{"id":9982,"date":"2013-01-20T23:39:29","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T04:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=9982"},"modified":"2013-01-20T23:39:29","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T04:39:29","slug":"my-back-pages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=9982","title":{"rendered":"My back pages"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

This morning, I decided to try morning pages<\/a>, a free-writing exercise I’ve heard talked up a few times. (I own a copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way<\/i>, though I’ve never read it.) I’ve been hesitant to try it before not so much because I doubt its usefulness or effectiveness but simply because it’s meant to be done first thing in the morning. And while three pages of stream of consciousness isn’t the most<\/i> time-consuming thing in the world, I do cherish all those minutes of sleep in the morning.<\/p>\n

But a time comes when you have to ask yourself, am I serious about getting better at this? How will am I to commit the time and effort to this?<\/p>\n

That time, of course, is 11 am on a Sunday, but still. The real question will come on Tuesday, or even Wednesday, when I go back to my regular schedule, when I have to find a half an hour or more that I’d rather spend sleeping. Today, though, it went reasonably well. I don’t feel super-empowered to finish this short story I’ve been working on or anything, but I feel a little closer to it than I did before. Or at least not further away? I don’t know. It’s an exercise; it’s not supposed<\/i> to be life-changing immediately. It’s not even necessarily meant to be life-changing. But it’s the sort of thing that, if you keep at it, is supposed to help the actual work of writing work better.<\/p>\n

Like I said, I haven’t read the book, but I’m a big believer in anything that makes writers write more.<\/p>\n

That in mind, I also wrote this, in my weekly writing group:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can we PLEASE stop pretending like there is any wisdom to be gained from psychopaths?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Kendall. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Or like anything good will ever come from listening to that mad man?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

She was angry, Daniel knew, but more than that, she was tired, not thinking straight. He was tempted to skip ahead a few minutes, fast-forward through this argument, but there was no point; he was going to win it anyway. He could just wait her out, stare her down — he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been perfecting a patented stare — and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d break just from exhaustion. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel good about it, and he knew it was going to come up later in their marriage counseling — he HAD skipped ahead, briefly, to that — but he also knew it was important that they listen to what Dr. Nefarious had to say.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even his real name,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kendall would say, had said, and often. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He stole that from some comic book in the \u00e2\u20ac\u212270s. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to trust him on this.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just hear him out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Daniel did say. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If he says he knows how to save the world, we have an obligation to let him talk.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the one who DESTROYED the world, Daniel,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Kendall. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Or have you forgotten? This is literally all just a game to him.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Daniel waited. He stared. He knew she would break; she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d throw up her arms, maybe storm out of the room, and heaven knew he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been sleeping on the couch tonight. But she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d let him interrogate Nefarious, find out what the mad doctor knew. Daniel was sure of it. Just a little bit of patience, and —<\/p>\n

He skipped ahead. Just five minutes, but he was going to have a monster of a headache in the morning. The game environment wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t meant to be operated like this, wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t built for this kind of brute-force mental hacking. Kendall didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like it because she said it gave him an excuse to never listen, just zip past the parts he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like and then —<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did you even hear me?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kendall said.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Daniel, blinking back the bright stars of the headache already.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You did it again, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kendall said. She said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Damn it, Daniel, I thought we talked about this. As long as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trapped in here, at the mercy of the game we need to — \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p>\n

Two more minutes. The headache was worse, but in for a penny…<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fine!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kendall said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Let the mad man talk. But when it all goes south, and he does whatever it is to make things worse, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come crying to me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

She sighed again, but she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t storm out of the room, and in the end, it was Kendall who pulled the gag from Dr. Nefarious\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 mouth while Daniel rubbed the pain from his eyes. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Okay, pal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Spill it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Nefarious needed no encouragement — but then, that had been the man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story from day one, hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? Back when they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d first been building the simulation, when Daniel and Kendall had just been a couple of engineers on the project, and back when that project had just been a fun, interactive game — MAYBE some military application but not the super-villainy Nefarious had apparently had in mind all along. Even back then, in monthly meetings or his daily address to the employees, Nefarious just wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t shut up. He loved to hear the sound of his own voice.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so hard to believe he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d blown up the earth and trapped everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s consciousness inside the game. It was only hard to believe he hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t done it sooner.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The system AI has become self-aware,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Nefarious now. He was still tied to the chair, but Kendall had pulled the tape from his mouth. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But more than that, it is aging. And believe me, its emerging adulthood is the very worst thing that could happen to all of us now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tell us something we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Kendall.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It also offers us an opportunity,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Nefarious. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in its growth, it will be distracted, and the locks on the doors –\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Twenty minutes. No, thirty. Forty. An hour, then two. Something was wrong. Daniel could now see days, weeks, months zipping past. He was losing Kendall, Nefarious, the present moment. And, maybe more important, this time, Daniel wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t responsible for skipping himself ahead. Someone or something else was in control.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can probably tell I’ve been replaying Portal<\/i> a lot lately.<\/p>\n

And then this evening, I watched We Bought a Zoo<\/a>. Which is more likable than good<\/i>, and which does feel like two movies at war with one another: serious family drama and family-friendly comedy in which monkeys slap their faces in exasperation. Which is a thing that actually happens in it. Is it wrong that I think I liked the movie more before<\/i> it went to the zoo?<\/p>\n

Anyway, not a bad day. The Sunday crossword kind of kicked my ass, but other than that it was pretty decent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning, I decided to try morning pages, a free-writing exercise I’ve heard talked up a few times. (I own a copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, though I’ve never read it.) I’ve been hesitant to try it before not so much because I doubt its usefulness or effectiveness but simply because it’s meant … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,12],"class_list":["post-9982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-movies","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}