pjthompson | Entries tagged with questions and answers

Random quote of the day:

“There ain’t no answer. There ain’t going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.”

—Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein: In Words and Pictures, ed. Renate Stendahl

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“Folly consists in trying to draw conclusions.”

—Gustave Flaubert, as quoted in Albert Camus, Notebooks: 1942-1951, tr. Justin O’Brien

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“I don’t have any solution but I certainly admire the problem.”

—Ashleigh Brilliant, Pot-Shot #759

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“I don’t have any solution but I certainly admire the problem.”

—Ashleigh Brilliant, Pot-Shot #759

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

I have been struggling and thinking and trying to formulate for months a way of explaining my odd admixture of rationality and belief. Most notably (and in long-winded fashion), here. It’s been itching at me ever since someone accused me of being irrational because I refused to slam the door shut on the existence of extraordinary possibilities. “No, that’s not it,” I wanted to say, but everything I came up with sounded defensive.

Then I heard a piece on NPR back in December that really nailed it for me. I’ve been meaning to blog about it ever since, but things have a way of getting away from me these days. I revisited the piece today, and Eric Weiner says everything I’ve wanted to say, only far more eloquently and succinctly than my own flailings. I urge you to read (or listen) to the entire brief essay. But here’s the encapsulating bit for me:

The debate between faith and reason is a false one. Science and religion don’t occupy the same turf. Saying, “Now that we have science, there is no reason for religion” is like saying, “Now that we have the microwave oven, we have no use for Shakespeare.” We need both, of course. Only then can we lead fully rounded lives.

—Eric Weiner, “A Quest To Seek The Sublime In The Spiritual,” National Public Radio, December 20, 2011

With all due respect to my atheist friends, I am never quite convinced by the arguments of people like Christopher Hitchens (and especially not Richard Dawkins). (And no, atheist friends, I don’t want to debate this with you. Use your own pulpit to preach your message.) What these gentlemen fail to comprehend is that religion is just the excuse for people to behave badly. If people didn’t have religion to use as a rationale for their prejudices and hatred, they’d find something else. The rise of environmental terrorists and animal activist terrorists proves this. Any cause will do if you are of a mind to create destruction and chaos and think your point of view trumps everyone else’s.

I don’t consider myself religious. I have no religious affiliation—although I have incorporated the views of many religions into my worldview. I consider myself spiritual. I consider myself a quester. I am comfortable with doubt as a part of my spiritual makeup. I think doubt is a healthy thing, and quixotic questions the ultimate spiritual guide. I accept that the universe doesn’t always make sense. It is a quantum paradise, with a seething mass of complicated questions that no facile answers can ever fully address. I am content that it should be so.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“It is possible for a handful of questions to break the bank of our answers.”

—Antonio Machado y Ruiz

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“It is possible for a handful of questions to break the bank of our answers.”

—Antonio Machado y Ruiz

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Here’s another writing question for you: does every genre story have to start in media res?

I think it may be a genre preference, and I do often enjoy stories that begin with a burst of speed, throwing the reader into the water and forcing them to swim or drown. Certainly, if you’re writing urban fantasy or paranormal romance or space opera or some such sub-genre, you’re probably going to want a quick immersion in plot.

But those aren’t the only kind of stories, and some of my favoritest stories in the world have not begun with a bang and a pop. They’ve built slowly, meandered through interesting character and setting introductions, created magic with language, ever so many lovely loads of language, and eventually, yes eventually, wandered up to the plot and politely shaken hands before throwing it to the mat and beginning the wrestling match.

I’m not sure those kinds of stories are in fashion anymore. But I would be interested to know what you think on the subject. This is another of those personal preference things, and there is no wrong or right answer, I don’t think. There is just what is, and what you think, and what the market will bear.

Or what the reader will bear.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

I need more questions for my FAQ for my website, so I'm throwing the floor open to questions here. The sillier the better, my friends. Grotesque, lame, halt, spacey...I am open to everything. Except serious. You can even ask me questions you'd rather ask someone else, since I'm pretty boring. Or one of my characters, if you're familiar with any of my writing.

Ask, ASK, ASK

Thanks.

p.s. I know I've been largely absent lately. Mostly because of busyness, though some of the busyness was monkey business, but that's another story. Regular blogging may return sometime soon.

Here's a touching scene for you from Arizona:

Q: What questions should I have on my FAQ?

A: Not the boring ones you've come up with yourself.

Q: Why not ask your friends?

A: Wow, you like to live dangerously.

Q: I guess I should call myself Danger Gal?

A: Or maybe not.

So, all right, friends, acquaintances, and drive-bys...I can't promise I'll answer everything with the utmost of truth, but I will answer questions to the best of my ability.

(This isn't really a meme. I really am writing a FAQ.)

Random quote of the day:

“Science doesn’t dependably deliver truths. It is as fallible as the men and women who undertake it. Science has the answer to every question that can be asked. However, science reserves the right to change that answer should additional data become available."

