[virii] Writer's Rejection (+ new system: uploading files!)

No, I did not drop off from the face of the earth, but a lot has happened since my last post.

But now lets indulge in this as the literary digression it is supposed to be. I am really excited at the chance of finally being able to post whole stories now (and long monologues, haha), because I'm going to be using drop.io to put up my documents (a true gem of a site and app, I laud it profusely and sincerely, and you should definitely check it out). This way you can finally:
- Preview my work using iPaper so you can skim through the piece easily, and not have to scroll through a copious amount of text if you don't want to
- Download my large pieces and stories to read at your own leisure
- Even print out the stories if you are so inclined
- Have all my literary texts uploaded to one location which you can peruse

Depending on interest (and trust in your discretion), I am thinking of posting a link to the "drop" (where all my literary uploads can be found) in the future if the number of docs grows significant.

Now: on to it. The first piece is no story, but (ironically or appropriately?) yet another Seethe about writing :) Hope you find it amusing.

View "Writer's Rejection Seethe" - and download if you please!

[virii] Hindsight

Hindsight.
If only you could bring it forward to your face when you need it.
"In hindsight..."
Ah. My dear little sight, why are you always slightly behind? The orbs spin backwards in their sockets, but still cannot anticipate the mind.

[virii] A bout of writing at 11.05

Listen to that. You know what it is? It is the sound of some kind of thought. Tap tap. Slug-slugga-chug. Glug. That’s what it is. A wooden spatula, churning up thick batter and molasses up in headspace. Preoccupied with the onomatopoeia of your subliminal messages.
Anxiety, though, makes BLASTS of noise. screeeeeech screeeeech scratch-scratchety. The deeper you furrow your brows the higher in pitch it becomes. Listen! LISTEN!!! Yes, the urgency. You can close your ears, but can you close your mind?
If the brain dies. You are brain-dead. I suppose you hear nothing then. I suppose…snip snip synapses, how will you send the message down now? Not even head-sound. You know? Sound in your head, they say when you sing you have to get the sound up, in your head, have it hum there, take it up out of your forehead. But if there is no sound. Not even head-sound.
There is the sound of me typing at 11:12 pm. Trying to sophisticate a sludge of thought into a slurry of words into a cascading cacophony, a rhapsody in sound.

[virii] about a death

When death comes, everything becomes irrelevant.
Be it a death in the family, your friend, your friend's family. Something you had stressed over so severely for days, suddenly dulls down into insignificance. Something that you complained about, that you harboured ill feelings about, shames you now with its pettiness. Then you realise the real reasons to hurt and grieve. The real burdens that weigh upon a soul.
When death comes - that's when you realise what's relevant.

[virii] prayer

Pride has become cancerous in this heart, turning patches into flint; contracting in arrogance, they strike against each other in anger; how one impetuous flash, burns down a garden. Ya Rabb! erode away the malignant stone with the constant stream of Your remembrance.

قَالاَ رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ

They said : Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves. If Thou forgive us not and have not mercy on us, surely we are of the lost! [Al-A'raf (The Heights), verse 23]

[virii] March 10th

You stop to write, and it is as though you are pausing at a fountain to cool yourself, and wash the dirt from your hands. It takes a while to get used to responding in living terms, to allow your thoughts out of their well-tended pasture and into the barren desert of a page that skeptical eyes may wander over. There is the tendency to make diminutive everything you’re trying to say, to busy yourself building that beautiful greenhouse for your beliefs, barricading yourself inside, and smiling through the glass. But how can you hope to grow ignoring that we are all under the same sun?

Leave the blooms to brave the wind
The wind will bear their legacy
Roses that under bell-jars grow
Though fairest seem, wither alone
And never will a garden yield
Nor fragrance swept, nor flower field.

[virii] March 9th

Tell yourself to write something, and you’ll feel adequate.

You’ll feel necessary. You’ll feel willful all of a sudden. I wish I could type as fast as I thought; I’m not much of a typer. I prefer the physical connection involved in writing. I don’t want to hear my words twice when I write. I don’t want a double echo. I don’t want to fall behind on my feelings.
In any case, this is what happens when you haven’t been at it for a while. Innuendo creeps in. It must be made more important. Stream of conciousness has been overdone. The reality eludes you. Before long, you’re talking in tongues. There you go again. What really defines you? And your sentences are too terse.
You’re still too slow, you know, the thoughts aren’t there yet, pick it up pick it up. I’m not looking at the screen, you know. You can chastise me later. I’m not going to edit this. I want to write, God help me, that’s what. Is that enough? I’ll correct the spelling afterward (look I told you I was a lousy typist. I’m not even a touch typist. I’m an all over the place typist). Like the words, the finger thoughts. You worry none of it will make sense. So what, ha. You’re not intent on creating genius. So what if people are confused. Listen you’re going to publish this? The reason is to give legitimacy. I didn’t like that line. But I’m not going to edit it.
It seems overdone. I said, stream of consciousness is cliché. My fingers hurt I’ve explained why see above. In any case, I should take typing lessons.
There’s a scratch and some redness on my hand because my hand is so dry because it’s so, so cold. Listen, I’m still wearing my winter coat. I had good things to say but this is what comes out when you’re just writing and don’t take the time to say anything. I’m feeling stressed. My stress rises in crescendos. I have multitudes of stress..stress (pause why am I pausing?) multitudes of stress…flies buzzing around impertinently. I want to read a book. And stop being needy. And pretentious. And see my friends and give them hugs (those that I can hug…the female variety). I worry about not making sense. I shift tenses. I start the work. I hurry to do something else, and I say: I will end.
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Excerpt from "Present Tense" a semi-autobiographical work of circular progress

Random writing fragment

An interval.
It has been long since epiphanies flashed before your eyes, long since you felt the sharp stinging pain behind your eyelids that comes with this enlightenment. Shut tight, the light spots warn you of madness, remind you that reason lies beyond. Open, and force yourself to look at Truth in its brilliance; but for that glimpse, you must be blind to all else. Shut tight, and your vision is saved. But there will be only darkness for you to see.