Procrastination

I've always felt that it's quite unfair, the way writing works or doesn't work, atleast for me. There might be a week, or two weeks, that I simply have so much ideas, so much energy that it spills out and texts form almost without me. But then, just as easily, I might have weeks or even months with no inspiration, no feel for writing. After I started with my "write something everyday" system, I've written something almost every day. So far, I have forgotten to write anything on six different days in about four months. It's not a clean bill, but it is pretty close. The fact still remains, that my inspiration is both sporadic and clearly lacking.

"Hello, my name is Teppo, and I'm a procrastinator." (or is it procrastinationist? Be that as it may...)

In these four months I've written eleven complete short stories and almost a hundred poems or a sort of distillated thoughts. Not bad, right? I have also, however, started over two dozen (probably even three dozen or more, I didn't actually count them) of short stories and such, and have yet to return to any of them. The last month, especially, has been a slacky period for me. It's not that I don't write: it's that I don't write anything for real. Of course, since all I write is top drawer stuff anyway, I'm not sure how well "for real" applies. But the fact remains, I've written very little this past four weeks: one finished story, and one half-arsed start of a story. Everything else has been dabbling: a paragraph or two, a one-verse poem... Procrastinating is easy.

Take this blog: when I started I thought I'd write maybe once or twice a week. I still think I should write once or twice a week. But nothing's ever been easier than looking at the clock at half past ten in the evening and going "oh, it's that late. I'll do it tomorrow." Sure, you will. We've seen that already, haven't we? I've even saved some beginnings of blog posts into the drafts here, to finish them later. The oldest of those were saved a month ago.

I know only one definite cure to writer's block, procrastination or whatever you may wish to call it: pick up a pen or whip out the keyboard and write. I think it's the only one, really. Why is it so hard, then? Partially, I know, it's because I feel I have nothing to say. Last night, I was standing on the balcony, watching it pour, I mean really pour outside, like it was raining for a weeks worth, and I was thinking "this is really pretty in a melancholic way, I wish I could put this down on paper or something." And then I got stuck on the "how". How can I convey what it is to actually have the dark blue of midsummer nights edged by a real downpour: to see streetlights carve little white bubbles in the dampened midnight blue, the drops pattering on the asphalt and grass and rooftops and metal grilles and leaves, the total void of human and animal life out there in my absolute viscinity... I simply had no way of putting it all down, and I gave up and figured I'd just go to bed. Because procrastination is that easy. It's not like I didn't put down the major points of the effect just there.

I suppose I'd need more of a taskmaster than a gentle muse. Someone to really whip me to write. Looks like I have been able to whip myself only halfway so far.

Creating art

There's a question I ask myself about atleast once a day. How to be better at writing? It often changes by topic to "how to take better pictures" or "how to draw better" or something else entirely. The heart of the question remains, however. How can I make my art better? How can I make my art resemble me, the world or the people and things around me more?

I'm gonna line up with the medium I currently use the most, what with the self-enforced everyday-clause. So, how to be better at writing? There's a simple six-step plan that I've found works pretty damn well: read, read, read. write, write, write. This little plan can be fanned out to cover all the arts: you get better at something by doing it. You can study the human physique for ages and ages again, but only by drawing people will you learn the curvature of the lines: the sharp and soft places and the gentle shadowing. You can read on photography techniques, exposures and shutter values but you'll never learn what they mean on film before you take hundreds of pictures. You can read every cookbook and food blog out there, but you'll only really learn how to cook by, well, cooking. And yes, I'm implying that food is art. It is.

This technique has a flaw, however: everyone is blind to their own mistakes. This notion hit me in the face exeptionally hard when I read the feedback a friend of mine gave on my bachelor's thesis: she had noted stuff that was plain stupid, unexplained or fuzzy on the edges that I had simply skimmed over as "ok". Things you might think are new and awesome might just be old and foolish and make no sense to anyone else. While writing, you will make mistakes and you won't notice them all yourself. This is why we have proofreading. This goes for all the other arts as well. There will be mistakes, and you should have someone that is prepared to point them out.

