The Journal, Part 8
January 7th 2007 12:27
Category: No Category
28th August, 2001
One thing that I don’t do very much of is state the obvious, and this can sometimes lead to me assuming ppl understand what I’m doing, which is not necessarily the case, so I’m going to take the time to establish a few basic structures, symbols and signs within my text, as it is so far:
What is it basically: The documentation of the struggle of a writer to create a creative work they find of value.
What happens: The writer creates a number of fictional scenarios surrounding an event, which leads to an exploration of the play format, the power of prose, and the qualities of poetry.
What does it mean: the exploration of all these different modes of production and the different subject matters depicted is indicative of the psychological journey of the writer. E.g. S/he starts off writing the play, then speculates about its continuation, showing the hesitation and conflict that is felt between the two choices of either continuing and ‘spoiling’ the climatic power the play has at this point, or quitting and leaving it suspended, unfinished. Then the writer decides for an innovative twist to continuing the story- s/he launches into the thoughts of the actor playing the Asian girl, thereby discarding the need to leave the story, yet continuing along fresh lines, in an inventive compromise. However the author doesn’t express her own sense of wit, choosing to emphasise the erratic nature of her composing.
To come: her attitude towards what is a valid text will be enlightened by her own search for textual integrity, and her increasing interest in pieces which are traditionally regarded as incomplete.
Point: a person’s personal journey of exploration through self-expression, while showcasing some interesting individual depictions of people, places and concepts. These pieces carry the postmodern function of being able to be regarded as unique and picturesque free-standing texts, while indicating the writer’s state of mind throughout the work.
Aims: the work aims to raise represent an experience of learning of complex concepts, most of them to do with postmodern theory. It does this through an exploration of both conscious and unconscious thoughts. The conscious thoughts written in italics by the author are carry a lot of importance. There are notable gaps in certain aspects of decision-making in what sort of fictional scenario to investigate next, which is left to the imagination, understanding and interpretation of the reader to interpret.
I aim to use the subtlety of the changes from a negative view of the writer’s regard of their nature to a more positive one to encourage the ability for more than one meaning to be formed. I use ambiguity, and gaps and silences are central to my work. The gaps and silences in the representation of the author are the most obvious ones: the gender, race, culture, religion and other external context is not shown, or where indicated done so with minimal concern for the external world.
My text marginalises the influence of culture on this individual, in fact I hope to remove my character from ‘the laws of culture’ as far as possible, in order to allow for an unprejudiced representation of simply the thoughts and feelings of another human being, stripped of the possibility to assume, label and form pre-conceived assumptions as is inevitable when we’re presented with a certain social or cultural contexts. Indications of the character’s social lifestyle will also be withheld for this purpose. Gender in particular will not be revealed, so that the character can become further identified by the personality, character, style and content they represent in the documentation of their work.
Use of plot in the creative pieces: meant to suggest the dimension of the unconscious mind, with unconscious themes, attitudes and subject matters emerging through them, through which the reader can hope to understand the writer’s journey. The journey is an intimate one, which weaves out of self-analysis and creative composition, often establishing the close link between these two modes of expression.
I have been influenced very strongly by my interest in literary theory, and this permeates my writing. I am interested in texts which embrace the rich diversity of literary theory, and raise questions about it somehow. At times I wished that I had chosen a somewhat simpler subject matter, but I am glad I have stuck with this, because it is the area I’m interested in, and the complexity of the piece I endeavoured to create.
The fictional characters:
The extras- this is a simplified and exaggerated view of a community culture, attempting to portray the diversity in individuals which would frequent this particular art gallery. The gallery itself is symbolic of the human attraction to art, and exploring expression. The fact that most of the visitors are bemused, disgusted or undecided about heir reaction to the particular work represented by the audience intends to communicate to the audience that people don’t like being challenged or moved out of their comfort zone as the norm. This introduces a cynical and restrictive world and literally places it on display, right in the audience’s face.
