The Journal, Part 1
January 7th 2007 11:28
It was part of my English Extension 2 course to keep a journal as I wrote 'The Masterpiece'... at point I was interested in turning it in as the finished product.
This might give you some background on how I approached the task (which was part of my HSC, or final year high school assessments) and how I responded to the course structure, though it might be more insightful to read The Masterpiece first. .
)
The Journal
3:23pm, Thursday 4 January, 2001
I always make it a point to note the exact time of day, as well as the date, in any sort of writing journal. It’s a little joke with myself, because I find it so irrelevant. People who know me well will tell you that I hardly ever wear a wristwatch, and as for knowing the date, well, only if it’s absolutely necessary to my survival. I try to remain as ignorant of these little man-made concepts which help us all run more organised, efficient lives as I can, and you won’t believe how hard it is! Big clocks hang in just about every public building, people are always asking you, telling you, having conversations, about the time… think about it: are we ever in danger of not knowing what the time is? Not knowing the time- now that’s the challenge of today!
Finding it so much a part of our culture to be time-conscious, I find it getting increasingly harder to escape those digits, as they flash at me from the corner of my eye on my mantelpiece, and glare up at me from the bottom right hand corner of my computer, informing me that one minute has passed while I wrote this. By the time I corrected some grammatical errors and wrestled with my highly modern computer over who has the rights to claim what spelling is correct, the little digits informed me that it was now 3:27. Ooh, look, now they’ve changed to 3:28! How incredibly useful.
What does my view on the overemphasis of time in our culture and society have to do with my Major Work Journal? Well, not much really… but then again a lot. See the key to my Major Work is me. Who I am, what I believe in, what inspires me… all about me! Postmodernist theory is in support of the belief that the creative work of an individual cannot be ‘original’, yet it also maintains (in one of its many theories that confuse and bewilder many intelligent people) that the individual is the key to any work: only you can create what you have, due to your unreplicable individuality. Therefore I see it as my task to inform the examiner about how I work, so that they may be able to build up an understanding of what eventually motivates me to come up with the finished product I do. Not that I see any piece of work as a finished product, but at one stage I will have to hand in something which professes to be a Major Work
This is the third time I’ve started this journal. In the first try I attempted to show an organisation and omniscient perception of where I was going which I didn’t feel. Having handed in my proposal, the more I envisioned starting to work on my proposed work, the more miserable I felt. Why? Because I’d outlined it, as perfectly as a perfectionist could do within a heartbreaking 500-word limit, and by the time I got around to thinking of writing my proposed work I was thoroughly bored with the concept, once I’d gone into so much detail about how I was going to write it!
Those who know me well will also tell you I am quite a compulsive non-conformist. I love breaking ‘rules’ and conventions. Even my own. Especially my own! There’s a story and a psychological reason behind that, as there usually is, which I may discuss later…
I am as postmodern in my thinking as anyone could claim to be. As an individual fiercely protective of what I see as my individuality, I rarely categorise myself as anything but an individual, but postmodern theory resonates so deeply with my beliefs, that I use it frequently to represent my beliefs. (There’s just one problem: if postmodernism disproves the absoluteness and truth of any belief or theory, isn’t postmodernism, as a belief and a theory flawed as well? When you look at this question you seem to be presented with an impossible puzzle. Part of the fun of post-modernism is that no one agrees on it, and we still haven’t completely agreed what the hell it is in the first place! But I will come back to this point with sources and quotes, as the one section of my proposal I am not changing is my investigation into this fascinating contemporary theory.)
Now, the journal… this reminds me of the moment in The Real Inspector Hound in which Birdboot asks Moon “Has [the play] started yet?” I’ve done what I wanted to do, which was feel natural starting this journal, which is, it must be said, an artificially constructed arena for articulating the individual’s process. And as an attempt to be natural writing this I will not be. This reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s witticism: ‘being natural is simply a pose… and the most annoying one I know.’ There we have it, in my fifth paragraph (count ‘em) I have referred to two renowned authors. Following my instinct or the syllabus? Both? Can you tell? How can you be sure? And do I really know? And what if we’re both wrong? Is it disrespectful to challenge my examiner like this? Or just wise?