Then there's of course a few things you should simply know before you start creating: things they might not tell you but that are out there to see. Checkov's rule. Likable characters (or totally unlikable characters. Something to rope the readers in, anyway). Hook at the start. Finish what you start. Grammar. There's a lot of stuff that should happen in a text for it to be really, really good. Not all these rules are meant to be followed blindly, and actually arbitrary pedantry will swamp you down and stop you from ever reaching your full potential. Complete overlooking of all the rules will probably make what you write utter crap as well, though, so it's a fine line you need to walk.

I'm no genius with any of my arts, and might probably never be. But I strive to be better, and to enbetter those around me if possible. Art is a channel to the soul (or whatever cognitive center of non-linear thought and emotion you wish to believe in) and should be couraged. Do what you're good at, and make it an art. And try not to be an ass about it. I promise I will try.

Winter, part two

As those of you who are more familiar with what I photograph and why will already know, I have something I love to document more than anything else: light. What light does to the human eye, and what it does to a photograph, is unique. I try to capture this in the pictures I take. The second part of the pictures of winter past shall be mostly devoted to, therefore, light, in it's different forms. Welcome to the frozen north.

The winter was, beyond all doubt, cold. With coldness comes ice, and we did have some pretty nifty icicles during the late winter.

I adore the deep, azure blue of the sky that comes with spring days. It's a color I simply like, for some reason.

On cloudy nights, the hazardous yellow of street lamps colors everything. The snow reflects it up, the clouds reflect it down, and it gets stuck into the mist and fog inbetween. In it's own way, it's rather beautiful.

Sun plays tricks with the eye, and with the lense. It's a fascination of mine, somewhat, to see what shows and what doesn't when the sharp contrasts turn everything black-and-white.

Mostly, when people connotate beautiful and weather, they think of a sunny weather. But it doesn't always need to be. Personally, I find beauty in storms. The camera takes badly to those, though.

The winter is well gone, though we did get a batch of snow on Labor Day. Really dark nights are some months away still, so I'll leave you with a memory of some. The winter is remembered, and so it is time to move on. Have a nice summer and spring!

Winter, part one

Well, the spring is very much officially here, so its time to look back at the winter past. Let's take a stroll down memory lane and see what it had to offer, shan't we?

  

Winter was a bit long in the making: the brown and dreary autumn seemed to drag on for what seemed like a small eternity.

There had been snow, alright: but it always pooled, and turned to slush, and was gone. Then, one day, the world seized to be grey, and turned white.

 

 

The world had, overnight, turned white to stay. It was winter. And the next thing we knew, it was the end of December. I even got a glimpse of some aurora borealis in the making.

 

From there, it was a quick hop forwards to the turn of another year.

The nights did get dark, though.

-- but the days were quite bright, in comparison.

 

We'll carry on from here next time around. Remember the winter fondly, for it will be a while until another one. Dream cold dreams!

Translated literature

Is literature - especially poetry - different after translation? Short answer, yes. Long answer, still yes. I suppose I'll need to elaborate for it to actually be the long answer, though.

First thing to consider in translation would be language: the language of the original piece of literature, the language the literature is being translated to and the difference of those two. How does one translate metric poetry without changing the message? A stanza written in Russian, English or Finnish are quite different from each other, as even the morphology of the languages differs quite greatly. How can you translate metric lines without either changing the meter, the message, or both? What about names? In much of literature, especially fantasy, names carry meanings and implications. Should they be translated, especially as they are often so tightly wound into culture that if translated, they lose half of their meaning? What about other cultural reference? Of course, even time dims culture so that, without actually seeking the information, you will not know what has been meant and what underlying currents can be found in any given text or message.

