I was just experimenting with Google Plus (hereinafter known as "Gargle Pus" -- at least to me), and saw there was a way to link one's blog postings to it (presumably to help jam them further down people's throats, as every time one made a posting, it'd show up in X-tuplicate all over the place on one's friends/acquaintances/whatever timelines).
I considered doing so until I saw the warning about it not being "adult" material, and having to comply with their TOS (https://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/content.html).
Now, don't get me wrong: I neither have nor had any intentions of posting anything pornographic, links to warez, KP or the like; my point was merely to have a stream-of-consciousness type of writing which was recorded and available for others to view, and by that very definition, it's unfiltered, uncensored, and could possibly contain something which, I am positive, can and will be deemed offensive by someone, somewhere, at some point time.
Given the thoughts which the mind of Your Humble Narrator is able to produce sans stimuli of any sort...Well, to call them 'evil', wouldn't necessarily be too far off-track (not saying I believe in 'evil' in any moral fashion, absolutist or otherwise, but I digress). Suffice to say, I've got all manner of things, both fair and foul, in my mind, and I'm certain by the time I've finished shaving in the morning, chances are I've already entertained a half-dozen thoughts which would horrify most ordinary people into an ischemic attack.
Given some of the unbelievably terrible shit I've seen, endured, been witness to, and (perhaps) even engaged in throughout my life, add that level of horror to this particularly original squirming brain, and an entirely new dimension of mental disturbance is born. The only reason I've refrained from sharing that manner of things here is I'd prefer to reserve it for a larger stage (i.e., books and the like, which are just large enough and therefore just the right environment for the foul spawn of my disordered brain to spread their wings to their full span and, given room to maneuver, take flight) rather than here.
Even reserving the best (or worst, given one's opinion) of that manner of thing for a more appropriate place, I am reasonably certain the lesser offspring of my mind are the sort of things guaranteed to not merely leave a stain on your soul, but likely unto that of the generation beyond the next, which is just a fancy way of saying I've got things rattling around in my gulliver so heinous they'll ensure your grandchildren's grandchildren are born deformed.
Given that this is to be uncensored, off the top of my head stuff, having to invoke the internal critic while writing stuff down seems, at least to me, to defeat the purpose, so I suppose I'll be taking a pass on that.
TL;DR Summary:
If I have to choose between self-censorship and a narrower audience, I'll take the latter.
~JMB
--
Post scriptum: Lest it needs be said...for the record, No, I do NOT have thoughts of child molestation in my head (having seen the bit in their content restrictions about KP and the thought of people reading this and immediately deciding I'm to be kept far away from their children, I wanted to make it clear that I am, strangely enough, child-safe. Some have even said I generally have a decent rapport with children, though honestly there's nothing to getting along with kids...And again, I digress). Honestly, while I could be accused of many things, being into KP is not one of them: I personally find it repellant on a number of levels.
You know what, though? If it were my thing, then by gh0d, you can be sure I'd damned well be talking about it! Now THAT'S committing oneself to some real liberty-limiting honesty right there, eh...? :D
Friday, October 31, 2014
Thursday, October 30, 2014
-=SPOILER ALERT=-
In the spirit of full-disclosure, I tend to overwrite...horrendously so. Writing a volume is easy; pruning it down into something worth putting before others is that which I find more time-consuming (if no less enjoyable, in its own way).
Being too lazy to Google the exact quote, I'll simply cite off the top of my head what Pascal (if memory serves...) once said in correspondence to someone else:
"I would have written less, but I lacked the time."
Such it is with me. And such it is with what I'm putting up here. None of it is edited, proof-read, or the like, and any typos/inaccuracies (which I'm sure the quote above falls squarely into the category of) and the like are entirely due to my lack of revision, as I wished this to be a more stream-of-consciousness sort of thing.
My assumption, of course, is that characteristic alone will be adequate to render everything written here unreadable and likely too boring for the general public, as it will all invariably fall into the "Too Long; Didn't Read" category :)
~J
Being too lazy to Google the exact quote, I'll simply cite off the top of my head what Pascal (if memory serves...) once said in correspondence to someone else:
"I would have written less, but I lacked the time."
Such it is with me. And such it is with what I'm putting up here. None of it is edited, proof-read, or the like, and any typos/inaccuracies (which I'm sure the quote above falls squarely into the category of) and the like are entirely due to my lack of revision, as I wished this to be a more stream-of-consciousness sort of thing.
My assumption, of course, is that characteristic alone will be adequate to render everything written here unreadable and likely too boring for the general public, as it will all invariably fall into the "Too Long; Didn't Read" category :)
~J
Some thoughts about my motivations regarding my new-found willingness to deal with writing
Finally decided to actually to engage in some blogging. I am of mixed feelings about doing it, admittedly, having been one who has, for the majority of their life, stuck to the shadows; however, if I am truly going to move forward with actually letting other people into the worlds I've created, the inescapable truth is I'm going to have to engage in self-promotion...To say nothing about taking my first steps out into the light at all.
I'm a writer. I have been my entire life. Not professionally, unless one counts technical documentation done for systems I've designed (which I don't), and while there was even a time I bothered submitting things to publishers, and even had some things published, for the most part, I've written entirely without much thought to sharing the majority of it with anyone else.