What I just wrote may give an understanding of what I aim to do with my reader: play with them, confuse them somewhat, ultimately challenge them to explore out of their comfort zone and, most importantly, make them think. I am very glad the requirements for it are broad enough to let me use it as an outlet for my craziness! That way it’ll be fun to write, and hopefully fun for the examiner to read.
As a result of my last experience of explaining the fun away from my proposed work, I am not going to explain my Major Work in a lot of detail until it’s finished. This is necessary, because for me to create a text, I must be completely mystified as to how it’s going to turn out. Describing the magic takes it away. I’ll explain it in full lucidity once it’s finished, I promise, but not before. (By then it will be ambiguous enough to be very easy to comment on.)
So as you can see, I’m going to have to write my Major Work before I can talk about it in terms of its characters, plot and ultimate message. I intend to do so soon. As soon as I figure out which of my ideas I am willing to work with. I find it hard to please myself. My major problem is that I’m not quite sure what will please me in the end.
Here are some of my ideas for what my major work should be. I started writing the ideas that flowed through my mind, and realised they offered exactly the sort of insight into my intentions (not to mention my mind) that would benefit this journal. They may be ambiguous, but they reflect the ambiguity I want to capture in my work.
-?- So exoteric that it’s esoteric, and vice versa (i.e. local vs. universal, or wide vs. narrow focus)
-?- So fragmented that it works beautifully as a whole (e.g. bits of poetry and prose which make no sense in themselves, and seem to be scattered in the work with no design, until the reader realises each one of them has a purpose and creates an ultimate effect of order out of chaos)
-?- So ludicrous that it ends up making startling sense
-?- So irregular as to make irregularity a regularity, so unpredictable that it becomes the feature of the piece to be unpredictable… until it slows down and starts being predictable, with a deceptively simple ending?
-?- So focussed away from character that it becomes about individuality of the character
I want the luxury to include both continuous and discontinuous narrative, dealing with similar themes.
I want to create a ‘core’ text, either a story, poetry or a play, which holds an elaborate and complicated meaning. Then I want to play around with it, add and take away something fundamental from the text so that its whole meaning changes, and the text comes specifically under question, in terms of all the possibilities it can hold.
This will reflect a point on all texts and how meaning is created through them.
I want instructions in between the bits, such as self-referential warnings about the content, or what the author is doing. And more than anything I want the text to be self-referential. So that I or ‘the writer’ can butt in all of a sudden and make some comments.
Maybe the writer can reflect intentions that have nothing to do with the meaning of the actual piece.
A story within a story, within a story, with links in between them. Stressing Ubiquity, lack of segregation.
I want to illustrate that this story has been the writer’s playground.
Brainstorming now:
Authorial interjection: I confess the story didn’t have a point! It was merely an experiment… gee, and you derived all this meaning from it… I’m sorry.
The story has a life of its own, one that the writer doesn’t grasp??
Or the writer can go through mood swings, begin in a distinct style, then continue in a totally different one.
I could play around with the concept of type on paper. i.e. bold could mean that the writer’s handwriting is more firm, colours could indicate mood.
This could be either stated at the start, or at the end… in the form of a psychological report?
The whole text could be the writings of a mentally disturbed patient. It’d reflect his/her psychological state.
I want my work to communicate to people that their ‘reality’ is only their state of mind (psychologically). That it’s all about perspective…
3:01pm, Sunday 7 January, 2001
Well, the last few lines were where I decided to write down brainwaves as they came to me. I may use them, I may not, but at least I’ve provided a bit of a picture of my various ideas over what it is I aim to do.
The fact that I know exactly what I want to do in terms of the type of message it will hold, yet have no idea what that message is going to be yet is an interesting state to be in. I guess I’m looking for the best possible outlet for the concepts dear to me. I am not prepared to write a text that only half-satisfies me. Which is why I think my Major Work will consist of seemingly random pieces of eclectic texts, where their personal meaning is examined with relation to the overall meaning they create when they are pieced together. Unless I can create a plot which satisfies me in it’s entirety enough not to be fragmented. Maybe this is the most difficult thing to do, after all?
