…To fill the empty pages of this space that I’ve sadly neglected for the past year.

School, work, books, journal and boyfriend - they occupy my time now, and will for the foreseeable future. I suppose I should do something with this website since I leave it sitting around instead of using it for a writing project, but I’m reluctant to give it up and move on. I’ll move on eventually.

Sort of.

Should writers be nice to each other in print? It’s fun to watch them duke it out.

I still remember the feud between Virginia Woolf and Arnold Bennett, which was amusing to read about, especially from Woolf’s own writing. (She didn’t like H.G. Wells either, because she thought his writing was too “Edwardian.” In other words, his writing was too stuck in a certain format that didn’t focus on the characters of a story.)

In the spirit of this post, I would also recommend this book, a hilarious read about our writing predecessors who weren’t afraid to squirt ink at each other for the sake of criticism.

Practically every writer, writer wannabe and student writer out there has heard of this person called the Muse. I like Stephen King’s description of his muse best, and I doubt I have to explain what a muse is to anybody who reads this blog because 1) you probably already know about him/her, and 2) if you don’t know what the Muse is, you really don’t need to. I’m going to tell you why by invoking Virginia Woolf, who wrote an essay that included an interesting section on the “Angel in the House” figure. This woman, according to Woolf, kept female writers in line at the time with the expectations of their sex, and back then not too many professions had been open to women yet. Women in the U.S. had only received the right to vote in 1920, and women in England could not vote until 1928. The essay I’m referring to, “Professions for Women,” had been published in 1931.

So what does this have to do with the Muse? When the “Angel in the House” attempted to get Woolf to keep her writing aligned with societal expectations about women, Woolf did her best to kill the Angel, even though she “died hard.” The Muse may not exist for the same reasons the Angel did - she is, after all, a psychological construct that can take either gender - but the Muse must die for reasons similar to why Woolf wanted her Angel dead. What’s the use of hinging a writer’s success at the business of writing anything if he depends on some figment of the imagination?

I’ve been called someone’s Muse once, and I’ll tell you what: I’m glad I offer writing that can inspire someone else to write a work regarding the same subject or theme or genre, but anything I write is mine alone. It may be part of a group effort sometimes, but it’s still mine; where the group’s concerned, I only give what I can to keep the central story idea alive and moving. I might add that inspiration is in no way like the Muse; she may offer a thread of substance to get a writer started, but she isn’t the gatekeeper to the well of Creative Ideas. If she tried to claim this sort of role in my writer’s life, that would be my main motivation for killing her.

I don’t know what the Muse who’s attached herself to me looks like, and I don’t even know what sex it is. (I use “she” and “her” here because I jumped from Woolf’s “Angel in the House,” who was a female figure, to my own muse. May as well keep some continuity going with regards to her sex, eh?) I will only say that if such a persona ever came into my line of vision and tried whispering suggestions in my ear about what I should be writing, I’d kill her on the spot.

So be warned, Muse: flee, seek another more gullible writer to leech onto, do what you must to get out of my life. Because if you don’t and we happen to meet someday, YOU WILL DIE.

NOTE: This is a Revised & Expanded version of one of my posts from another blog.

How do you read a book? The “normal” way is to read a book from beginning to end, but that’s not always possible, especially if 1) parts of the book are boring, 2) you want to know what the ending will be [which is frankly just another way of saying “the rest of the book is boring"], or 3) the entire book is boring, in which case you don’t bother to read beyond the first few paragraphs of the first chapter.

But what about the other ways people read books? An example would be where the person reads a certain number of pages in one book before moving on to another book to do the same, and so on.

I read a book on Friday night in three hours and I’m now eyeing three other books I’ve been trying to get through or want to start; I will probably read them in the same fashion as the above blogger reads, or give that fashion a try. No previous experience with reading exams required, either.

Across the bow is another way to define a certain style of writing - namely, the way an author writes her books. Some authors are very diverse with how they write, although diversity is relative depending on the author. Stephen King, for instance, has a distinctive descriptive style that I like, and he’s written novels about a single theme or setting (Castle Rock comes to mind), all within the realm of horror or fantasy fiction. I won’t address genre much because that doesn’t have much to do with style, at least not in this context.

The book I read Friday night is Christian romance fiction, and I didn’t think about the author’s style much until I finished the book. That’s when I noticed several things about all of her work that I’ve read previously, as well as the current book. Firstly, the reader will immediately recognize the same plot the author’s used in her other books, which usually entails a similar obstacle the main female character must overcome in order to love the main male character. Secondly, there will be the same “sweet personality” traits for the main female character. Thirdly, there will always be the same kind of pastoral figure. Finally, there will the same themes of family and God and church. History is probably the only diversity offered because all of the books take place in different historical periods.

I don’t have a problem with an author using the same kind of style for every book she’ll have published, and I should probably expect any future work to be modeled after this style, too. Still, I’m wondering how I can read essentially the same story without getting tired of it already. Who is better: an author who uses a different style for every book she writes even if she may stay in the same genre, or an author who uses the same style for her published work and the only difference the reader notices is the framework of the story (i.e. setting and time period)? And do readers immediately recognize that recurrent style - if applicable to the author - and if they do, what changes for them?

