Make Good Art

Neil Gaiman, in his commencement speech, says:

"Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be, which was an author, primarily a fiction, making good books [...] and supporting myself through my words, imagining that was a mountain, a distant mountain, my goal. And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain, I'd be alright. And when I was truly not sure what to do, I could stop and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain."

People work with freelancers because:

1. their work is good
2. easy to get along with
3. they deliver the work on time

2 out of 3 is fine!

I'm just a little behind, is all.

Life is Stranger than Fiction...

…Because Fiction has to be convincing, and Life doesn't.               -Neil Gaiman

I hereby decide to write another post. Why? Because of all-consuming jealousy, of course. What better reason could there be?

I don't write on serious topics. I shun life-altering truths and other such things. If you ever went through my blog, you'd find very superficial topics; all relevant to me, me, me. And that's good enough, because I use the web to escape from realities, from the world that freaks me out: so much that I wonder if there's a place out there for me at all.

But recently my life online has begun to merge slowly(and not without pain) into my real life. Mostly because I've neglected one in favour of the other.

(That's probably how it should be.)

Real life is painful, but its joys are so much more than the joys of the mind. The full-body-thrumming feeling you get when something goes terribly, terribly right. When someone says something that means a lot, even if it's just a simple thank-you. When you've caused tears and you know they're happy ones. And there's other feelings- when it's early in the morning or the night air is biting at your nose and you hear your heart pounding in your ears as you take a deep breath; you're so happy to be alive.

Even sadness has some undefinable quality: like that feeling after you've had a good cry and you know nothing worse can happen to you. The hurt of words spoken in anger, cutting you to the bone and leaving your inner self exposed to the world.

It's, well, it's all real.

And that is what makes me close my laptop, against all odds, and go out into the big, bad world.

Katze

P.S. I'm beginning to feel like a poet.

P.P.S. Meanwhile, trying to study the reasons English is a world language. Apparently, it's got to do with the English going to almost every country in the world. *shrug*

Also struggling with matrix representations of the Schrödinger equation. Well-balanced workload FTW.

Bibliophilia

Hi,

It's been so long since I last wrote a blog post that I've almost forgotten how.

This one is, as ever, for myself.

I've been reading like a maniac, and I've come to several conclusions:

1. I don't like Raymond E. Feist, though his name is rather ...inspiring. Just the right amount of mysteriousness with the 'E' and a hint of magic with the last name. But I was un-awed by his first book, Magician, in spite of which I ended up reading the whole thing(Thank you, Mr. Feist, for giving me Arutha conDoin, though. He was the first--and possibly only--character I really, really loved in Magician.) Silverthorn, his second offering, hurt my brain, and not in the o-m-g-this-is-fantastic kind of way. I left it halfway. I-I!  had to leave a book halfway. Imagine my pain.(Though I'm yet to complete A Tale of Two Cities, I'm afraid.)

2. I am still in love with Terry Pratchett, and the girl who is Aching all over. ;) I recently came across this amazing book:

And, once again, I am in love. It's a fantastic book, going far beyond the usual funny, witty fare, with loveable characters and strange, yet oddly familiar devices and settings. No, this one has got an amazing sort-of whodunit and whathehellisgoingon vibe that really just kills it, you know, no disrespect to the surfer dudes or whoever that I've stolen that phrase from. I can't wait to read the sequel, Making Money.

-No really. Let me leave this blog post to go read it right this instant.-

3. I also am awed and amazed by the master storyteller who is Neil Gaiman. Respect. Nothing else can be said. I read Coraline recently, and I wonder how something about a child's seemingly perfectly harmless imaginary adventures could be made to be so creepy. But I think that might be it: what is harmless for a child, in its dreams, can inspire much more creeping-up-your-spine terror than anything an adult can ever come up with. Coraline is one of the few books whose movie I've seen before I read the book, but I loved the movie(Henry Selick classic that it is :D) and so I was enthusiastic about picking up the book.

This is the scariest thing. Ever:

And now I really think I should finish up this post, since I have places to be and things to do, and one absent team member, and one pissed-off one. Cheerio!