I’m going to write down some suggestions for my Major Work:
-?- The reader could expect to find the structure of a novel, with a poem for a chapter, then a mini-play in another. The concepts dealt with in the separate chapters may have a clear connection, a strange, or seemingly non-existent one, according to the individual text’s placement and role within the whole text.
-?- Alternatively, the reader could expect to read a play, where characters may speak in poetry. Or in which the characters have names such as Mr. Cornelius (Con) Former and Mr. Isaac (Ike) Konnoclaust, in which the identities of Con and Ike are the same person, having a split personality disorder caused by the alienation of modernity. (Unable to deal with the disturbing new truths the unstable Con Former is stumbling across about the lifestyle he has been leading all his life, he tries to block them out and live in a blissfully regular and ignorant life of conforming with the consensual hallucination everyone around him calls reality. However, by trying to repress the painful realisation that he is living a life that doesn’t fulfill him, he creates a personality who calls himself Mr Ike Konnoclaust, who is completely rebellious against all the expectations of society Con is afraid to challenge. Miss Terie may be the love interest of Con, becoming increasingly bewildered by his unusual behaviour. The idea here would be to explore the isolating and alienating facet of our society that that results in a feeling of disconnection in those who aren’t in touch with their emotions. We feel the need to conform to expectations of our family, friends, social circles, and society at large, in order to belong and to feel loved & appreciated.
The idea for this plot was inspired by the movie ‘Fight Club’, which I will discuss later in a section on my influences.
-?- Alternatively, the reader can expect a novel in the form of a personal diary, which explores the author’s ideas. This will include poems that reflect their state of mind, drafts of stories and plays which explore their feelings, etc. This is a variation on the idea I presented in my Proposal. It allows for more variety in experimenting with writing styles, such as snapping in and out of poetry at will, with statements by the writer in between, such as: Beware: authorial irresponsibility. It also allows for exploring the writing and idea-making process, which I have an interest in. It would allow me to explore representations of how the mind can work.
Well, I’m going to leave these ideas in both our heads for now as possible options, so I can reflect further on how I can use and develop them.
[Part 2] [Part 3]
[Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8]
This might give you some background on how I approached the task (which was part of my HSC, or final year high school assessments) and how I responded to the course structure, though it might be more insightful to read The Masterpiece first. .
)The Journal
3:23pm, Thursday 4 January, 2001
I always make it a point to note the exact time of day, as well as the date, in any sort of writing journal. It’s a little joke with myself, because I find it so irrelevant. People who know me well will tell you that I hardly ever wear a wristwatch, and as for knowing the date, well, only if it’s absolutely necessary to my survival. I try to remain as ignorant of these little man-made concepts which help us all run more organised, efficient lives as I can, and you won’t believe how hard it is! Big clocks hang in just about every public building, people are always asking you, telling you, having conversations, about the time… think about it: are we ever in danger of not knowing what the time is? Not knowing the time- now that’s the challenge of today!
Finding it so much a part of our culture to be time-conscious, I find it getting increasingly harder to escape those digits, as they flash at me from the corner of my eye on my mantelpiece, and glare up at me from the bottom right hand corner of my computer, informing me that one minute has passed while I wrote this. By the time I corrected some grammatical errors and wrestled with my highly modern computer over who has the rights to claim what spelling is correct, the little digits informed me that it was now 3:27. Ooh, look, now they’ve changed to 3:28! How incredibly useful.
What does my view on the overemphasis of time in our culture and society have to do with my Major Work Journal? Well, not much really… but then again a lot. See the key to my Major Work is me. Who I am, what I believe in, what inspires me… all about me! Postmodernist theory is in support of the belief that the creative work of an individual cannot be ‘original’, yet it also maintains (in one of its many theories that confuse and bewilder many intelligent people) that the individual is the key to any work: only you can create what you have, due to your unreplicable individuality. Therefore I see it as my task to inform the examiner about how I work, so that they may be able to build up an understanding of what eventually motivates me to come up with the finished product I do. Not that I see any piece of work as a finished product, but at one stage I will have to hand in something which professes to be a Major Work
This is the third time I’ve started this journal. In the first try I attempted to show an organisation and omniscient perception of where I was going which I didn’t feel. Having handed in my proposal, the more I envisioned starting to work on my proposed work, the more miserable I felt. Why? Because I’d outlined it, as perfectly as a perfectionist could do within a heartbreaking 500-word limit, and by the time I got around to thinking of writing my proposed work I was thoroughly bored with the concept, once I’d gone into so much detail about how I was going to write it!