NOTE: This is a Revised & Expanded version of one of my posts from another blog.

I meant to turn this blog into a storytelling blog, a place where I could freely sketch the stories in my head that were clamoring to come out. As you can see here, that hasn’t exactly happened. Yet. I’m not sure when it will, either.

I don’t talk about this blog much here because it’s not something I do, nor do I want to seem like I’m pitying myself or being self-righteous. (You just came off as pitiful to me with the previous sentence. -Ed. Do us all a favor and shut up.) That will change now because I’m in a bit of a quandary about this website.

I have no idea what to do with it.

When I regularly blogged here, I tried to come off as neutral because I didn’t want to seem overly argumentative or opinionated. Guess what? I may not be overly argumentative - at least, I’d like to think I’m not - but I’m very opinionated. Very. This started coming out at the Livejournal I keep, but I wanted it to stay there and not show up here. Guess what again? I started posting there more than here. This is a blog. That is…well, my “rant space.” But now it’s switched: that’s my blog and this is a personal site with a great design that I don’t feel free enough to post about anything. Will I come off as snobbish? What if I can’t refute an opposing argument that disagrees with one of my opinionated posts?

Know what? I don’t care anymore if I can refute anything.

I’m a pretty open-minded person and I enjoy hearing the opposing point of view, so long as it tackles the subject and doesn’t attack me personally.

So when I do start blogging here again, regularly, you’re going to see the opinionated Rhesa, and often. Whether or not you like her is up to you.

PS: And yes, I’ll post short stories and “flash fiction” here, too, if and when I get my writing mojo back.

PPS: (See, Rhe? You just solved your blogging problem right here. Be glad. Be proud. -Ed. Thanks. I think.)

Does anyone want a Flickr Pro account? I have one to give away.

First come, first serve. Drop me a comment or email me at rhesaslair [a]t yahoo.com.

UPDATE: Someone got it.

The word “student” can have various definitions: “student of life,” “college student,” “high school student,” et cetera. I’m going with “college student” here.

Some things involved in the student’s life, as seen by me:

Computer lab
Drowsy in class
Droning
Homework
Papers
Discussion
Analyzing
Tardy
Professor
Instructor
Laughter
Witty
Full-time
Part-time
Midterm
Spring Break
Semester
Class registration
Class standing
Class size
1 - 10 pages
Application
Graduation
Commute
Free time

Anymore? Obviously I’ve been in college too long.

Nowadays most people rely on e-mail to write letters to loved ones and acquaintances. Others like, say, an American soldier deployed overseas, still use paper and pen, depending on how isolated the environment is. Regardless of the form, letters overall are a vital tool of communication. They range from being personal to professional to nasty to anonymous, and the messages they convey are just as diverse.

The people I love to send letters to the most are my friends, for numerous reasons: to gripe, to praise them, to catch up on their lives and they on mine, to debate or argue with, and to exchange ideas, opinions and truths.

How about you? Who do you like sending letters to most and why?

“Excuse me, Mr. Shanagan?”

Myrick Shanagan glanced to his right, and his pulse immediately quickened. The Administration officer watching him held an orange ticket.

Orange tickets were always bad news.

“Come with me, please,” the officer said crisply.

Myrick nodded and slowly followed the officer out of his private office. Thankfully, it was Sunday or his co-workers would have witnessed this entire humiliating scene. He paused to lock the door, then pocketed the key and wondered if he’d ever step into his office again. He had had no time to say goodbye to his wife or daughter. What was worse, of course, was that he had finally been discovered.

The Administration officer escorted him to the car waiting below, politely indicating for him to get in first. Myrick quickly obeyed, his palms leaving damp prints on the cool, black leather seats.

The officer slipped into the backseat beside him, and the car pulled away from the curb. Myrick stared straight ahead, even though he could feel the officer watching him from the other end of the seat.

“You’re accused of using 34,903 words over the permitted limit,” the officer said quietly. Myrick jerked when the officer slipped the orange ticket into his hand, pushing insistently when Myrick refused to accept it at first.

Myrick sighed. “What took you so long to catch me?” He was making things worse by just speaking, but he couldn’t help himself. What was the use of prolonging the inevitable by reverting back to the norm, anyway?

“Your methods of hiding your extreme word usage evaded our sensors,” the officer admitted.

Myrick plunged his hands into his jacket pockets, where his fingers curled into fists. The orange ticket was now a crumpled ball. “What will happen to me now?”

“You know the punishment.” The words seemed brusque, but the officer was trying to limit his words, too. When Myrick finally looked at the other man, the sympathy in the officer’s eyes caught him offguard.

“34,914,” the officer said abruptly, as the car stopped. Myrick’s door opened, and another officer grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. The top of his head banged against the roof of the car, and Myrick heard himself cry out as pain ripped through his skull. The officer holding his arm loosened his grip. Just before they injected him with the hypo, Myrick heard the first officer whisper, “All is not lost.”