Young girl- the fact that she enters in a different fashion, and presents no immediate or superficial emotion like most of the extras causes the audience to have deeper empathy with her, and also deeper curiosity, as she is defying the rule of ignorance, superciliousness or fear. She represents pure curiosity and desire to come to an understanding without rejection of new or unfamiliar ideas.
The concept of the audience as the artwork, the pattern of movement of the extras, and the conceptual artwork at the back:
The audience as an artwork idea is meant to show the deep reflectiveness and investigative nature of the writer, also their philosophical bent, and explorative, creative mind. The concept, very postmodern of theatre, is meant to represent a curious idea, and ultimately leave curiosity for the nature and intent of its author.
The extras move in a way that is a metaphor for dancing. They are unaware of their belonging to a group, and repeating and building on each other’s contextuality as a group from a detached viewpoint, yet they come onto the stage in a definite pattern, moving with the same speed although how they do it gives the illusion of diversity of movement. However, they follow each other, and they take turns, their allotted time facing the audience.
Conceptual artwork: of my own creation in my mind’s eye. This can be interpreted several ways: either positive or negative, or neutral; as the representation of process, or a standstill or abandonment of process with a product in mind, or the representation of the commencement.
Richard Nostrum- he’s a character through which the writer represents his/her own emotions and responses to their creation of the play. He is not significant except to the extent the writer engages with his depiction as a mode of self-exploration.
2 September 2001, at a time hardly appropriate for young ladies to write at!
Someone alert the newspapers—she’s done it!!
YaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaY!
(I can think of several people, including myself, who are now thanking me very earnestly for failing to hospitalise them!
)
So how exactly did it happen?
Well, I sat down, and, errr, wrote!
And it all kind of came together.
I never realised how important it is to let yourself create without analysing your product with every line, but really expressing those things that you want to, but are not always sure what exactly they are.
So much of the writer’s unconscious values influence their intent, and that is very hard to articulate. My work means things to me I can’t even begin to describe, but I’m going to settle for the parts I can…
Having written it, I can now simplify the themes for you:
It’s about the writing experienced as experienced by a reflective, intellectual author when he/she somes to face the task of creating something, which leads him/her to challenge their views of what writing entails, what completion really is.
Through their journey the writer is able to obtain a higher sense of confidence, and celebrate their own idiosyncrasies in writing.
True to my aim, I started out as a play, interrupted it with prose, and interrupted the prose with poetry.
And I also found out a deep belief of mine which I hadn’t fully consciously realised until my piece required me to write it down into words:
“Is it a fear of expansion that’s my real concern, when I don’t know how to continue my stories? That if you expand on them past a certain point you might destroy the system of delicate flirtation with meaning you’ve devised, and transform them into something that attempts to be substantial? The more ambiguous a piece of writing is, the more people will be able to relate to it. Expand on it and you limit the diversity of meanings one can make. It’s that simple.
There we go, that’s my deep psychological reason revealed.”
And yes I am grinning over the way I managed to work a deep discovery into my major work. My aim in taking this course was to learn about myself and have fun, and I’ve succeeded, but I never imagined that this humble little course would take me through so many journeys of realisation.
A lot of my journey is shown through the work… that’s what’s wonderful about postmodernism- the links between a fictional text and a non-fictional one get very blurry.
My author’s hop from one vivid and dazzling but momentary and fleeting scenario to another symbolises my own attraction to multiple options, moving on quickly from one piece to the next. Part of this is explained by the paragraph I quoted above, and another part by this one:
“At other times I’ll feel placated, and wonder if I write simply to create a beautiful arrangement of words. It is the thought of stylistic flair that makes me want to write usually, the plot not much more than something to base it around. Content sometimes a mere necessity, or byproduct. (!)”
More is explained by:
“In my opinion the best writer is in part just as ignorant and expectant as a reader, relying on some unknown beneficiary, some all-knowing creator to uncover for them the secrets of the text. A good writer has the ability to astound, befuddle and discover themselves, all in between the lines.”
