Robert Heinlein on Writing

There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick.
Robert A. Heinlein

They are Speaking

I have an entire world in my head, and with it, an entire populace. Each member seeking my attention. Each begging for their story to be told. But where to begin if there is no beginning. These people, they exist and how they came to being is a mystery to them as much as me it would seem. All they know is that there was a time of creation. A time in which beings beyond their comprehension stretched out their hands, and --made. A creation of mere momentary thought and then, as seemingly instantaneously, left again (or so it seemed.)

Within the world, there is more beneath the surface than simply people living an existence. There is struggle. There is fear. There is a yearning to understand though it is harnessed and reined in like wild horses unbroken by a master. It pulls against their terror of the unknown straining to pull free and let loose the chaos knowledge can sometimes wreak upon the unready.

There is so much at stake--so much they must overcome, take to task, learn from. They are speaking, and I must listen. But, the question is, who of them will be the first to be given voice?

They are speaking, and I-- I must listen.

Heinlein's Rules for Writing

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

*These rules appeared in the 1947 essay "On the Writing of Speculative Fiction."

Getting to the Roots

It's been a long while since I've written for the joy of it in a creative way. I've been working to correct that by looking at the very roots of the times that I felt most creative and it all stems from music. There is nothing quite so inspirational or joyous as music to twist around your thoughts and ideas, lift them up, and then send them adrift. Funny enough, not all of the music that does this for me is of the classical or hard rock bend, but more quirky.

I look to the Cocteau Twins, Dead can Dance, October Project, and even Thomas Dolby for this. In there lives a thousand memories of the characters that have passed through my mind. I have seen them fight, make up, bask in the wondrous glow of the sun, and seen them fade away into the hazy fog of banality. They are screaming to come out of the shadows and stand in the sun again and I can't deny them their lives.

So, it begins. We'll be the pirate twins again.

Etymology of Words

I've always been fascinated with words. The way they ripple across the page, invoke emotion, educate, infuriate, and in general work for us to communicate our thoughts. The only imperfection that comes from language is not within language itself, but within us. Our own short comings of understanding the very vastness of language's complexities and versatility. While there are rules, some of those rules can be bent or even broken allowing us to express ourselves in creative and interesting new ways.

We use very little of the vocabulary available to us because in order to share our thoughts with others, we must reach for words that we think others might most understand. This is a shortfall and we do each other a disservice each time we 'dumb' down our language to each other.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating parts of language to me is the very root of where they come from; their birth if you will. This is where Etymology comes in. I'm by no means an expert of it, but a passerby that dabbles now and then in looking at language and tries to understand what drives them to exist. You could say, I personalize them. They each have a personality that works in tandem with other words or parts of words to create something new.

For those curious, I've found an online dictionary that is free to all and contains some etymology information. You can find it here.

For instance, the above title is rooted not only in 16th century and then becomes something new in the 17th and 19th centuries.

jumble (v.)

1529, originally "to move confusedly," perhaps coined on model of stumble, tumble, etc. In 17c., it was yet another euphemism for "have sex with" (a sense first attested 1582). The noun meaning "a confused mixture" is from 1661.

There are two versions of bumble that apply to the above word:

bumble (v.)

"to flounder, blunder," 1532, probably of imitative origin.

Bumble

"self-important petty official," 1856, from name of fussy, pompous, stupid beadle in Dickens' "Oliver Twist."

You could say this blog is meant to be just a stumbling of jumbled bumbles of words, and that's its intent. (No sexual intent implied.) It's just something to pass the time and to think out loud. No revelations will be had here. No deep insights to the secret of life (which Douglas Adams solved for us long ago (42)). Here, you either grok it, or you don't. I'm Ok with that. You're welcome to it just the same.