Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Twelvers Surround Me.

See, here's the thing about my work that some people don't understand: When I write weird shit, many times even I don't know what I'm talking about. As a sci-tech-gasming civilization, I feel that the West is far too hung up on explanations. Even the people who believe in magic need sufficient magical explanations for whatever "miracle" they think they've witnessed.

Fuckin' chill, people!

This is not what my work is about. I can't always see what's happening in my head before I write it. Sometimes I let the words flow before I know what they mean. Look at the title of today's entry. Twelvers surround me. What the fuck does that mean? I don't know. Maybe you thought I knew when you started and you hoped that I might explain it to you. I can't. I don't feel that everything has to be explained. Those old radio show afficionados consider their medium superior to television because it makes the listener use his or her imagination.

Same here.

Admittedly, today's title is floating out there, insulated from any context. It was an example. This is what I do sometimes. Words pop into my head and I write them down. They don't necessarily mean anything. What interests me, is generating something in your head. Look at this excerpt from my story, The Golem (from this very blog):

Their dream scribbling programs brought into existence frenetic insects made of pure thought which tore at his smoking bones of living granite until geysers of molten marrow sprayed from the cracks. The bugs steamed up to the sky in scattering wisps of ideas.

I don't really know what the hell these insects are exactly. That doesn't matter. What matters is that something weird and wondrous is going on and I can half understand it, not when I try to analyze and pick it apart, but when I catch it in the peripheral vision of my mind. Something wicked cool is happening out there on the edge of my comprehension. What images pop up into your skull when you read this? What concepts of your reality are twisted? Don't comment and tell me because I don't really give a shit. I don't need the explanation. I just need to know that I felt something weird and nebulous and that hopefully you did too. And I hope we had two different experiences.

Read my fiction for the sheer experience of the words and images and feelings they generate. Don't read my fiction for some scientifically plausible world or ordered universe. There are thousands of others who are already giving you that. If you didn't want something different, then what are you doing here?

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