Kindly note that when I say I have written literally thousands of pages in my life, this is no exaggeration; nor am I including technical documentation, non-fiction articles, or even my overly verbose email correspondences with friends. That the majority of what I've written never saw the light of day was not because it was explicitly rejected (id est, not because I submitted it to others who rejected it, or that I was rejected so often it made me not care to write -- I assure you this is not the case) but because I simply didn't care to share it...with anybody.
Harlan Ellison once said that "writing for the trunk is masturbation" -- implying that 'real' writers have to be egotistical exhibitionists. I both agree and disagree with him there, on a number of points, though this is hardly the place to cover that topic in detail.
What I am taking away from that idea (which implies stripping everything he said on the matter down to the merest shreds) is that, given I've written a lot of stuff, provided it doesn't damage my lifestyle by sharing it, there's no reason not to do so. While I don't feel very strongly about much of what I've written, there are a few bits and pieces which I suspect others might find of use, or at the very least, as a pleasant distraction from the horrors of unabridged consciousness (that's certainly one of the reasons I read).
Having reached a point in my life where the amount of harm which can come to me by sharing some of the wonders, horrors, the beauty, tragedy, ugliness, pain, and far too many other things to condense into a single blog post with other people is, I'd wager, increasingly limited, so here I am: finally ready to share. Having created entire worlds within my head and on paper, some as fantastic and uniquely beautiful as some others are mundane, I've decided to purge the last of them from my aging and tired brain. My mind is so terribly overfull, like a desk with papers heaped precariously atop it, each stack seeming closer to reaching the ceiling than the last...And, like the periodic cleanings one must undertake to clear off one's workspace to free it of clutter, so, too, is my mind in such a state: long over-due to be emptied. (Yes, I know the Zen tea-cup reference is hackneyed...which is why I wasn't originally going to make it, but hey, this is purely stream-of-thought writing for me).
As quantity is by no means a measure of quality, the question then becomes, "Is what I've written worth reading?"
I am aware I am an excellent writer; at times, I've even been an exceptionally good writer. Whether or not any of what I've written is actually any good from the standpoint of other people is something which I am, regrettably, utterly incapable of accurately judging.
As with any flaw which I am unable to remedy, I acknowledge it openly, not being one for pretense. I therefore leave judgments of 'quality', and whether any given thing I've created is 'good' or 'bad' entirely within the hands of you, the others, the not-I who might happen to read my words.
~JMB
I'm a writer. I have been my entire life. Not professionally, unless one counts technical documentation done for systems I've designed (which I don't), and while there was even a time I bothered submitting things to publishers, and even had some things published, for the most part, I've written entirely without much thought to sharing the majority of it with anyone else.
Kindly note that when I say I have written literally thousands of pages in my life, this is no exaggeration; nor am I including technical documentation, non-fiction articles, or even my overly verbose email correspondences with friends. That the majority of what I've written never saw the light of day was not because it was explicitly rejected (id est, not because I submitted it to others who rejected it, or that I was rejected so often it made me not care to write -- I assure you this is not the case) but because I simply didn't care to share it...with anybody.
Harlan Ellison once said that "writing for the trunk is masturbation" -- implying that 'real' writers have to be egotistical exhibitionists. I both agree and disagree with him there, on a number of points, though this is hardly the place to cover that topic in detail.
What I am taking away from that idea (which implies stripping everything he said on the matter down to the merest shreds) is that, given I've written a lot of stuff, provided it doesn't damage my lifestyle by sharing it, there's no reason not to do so. While I don't feel very strongly about much of what I've written, there are a few bits and pieces which I suspect others might find of use, or at the very least, as a pleasant distraction from the horrors of unabridged consciousness (that's certainly one of the reasons I read).
Having reached a point in my life where the amount of harm which can come to me by sharing some of the wonders, horrors, the beauty, tragedy, ugliness, pain, and far too many other things to condense into a single blog post with other people is, I'd wager, increasingly limited, so here I am: finally ready to share. Having created entire worlds within my head and on paper, some as fantastic and uniquely beautiful as some others are mundane, I've decided to purge the last of them from my aging and tired brain. My mind is so terribly overfull, like a desk with papers heaped precariously atop it, each stack seeming closer to reaching the ceiling than the last...And, like the periodic cleanings one must undertake to clear off one's workspace to free it of clutter, so, too, is my mind in such a state: long over-due to be emptied. (Yes, I know the Zen tea-cup reference is hackneyed...which is why I wasn't originally going to make it, but hey, this is purely stream-of-thought writing for me).
As quantity is by no means a measure of quality, the question then becomes, "Is what I've written worth reading?"
I am aware I am an excellent writer; at times, I've even been an exceptionally good writer. Whether or not any of what I've written is actually any good from the standpoint of other people is something which I am, regrettably, utterly incapable of accurately judging.
As with any flaw which I am unable to remedy, I acknowledge it openly, not being one for pretense. I therefore leave judgments of 'quality', and whether any given thing I've created is 'good' or 'bad' entirely within the hands of you, the others, the not-I who might happen to read my words.
~JMB
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