I am impatient to move on, yes, and I want to engage the reader the most sophisticated way I can, so they won’t be bored, and they’ll be transported from one mental location to another with equal speed and ingenuity. But what I’ve realised, and the journey my author needs to go through as well, is that you need to reflect on the nature of your own writing, and what it really reveals about you before you feel truly free to perform at your best.
The poetry I used towards the end is all poetry I’ve written either in personal journals or in Microsoft word files (probably when I should have been doing something else). I chose it to fit the mood that the author is currently expressing, and also further enlighten it.
In a few instances I have broken the reflecting prose up with a few lines of verse with the intent of representing spontaneity the natural rapid nature of a flow of thoughts. The lines:
Helping you consume the emptiness away, our special offer for today…
Production/ consumption/ corporate reproduction.
Are, for instance, seemingly unconnected to what the author writes directly before or after, but the tacit understanding is that the author is thinking along logical lines, and the story they have just invented which explores to a certain extent consumerism leads to this stray thought. I believe this is a realistic representation of how the mind works, especially when operating on more than one level at one time.
The author explores many complex concepts in relation to writing and her/his own identity. S/he often uses rhetorical questions to emphasise her/his uncertainty. However towards the end this tendency decreases, and she appears to grow in confidence.
The author uses self-analysis to question their processes of creation. Writing is compared to acting, directing, and plotting something with an ulterior motive, a purely subconscious stream of thoughts and emotions, and an excuse for exercising inventive language skills. All of these are used to enrich the reader’s experience of what the author is doing.
The author’s reflections reveal a lot about their personality and idiosyncrasies, and their sense of identity and self develops with the piece, as the author gets more and more deeply immersed into their inner world.
This where the fragmentation of the pieces- particularly the poetry- becomes more pronounced. Italics and normal times new roman font are used alternatively to show the difference between the author’s creative writing, and reflections upon it.
One thing that I don’t do very much of is state the obvious, and this can sometimes lead to me assuming ppl understand what I’m doing, which is not necessarily the case, so I’m going to take the time to establish a few basic structures, symbols and signs within my text, as it is so far:
What is it basically: The documentation of the struggle of a writer to create a creative work they find of value.
What happens: The writer creates a number of fictional scenarios surrounding an event, which leads to an exploration of the play format, the power of prose, and the qualities of poetry.
What does it mean: the exploration of all these different modes of production and the different subject matters depicted is indicative of the psychological journey of the writer. E.g. S/he starts off writing the play, then speculates about its continuation, showing the hesitation and conflict that is felt between the two choices of either continuing and ‘spoiling’ the climatic power the play has at this point, or quitting and leaving it suspended, unfinished. Then the writer decides for an innovative twist to continuing the story- s/he launches into the thoughts of the actor playing the Asian girl, thereby discarding the need to leave the story, yet continuing along fresh lines, in an inventive compromise. However the author doesn’t express her own sense of wit, choosing to emphasise the erratic nature of her composing.
To come: her attitude towards what is a valid text will be enlightened by her own search for textual integrity, and her increasing interest in pieces which are traditionally regarded as incomplete.
Point: a person’s personal journey of exploration through self-expression, while showcasing some interesting individual depictions of people, places and concepts. These pieces carry the postmodern function of being able to be regarded as unique and picturesque free-standing texts, while indicating the writer’s state of mind throughout the work.
Aims: the work aims to raise represent an experience of learning of complex concepts, most of them to do with postmodern theory. It does this through an exploration of both conscious and unconscious thoughts. The conscious thoughts written in italics by the author are carry a lot of importance. There are notable gaps in certain aspects of decision-making in what sort of fictional scenario to investigate next, which is left to the imagination, understanding and interpretation of the reader to interpret.
