Code of Conduct

t has taken approximately one week longer than anticipated to publish the "simple" watch movie I programmed and illustrated using Macromedia Flash. The original post explaining my effort is here.

am generally satisfied and came to the crossroad of whether to fiddle and tweak it endlessly until I had exhausted all refinement or actually release something to the public. The latter is a drastic departure for me. As I am generally pleased that the movie is not "clunky" and awkward and simulates the sleek and smooth functioning of the real watch made by Breitling to a fairly high degree I have taken a bold new step for me and published. I hope to continue in this vein from here on so that my writing and other creative efforts will be seen by their intended audiences. I have a tendency to want something to be perfect before allowing others to be involved. The consequence of that has been that essentially nothing I begin ever is completed or allowed to sink or swim on its own merits.

any of my creative and artistic friends suffer from the same malady. We are also often confronted with the reveal by someone else of many ideas which we had and, frankly developed further, but stand by helplessly because they profited from exposure while we merely wrestled with our demons. I am trying to break that cycle. Thus, warts and all, I have made myself vulnerable to criticism by posting my less than perfect work in the right sidebar. I had to remind myself that my desire to create this small work was for the express purpose of sharing it. For once, I have not lost sight of the main objective. All of the stopwatch functions work. The clock shows the date and time of day where I live. In this way, regardless of where you are in the world or no matter the time of day or night of your viewing my posts you will be made a little more intimately involved directly with my life experience. That's really a goal in my writing in the first place. I want to connect more directly with my readers. I consider my desire to make contact with you was more important than making the perfect watch simulation. But, in my communication as well as future program tweaks I will always strive to improve both.

Three Bolts, Two Clamps, and One Hose

hree bolts, two clamps, and one hose were all that prevented me from simply getting in my car and heading in any direction to any location I wished. How much does one need to prepare and concern oneself with such trivial things? Much more often and with greater care, it would seem. Most of the events of our lives are dependent upon items so common that they seldom catch our notice until they oppose our desires. Then the simple element with a simple function complicates the course of our day, consumes our hours, squanders our minutes; frustrates our plans. The details overlooked seed the clouds of circumstances that overwhelm. The smallest thing demands its due recognition. There are no skipped steps and no details so insignificant that may be neglected.

t is the same with writing. All of the rules of style and format and spelling and grammar and punctuation are only the foundation. If one is to write a truly human work there can not be the luxury of skimming over the little things. One hose failed and confined me to a two day sentence of imprisonment. Not only did I have to contend with the failed component but also the failed maintenance schedule, budget, preparation, grocery shopping, and attention to the little details of cause and effect. Then there was the assessment of the ways and means to navigate a problem that had been the result of another human being’s imagination. Every method that could resolve the failure had to satisfy the conditions inherited by me from the design and assembly of some unknown hand.

here is always trial and error, and despite the naturally great distaste for failure, it must be given its due. There is a part of me that recognizes – that actually knows and has admitted – that I do not learn much at all from success. My tuition has been in the failing. I need to remind myself of these things as I write. I need to make certain in my stories that I plan for failure more than the characters realize success. All of those elements of anticipation mingled with denied gratification are necessary to bring that delicious tension to the work which draws in the reader. Like the necessary uncertainty that comes as a stringed instrument is strained and tuned to pitch as to whether it will break or hold, I need to slowly give the work that one, last, critical twist. I think I am going to strive to bait the reader with the false belief held by the whole human race that mankind is fundamentally good and that good always prevails. Then I shall let the details rip that fallacy to shreds. The truth I would like to confront my audience with is that mankind is basically flawed and all good comes from concerted strain and effort against the natural order of chaos.

ven after I had bled and bruised myself from the strain and contortions that I had no choice but to go through in order to replace that hose there was no assurance I had been successful. Sometimes, doubt, is a powerful motivator. Was the replacement secretly flawed? Had another of those little details escaped my view and was it possible I had damaged the very thing I had endeavored to mend? Were those clamps positioned to maximize their effectiveness in securing that hose to its couplings? Did I tighten those three bolts in any combination of too loose or too tight – anything other than correctly? Was it all for show or was it good to go?

hat uncertainty is the very thing I want my readers to feel when they risk driving off in the work of my hands and the vehicle of my imagination.

