Art of the Odd

What was Viable Paradise like?

According to the third-century Roman senator Dio Cassius, when Emperor Hadrian attempted to give Appolodorus (the architect who designed the Markets of Trajan) some advice, Appolodorus said, “Go away and draw your pumpkins.” Hadrian did, but later, he sent Appolodorus some of his own designs and asked what Appolodorus thought of them. Appolodorus, poor man, told him. And Hadrian had him executed.

It was nothing like that. For one, nobody there had the power to have anyone else executed. Not legally, anyway. For another, the farthest thing from my mind when my work was criticized was having the critter killed. Not only did I like everyone who critiqued my work, I agreed with almost everything I heard. For the past week, though, I’ve been thinking about how to apply the specific criticisms of my submission story to my writing in general. The most common criticism I heard was, “This needs to be longer.” Or, as John Scalzi put it, “This isn’t a story. It’s a scene.” And that, right there, has been an issue in my writing all along. I write scenes. And I often fail to connect them to anything else. In other words – I don’t finish things.

That’s going to end. It’s part of the Viable Paradise Oath. “I will write,” it begins. And then it goes on. “I will finish what I write.”

There’s more, but those are the first two steps. And that’s where I’ll begin. I will write. And I will finish what I write. And I will rely on my classmates, my husband and my friends to hold me to it.

You’re all listening, right?

Last year, I gave up Britney Spears for Lent. Not that I know Britney, or anything – it’s just that I was spending far too much time and mental energy on stories about her public meltdown. And it wasn’t just Britney – it was junkotainment in general and a particular social networking site in particular. Gave ‘em up for six weeks, and it dramatically changed my relationships with both.

This year, I took up two Lenten disciplines – one was to give up booze (except on Sundays, which are feast days, and a few other narrow exceptions, like last Thursday, when NovySan took me to the Tiki Ti for the very first time.), and the other was to cut down the amount of time I spend at work, so I have more time for other things, like writing, dancing, starting my law practice, reading a few of the books stacking up in corners of my house… Y’know – the whole rest of my life. The only way to do that is to really, really focus on the work I’m doing, while I’m doing it, so I can get it done, get it out of the way, and move on to other things.

I’m not so good at that. I get bored, and I drift, and next thing I know I’m reading essays on Victorian Baby Farming and getting crap-all done. (I can justify it, though! Of course I can! I’m doing research! Those baby-farmers will will make a literary appearance, someday.)

I did it today, though. Powered through what needed to be powered through, and then realized that I had no idea what to do with myself. Not because I didn’t want to spend some time on the personal parts of my to-do list (and I did that), but because my usual timewasters weren’t exerting their normal appeal.

Maybe I’m getting better at this, after all.

Friday, I watched The Rats on Hulu (in which the titular rats eat a fat guy and a black man). Tonight, NovySan and I watched The Night of the Living Dead (in which our black hero survives the zombie apocalypse, only to be shot in the head by a reneck sheriff).

Now, I want to write a horror movie in which the only victims are slender, intelligent white men.

Who’s with me?