George RR. Martin posted to his blog. "I lost all interest in A Song of Ice and Fire decades ago. I don't give a shit about writing any longer, I just sit around and spend my money." I guess the next book will never come. I feel woesome, but I think I understand. I could not imagine what it must be like to be under all the pressure, the constant barrage from fans and critics alike, perpetually and incessantly.
GRRM somewhat famously writes all his books, amazing books, in a DOS program from the '80s -- Wordstar. I sent him an email, when I was mildly obsessed with finding the perfect writing flow. I desperately ached, longed, lusted for Wordstar. I made jokes about Wordstar possessing me like the Ring of Power. I was spending boatloads of money on dinosaur hardware to try to run the program from the original 5.25" floppies. The email's subject line was unashamedly entitled "I want to be just like you. What computer do you write on?" I expressed that I wanted to write on the exact same kind of computer, same hardware, same everything that he uses; I explained that I had the Wordstar floppies, and the next step for me was hardware. If I'm being honest, I didn't even know if the email address was real because I found it in a forum, and I expected my email to get buried in hundreds of others.
He responded 47 days later, with a short paragraph that answered my question (he has no idea what his hardware is -- his computer guys set it up), and he wished me good luck. I remember thinking, "for 2 minutes he was aware of my existence." It's weird because he will not remember the email, but I will remember it forever. I wonder if he resents people like me. I was hesitent to share this interaction with anyone, but I feel like my blog that nobody reads is an appropriate venue for this confession.
I never got the "authentic" hardware set up. I gave up when I realized I had wasted a considerable amount of money relative to my income, and was even still no closer to my goal. But the dream never died. Upon discovery of FreeDOS and the fact that it can be installed on modern hardware and allows for the transfer of files through USB sticks, I knew what I had to do. It wasn't authentic, but it was liberating; the software, I finally had what I wanted. Found the Wordstar files online. Now I'm running WS4 on a boring Dell Optiplex that I got for free.
And then there's my own writing project. I've been working on it for several years now, but I haven't written a word of the story. It started simple and snowballed into a huge amount of work with no end in sight. My to-do list swells and swells and swells, it makes me want to puke when I look at how much work I've created. It's nauseating, but it must be done. The trouble started when I started writing notes about the fey in the story, and then I started writing about fey dynasties, and now I've made family trees for each dynasty, and I want to write a bunch of information about each person, living and dead. I also need to write about several dozen dead (human) emperors of one territory, several dozen human clans and their people across multiple cultures and territories. But right now that's all on hold, because I want to create a language for the fey that is not English, and that holds up to linguistic scrutiny. All of my free time not socializing for five weeks now has been spent on studying linguistic things, making grammar rules, making words, making more grammar rules, reworking the words I've made, changing more rules, reworking more words. Right now I'm working on a "vigesimal" numeric system (base-20) which is so completely nauseatingly time consuming. Integers 1-20 are single digit, integers 20-400 are double digit, integers 400-8000 are triple digit. I hate myself for creating all this work for myself but, at the same time, I refuse to cut back because I feel like this is something I have to do.
This story seems like it's evolving external to myself, like it's a world that has always existed, and to neglect the complexity that it has evolved into would be some kind of injustice, a sin. Many things matter to me, many other pastimes and projects take up my time, but this project matters the most. When I spend my time doing other things I somewhat feel guilty. But it's okay -- I have a lot of years left to my life and seemingly no barrier to continuing to work on this for the perpetual future.
I find myself dreaming about the story, but the dreams aren't purely centered around some fantasy theme. They blend with other unrelated things. I had a dream that I was in a fantasy tavern and a fey was in a cage with shredded wings (a scene idea for sure), but then I went upstairs and there was a chiropractor. I got an adjustment and then went outside and I saw my mother go around the corner. I went to follow here and suddenly I was in like a cyberpunk city. So yes I am dreaming about elements of the story, but it's not... it's not like I'm having dreams set in the fantasy world.
Hmm. Wouldn't that be nice? If at night I could just dream in stories. Wake up with new scenes in my head.
I had a dream the other night that I was disembodied, and I was observing these people, normal in appearance, but they were talking to each other, their words were complex and abstract, violent and nonsencial. I came to the realization, somehow in my dream psyche that they were entities who were too alien, psychologically foreign, to be comprehended; it resembled Lovecraft in a way. their minds worked so differently that their nonsense made sense to them. One of them shot this purple-black lightning from her hand at the other one, seemingly with intent of harming him, an act of aggression, but the other was surprisngly unbothered. They seemed to be arguing, but they also seemed to be celebrating, or maybe they were sad. I couldn't piece it together. After I woke up, the dream lingered in my memory. That only very rarely ever happens, so it must have been significant to my unconscious in some inexplicable way.
I'm really bummed about the fact that GRRM's book is, according to his explicit admission, never going to come. It's okay though, I'll move on.
Finally, a real blog post on this accursed website that isn't just me spewing ideological monologues with no real goal in mind. Maybe I should write here more. I don't know if I'm capable, even if I tried. My energy is limited and the limits aren't seeming to grow substantially with more sleep. It's okay though, I'm finally reaching the point where I can stabilize, establish some form of rhythm and routine that I thought I would never find. That's the strange part to me, for so long routine was impossible. A really bad counselor I had told me that I would be incapable of suicide if I restricted my behavior to a rigid routine. He also told me I may have tourettes when I expressed that sometimes I talk to myself. When he left to start his own practice I was happy, for my own sake, because I was too weak to leave him on my own.
