Walking Raven

NaNoWriMo

“The time has come,”
This Walrus said,
“To write of many things.
Of space and time
And Gotham,
And what the future brings.”

– cko

Fragment 2

2:50 p.m., Tuesday, September 10, 2002

Okay, how to proceed from here. If I write these pages in cursive pen to paper, folks will have a difficult time reading them. So, I would need to translate into typewritten pages. I don’t have time for such nonsense, but perhaps Christine would consent to do so. I could also dictate, but again transcription impediments. Christine, again. Besides, while there may not be a lot of difference between pen to paper and keyboard to screen, I think there may be more of a difference between voice to tape. I don’t know why exactly, but it’s a filter thing. To write or type, the words must form written symbols. No need for such translation with speech until a later time.

I can see one major difference right now between cursive and type. I make a number of errors when typing that I would not make writing, which does interrupt the flow of thought. By how much though, I’m not sure. I am, after all, capable, though not as much as before, of “holding that thought.” For the moment, I guess I’m inclined to type, unless I see a great difference between the two. I will however continue alternating for a bit to see if there’s a real qualitative (as opposed to quantitative) difference. It is nice, though, to use my retractable fountain pen. It writes smooth and silent.

I awoke to rain this morning. The sky was almost uniformly gray with no blue sky or sunshine in sight. It’s brightening now, with some cloud definition. The rain stopped a while back. Sigh. It was dark enough that the street lights came on in the middle of the afternoon. I need to put more descriptive passages in the novel. Or do I. Are they just filler, or do they serve a function? Well, they probably set the atmosphere the writer wishes to convey to the audience. But, if one writes that it rains, then what else is needed? Well, rain is different with respect, for instance of the intensity and duration. If one of the goals of writing is to create an almost cinemagraphic effect, i.e., to enable the reader to see the action of the book with the mind’s eye, then perhaps it’s important, but only if one wants to have the reader’s eye more attuned to the writer’s eye. So, one can write that it was raining, and the reader can pick what kind of rain. Would it be possible to write around the rain such that the conditions are suggested by the action, though not described? Implicit vs. explicit surroundings. But that supposes that the conditions of the surrounding are somehow informed by the action. How stupid is that? It’s raining, therefore one acts in such and such a way, when, indeed one could act in such and such a way whether it is raining or not.

I know there is a convention where the surrounding conditions are written to reflect the inner weather of a character. I don’t want to do that. I will write of murder in the sunshine. But that’s sort of unnatural, too, since murder seldom occurs in the sunshine. If most murders are “red ball” murders (passion killing) or manslaughter, are we as human beings more passionate or more careless in the dark. Or is [it] that as a general rule more drug and/or alcohol use and abuse occurs at night? So, it is not necessarily human nature to kill, but human nature somehow altered by chemicals. And what, if anything, can be inferred from that?

My blinds are closed, thereby preventing me from looking west. I think the sun has broken through. Heavy, heavy sigh. But, would living where it rains more really make a difference on who I am? Are there rain people or sun people or snow people? Well, there’s supposedly SAD, but not everyone suffers from it. Assuming one doesn’t, then what, if any, difference does it make except in terms of personal preference? I almost wrote, “what, if anything,” which would then be followed by “makes a difference.” It appears the two sentences have the same meaning. Aesthetically, I prefer, “[w]hat, if any difference . . .”. But they are the same because “it” and “thing” are synonymous. I wish I’d been sober for my logic class. I wish I’d taken linguistics. I wish I understood the language of mathematics and music. But choices must be made. Time, for me is more finite than for others. First things first. Write the book. Then decide where to go from there . . .

End, 3:35 p.m.

Fragment 1

1:30 a.m., Sunday, September 08, 2002

I went to bed at around midnight, but I am having my second bout with anxiety in as many nights. Tonight I was able to nod off downstairs, but when I tried to return to bed upstairs, the churning of my stomach made it impossible to sleep. Anxiety. How to describe it? An intense sensation on the left side of my solar plexus. That is where I always feel anxious. On the left side of my gut. Like memory, it too is a ball. It is in constant motion. It pulses like a lighthouse beacon, on, off, on, off, on, off. “Beat” is wrong. “Pulse” is right.

I want to be asleep. My heart hurts. It is “pleuritic.” At some point when I threw up, I must have caused some bit of cartilage to pull away from the rib cage and from around my heart. I also think my heart is surrounded by a thick, sticky mucous. At least that’s what it feels like. It hurts. I cannot feel the beat. I only feel the pulse of anxiety. That pulse, not the other. So, the heartbeat is the pulse. But anxiety is a pulse, not a beat. The heartbeat is usually not intense enough to be a pulse. If it gets too bad, the heart pounds. Yes, “pounds” works for the pulsating anxiety, too. Pounding anxiety. So, I cannot feel my heart. I feel my anxiety.

What’s the worst that could happen? I am in no danger tonight of one of my fragile lungs popping and collapsing. I am only in danger of a sleepless night. And that not much of a danger. I have not had many sleepless nights, and never an involuntary one caused by anxiety.

Water drunk after chewing Winterfresh gum leaves an aftertaste like marzipan.

The anxiety may be abating. A game or two, and then to sleep, to dream, perchance to dream, aye there’s the rub. Hamlet didn’t want to lose himself either. I want to keep dreaming. But I also want to keep waking up.

p.s. Anxiety dissolves; anger dissipates.