Considerations and Experiments

I’ve been busy and thinking about some things this past while.

This in itself is nothing new, of course. I still have my collaboration with Angela to consider–which I have to flesh out into something like a comics script form (the details of which you can find under the “Project” Category of my Blog)–as well as continuing my quest for further publication and employment.

Ironically, I have been going out a lot more often and I will be doing so in the near future. My friends and I have been playing no less than two role-playing games–of which yesterday we played two sessions in a row–and I have been writing stories of our exploits in at least one of those worlds so far. Sometimes I feel guilty about that. I mean, I have sent stories out to magazines and such, but I feel like I am at a place in my life right now where I need to keep making stories that I can actually send out to places.

As such, I have a few experiments (I always feel like Darth Plagueis when I say “experiments” or some kind of ruthless mad alchemist) that I have not really been undertaking because I have been distracted with some pragmatic concerns, which ironically makes them harder to deal with, and so on.

I actually feel like I need to write more about my own life again. This was partially one principle that “Mythic Bios” was founded on, but I think there are some things that I need to express and there are certain ways of doing that that really intrigue me. It wasn’t too long ago that I wanted to make a Twine game or two based on some experiences or “day in the life thereofs” that people like Anna Anthropy have totally inspired me to do. I do know that I am at the point in my life where I can begin to really express my perspective through my writing. I have done so, and I am continuing to do it as well.

However, I’m not sure all of it can be placed on here. What I like about this “Mythic Bios” is that it is safer. It is a purely theoretical place, but one where I can ponder about different things and maintain that veneer of optimism and positivity. A few of my friends and people who know me are probably finding this one sentence hilarious because for the longest time I have not been a very positive person. I’ve been angry, confused, bitter for sure, and definitely sad.

In every incarnation of “Mythic Bios” I have created–both here online and offline in my written notebooks–I have made a point of trying to not let those other aspects completely consume this space. Believe me, I deal with them more often than not and in private. I need to have a space where I can feel safe while expressing a reasonable and somewhat logical mindset: while making the boundary between fact and fiction a little more clear. But I also need to recognize that other side: the side that knows that stories and reality are not that far removed from each other. I need that place of emotion and expression of that emotion and the messiness that comes with being a human being.

I still find myself in that place where I’m torn between wanting to express that aspect and wondering how this will affect my current–and future–audience’s perception of my writing. While I do feel like I should have a separate space and maybe an aspect, I also feel somewhat cheated by that: as though I feel somehow that I can’t be a whole person. Because, like I said before, this–all of this–is not all of who I am.

At the same time, I want to leave some personal space to myself and even make things that I find interesting and aren’t necessarily related to me personally. I do believe that our writing is an extension of who we are and what we’ve done. On the subject of the personal, I know I still get concerned with offending people with what I can make as well.

But let me repeat: I do feel like I have something, or several somethings, to say. And I have this growing suspicion that there are people out there who will totally want–or even need–to read these “somethings.” I also know there are people who will always disagree with whatever I say, or simply not read these things. It would be almost easier if it were always the latter and not the former.

To be a writer, you have to travel that nebulous territory between the personal and the public, as well as the intellectual and the earthy and perhaps more … uncomfortable places that I’ve only touched on. I know, more or less, what I have to do. The rest of it is just details and finally sitting down to replenish my collection of stories.

I can’t sit around all the time and write. It’s just like never sitting down and writing. Something just has to happen. So I plan to write a story or two that’s been on my mind for a while, work on my part of the collaboration with Angela, send a few more things out and … see what I can do.