Translated fantasy and science fiction prose from the 90's (translated to Finnish, that is) is an outstanding example of astoundingly badly translated literature. For example, in Robin Hobb's Farseer books' Finnish translation, no one is wearing pants: the original piece has everyone wearing leggings, which the translator has translated as gaiters (säärystimet). I suppose he might've been meaning breeches, but the effect was quite confusing as I first read the translated books. Translatory variation and dissonance, especially with names, appears throughout the decade: in Hobb's books, in Gaiman's translated works, in Pratchett's translations... Earlier translated works of the aforementioned genres are rather interesting reading as well as words have been made up - a brilliant example of this being Kalpa Kassinen and Liskiö (you may google these if you wish). Most of the fantasy and scifi translated to Finnish in the previous century does stand out as being slipshod, as if no one actually bothered. Then again, how well could it be translated?

As I mentioned previously, I had quite the epiphany while discussing Walt Whitman's Song of Myself: I read it in English, while the rest of the participants read the Finnish translation. Song of Myself is not exactly metric, so one could have translated it meaning to meaning. Some phrases had, however, been changed from positive to negative, or the other way around: some words were missing and others had been added, to give atleast a different implication, if not a completely different meaning.

All this sparked a question: can translated poetry be discussed as the same piece as the original? Personally I have yet to see translated literary works that would stand in comparison to the original: while they can be discussed in reference, they aren't actually the same. Sometimes even discussion in reference can be considered impossible: if one were to discuss a poem, and its implications and references are different in the two works read by the people discussing, it rather feels like one was discussing two different poems. How far apart can the translation and the original be from one another until they should be considered two separate works, or should they be considered such from the beginning? How can you draw the line?

On happiness and writing

Some conversation about writing, the answers I got on my previous post, and some friends reading The Sorrows of Young Werther have brought me back to a subject I visit sporadically but recurringly. Happiness and literary works.

If we are to believe romantic literature - especially old(ish), Mid-Europian romantic literature - true creativity is spawned from misery. If one were to look at movies made, books written or stories told of great writers of old, a common theme could be found: all of them seem to have been definitely unhappy. Of course, common happiness is rather dull, and therefore not very noteworthy, but still it seems that every literary genius until the twentieth century (and somewhat through it) had to have some great misdeed, unhappiness or malady to spur their writing.

I discussed writing with a friend, and mentioned my "write something every day" promise I made to myself. We began to discuss what it was I wrote. When we got to the fact that poems - or something very much poemlike, but where and how does one draw the line - made up most of what I wrote (my prose comes in spews and gusts: I did finish the muse piece though) he mentioned that he had not written almost anything for ages. It was interesting, as before he was one of the industrious striving desk drawer poets I knew. He had a theory of it, which, summed up, would be along the lines of "I'm too content with my life, and therefore have no great feelings to base any great lyric works on." I had no argument to counter him: it was what he felt, and there was no way of proving him wrong. There was a question this provoked in me, however, that gestated for quite a while before solidifying.

Is it truly only misery that spawns creativity? Foes writing reflects the writee (yes, it's writee on purpose), or the setting of the writing in some detail or undercurrent? Certainly, when browsing through most of what is listed as the great literary works of the world, one stumbles upon bad setting, bad luck or just generic bad something quite a deal, but surely there must be happy feelings down there? I have yet to take a plunge through the literary works of our forebearers, but I did do a routine check of world literature classics in the book sets that are laid out for literature studies in our university. Finnish literature shall hold steadfast to everything sucking for atleast someone (it is Finnish literature, after all) so I discounted it from my search.

For basic studies I found three arguably "happy" pieces: Decamerone, Don Quixote and Gulliver's Travels. As Don Quixote's focus in on mistravels, mishaps and, well, mis-everything, we shall discount that. The whole setting of Decamerone is rather morbid and most of the stories end rather sadly as well, it shall be discounted as well. Well, atleast Gulliver is jolly as can be, is it not? Let us consider what it was when it came out: a piece on corruption and faults of a nation, dressed and veiled in satire. Quite unappealing for the jolly folk. Alas, we are left with no happy books for basic studies. To have a few examples of other pieces on the list, there are E. A. Poe's The Raven (and other works), Goethe's Young Werther, Sofokles' King Oedipus, Tolstoi's Anna Karenina and Kafka's The Trial. For later studies, the list has few brighter spots.

