wordwhacker

School's in, and I'm cracking open the ol' writing blog again for use in my "Media Living" class. We have to keep a journal throughout the semester wherein we talk about our media use, in conjunction with the course readings. Because I'm nice, I'll keep most of these under a cut so you can skip 'em if you want.

I'm going to kick things off with a "day in the life" view of my media usage. This should be great fodder for the start of a discussion about media addiction, maybe in a day or two. How convenient!

So you're asking yourself. "Cass - how DO you use media in your daily life?" Right? Of course you are.

Well, ( it goes a little something like this: )

You know what's a sign of writer's block? Not updating one's writing journal for over TEN MONTHS. Yeah.

Okay, so though I have been almost totally inactive, I haven't completely dropped off the writing map or anything. I did do (and win) NaNoWriMo last November, as indicated by my spiffy new icon. I also did Script Frenzy this April here in Sydney, and while I didn't finish my script (got about halfway there) I DID meet a bunch of completely awesome people who have, collectively and individually, helped inspire me to write again.

One concept to which I was (re)introduced recently was that of writing a million words. I've heard a few renditions on this one - that your first million words will be crap, so you might as well get them over with... that after you write a million words you will have a firm idea of what kind of a writer you are. And other variations on that theme. The thing that I like the most is that it's a goal - a BIG goal, though not so ridiculous as to be completely implausible. And it's a goal of quantity instead of quality. Like NaNoWriMo, this doesn't require for my words to be "good" - in fact, it's irrelevant whether they are or aren't. What matters is that they happen.

Even just counting my NaNo and Script Frenzy efforts, I have written in excess of 300,000 words. Tallying up my various short stories and unfinished projects I probably have 350,000 words under my belt. Which is not bad. But which can be significantly improved upon.

So I'm using that figure as my starting point, with an eventual goal of 1,000,000 total words. I'm aiming for 500 words per day - getting to a million words will take me about three and a half years at this pace. I might put a quick post up here every day, but it's more likely that I'll just keep track of it on my own most days and slap the graphic up here once a week or so. Expect to see more of me, at any rate.


Today I wrote 1,196 words in just under an hour.

351196 / 1000000 words. 35% done!

I'll talk about WHAT I'm writing later. Suffice it to say that it's an old idea, that it's a hell of a lot of fun, and that it's something I should have made myself finish a long, long time ago.

Okay. This is typical of me: lay down a bunch of goals for the summer and then suddenly realize that there's only a month and half left and I'm *way* behind. Le sigh. Didn't I do this last year? When will I learn?

Anyway, I do have SOME stuff done. I wrote a script in June, which in a roundabout way got me involved in a local theatre group that's putting on a festival next month. I'm acting again! It's gonna be fun!

I finished the hard-copy edits of Blue Goo. Now I need to go through the soft copy and impliment the changes I made or hinted at throughout. I also need to take a long, hard look at my characters and the settings, and decide whether I want to append a whole new section to the book and make it significantly longer. What could possibly be wrong with MORE wacky alien hijinx? But that would mean a total overhaul, so I'll probably work with what I have and then reevaluate later.

At the start of the summer I hinted that I was going to produce a finished short story every month, and post a writing exercise every week. I'm modifying this goal a bit: I'm going to have ONE finished short story to post by the end of the summer, and I'm going to dedicate an hour a week to working on it (more will probably happen, but I'm starting small.) I'll blog a little with my progress and possibly snippits that either please or annoy me. I'm also going to try to post a little writing exercise every day, mostly challenged by eternalism. Mostly I want to get in the habit of writing every day.

So with that in mind, here's a short one that very few people will actually understand:


( Whopper - 150 words, first draft )

I have, thus far, dropped the ball on doing a writing exercise once per week. Clearly I need to set aside a particular period in which to do this silly thing. I have no self-discipline. NONE.

I finally took a swipe at the last exercise I posted, though, whose results you are welcome to view below. I chose to write on:

( 387 - Hamburger shop on wheels eats up family funds )

I originally went into this exercise wanting to concentrate on description, but instead it wound up being about detail. I may come back to this setting at some point and play with this exercise a little more. I have John Steinbeck on the brain and I think it shows, not that I'm suggesting it's anywhere near as good - just similarly-minded in its intent (this is something that it might be fun to work toward, if I come back to this - getting feelings across with ostensibly neutral descriptions and physical details.)

Now to get back to work on the short story I fully intend to actually finish before the month is out, as well as that novel I should be editing.

With May in full swing, I think it's about time for me to outline my writing goals for the summer. So here they are, in point form:


Point: I'm reading and critiquing at least two short stories every week at Critique Circle.

Point: I will post the results of some writing exercise or other at least once a week. The point of these things is going to be to work on aspects of my writing that need work - namely, description and... well, everything except dialogue. And sometimes dialogue.

