#the hour and what is dead

[acorrespondence]

32 and 23 :)

23. Describe the physical environment in which you write. Be as detailed as possible. Tell me what’s around you as you work. Paint me a picture.

Oh this is very difficult because I write fiction pretty much exclusively on my phone! I don’t require a consistent writing space, and pretty much the only constant between my many writing environments is a way to avoid or block out distracting sounds. I’ve written in my bed across 4 different houses and apartments, on couches in the same, on trains and buses and in the passenger- or backseats of cars; on porch swings, tree swings and fire escapes; even in hammocks in the woods. For me, being distracted by things around me is actually a pretty important part of my writing process—or maybe it’s more the ability to use those things to distract myself. I like to be surrounded by interesting things to focus on when my mind wanders or when I need to puzzle something out or take a little brain break.

Near where I grew up, there’s a little public park at the base of a dam. It’s not a park in the traditional sense; there’s no grass, and the area around the river is steeply inclined and thickly forested. Huge rocks jut up from the base of the falls, and continue down along the river, and in the summer when it’s dry, or when the dam hasn’t been running, the water collects in the deepest crevices and leaves most of the bedrock bare. Deep gouges scar the stone, vestiges of the dynamite boring holes they used to level the ground there and give the dam waters somewhere to fall. The river splits around several towering shelves of rock that stand much higher, and on one of those shelves lies a giant felled tree, a good six feet of trunk hanging out over the river, lifted some fifteen or twenty feet above the riverbed. I used to walk out onto the log and sit or lie at the end of it and write. I also liked to climb down and sit on the lower rocks close to the water. I’ve always been drawn to moving water, mostly for sensory reasons—the sound of it, the reflection and refraction of the sunlight as it tumbles over itself and the rocks and roots in its path. Anyway, that’s probably my favorite place I’ve gone to write.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

Another hard one! Usually the reason I’m struck by lines in fics and novels and poems is inextricable from the context they’re written in, so isolating them from that context takes away some of their power in my mind. My brain is always trying to make connections—I dislike simplification. So if something specific strikes me in a piece of writing, it’s usually in a specific context or in connection to something else. I’m also not a very inventive or innovative person. Most of my creative output is more focused on synthesis and reframing. I guess what sticks with me more are conceptual threads shared across multiple perspectives, the little things that connect stories and memories and pieces of writing that maybe on the surface don’t seem to share much in common—and often these things end up threaded through my own writing.

One of my favorite poems is “The Hour and What Is Dead.” Here’s the first stanza: “Tonight my brother, in heavy boots, is walking / through bare rooms over my head, / opening and closing doors. / What could he be looking for in an empty house? / What could he possibly need there in heaven? / Does he remember his earth, his birthplace set to torches? / His love for me feels like spilled water / running back to its vessel.” In high school, we read Beloved by Toni Morrison, along with its companion essay, “The Site of Memory.” That essay contains the following quote: “You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. ‘Floods’ is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, that valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place. It is emotional memory—what the nerves and the skin remember as well as how it appeared.”

These two excerpts and the connection between them caught in my mind, and together led to this piece of narration from one of my current WIPs: “Raylan . . . scoots over. ‘Come on then, get up,’ he says, resigned, and reaches out to steady her as she climbs up on the bed. She scrambles in beside him, Boyd following after. Raylan loses his breath a little, winded, as she burrows her head under his ribs, the place she’s always trying to get to—like spilled water running back to its vessel, though it’s hardly where she came from. Boyd moves nearer, closing her in like a comma between parentheses. They sleep.” This paragraph in my fic is in conversation with both those other excerpts, and mirrors their themes of love/memory/familial relationships. My intention with the story as a whole is to explore inherited trauma, inter-generational relationships, systems and cycles of violence/crime/poverty/abuse, and the idea of Harlan living on in Raylan (and Boyd) and passing to his children through him—how it’s reflected in this child who had never stepped foot there in her life prior to the beginning of this story. It’s just one line, fleeting and fairly inconsequential, but I think something about it brings to mind these themes. Several people remarked on having enjoyed that line in particular, so at least there’s that.

So, whenever a line sticks with me, this is what my brain does with it. I know no one reading the story is going to make these connections, but they both fit in with the themes and ideas I’m constantly preoccupied by, and therefore constantly worrying at in my writing. And I do feel like it helps me to clarify those themes for myself and anchor them in the story, even if the references aren’t recognizable to readers.

(Questions here)

[spacedlexi]

"sounds nice... having a partner"

[heartorbit]

just how can i protect your smile?

[bidaryl]

you're from america? place called the commonwealth, right? i found your tape recorder. how did you come to be in france? a bunch of bad decisions.

THE WALKING DEAD: DARYL DIXON —1.01; L'âme Perdue

[ganondoodle]

weird lanky raisin man (affectionate)

(radahn, elden ring)

[scificrows]

i made a few silly little ART phone backgrounds in the spirit of the inofficial fandom shenanigan renaissance! thank you so much for inspiring me to do this @the-yearning-astronaut!

[rontra]

night shift (+ variant)

.

playing around w stipple beast

[brokentelevision]

Pondering my orb (hamster)

[hoofpeet]

noh my scarvio save died on my old laptop ...

[risetherivermoon]

shoutout to matt arnold for mentioning the fact the teens are married at every chance he gets, hes keeping me alive

[anna-scribbles]

do you think émilie agreste knew, on the day she became too weak to leave that house, that she never would again

[gascansposts]

I’m normal

It’s normal to do this for sure

Anyways new dpxdc au anyone?

[medicalunprofessional]

the phoenix

[zer0point5ive]

[solargeist]

Wait students protesting? Context pls?

University students are protesting on campus for Palestine, either in solidarité or to pressure their university to divest in israel's genocide on palestiniens.

the two i see often are Columbia in New York and Sorbonne in France

The students of Columbia University took over Hamilton Hall, which hasn't happened since another student protest in the 60s

The flag says "Hind's Hall" after a six year old Palestinien girl who was killed along with ambulance by israel.

[shower-phantom-ideas]

Danny saving Villians because he doesn’t want them as ghosts in his realm.

“I aint letting you bring that into my house nuh uh”