Those who know me well will also tell you I am quite a compulsive non-conformist. I love breaking ‘rules’ and conventions. Even my own. Especially my own! There’s a story and a psychological reason behind that, as there usually is, which I may discuss later…
I am as postmodern in my thinking as anyone could claim to be. As an individual fiercely protective of what I see as my individuality, I rarely categorise myself as anything but an individual, but postmodern theory resonates so deeply with my beliefs, that I use it frequently to represent my beliefs. (There’s just one problem: if postmodernism disproves the absoluteness and truth of any belief or theory, isn’t postmodernism, as a belief and a theory flawed as well? When you look at this question you seem to be presented with an impossible puzzle. Part of the fun of post-modernism is that no one agrees on it, and we still haven’t completely agreed what the hell it is in the first place! But I will come back to this point with sources and quotes, as the one section of my proposal I am not changing is my investigation into this fascinating contemporary theory.)
Now, the journal… this reminds me of the moment in The Real Inspector Hound in which Birdboot asks Moon “Has [the play] started yet?” I’ve done what I wanted to do, which was feel natural starting this journal, which is, it must be said, an artificially constructed arena for articulating the individual’s process. And as an attempt to be natural writing this I will not be. This reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s witticism: ‘being natural is simply a pose… and the most annoying one I know.’ There we have it, in my fifth paragraph (count ‘em) I have referred to two renowned authors. Following my instinct or the syllabus? Both? Can you tell? How can you be sure? And do I really know? And what if we’re both wrong? Is it disrespectful to challenge my examiner like this? Or just wise?
What I just wrote may give an understanding of what I aim to do with my reader: play with them, confuse them somewhat, ultimately challenge them to explore out of their comfort zone and, most importantly, make them think. I am very glad the requirements for it are broad enough to let me use it as an outlet for my craziness! That way it’ll be fun to write, and hopefully fun for the examiner to read.
As a result of my last experience of explaining the fun away from my proposed work, I am not going to explain my Major Work in a lot of detail until it’s finished. This is necessary, because for me to create a text, I must be completely mystified as to how it’s going to turn out. Describing the magic takes it away. I’ll explain it in full lucidity once it’s finished, I promise, but not before. (By then it will be ambiguous enough to be very easy to comment on.)
So as you can see, I’m going to have to write my Major Work before I can talk about it in terms of its characters, plot and ultimate message. I intend to do so soon. As soon as I figure out which of my ideas I am willing to work with. I find it hard to please myself. My major problem is that I’m not quite sure what will please me in the end.
Here are some of my ideas for what my major work should be. I started writing the ideas that flowed through my mind, and realised they offered exactly the sort of insight into my intentions (not to mention my mind) that would benefit this journal. They may be ambiguous, but they reflect the ambiguity I want to capture in my work.
-?- So exoteric that it’s esoteric, and vice versa (i.e. local vs. universal, or wide vs. narrow focus)
-?- So fragmented that it works beautifully as a whole (e.g. bits of poetry and prose which make no sense in themselves, and seem to be scattered in the work with no design, until the reader realises each one of them has a purpose and creates an ultimate effect of order out of chaos)
-?- So ludicrous that it ends up making startling sense
-?- So irregular as to make irregularity a regularity, so unpredictable that it becomes the feature of the piece to be unpredictable… until it slows down and starts being predictable, with a deceptively simple ending?
-?- So focussed away from character that it becomes about individuality of the character
I want the luxury to include both continuous and discontinuous narrative, dealing with similar themes.
I want to create a ‘core’ text, either a story, poetry or a play, which holds an elaborate and complicated meaning. Then I want to play around with it, add and take away something fundamental from the text so that its whole meaning changes, and the text comes specifically under question, in terms of all the possibilities it can hold.
