Self-Indulgent but Somehow Necessary Journal Entry.

I have begun reading Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves, and I must say that I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. But that book, whether you want it to or not, messes with your head hardcore. It just...will. I can't explain how or why, only that it's unavoidable--while reading it, your brain will twist a bit, even if it's just a little. In my case, some of the head-messery has actually extended into the physicality of the book itself. You see, scratches--mysterious scratches of unknown origin--have begun to be a theme in the book. At the same time as this started happening, I noticed a series of scratches on the cover of the book. Not even scratches--upon further inspection I noticed they were cuts, clean and straight, as though they had been made with a razor. There were six of them in all, so thin they were only noticeable when the book was twisted in the light, all different lengths and directions, the longest being horizontal and nearly bisecting the cover. Most of them cut deep enough that they went through, to the other side of the cover.



I did not make them.



I know, I'm sure, that they were not there when I bought the book.



In the interim period, the book has been only in two other locations--on my bookshelf (which to date has caused no damage to any of the other books I keep on it), and in a part of my backpack with no sharp edges, protuberances, or even hard surfaces to speak of. Neither of the places it has been could produce anything like that.



So I'm understandably a little freaked out about that. Not, like, panicking kind of freaked out, but the kind where a chilly little wind blows across the back of your mind for a second, the feeling that something's not right, but it's not some major concern, yet it bothers you a little all the same. I read about mysterious scratches appearing from nowhere and the very book I'm reading about this in spawns mysterious scratches appearing from nowhere.



So on that mildly unsettling intro that I just had to write down, I'll move on to things that may or may not be completely different, though I'm not sure what. I'm writing as I go, here. Freewriting, like this blog was originally intended for until I decided to do features and stuff. The air has the unpleasant and distinct scent of excrement, as the city I'm currently living in curiously seems to regularly have, once a month or so. At first I dismissed it as fertilizer, but for all the garden areas of the entire city to be fertilized all on the same day each time...just doesn't work. The light is bright enough that I can see the shadows of the indentations my words are making on the page (I write kind of heavy-handed, and yes, I'm writing this one on paper before I blog it because as I write this first version of it I'm too far from a computer). It's a neat effect, sort of like I threw the words at the page and they caught it. If I tilt it a bit and let the light play with the page, the words sort of form a kind of flame pattern, or maybe if you squint some sort of ghost. I'm eating a cookie.



As to why I'm writing at this particular time as opposed to, say, any other time, I have no idea. I was standing in a public restroom washing my hands and looking in the mirror and reflecting that I look tired and need a shave and really should take better care of myself because I'm going to burn out if I keep skipping out on some sleep hours and skipping out on a meal each day, because crap, Holden, you can't live on conversation hearts, microwave burritos, tap water and five hours of sleep a night, not that I've been doing that for long, the conversation hearts and burritos at least, that's only been the past three days or so, and sadly the five hours of Zs are actually an upgrade from a few months ago when I was pulling all-nighters roughly once every two weeks. And now I'm out of burritos anyway, and almost out of hearts, and at least those were subbing just for lunch or dinner and not all my food. The sleep I actually wouldn't mind, if I were using my lack of sleep to pursue artistic endeavours--that, I feel, is a worthy cause for sleep-loss, but of course that's not the case, why would it be? If it were I might not be writing this. Anyway. I was standing there in the restroom and washing my hands and being all reflective when I noticed the door of the handicap stall was ajar and somehow that bothered me, and for the rest of the hand-washing I couldn't take my eyes off it, staring at it via the mirror, and when I stepped out the door I then new somehow, instinctively, that I needed to write, not about anything specific necessarily, I just needed to write.



I wish I had those instances more frequently. I used to get so many ideas on observations all at once that the only way to remember even half of them was to write them down, so I would carry little pocket notebooks and fill them with all sorts of ideas and little details about things that I noticed, until they were all ragged and bent from being in my pocket so much. But then I started to get asked what I was writing pretty much every time I started to whip out the notebook (or "idea books" as I called them) and that's just plain annoying. I don't need a bloody interrogation when I want to write something down, and that's what it started to turn into, so at first I just made note of the people who would ask and would avoid writing anything down if I was struck by the urge to when around them, having instead to keep the thought bouncing around in there through silent repetition to myself until I could be alone for a moment to write it, usually through a bathroom break. The inconvenience of this ultimately caused me stop using the notebooks at all, which led to me writing down fewer things, which led to remembering fewer ideas, which led to fewer ideas, period. I really should get back in the habit of using notebooks.