I aim to use the subtlety of the changes from a negative view of the writer’s regard of their nature to a more positive one to encourage the ability for more than one meaning to be formed. I use ambiguity, and gaps and silences are central to my work. The gaps and silences in the representation of the author are the most obvious ones: the gender, race, culture, religion and other external context is not shown, or where indicated done so with minimal concern for the external world.
My text marginalises the influence of culture on this individual, in fact I hope to remove my character from ‘the laws of culture’ as far as possible, in order to allow for an unprejudiced representation of simply the thoughts and feelings of another human being, stripped of the possibility to assume, label and form pre-conceived assumptions as is inevitable when we’re presented with a certain social or cultural contexts. Indications of the character’s social lifestyle will also be withheld for this purpose. Gender in particular will not be revealed, so that the character can become further identified by the personality, character, style and content they represent in the documentation of their work.
Use of plot in the creative pieces: meant to suggest the dimension of the unconscious mind, with unconscious themes, attitudes and subject matters emerging through them, through which the reader can hope to understand the writer’s journey. The journey is an intimate one, which weaves out of self-analysis and creative composition, often establishing the close link between these two modes of expression.
I have been influenced very strongly by my interest in literary theory, and this permeates my writing. I am interested in texts which embrace the rich diversity of literary theory, and raise questions about it somehow. At times I wished that I had chosen a somewhat simpler subject matter, but I am glad I have stuck with this, because it is the area I’m interested in, and the complexity of the piece I endeavoured to create.
The fictional characters:
The extras- this is a simplified and exaggerated view of a community culture, attempting to portray the diversity in individuals which would frequent this particular art gallery. The gallery itself is symbolic of the human attraction to art, and exploring expression. The fact that most of the visitors are bemused, disgusted or undecided about heir reaction to the particular work represented by the audience intends to communicate to the audience that people don’t like being challenged or moved out of their comfort zone as the norm. This introduces a cynical and restrictive world and literally places it on display, right in the audience’s face.
Young girl- the fact that she enters in a different fashion, and presents no immediate or superficial emotion like most of the extras causes the audience to have deeper empathy with her, and also deeper curiosity, as she is defying the rule of ignorance, superciliousness or fear. She represents pure curiosity and desire to come to an understanding without rejection of new or unfamiliar ideas.
The concept of the audience as the artwork, the pattern of movement of the extras, and the conceptual artwork at the back:
The audience as an artwork idea is meant to show the deep reflectiveness and investigative nature of the writer, also their philosophical bent, and explorative, creative mind. The concept, very postmodern of theatre, is meant to represent a curious idea, and ultimately leave curiosity for the nature and intent of its author.
The extras move in a way that is a metaphor for dancing. They are unaware of their belonging to a group, and repeating and building on each other’s contextuality as a group from a detached viewpoint, yet they come onto the stage in a definite pattern, moving with the same speed although how they do it gives the illusion of diversity of movement. However, they follow each other, and they take turns, their allotted time facing the audience.
Conceptual artwork: of my own creation in my mind’s eye. This can be interpreted several ways: either positive or negative, or neutral; as the representation of process, or a standstill or abandonment of process with a product in mind, or the representation of the commencement.
Richard Nostrum- he’s a character through which the writer represents his/her own emotions and responses to their creation of the play. He is not significant except to the extent the writer engages with his depiction as a mode of self-exploration.
2 September 2001, at a time hardly appropriate for young ladies to write at!
Someone alert the newspapers—she’s done it!!
YaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaY!
(I can think of several people, including myself, who are now thanking me very earnestly for failing to hospitalise them!
)So how exactly did it happen?
Well, I sat down, and, errr, wrote!
And it all kind of came together.
I never realised how important it is to let yourself create without analysing your product with every line, but really expressing those things that you want to, but are not always sure what exactly they are.