Actually, I must digress myself: I just remembered atleast one piece that is happy, or atleast truly claims to be. Given, it is of mid-nineteenth century, but still. Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, fist published in 1855, is a first-person narrated poetic epic of the miracle of life in all it's forms. I suggest it to everyone (in it's original language: I'll perhaps write about this later).

Well, no matter how we look at this, it seems most of the great literary works of the western world are sombre, sad things. Perhaps great inner turmoil does create better art. Personally, I find sombre subjects in my writing more often than not, but maybe it's just my Finnish blood. You can't help what you're made. Either or, I still write something each day. My cellphone is slowly filling with saved messages after I wake up in the middle of the night only to realise the day's writing remains undone, tap something in the phone and just slam the cover. Thankfully, the automatic settings save whatever's on screen when I do this.

For today, my writing is done and it's time to skip to bed. Perhaps one of these days I'll actually get around to sorting through all of the photos I've taken in the last six months, and come up with some pictures up here. It's been a bit, shall we say, texty up here lately. And yes, I know my puns suck.

Inspiration

A favorite writer of mine, Neil Gaiman, once wrote in the introduction of a collection of short stories - and probably said or wrote it down many times before, and after - about how journalists and suchlike ask him where he gets his stories, and out of exasperation, he started answering each of these questions with "from the back of my head." After a while, he thought it over, and came to the conclusion that, though the answer was given as a sort of a quirky joke, it was the truth. Terry Pratchett, another writer I view rather highly, once said he simply writes down what comes to his head, and then waits for more of the story to arrive. I think he probably means the same thing.

I asked a friend of mine, who writes mostly poems, the same question, although as I write some myself, I knew the stupidity inbred in the question. He blogged about how he writes his poems: you can read his thoughts here. http://samuraikettu.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/4-ohjetta-taiteen-tekijalle-eli-miten-runoni-syntyvat/ The blog is in finnish, so here're the highlights: 1. Find out what you're good at, and use it in your favor. 2. Write a lot. Ridiculously lot. 3. Even bad and mediocre will do. There'll be pearls. 4. Good method is better than good work. After reading his post, and stumbling upon Neil's thoughts again while reading and re-reading his works, I started thinking.

My inspiration has always been sporadic: it's kind of like having a muse that spends most of her time sulking, or teasing by giving fragments of stories. I have some ten beginnings of a story, all different, written down somewhere, waiting for me (or perhaps someone else) to find out how they continue. Sometimes I might write ten stories in five days, while another time I might write three lines and have exhausted my literary givings for the day.

I lamented on the lack of a muse a couple of weeks back. On the same day, I went to town, talked to a friend about it, had an idea of a story where the ancient muses could actually be hired from the yellow pages for one-time kind of jobs. After I got home, I stayed up until four in the morning, writing the story and another one, which already is here: a story currently under the name of Night Gaunts. After this, I began to write something every day. Even if I wasn't feeling creative, even if I felt like writing nothing at all, I wrote: a poem with three lines, a haiku, two random thoughts mashed up together, anything would do. After doing this for a while, I now have more ideas, more musings bubbling inside of me than I've had in perhaps years. This brought me back to an idea I have had earlier, and that Mr. Fox (my friend mentioned earlier, Fox is the alias he goes by everywhere and shall be the one used here), I think, had in his post.

Writing spurs creativity. Writing calls for more writing. The more you write, the easier it is to start. If you write every day, you'll write something good one of those days. If you don't write at all, how could you write anything worthwile? Simply by imposing the compellation of writing something every day on myself, I have began to write different, to write anew. And I do write every day: I have woken up to find a slip of paper on by the bed, or a file on the computer I vaguely remember scribbling or typing in the night. By writing, I write more, and I write better.

I suppose I should draw this to a close by giving some kind of an answer to my question as well. Where does my inspiration come from? My inspiration comes from all my senses, from my feelings, from what I am and see and feel and smell and touch. My inspiration comes from the back of my head. I see the moon, and start thinking what it might see, on it's constant vigil in the sky. I see somebody dance, and think about how I could bind it down to paper. I think that, to write, you need the set of mind for it. Inspiration lurks somewhere in everyone's head: you just need to let it out.