Point: Once a month, probably toward the end of the month, I'll post a finished short story. It'll be a relatively polished draft but will likely need a lot more work.

Point: In June, I will also write a screenplay or stage play for Script Frenzy. I probably won't post it but I WILL post my angstings about it, whcih should be delightful family fun for all.

Point: By the end of the summer, I will have a completed third draft of Blue Goo, which is my adventure novel about 12-year-olds and aliens. This is an involved-enough task that I'm gonna break it down into Sub Points.

- Sub Point: By the end of May, I will finish going through Draft 2 with my big shiny red pen.
- Sub Point: Also by the end of May, I will flesh out my characters and settings, possibly even with hilarious drawings. If I have a working scanner at any point, I may share them.
- Sub Point: I will absolutely not look at the book at all in June, when I'll be busy scriptwriting.
- Sub Point: In July and August, I will edit/rewrite the novel as necessary, to be completed before I go back to school in September.

This will probably be far from a final draft, but that's to be expected. I just hope the thing has a decent shape and feels more lively once I get to this point.

Point: I'm going to read a lot this summer. Everything from all-out fluff to John Steinbeck. This is going to include some really good children's lit, which hopefully will inspire me re: my crazy book endeavour.

I'd say that I'm sad to see the end of this course, but I'll admit it - I'd be lying. Not that it was't interesting and enjoyable, but is it EVER gonna be nice to have a break. I've had my fill of 18th century plays for this year, thanks.

While I was reading this one it struck me in terms of something I'd read while researching my paper for this class. The visibility of women was a growing concern (for men, though I'm sure it caused its fair share of concern for women who have to *deal* with men... which is just about everybody). Let me see if I can find a quote and the source and all of that jazz.

We can see in the Restoration era, alongside the indulgence of theatricality for which the period is primarily known, concerted efforts to curtail self-fashioning--particularly women's self-fashioning--and to assert a prior, pre-existing self that is bodily determined. A burgeoning awareness of the theatricality of all individual identity was countered by an insistence upon the legibility and indelibility of bodies. Displacing anxiety, perhaps, about the fixity and validity of their own self-fashioned identities, men wrote with alarm (or mock alarm) about the instability and falsity of women, and sought both to demonstrate and to limit those qualities in women's bodies. (p 32)
Pritchard, Will. "Masks and Faces: Female Legibility in the Restoration Era." Eighteenth-Century Life 24.3 (2000): 31-52. . 03/14/2007.

Okay. so in this quote we're talking about the Restoration era. This is about a hundred years later, so it's important to project this kind of thought forward a bit. Sir George in The Belle's Stratagem seems to have a certain awareness of the ability for women to "self-fashion" and obscure their "pre-existing", "bodily determined" self. His discomfort with it comes across as being ridiculous:

SIR GEORGE.
Heaven and earth! with whom can a man trust his wife in the present state of society? Formerly there were distinctions of character amongst ye: every class of females had its particular description. Grandmothers were pious, aunts discreet, old maids censorious. But now aunts, grandmothers and girls, and maiden gentlewomen are all the same creature; a wrinkle more or less is the sole difference between ye.

MRS. RACKET.
That maiden gentlewomen have lost their censoriousness is surely not in your catalogue of grievances.

SIR GEORGE.
Indeed it is, and ranked amongst the most serious grievances. Things were well, madam, when the tongues of three or four old virgins kept all the wives and daughters of a parish in awe... empowered to oblige every woman to conform her conduct to her real situation. You, for instance, are a widow: your air should be sedate, your dress grave, your deportment matronly, and in all things an example to the young women growing up about you; instead of which, you are dressed for conquest, think of nothing but ensnaring hearts, are a coquette, a wit, and a fine lady. (II.i.233-263)

I have more to say, but I'm posting what I have now to make sure I don't lose it or something. (I'm writing as I read - first time I've tried that.) Stay tuned. Or, y'know, go do more interesting things.

[EDIT] Okay! Having lounged about in bed this morning eating fruit dipped in cream cheese topping and reading 18th century drama, I've finished the play. Talk about going out in style. Would somebody please explain to me why I haven't read ALL the plays this way?

Anyway. Sir George expressing anxieties about women's "readability" and image turned out to be a great set-up for the masquerade scene later on. I liked the way both plots turned at this point. Lady Frances gets a glimpse of the kind of usage she's privy to as a "fashionable" lady; Letitia strolls in and thoroughly uses Doricourt. I think it's nice that the only man to really effectively be "disguised", Courtall, is the one who winds up thoroughly punished for his scheme; the women in disguise - Letitia and Kitty - fair pretty well. This could be hearkening to a certain idea that women are more "deceptive" by nature and therefore are better at using disguise, but Courtall helps to counter that thought - I think instead we're seeing something like what happens in The Rover, where disguise = manipulation of image = a reasonable avenue of agency for women in society.