In fact, I've felt steadily more artistically stagnant since high school. Fewer ideas come, and something just won't let me complete, or more recently even start, things I know I want to get down. Every year I'll go to a comics convention and be reminded of why I love the art form, but always feel guilty that I don't have anything to share, not even an ashcan (an ashcan, for those curious, is a small, cheaply made six or eight page comic, usually black and white, that's just meant to showcase the comicker's skills in a very simple, easily consumable manner, or otherwise act as a sort of preview for an upcoming comic). And so I always promise myself, hey, maybe this'll be the year that I really DO make an attempt to start comicking. And I do start. I refine old ideas, I generate a few new ones, I type up a few half-scripts, I start penciling a page or two. And then I just stop. And try to start again. And again. And again. And before I know it I've taken a partially pencilled page of Silicon Heart to college with me, the first page of the first story arc, and it's been being worked on for a full year, that one stupid unfinished page, even though I know how almost the whole story goes now something blocks me from writing down the rest of the script or even getting to the point of inking the very first page. I'm beginning to wonder if it's psychological. I actually kinda went to see a psychologist (or is it a psychiatrist? I'm always getting the definitions of the two mixed up) about it last year. No help, really, but I was scared to be there. I locked up when I should have been talking to him, so it really was my fault.



Of course, there's always the old trope of "ohhh, maybe my characters and ideas are stupid anyway," but at the risk of sounding like the egomaniac I'm worried I'll become someday, I know that a lot of them aren't. If that one nearly life-changing, muse-rekindling conversation I had with e last summer taught me anything about my own ideas, it's that a lot of them at least have some value and validity. Which makes it all the more important that I make them into something more tangible than thoughts bumping around in my cranial walls, which makes it all the more frustrating that I'm somehow unable to.



Sometimes I'll just sit for a while and wonder "my word, am I wasting something?" If I'm wasting my life, I know I'm not wasting all of it, but I think if anything I'm wasting potential. Not even potential, but potential potential. If I'm completely honest with myself, I really wish I could set aside some large blocks of time--entire days, even--to just create and more importantly let myself do so. Letting myself create is the real hard part, because I always feel like there's something "better" I should be doing right then. Art becomes guilt when it should be pure creational joy. So many half-done projects that I know I'll never finish, if not because of lack of current interest than just because of pure volume of unfinished work. I've got unfinished work surrounding me right now. Bits of stories lurking in my files. Half-penciled comic pages in the space underneath this desk. An un-inked drawing in my backpack. A drawer next to me filled with all sorts of story ideas scribbled on whatever scraps of paper were handy at the time. An unfinished bust of one of my characters that was going to be a gift for a friend who was a fan of said character. I should post a picture of that, actually, unfinished as it is and will probably remain. Here:

Kinda creepy, but she's grown on me a lot. But the styrofoam's getting so soft and easily nicked now that I'm scared to do anything else with it even though I know what I want to do. At least in terms of whats, I have no idea as to the hows.


Man.


That block.


Somehow, a lot of times when I write personal stuff, it all comes down to the block. It's like it's some sort of entity, a personal monster I need to figure out how to slay or at least maneuver around. Creative block is normal. Creative block for a period that can be measured in years isn't. I notice crap like the way trees grow curved on streets that get a lot of bus traffic and that ugly series of bumps people get on their chins when they cry, I drift through crowds of people on my way from class to home and try to imagine what their lives are like going just by facial expression, and yet my one moment of real creative glory is a single short story, a now-embarassing draft of that story at that, that was published in the quarterly lit magazine of a community college. You can only float on one story for so long.

I am restless, and tonight will have little sleep, I can tell already.
I hope it will at least bring an act of creation beyond this post.
My muse hungers, wastes away in a corner...is this how I treat her after her resuscitation? She needs food. My ideas need to take more shape than ideas...but how do I get over myself enough to do that? How?

How do I make?

Moreover, how do I let myself?









Holden Out.