I totally fail at updating. This is partially because I’m back in Boston, which is relatively familiar to all of you (at least compared to Asia), living the day-to-day work life that I assume you wouldn’t find terribly interesting- but more honestly, it is probably because my ponderings have been intensely personal since March or so. I am fairly open about my process on my blog, but the kinds of realizations I’ve had recently are still too tender to put out in the universe yet in more than a general fashion. They are almost all connected with love, a topic which part of me tried to keep me from processing until I knew I was completely safe. Apparently it took about two and a half years for me to find that part of myself. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
top 11 things I will miss about Japan
2011 -
05.30
- Being able to see my fandom everywhere I go.
- Feeling part of a historical story I am moved by.
- Bishounen sightings and people watching.
- Decoding kana and speaking makeshift Japanese.
- My loft studio.
- My students’ appreciation of my weird jokes and otaku references.
- Ridiculously cheap sashimi.
- Shopping and Japanese movie theatres.
- Being surrounded by people who have more similar values to myself than my own culture.
- Guaranteed 24 hour entertainment.
- Only experiencing rudeness once in over a year.
With only 8 weekends left here, and needing to focus on arrangements for my transition to music school, I am only able to leave because I’m telling myself I’ll be back someday. I’ve spent most of this year working on projects that are mostly introverted (body and novel) and so I didn’t focus on learning the language or making friends or experiencing everything about Japan I came here to experience, but I can’t say I truly feel regret. I think my focus was just what it needed to be. I certainly know worlds more Japanese than when I arrived even with virtually no studying, so as long as I make sure to keep learning and practicing I’ll have no regrets there. I do wish I had saved more money, while at the same time, I wish I had bought more stuff that I am just going to have to import when I want it later. I have never felt so much kinship for items. And I wish I had increased my ability to find cool things in an urban setting more, but I bet having friends in the UK will help me out in that respect and the next time I’m here, I will be able to tackle Tokyo thoroughly. I know I am going to miss having so much time to do nothing but write my novel, even though that time will now be spent making music. The more I write the more I realize that it is as much a calling as singing, and I am watching myself get better and it is thrilling. It’s times like this that I honestly believe that I am one of those people who wouldn’t get bored if I were immortal.
Oh, and I’ve lost the 7 pounds I regained since hitting 180, so I’m back at 180 again and heading down. I went out and did purikura tonight and I’ll upload those once I trim the photos of the photos. A scanner would be nice, or an electronic file of the pics, but if that’s possible I have yet to figure out how. But I look and feel great. Hedonism works.
Returning from silence
2011 -
05.24
So only a few days after submitting my music school applications my netbook self-destructed. I kind of forgot about the internet cafe next door to me and so waited patiently for a friend to put ubuntu on a usb stick so i could retrieve my data and restore. but now that is done (though the original problem still exists so i can’t move the lid or it reboots and will corrupt the boot file again…) i got all my data safely off and have something larger than 3″ to type on again. But soon my sister will be sending me the new powerbook i’ve ordered through berklee so I will have a new toy to write music on! yay!
It has been so long since I have posted I don’t know where to start. I have been writing in notebooks like crazy since my computer died and it’s been totally nostalgic of junior high when I filled 16 notebooks with Darkwing Duck fanfic. My novel is going really well and I am learning a ton about myself in the process; my fear of anger and violence that is making all my characters sound like goodie two shoes, the true extent of my obsession with hair, my love of explaining things well, and a ton about my experience of romance, sexuality and beauty. In order to get to know my main characters, I am writing almost a full prequel about how they met- 19 years before the main story starts, and it is fascinating. I seem to have unearthed my particular style of falling in love and I think it’s awesome, and in perfect time for dating when I get to Brighton. But realizing everyone would not relate to falling in love this way is making the romances I’m writing extra fun to play with. technique-wise, I am simultaneously challenged by being able to express myself with precision and in expanding beyond my own truths to build variety into my story. I love this work.
And it is really the first thing in my life that I have truly practiced. I never used to write drafts or even revise, really. I was so sensitive to my own criticism that I would create something that given my innate talents was reasonably good compared to average, and then I would leave it alone and pretend I didn’t care if I could have made it better given more work (and self-honesty). If the thing I created didn’t even meet those standards, it got thrown away. But never have I just written to try and get whatever morsel I was aiming to express down on the page the best I could. Most of what I write reads like mediocre fanfic, and for the first time in my life I’m fine with that, because every now and then a phrase or image or line is so close to that spark of inspiration flitting behind my mind that I feel blessed with even the amount of talent I have- and for the first time I am not wishing I was a prodigy… I am looking forward to the crafting of this extension of myself. I think this shift is going to make all the difference in my creative endeavors, and whether I can make it as a professional musician. But even just in the moment, it gives me untold pleasure.
On the food and weight front I’ve been having a similar journey. I gained back about 7 pounds since hitting 180. I was definitely shaken up by my success and, actually, how easy it was. All I had to do was do things that felt great and then I would feel even greater and then it snowballed into super great time. But when I hit 180 and my body really began to feel so much like how it used to when I was fit… I guess I wasn’t quite ready and I back pedaled. Completely stopped being active and started eating crap again… it was bizarre. Then I tried to bully myself into doing my program again, telling myself that if I didn’t do it now, I wouldn’t be where I wanted when school started. It was ingeniously framed as motivational and empowering, but really it was just fear and future-tripping… black and white. I had forgotten about the joy I was feeling every day, in the present, at living an active and healthy life and feeling pretty every day. Well, thank the goddess, I finally remembered and have found my style again, and again it is easy. I bet that the next time it gets hard again, it will be because my old conditioning has slowly morphed my pleasure-oriented motivations into fear-and-shame-oriented self-bullying again. I am going to keep a look out for that, because it just doesn’t work, and it’s stressful as all hell. So the weight I regained is mostly gone and I’m on my way back down again, but that was a rough six weeks. Actually, writing about my philosophy through designing a culture in my novel has really helped me. As if a fictional group of people I designed somehow externally validate how I want to live my own life. Go figure. Maybe that’s what makes me a sci-fi/fantasy type person. Fiction is like distilled reality for me. Those of you who understand this will understand. And with that tautology, I end for now.
Killing time with creativity
2010 -
07.25
So I am basically waiting around until that company tells me if I got either of the two jobs I am in the running for. One of them is in the mountains hours away from Tokyo, so I’m hoping it’s the other one, but who knows. I should hear by Wednesday, and then training is just 2.5 weeks after that.
The good new is that my writer’s block, which has been in place since 1998, has begun to lift and I suddenly have at least 3 projects I’m working on: a silly rewrite of Pirates of Penzance that involves a Pirate Queen and a kickass Mabel, an autobiography, and a sci-fi/fantasy about ‘real’ inner children. The last two may be woven into one story, if I can manage to figure out how to balance factual authenticity and elemental truth. I also have some poetry and songs and music and visual art things rambling about up there, too. An anime might just be the perfect medium to blend all of this into.
It feels so good to be in this place again. When I was in high school it was assumed by a lot of people that I would end up as a professional creative writer, but, like my singing I never had the confidence or sense of refinement that would have allowed me to integrate feedback or to really polish a work of art into something I felt was, not finished, but settled into itself. It feels really right for me to be revving up my art-side again. I fear the power of this side of me; my talent and what I could communicate and share. It’s shocking when I get a glimpse of my own freed imagination, but hey, I said this journey is all about dis-inhibiting myself, so here goes.
And I think this is only partially related to losing my PDA as this process had already started a couple weeks ago, but hey, who knows.