Thinking along these lines, the final scene opens up some interesting insights into where society is in 1780 as compared to the Restoration and the turn of 18th century. First off, Doricourt's deception was short-lived and wound up making him a laughing stock. In comparison, Hardy's feigned death and Letitia's re-entrance in disguise completely throw him for a loop. His decision to play a madman to get out of his marriage is telling: he's impassioned and rash, Letitia - even though she's head over heels for him - is in control of herself, charming, calm and reasonable. The other women in this play are similarly civil and witty, even though they're uncouth widows and such who are all huntin' for a man.

Back to Sir George for a minute. Even though he and Lady Frances eventually reconcile and, for the most part, wind up where they were before, there's the sense that they each appreciate the other's point of view a little more - and there's some emphasis placed on their "mutual affection" and of their union being more important to their social image. Say what? Do I sense some Romantic sensibilities creeping into the text? I wondered that, too, when I was reading about all the places the charming, worldly masquerade-caricature of Letitia was willing to go and the things she'd do for Doricourt: "I'd change my country, my sex; feast with him in an Eskimo's hut or a Persian pavilion; join him in the victorious war dance on the borders of Lake Ontario or sleep to the soft breathings of the flute in the cinnamon groves of the Ceylon" (IV.i.320-25).

The North American references particularly jumped out at me, though I'm not sure what side of the "victorious" war they're talking about (this IS after the Americans gained independence, though just barely. Which side of Lake Ontario are they dancing on, anyway?)

There seems to be some emphasis, too, on women as being wonderful when they're worldly - though Doricourt's ending monologue seems to confuse that sentiment somewhat:

DORICOURT:
My charming bride! It was a strange perversion of taste that led me to consider the delicate timidity of your deportment as the mark of an uniformed mind or inelegant manners. I feel now it is to that innate modesty English husbands owe a felicity the married men of other nations are strangers to. It is a sacred veil to your own charms; it is the surest bulwark to your husband's honor. And cursed be the hour, should it ever arrive, in which British ladies shall sacrifice to foreign graces the grace of modesty! (V.v.314-24)

So. If I'm reading this right, British women appear cute and modest but are actually awesome and worldly. It's England's best kept secret. Don't let Frenchmen steal them away!

For the record, I should say that I get a kick out of the extreme superficiality that Masquerade scenes in general engender. Nobody recognizes age-old friends, wives, sisters, brothers... pop on a mask and it's all okay! Of course, I'm under the impression that masks covered a lot more of the face, and when wigs were really in-style someone could change up their hair and come across quite differently. (They might not go that far on stage, though - after all, the audience has got to know who's who.)

So finally, we come to the time of year when Lydia and I get to do a presentation for this class. It's going to be hard to follow up all of the awesome stuff people have already presented, but I hope we'll have enough A) campy fun and B) interesting facts to keep people happy. Hint: No snuffboxes, but we do have rioting footmen and Monty Python-esque episodes of theatrical destruction to talk about.

Anyway, since I have been blogging and commenting religiously throughout the term, AND since I have a presentation for this play that I'm sort of consumed by and therefore unable to think of different ways to talk about, I am not blogging about this play. Yet. But stay tuned for the "Making Of" the project, which I'll probably post on Friday FROM HOME because there's no school, neener nener.

Now I need to disappear back into a paper-writing frenzy, so I shall bid you all adieu.

I went to see No Exit last night. I went in fully expecting to want to throw myself in front of a car when I walked out of the theatre, so I was pleasantly surprised that the play's subject matter didn't depress me overly much. What can be bad about a baby-killing lady and a cheeky femme fatale who wants her? And a cowardly journalist just to round things out. Love triangles don't usually do much for me but I have to appreciate one that turns the tables a little, y'know?

There wasn't much in the line of sets to talk about, so I'll talk about shoes instead. When in doubt for where to look, I looked at the shoes. Did they not rock? Seriously. I would want a pair of Dr. J's shoes if I wore that kind of thing. (As it is, I'll settle for wanting the kind of lady who would wear 'em. Rrrowr.)

It was... weird... that the lights weren't working right. Usually I feel snug and safe in theatres, because I am in one of two positions: either EVERYBODY is looking at me (if I'm on stage), or NOBODY is looking at me. But with the house lights on I felt all naked or something. It was especially strange in the first play, Wild Abandon, when for a good long time I sustained actual eye-contact with the actor. Weird! Creepy! Not normal!

But then again, I can't imagine how strange it was for the actors, who can usually rely on that foggy blackness to shroud the audience and make them a little less... right there staring at you.

