Flaws that I had taken for granted for years suddenly became strengths. Strengths suddenly became debilitating. Everything I thought I knew about writing was revealed to me as such a paltry sum. My child tried to look cute and remind me of all the promises its birth had once held for me, but all I could see was my flaws shining through its eyes.
I've realized now that I can't keep this child to myself. It can't grow. It can't accomplish anything. It can't be what it was meant to be, if I don't let it out of my sight. My child wants to, needs to, must see the world. It must grow. It must accompish what it can. It must become what it was meant to become. Its time I let it go.
So what I need is a babysitter with special skills. I need someone who has raised children before and knows what sort of corrections need to be made. I need someone who has experience placing these children in good homes so that they can achieve wonderful things. It will be hard to let my child go. It will be scary to send it off into the real world. But it would be cruel to keep it to myself.
And besides... there's always my next child.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
I Con No One But Myself
Hello World!
This is my first posting to this blog. I've given a lot of consideration to the name. I threw out The New York Times because, well, it'd already been done. I thought about Fuzzwhizzle And The Freaks, but even I don't know what that means. Finally, I narrowed it down to Vagabond King - a moniker I've been given by a few people - and Icon. Over the course of my life, being a writer, I've often thought about what name I would give my auto-biography. I've had the name Nomad before, but I really liked the name ICON. Unfortunately, I understand someone else has used it for their biography... and they're famous! Stupid Flapjacks! So, ha! I beat them to the punch! I'm using ICON for my blog.
My first thought for using ICON was, of course, because I'd be so darn famous. I was even thinking of making the book extra thick so I could beat back the crowds that would surely line the streets scrambling for my autograph - which humble little me would naturally give them because I wouldn't let fame get to my head. So, naturally, I planned to write this great biography talking about my early years as a struggling writer, my first novel, my first four or five Oscars, my Nobel prize for literature, and so on. I would spend some time talking about the great loves of my life - including my current wife and our, oh, say, ten kids... yeah, that sounds good. Unlike those other Hollywood romances, ours would be just fine thank you, because we'd still live in a small town and we'd still drive an old pick up truck and take the kids to soccer practice before jet setting off to Europe for the weekend. But as I actually sat down and started to think about what my life has really been life, and the direction it has really been going, I came to a stunning conclusion... "I con nobody but myself."
I mean, look at me. Look at me. Okay, force yourself. Please? I'm hideous. Not worst smelling teenage boy tennis shoe hideous, but certainly worse off than the Phantom of the Opera hideous. And I'm not just talking in the looks department. I have average intelligence. I have hardly a dime to my name and thousands of dollars in debt. I live at home with my parents. I could go on. I'm like the Comic Book guy from the Simpsons without the comic book store. If I knew what was good for me, I'd just go ahead and give in to depression right now and be done with it.
And let's not even talk about internally. Internally I'm a mess. I procrastinate. I lie. I cheat. I steal. I sin hundreds of times a day - and that's just in the car on the way to work. I have doubt about everything. And I am so full of myself. The only thing healthier than my appetite is my ego. I can even be superior in self deprecation. If you could see my heart... and not just with a chest x-ray, but metaphysically as well... yeuch!
So how do I do it? How do I survive? Why don't I wallow in self-pity and just kill myself? Because... I'm having too much fun.
You see, the greatest miracle of them all is that what you think of me doesn't matter. What I think of me, doesn't matter. Its only what God thinks of me that matters. And He loves me no matter how hideous I am. He loves me under the rocks that I crawl. He loves me down all the gutters my mind travels. He loves me no matter what side of the track I live. He loves me when nobody else loves me.
I can't con you into thinking I'm a great person. I can't con God into thinking I'm a great person. Ultimately, I can only con myself... and what good does that do.
This is my first posting to this blog. I've given a lot of consideration to the name. I threw out The New York Times because, well, it'd already been done. I thought about Fuzzwhizzle And The Freaks, but even I don't know what that means. Finally, I narrowed it down to Vagabond King - a moniker I've been given by a few people - and Icon. Over the course of my life, being a writer, I've often thought about what name I would give my auto-biography. I've had the name Nomad before, but I really liked the name ICON. Unfortunately, I understand someone else has used it for their biography... and they're famous! Stupid Flapjacks! So, ha! I beat them to the punch! I'm using ICON for my blog.
My first thought for using ICON was, of course, because I'd be so darn famous. I was even thinking of making the book extra thick so I could beat back the crowds that would surely line the streets scrambling for my autograph - which humble little me would naturally give them because I wouldn't let fame get to my head. So, naturally, I planned to write this great biography talking about my early years as a struggling writer, my first novel, my first four or five Oscars, my Nobel prize for literature, and so on. I would spend some time talking about the great loves of my life - including my current wife and our, oh, say, ten kids... yeah, that sounds good. Unlike those other Hollywood romances, ours would be just fine thank you, because we'd still live in a small town and we'd still drive an old pick up truck and take the kids to soccer practice before jet setting off to Europe for the weekend. But as I actually sat down and started to think about what my life has really been life, and the direction it has really been going, I came to a stunning conclusion... "I con nobody but myself."
I mean, look at me. Look at me. Okay, force yourself. Please? I'm hideous. Not worst smelling teenage boy tennis shoe hideous, but certainly worse off than the Phantom of the Opera hideous. And I'm not just talking in the looks department. I have average intelligence. I have hardly a dime to my name and thousands of dollars in debt. I live at home with my parents. I could go on. I'm like the Comic Book guy from the Simpsons without the comic book store. If I knew what was good for me, I'd just go ahead and give in to depression right now and be done with it.
And let's not even talk about internally. Internally I'm a mess. I procrastinate. I lie. I cheat. I steal. I sin hundreds of times a day - and that's just in the car on the way to work. I have doubt about everything. And I am so full of myself. The only thing healthier than my appetite is my ego. I can even be superior in self deprecation. If you could see my heart... and not just with a chest x-ray, but metaphysically as well... yeuch!
So how do I do it? How do I survive? Why don't I wallow in self-pity and just kill myself? Because... I'm having too much fun.
You see, the greatest miracle of them all is that what you think of me doesn't matter. What I think of me, doesn't matter. Its only what God thinks of me that matters. And He loves me no matter how hideous I am. He loves me under the rocks that I crawl. He loves me down all the gutters my mind travels. He loves me no matter what side of the track I live. He loves me when nobody else loves me.
I can't con you into thinking I'm a great person. I can't con God into thinking I'm a great person. Ultimately, I can only con myself... and what good does that do.
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