So much of the writer’s unconscious values influence their intent, and that is very hard to articulate. My work means things to me I can’t even begin to describe, but I’m going to settle for the parts I can…
Having written it, I can now simplify the themes for you:
It’s about the writing experienced as experienced by a reflective, intellectual author when he/she somes to face the task of creating something, which leads him/her to challenge their views of what writing entails, what completion really is.
Through their journey the writer is able to obtain a higher sense of confidence, and celebrate their own idiosyncrasies in writing.
True to my aim, I started out as a play, interrupted it with prose, and interrupted the prose with poetry.
And I also found out a deep belief of mine which I hadn’t fully consciously realised until my piece required me to write it down into words:
“Is it a fear of expansion that’s my real concern, when I don’t know how to continue my stories? That if you expand on them past a certain point you might destroy the system of delicate flirtation with meaning you’ve devised, and transform them into something that attempts to be substantial? The more ambiguous a piece of writing is, the more people will be able to relate to it. Expand on it and you limit the diversity of meanings one can make. It’s that simple.
There we go, that’s my deep psychological reason revealed.”
And yes I am grinning over the way I managed to work a deep discovery into my major work. My aim in taking this course was to learn about myself and have fun, and I’ve succeeded, but I never imagined that this humble little course would take me through so many journeys of realisation.
A lot of my journey is shown through the work… that’s what’s wonderful about postmodernism- the links between a fictional text and a non-fictional one get very blurry.
My author’s hop from one vivid and dazzling but momentary and fleeting scenario to another symbolises my own attraction to multiple options, moving on quickly from one piece to the next. Part of this is explained by the paragraph I quoted above, and another part by this one:
“At other times I’ll feel placated, and wonder if I write simply to create a beautiful arrangement of words. It is the thought of stylistic flair that makes me want to write usually, the plot not much more than something to base it around. Content sometimes a mere necessity, or byproduct. (!)”
More is explained by:
“In my opinion the best writer is in part just as ignorant and expectant as a reader, relying on some unknown beneficiary, some all-knowing creator to uncover for them the secrets of the text. A good writer has the ability to astound, befuddle and discover themselves, all in between the lines.”
I am impatient to move on, yes, and I want to engage the reader the most sophisticated way I can, so they won’t be bored, and they’ll be transported from one mental location to another with equal speed and ingenuity. But what I’ve realised, and the journey my author needs to go through as well, is that you need to reflect on the nature of your own writing, and what it really reveals about you before you feel truly free to perform at your best.
The poetry I used towards the end is all poetry I’ve written either in personal journals or in Microsoft word files (probably when I should have been doing something else). I chose it to fit the mood that the author is currently expressing, and also further enlighten it.
In a few instances I have broken the reflecting prose up with a few lines of verse with the intent of representing spontaneity the natural rapid nature of a flow of thoughts. The lines:
Helping you consume the emptiness away, our special offer for today…
Production/ consumption/ corporate reproduction.
Are, for instance, seemingly unconnected to what the author writes directly before or after, but the tacit understanding is that the author is thinking along logical lines, and the story they have just invented which explores to a certain extent consumerism leads to this stray thought. I believe this is a realistic representation of how the mind works, especially when operating on more than one level at one time.
The author explores many complex concepts in relation to writing and her/his own identity. S/he often uses rhetorical questions to emphasise her/his uncertainty. However towards the end this tendency decreases, and she appears to grow in confidence.
The author uses self-analysis to question their processes of creation. Writing is compared to acting, directing, and plotting something with an ulterior motive, a purely subconscious stream of thoughts and emotions, and an excuse for exercising inventive language skills. All of these are used to enrich the reader’s experience of what the author is doing.
The author’s reflections reveal a lot about their personality and idiosyncrasies, and their sense of identity and self develops with the piece, as the author gets more and more deeply immersed into their inner world.
This where the fragmentation of the pieces- particularly the poetry- becomes more pronounced. Italics and normal times new roman font are used alternatively to show the difference between the author’s creative writing, and reflections upon it.
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