So after catching up on the blog situation, I've decided to award¹ a blog entry every week with the honourable, very distinctive, holy-crap-I-just-made-this-up, "LOL Blog" of the week award.

This week's winner:

"Women couldn’t just go out and wail a hatchet into some Libertine’s face, though, because not only would she be likely to be overpowered by someone who did not have to wear a corset, she’d be socially ostracised. Or hanged, or something. All very discomforting."

Also, Jay get an honourable mention for his Restoration-flavoured pick-up lines. My favourite? "And now, my dear, we’ll go in and make my master’s bed."


And here's a winner from a couple of weeks ago:

"I do not think that it is a coincidence that Rowe’s play ends on the page 666 of our text book and I suspect that Satan indirectly manipulated Nicholas Rowe to create this abysmal play as a means to torture future English undergradutates such as myself and lead them to commit suicide, so as to escape the world that created such bad art."

Congratulations! You win whatever change² I have in my pocket in class next week, and a healthy dose of A-1 brand karma.



¹ Not really. Commemorate might be a better term.
² Toonies and Loonies exempt.

You know what's funny? Even though I speak french fluently, I always want to pronounce the title of this play as "Box" instead of "Beau". As my late great grandma would've said, "don't tell me why!"

So I'm back after a week that was iffy in the productivity department but definitely good in the "getting out of my house and socializing" department. I apologise, folks, I haven't perused the blogs over the past week, but I will definitely be reading and commenting in the days to come. I didn't want to read them before I made my blog post because I would get intimidated and then be rendered incapable of producing independent thoughts on the play. I'm weird like that.

In the same way that The Fair Penitent was a nice change because it was a tragedy, I must admit that it was refreshing to go back to a good ol' comedy. Marriage plots and hijinx, and hardly a hint of suicide! It also felt long after the breeze of a read that was TFM, but the interweaving plots were fun and engaging. I admit, I liked Archer. He was such a preposterous servant - I knew from the second he came on that he was putting it on, as the saying is. (Yes, I've decided that I'm stealing Bonniface's verbal tic. I like verbal tics, so long as they're not too intrusive, especially if I'm watching a play. I think they go a long way toward making a character "pop".)

What I was particularly interested in, though, is the divorce plot, definitely an interesting twist so far. From what we've read, divorce only seems to happen when someone gets cuckolded. Farquhar doesn't pull many punches in his depiction of a rotten husband. Sullen practically oozes onto the stage whenever he comes around, and Mrs. Sullen comes across as a woman utterly a class above her husband.

Which (to digress for a minute) brings out another issue in this play - the "city people vs country bumpkin" theme, which Aimwell and Archer factor into as well. Lady Bountiful and Dorinda come across as a bit dim but well-intentioned and witty enough to keep up with Mrs. Sullen. Aimwell and Archer outsmart most everybody eventually, and Sir Charles sweeps in from the city at the end of the play, in order to save the day. In that group, then, there's the general feeling that "country folk" = "innocent/sheltered", contrasted withi "city folk" = "witty/worldly". Interestingly, in the other group (the denizens of the inn) the Count and the priest - who should arguably be more "cultured" - are portrayed as fools among Bonniface's more crafty crowd. Aimwell and Archer manage to outwit and overpower them when the groups clash, of course. Guess you just can't beat good breeding.

Anyway, back to the marriage thing. As much as they complained about each other, I extremely enjoyed any conversation Mr and Mrs Sullen had. My favourite was the one from Act V:

MRS. SULLEN.
Spouse.

SULLEN.
Rib. (V.iv 225-226)

I laughed out loud, really I did.

Tthe introduction for this section talks about how radical a divorce based on "irreconcilable differences" would have rocked the early 18th century world. From what we've read, I can believe it. One thing that hasn't changed, though, is the lack of female agency involved in this divorce. Mrs. Sullen spends the better part of her lines complaining, but, like a good wife and respectable lady, she's unwilling to sacrifice her (or her lousy husband's) honour for a pithy thing like "happiness". Obviously there are practical reasons for this - getting caught would lead to all kinds of hell. But even taking that into account, for all the complaining she does, not one single action that she takes in this play factors into the eventual divorce.

So who handles it all? Why, her brother and her husband, of course. They have a nice chat about it. And what about her dowry and documents and the like? Gibbet and Archer were the only ones to handle it - and when they hand it over to someone, that "someone" is Sir Charles.

Not that I'm, y'know, surprised or anything. Women do the talking, men do the acting. All is right in the world, apparently. (Did that come out sounding bitter? :-D)


Number of plays read: 8
Ladies-dressed-as-boys: 5 (Yeah, so my essay is going to have something to do with disguise, particularly transvestitism as a means for female agency. So I can live with the current lack of breeches roles.)