He craned his neck to look at the man, but the officer had already turned away.

His last conscious thought as they loaded him on to a stretcher concerned his wife - what would she say when her husband came home as a Mute?

Then the world as he knew it went black.

I’m not dead yet, just very busy. And I have really bad writer’s blog (not block), or you’d see a post here.

I’m reposting this for introspective’s sake. Have a good weekend.

I’ve come to realize that I like to think in questions. I ask questions of myself and of others (yeah, you know who you are, especially those of you who’ve had to endure my “psychiatric evaluations"). I’ve discovered a lot about myself and about life in general through questions. I can’t tell if it’s just because I’m curious about everything, and it’s certainly not because I want to be more knowledgable about any one thing, but the “difficult” questions always help me understand things better.

Perhaps this is just as well.

“Descend with me through fire and dark below
And seek refuge in Virgil’s care as I,
Or you will join the mournful spirits there
Who heeded not on earth salvation’s cry.

If hell does shake you so to drain your strength,
Repentance waits for your second journey;
The third will lead to Christ and thrones of white.
Heaven unlocks true meaning for the free.”

Do you sometimes look at your blog and find that you can’t stand the sight of it?

That’s how I feel right now.

I kept a list of all the books I read in 2003 and decided to make it an annual tradition, so here’s my list for this year:

Myst: The Book of D’ni – Rand Miller, David Wingrove
Retief! – Keith Laumer
Wild At Heart – John Eldredge
Dust and Conscience – Truong Tran
Reunion – Katie Hern
On Writing – Stephen King
The Firm – John Grisham
The Visitor – Lori Wick
The Communist Manifesto – Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels
Salem’s Lot – Stephen King
Dolores Claiborne – Stephen King
Lyon’s Pride – Anne McCaffrey
The Pelican Brief – John Grisham
1949 – Morgan Llywelyn
Everything’s Eventual – Stephen King
The Case for Easter – Lee Strobel
Nightmares and Dreamscapes – Stephen King
Different Seasons – Stephen King
A New Kind of Christian – Brian McLaren
Separate Parts – Martha King
The Teeth of the Tiger – Tom Clancy
From Beirut to Jerusalem – Thomas L. Friedman
So You Want to Be a Wizard – Diane Duane
Deep Wizardry – Diane Duane
High Wizardry – Diane Duane
A Wizard Abroad – Diane Duane
A Wizard Alone – Diane Duane
Skeleton Crew – Stephen King
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – JK Rowling
Night Shift – Stephen King
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt – Edmund Morris
Theodore Rex – Edmund Morris
The Devil’s Code – John Sandford
The Hanged Man’s Song – John Sandford
The Church on Earth – Ronald Knox
Foundation – Isaac Asimov
Foundation and Empire – Isaac Asimov
Second Foundation – Isaac Asimov
The 9/11 Commission Report
The Los Angeles Diaries – James Brown
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon
The Empress Files – John Sandford
Fighting Words – James Charlton

Total: 43

I sure am:

Say hi to my new toy: the Fujifilm S3000.

The recent Weblog Awards made me realize certain things about how I view blogging nowadays.

There are general categories floating around out there that most bloggers can identify with: personal, media, design, politics, religion. I have my own categories, and they don’t directly have anything to do with the ones I just mentioned: thought-provoking, pretty, photo-envy, word-envy, and opinionated. There’s also Family, Christianity, Fiction, News and Questions.

Now my blogreading preferences are changing once again, however, in terms of not only topics but also timeliness. Military blogs are probably my favorite sort of blogs to read right now – I just found Training for Eternity today – as are moderately liberal blogs like Michael Totten and Roger L. Simon. Also, food blogs like Chocolate & Zucchini are a daily stop; Instapundit usually gives me a good idea of what’s being linked or discussed right now in the blogosphere; the only photoblog I manage to visit on a semi-regular basis is Heather Champ’s. And Hugo may not realize this, but his is one of my favorite blogs to read, period, when it comes to thought-provoking content.

Okay, enough blog-whoring. As for this blog: I had originally wanted to gradually make Creative Slips a storytelling blog, because that’s what I do best, but it’s difficult to dredge up any inspiration on a regular basis when I have so many other commitments already pleading for attention. Writing a good story on a whim is much harder than it looks. But I’ll get to that, never fear; just because I don’t write the stories down doesn’t mean they cease to exist.

P.S. My blogroll also serves as my list of bookmarks when I’m away from my personal laptop. Just an FYI.

‘Tis the season to be jolly. Or in this case, ’tis the season to self-reflect!

Recently, a friend of mine and I were talking about the compliments we like getting, and we realized that there are physical compliments and emotional ones. The physical kind points to the way we dress or style our bodies which attracts admiration from others; the emotional kind stems from positive feedback we receive on deeds we do or abilities and skills we use which also garner attention from people.

This might seem like extravagant bragging, but I’ll ask anyway: what kind of compliments do you like receiving? Also, what kind of compliments do you tend to receive on a regular basis?