This will reflect a point on all texts and how meaning is created through them.
I want instructions in between the bits, such as self-referential warnings about the content, or what the author is doing. And more than anything I want the text to be self-referential. So that I or ‘the writer’ can butt in all of a sudden and make some comments.
Maybe the writer can reflect intentions that have nothing to do with the meaning of the actual piece.
A story within a story, within a story, with links in between them. Stressing Ubiquity, lack of segregation.
I want to illustrate that this story has been the writer’s playground.
Brainstorming now:
Authorial interjection: I confess the story didn’t have a point! It was merely an experiment… gee, and you derived all this meaning from it… I’m sorry.
The story has a life of its own, one that the writer doesn’t grasp??
Or the writer can go through mood swings, begin in a distinct style, then continue in a totally different one.
I could play around with the concept of type on paper. i.e. bold could mean that the writer’s handwriting is more firm, colours could indicate mood.
This could be either stated at the start, or at the end… in the form of a psychological report?
The whole text could be the writings of a mentally disturbed patient. It’d reflect his/her psychological state.
I want my work to communicate to people that their ‘reality’ is only their state of mind (psychologically). That it’s all about perspective…
3:01pm, Sunday 7 January, 2001
Well, the last few lines were where I decided to write down brainwaves as they came to me. I may use them, I may not, but at least I’ve provided a bit of a picture of my various ideas over what it is I aim to do.
The fact that I know exactly what I want to do in terms of the type of message it will hold, yet have no idea what that message is going to be yet is an interesting state to be in. I guess I’m looking for the best possible outlet for the concepts dear to me. I am not prepared to write a text that only half-satisfies me. Which is why I think my Major Work will consist of seemingly random pieces of eclectic texts, where their personal meaning is examined with relation to the overall meaning they create when they are pieced together. Unless I can create a plot which satisfies me in it’s entirety enough not to be fragmented. Maybe this is the most difficult thing to do, after all?
I’m going to write down some suggestions for my Major Work:
-?- The reader could expect to find the structure of a novel, with a poem for a chapter, then a mini-play in another. The concepts dealt with in the separate chapters may have a clear connection, a strange, or seemingly non-existent one, according to the individual text’s placement and role within the whole text.
-?- Alternatively, the reader could expect to read a play, where characters may speak in poetry. Or in which the characters have names such as Mr. Cornelius (Con) Former and Mr. Isaac (Ike) Konnoclaust, in which the identities of Con and Ike are the same person, having a split personality disorder caused by the alienation of modernity. (Unable to deal with the disturbing new truths the unstable Con Former is stumbling across about the lifestyle he has been leading all his life, he tries to block them out and live in a blissfully regular and ignorant life of conforming with the consensual hallucination everyone around him calls reality. However, by trying to repress the painful realisation that he is living a life that doesn’t fulfill him, he creates a personality who calls himself Mr Ike Konnoclaust, who is completely rebellious against all the expectations of society Con is afraid to challenge. Miss Terie may be the love interest of Con, becoming increasingly bewildered by his unusual behaviour. The idea here would be to explore the isolating and alienating facet of our society that that results in a feeling of disconnection in those who aren’t in touch with their emotions. We feel the need to conform to expectations of our family, friends, social circles, and society at large, in order to belong and to feel loved & appreciated.
The idea for this plot was inspired by the movie ‘Fight Club’, which I will discuss later in a section on my influences.
-?- Alternatively, the reader can expect a novel in the form of a personal diary, which explores the author’s ideas. This will include poems that reflect their state of mind, drafts of stories and plays which explore their feelings, etc. This is a variation on the idea I presented in my Proposal. It allows for more variety in experimenting with writing styles, such as snapping in and out of poetry at will, with statements by the writer in between, such as: Beware: authorial irresponsibility. It also allows for exploring the writing and idea-making process, which I have an interest in. It would allow me to explore representations of how the mind can work.
Well, I’m going to leave these ideas in both our heads for now as possible options, so I can reflect further on how I can use and develop them.
[Part 2] [Part 3]
[Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8]
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