Welcome to Gaia! ::

Savin knows what's goin' down.

Because I read "like a fiend" (the father of my best friend told me that recently), I'll comment a bit about the books I'm reading in my journal here, because my reading habits strongly influence my writing...

Anyway, I'm reading Dune right now, which rocks my sock-less feet. The world making that goes on in that book is amazing. I also love the way that Herbert introduces such bizarre customs and beliefs without much explanation. He just lets you gather what you need to know about how everything relates as you read. The functions and relationships between things are not outright stated... Of course, this is just a good example of good writing, but good writing always awes me a bit. Like "damn, I should write like that." Right. I should write like Frank Herbert. Word.

Having finished the Russian vamp book and started the Koontz book, I can now agree with my wife that the former is not, in fact, as good as the latter. And the latter is ******** awesome. I read the first ten chapters today before breakfast (true story) and was like "wow. I want to write like that."

The Russian vamp book was interesting in it's form, however, and I feel it deserves a note to that effect. And here is way I thought it was neat: the book was split into three parts, and each part was independent enough from the others that they almost could have been stand alones. They all presented a problem, had rising action, a climax, a solution, and a conclusion. So three mini-stories, but then the cool thing was that they built up into one larger arch that tied them all together. An interesting technique. I wonder if the second two books do similar things. The Night Watch is the first of three... Of course, the second two are not presently available to me, so I'll just wait till I get back to America-land to read them.

And now onto Koontz. Super rad.

Last night I went to a hippy hodown. It was good hippy fun dancing in the moonlight.

And the monsoon appeared to have begun this morning. I woke to thunder and pouring rain.

Okay, this is because this is a writing journal, not a blog. So here's a piece of writing: (written September 27, 200 cool


Watching a sunset


In a borrowed library book

I found a folded piece of paper,

A written schedule of someone else's life:

"Make breakfast" and "plan dinner"

"Do the ironing" and "pick up bread"

And on Tuesday evening:

"Watch the sunset"



Yesterday I watched the sunset

And found myself in awe of the sky

The vast sweeping expanse

Of dusky grays and blues

That linger after a rain

And the sun

Sunk behind a cloud

Against the horizon

Highlighting the clouds

In a way that would inspire painters

To pull out their watercolors

And try to capture the radiance

Of a moment



In a way that inspires poets

To pull out their pens

And try to capture the radiance

Of a moment…



I do not think the sky

Can be put down on paper

In watercolors or ink

So it's a good reminder

To go out on a Tuesday evening

And watch the sunset

To remind ourselves

Of the radiance

And magnificence

Of the sky.

So I've started my Nano novel, and it's rocking. Well, right now there are just a lot of camels, and some goats, and a few horses. But there is also a main character, and my word count is going well. I'm not writing every moment I have free, but I sit down every day (thus far) and write my allotted amount for the day, which is some 1,667 words, by the by. So if I keep that up, I'll be good. whee