I have two pets now. Tuesday and Banquo, goldfish. The thought of having a social animal to depend on me for existence, it really appealed to me, but I wanted something that would live a long time, and goldfish live fifteen years. It's difficult for me to get attached to things, but sometimes it's difficult not to. I really don't how to properly describe it. I don't think I would cry if they died, but I don't think it wouldn't affect me at all. It would probably ruin my day. But in theory I have over a decade longer to enjoy them. They're in a tank on my desk and I think they are fond of me, to the extent that their limited goldfish psyche permits. Often they try to swim through the glass to reach me; I know they're not hungry because I will have fed them. I look over to my write and they're both wiggling, struggling so hard to swim to me through the glass. If I move they follow me. When I clean the tank they like to get real close and watch my hand, watch the siphon. I'm always terrified that I'll crush them, they're so small and I'm so huge.
Maybe I should talk a little more about the Fey language I'm creating. Fey are a Celtic myth, so it just made sense to me for my Fey language to resemble a Celtic language. Initially I set out to create a fictional variant of Middle Welsh, but as I was working on the language I realized how many things aout Middle Welsh I absolutely hated; grammatical gender is among these things. The Fey in my story possess no concept of gender, and gender mutation itself made me want to puke. I don't care if it makes sense, I don't care if it's about verb-noun agreement. I I felt that it was not right for my purpose; a race of genderless immortal magical whimsical arbitrary people are above such an accursed grammatical construction (I use the word accursed lightheartedly.) So I decided to do away with all the mutation rules, and integrate what I call "stylistic mutation" or "semantic mutation" or "meaning mutation" or whatever else I think it should be called; nouns trigger specific sets of mutations on the following word depending on how they are used and their intended meanings.
I'm also working out more advanced things; a vigesimal numeric system; imperfect, pluperfect, and perfect progressive tenses; subjunctive mood; it began as an innocuous tweak of Middle Welsh and has become so radically different; it is its own beast, a hydra with many heads, and each head is work. It's wretched and vexing how much work I've created for myself, but I am choosing to enjoy it. Currently I'm putting together a powerpoint presentation so that I can present the language to the world, actually have something to show for my effort. Time will tell if I ever finish the ruddy thing, right now I think it's 57 slides long and I still have some ground to cover; though I would say I'm over halfway finished.
I bought a 30-year-old keyboard, the IBM Model M, a legendary artifact from the days of lore. People say it's the best keyboard ever made; some people say they want to be buried with the keyboard, or that the keyboard will be willed to one of their children. Writing this post in Wordstar, typing it on a Model M, I feel myself slowly becoming perfect. I have joked about the Ring of Power; the keyboard, the artifact, and that it possesses me, drains me, and soon nothing will be left. Without respect to the allure of its age, I will say -- the keyboard feels really nice to type on. It's so much more pleasant than a membrane keyboard; the typing just feels so much smoother. It's a huge step up from my offbrand red-switch keyboard. Buckling springs. So it does have a distinct feel, but it would do it injustice to stop there; it also has a distinct sound. The sound itself doesn't please me as much as a red switch, for reasons I cannot really describe, but there's something oddly endearing about it. It's weird. I am very happy with this purchase, and I hope to use this keyboard for a very long time. It's really heavy and the base plate is made of steel. I made it a new policy to have no open water at my desk, because I spilled water all the time -- water bottle only. I already had a water bottle so this was no real sacrifice to me. My metal (stainless steel) bottle sounds like a tibetan singing bowl when I strike it at a certain capacity. I don't know if I would call that a stim, but it's a quirk I can't get with a cup.
Jigsaw puzzles have also dominated my psyche and consumed my free time these past days. It's funny -- I always associated this pastime with really old people in nursing homes, but they're honestly perfect for me. I love organizing, I love the challenge. I completed two 200 piece puzzles over two days, now I am working on a 400 piece. I found a game on Steam, it's called "Jigsaw Puzzle Drams", and it's amazing. The puzzle pieces are all laid out on a table in a 3d-rendered room, and you can customize everything about the room; the furniture, the color and material of all the furniture, the walls, the table, the lights, the rug, the floor. And when you finish a puzzle, you get the option to hang it on the wall and display it. Additionally, it's multiplayer, and other people can join your room and work on the puzzle with you. I'm hooked. It's the only thing I can think about some days. Maybe that's a bad thing, maybe it's eating up too much of my time. I'm not at all upset about it. If anything I'm happy about it. Maybe that's a conflict of interest, all these apstimes waging war against each other for control of my free time, but I don't view this as unproductive. It's no less of a waste than TV, and in the end I have something to show for it.
My psychiatrist wanted my blood. Required my blood. It's imperative, urgent, to know if my thyroid is dying. Everything looked fine, but the nurse said my cholestoral was high. Which was a real shock to me because I never eat fast food and hardly any oils. I guess I eat too many ham sandwiches. I don't even know what I could modify about my diet, aside from maybe eating more greens. I eat a lot of meat. But it's not fried meat. I dunno. I don't want to have a heart attack.
It's 11:30pm. I could keep writing this over the coming days but I think this is a safe place to leave off. Goodnight website.
07.25.2024