My computer has a virus in it. I've guessed this for a couple days, but my anti-virus software just clued in a couple hours ago. The two programs are apparently waging a lengthy and brutal war across my hard drive, if the computer's performance is anything to go by. I wonder how many spam emails it's managed to disseminate over the last few days?

Since I can't do anything complicated, I'll just write a long winded rambling blog. I hope the key logger is recording every tap I make for this. I hope it chokes on it.

A few weeks back, I came across a thread in the writer's forum about how one weights different aspects of a story, in terms of one's strengths and one's preferences. The elements were style, plot, world-building, and characterization. It reminded me of several conversations I had in college with the other overly creative (but not matched in talent)* people I hung around with. We discussed much the same when it came to music, or how different aspects of a movie could be pieced together.

[in a bit of serendipity, the program I'm watching has an all English cast, except for one boy who is quite clearly Irish. This guy plays a character named "Fearnot," who is a special kind of stupid. Who the hell made that kind of casting?

Actually, to be fair, one other character isn't English. The animatronic dog is voiced by an American. Again...]

For me, for writing, I have to admit its all about the style. Both what I do best, and what I like best. I would guess it has to do with my learning poetry first, and prose second. A good, clever, new style will suck me right in like nothing else will. I read Faulkner, willingly. And Neil Gaiman, in comic book or novel form, is one of my favorite authors.

I blame my latest bit of inspiration on his Marvel, 1602. Well, partly him, partly this yaoi comic I reread this evening. It ends with a two page spread of two couples of men, the first guy having cried his eyes out, the second, his boyfriend, worried and pensive over the first, the second drunk to oblivion because he has feelings he can't deal with, the last bursting with happiness because boy three agreed to be his boyfriend. All four are thinking at the same time "I don't want anyone to see me like this tonight." The artist captures this juxtaposition quite well, but I wondered if I could do the same with prose. Maybe take it a step further, and show instead of one snapshot of time the entire rise and fall of a relationship over the course of three years or so.

Reality set in soon after I finished plotting it out. While technically interesting, would this actually make a good story, or more accurately a good way to tell a story? Or does it matter, and should I allow artistry to trump its message? If so, would this, as I first thought, be appropriate for inclusion within one of the upcoming anthologies?

Ultimately I decided no, perhaps, and no. This site is about a message, a particular message, and I realized that with this story its only real message would be, "Look how smart I am!" As I'd thought I was over that particular urge, this realization came as something of a shock.

Eh. I may still write it. Not for here, of course, but if I ever apply to a creative writing program, I'll need samples, and that kind of literary mindf**k just calls to the people that run such programs. My kind of people, though they tend to have the credentials and talent to go with their airs.

For a change of pace, I haven't really read anything new for the last month. Aside from Marvel, 1602, and that's a comic, so I'm not as qualified to critique it. Damn good story though, reimagining several of the Marvel superheroes as if they incarnated in the 1600's instead of the modern era. Sort of a reverse ghost story, now that I think of it. My favorite of the characters was of course the ultra-pretty Petros (Quicksilver), though the Devil in the Darkness (Matt Murdock, a.k.a Daredevil) came a close second. And there is one line in particular, towards the end, that telegraphed clear as anything that the words for this comic were penned with a British accent. It cracked me up in that horrified way good irony evokes. It isn't necessary to know the universe or the time period particularly well, which I appreciated since I don't.

One last line before I sleep. The program I'm watching? Has a bunch of English men dressed as Russian peasantry and gentry. The blond and medium brown hair with fake black mustaches cracks me up. Clearly, Jim Hensen studio did not want the puppets to be upstaged.

*Yes, I mean me too. My creativity far exceeds my actual talent. It happens.