A Yawn, in Three Acts

he last thing I need to do is find another vehicle to reinforce my excuses for what I’m not writing. That’s not stopping me from exploring the cause and effect, here. I’m all hung up about the 3-Act format. I just don’t have the sort of contiguous mental processes that submit to a rigid structure. I am much happier just letting it fly and seeing if I can bring it in for a safe and satisfying landing. I can’t schedule the orderly flow of the story because I have only bits and pieces of knowing the personalities of my characters and only vague notions of an average day in their world.

y own story isn’t helping, either. I am dead smack in the middle of my own monotonous 3-Acts in real life. Well, not so much real as it is my life. I’m all about dreams and visions for select and specific details but I’m not the sort of person that daydreams about the happy world I’d like to find myself. I should have all the fodder I need if my motivation was to imagine an escape from my day-to-day. Many great stories have been birthed from that impetus. I just am not one to look back and wonder what-if I had taken another course. I know me too well. I took the course I would have taken nearly every time. I’m not a person that makes coin toss decisions. I assess the risk and go ahead and stomach the consequences. Then I whine about it ever after.

o I have a fundamental theme as far as a plot convention for my tale. I have given the nod to at least three characters as being caught up in the story. All of them are just too resigned to, more than content and accepting of, their circumstances. I think they’re behaving too much like me. I’m not getting a handle on two very critical elements. I am able to introduce the cast without any problem. Their basic drives and lifestyles are easy enough to present. I do not have a significant cause for them to champion. I don’t have any great challenge for them to surmount. They are all going about their business in the same clueless condition as me. That does not make for good reading. I don’t need a model of futility. This is unfortunate since the antagonist of my story is supposed to be so ordinary as to blend into the background but he is more dynamic than any of the other players. This wasn’t set out to be a clichéd accolade of the disturbed mind. Instead it’s becoming a loosely assembled map to my disturbed mind.

Why Beca Sue? Because . . .

his blog is anticipated to be a sort of stream-of-consciousness journal of my floundering efforts to write professionally. It will meander and muse on whatever distracts or gives pause to me during the journey. I hope to discover and pass on little bits and pieces of valuable insight and information. To be honest if I only accomplish that personally will be enough. However, I hope to have more to contribute.

ne of the first issues to address is my typing. I had proper instruction as far back as my sophomore year of high school. I even spent nearly two decades in Information Technology so it would be expected that I would demonstrate decent facility. Nothing could be further from the truth. I hunt and peck and the best explanation would have to be that I lack confidence. I simply do not trust my fingers to coordinate the effort and consistently locate the appropriate keys. I am constantly interrupting my thought process to focus on the keyboard. I don’t merely glance but stare at the keys. Even then I miss every other stroke and tend to interject the space bar either at odd syllables or one letter shy of a complete word. This must be a reflection on my need for assurance on the whole or especially as pertaining to composition. Coincident with the typing dexterity issue is the need to read what has been laboriously entered about every three sentences. There is so much redundancy and self-congratulatory nonsense interrupting the process that there is very little allowance made for progress.

have considered three solutions and may end up incorporating them all and find a few extra. The obsolete method to capture thoughts before they were lost to distraction or mechanical limitations was to transcribe them via Dictaphone. The modern alternative is software such as Dragon Speak which inputs and formats the text to the computer as one speaks. I may find this very conducive to performing brain dumps and then going through the output and turning it into something resembling crafted writing. Another necessary adjustment is to practice my typing and get more acclimated and automatic with my usage. There are some brain-to-finger transfers that have become trademark patterns as well as bitingly irritating. One repetitive error is a personal demon and a great source of amusement for my friends. No one knows who the elusive Beca Sue, is, but I can tell you she is often mentioned in nearly everything I type. She originated in my consistent typographical error in trying to enter the word “because.”

Therefore, my third corrective behavior is not to get hung up on corrective behavior at all and to just write. If I focus too much on the mechanics and grammar and my personal idiosyncrasies I will not be free to express my ideas and get them into a tangible form. Once the thoughts are actually recorded I may spend however much time is necessary or that I like to massage and rework and prove them – but, they need to be out of my head first and foremost. It sounds so reasonable and simple. Let’s see . . . A,S,D,F . . J, K, L, semi-colon. I can do this!