—Mary Roach, Spook

( Illustrated version. )

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."

—Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss)

( Illustrated version. )

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

So yesterday, the quote and the blog post pushed me one way, but on the drive home I heard The Girl On Her Way by Maia Sharp and that pushed me another. You can read the article and hear the song here (sorry, couldn't find a YouTube, et al.), but these are the lyrics that pushed me:

How long can she be the girl on her way
Before she's just the woman who never got there?
...Everything that almost came
Every spark that never made a flame...

So I don't know what the universe is telling me. I've been wondering that for a couple of months now. Maybe it's just a babbling random idiot, signifying nothing.

Maybe I need to redefine myself and my goals and stop worrying about the universe.

I have no answers. And don't really expect any from outside my own heart. That's the real crucible of hope, despair, or acceptance. All the answers are there, if we can just sort them out from amongst the rags and bones.

Here's a meme I got from

hominysnark, including the verbiage below (because I am a lazy swine). The answers to the questions and the voice, however, are my own.

"Voice posts are fun, right? You get to hear funny accents if your friends are from far, far away. All we really want is to hear your voice, we don't care what you're saying. So here's a list of typical meme questions that would otherwise be boring, but when communicated aloud - well, it's entertaining. Answer these questions in your post, and encourage others with voice-posting abilities to do the same." (Double dare!)

1) What's your name?
2) How old are you?
3) Where are you from? Are you living there right now?
4) Is it cold where you are?
5) What's the time?
6) What are you wearing?
7) What was the last thing you listened to?
8) What was the last thing you ate?
9) What was the last thing you watched on tv?
10) What's your favorite tv show? Why?
11) Quick! Find a book, or something with text on it! Flip to a random page and read some of it! GO!
12) What was the last movie you saw? How was it?
13) Do YOU think you have an accent? Talk about that.

Oh! And don't forget the irony, folks!

I've had a lot of time to think the last six days, having been home sick during that time with a low down stomach bug. That kind of thinking is not always such a good thing, especially when one has been sick as much as I have this year, but in this case I think it's been mostly productive. Oh, well, once I got over the "Whycan'tIgetoverthisImusthavesomethingfatal" bit. Had a nice talk with the pharmacist and she assured me that a number of people have had this and it does tend to hang on for awhile. So, once I knew I probably wasn't dying—at least, not in this moment in time—I got down to being philosophical.

Nothing as dangerous as philosophy.

My conclusion? I have been concentrating on one thing in my life to the exclusion of all others and I'm beginning to fray around the edges. Now, careerism can be a necessary thing, especially when one is, ahem, trying to build a career. But there does reach a tipping point when it begins to eclipse the quality of one's life. That's the time to ask yourself hard questions, and if the answers are also hard and not what you want to hear—I think you need to listen anyway. As far as we know or can prove, we only come this way once. Even if you believe in multiple lifetimes, the point of even multiple lifetimes is to learn from them. I don't know what you learn from turning yourself from a rounded human being to a walking career, except maybe "Don't do it."

I was having this conversation with a friend earlier. Her husband is truly ill, the kind of "get out of your career or you'll die" kind of sick. It's forced some very hard answers on him and I won't tell you the adjustment has been easy, but he's come to some kind of peace with what the universe has forced on him. Occasionally the old guilt and drive reassert itself, though. Old habits die hard. He said to her the other day, as if it was a bad thing, "It seems as if all I've done for the last year is sit in the back yard, observing nature." She looked him square in the eye and said, "People write books about sitting in the back yard for a year observing nature. Nobody writes books about sitting in a cubicle every day doing meaningless bureaucratic tasks. Nor should they."

My real life cubicle is not the problem in my life. It pays the rent and doesn't demand so much of me most of the time that I don't have head space and energy left over to do the things that are important to me. I like where I work and the people I work with. Not the problem. The problem is that I've erected a mental cubicle of a different sort and shut myself inside that. I really need to ask myself some hard questions about how I choose to live the rest of my life. Time has always been a finite commodity, it's just that most of the time, like most of us, I've ignored that and lived my life as if there are a million horizons ahead of me.

And then I fell asleep and I dreamed that a monkey came in the open window and s**t all over my bed while I was in the bathroom, but I couldn't stop to clean it up because I was running late for a business lunch with a woman named—wait for it—Dharma. And no, she wasn't anything like the ditzy braud from the TV sitcom. She was an intelligent, serious, straight-talking woman who looked me in the eye and wouldn't let me lie or prevaricate or pose.

So, if it's all the same to you, I won't be writing a paean to my cubicle, the real one or the mental one. I need to get out into the fresh air and take a deep breath. Maybe a thousand. I need to feel the sun on my face, wade my toesy through the soil or the grass or the ocean. I need to observe me some nature.

Current Mood: TL;DR
Current Music: Smells Like Teen Spirit (Featuring Steve Earle) - Patti Smith

Random quote of the day:

"At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want."

—Lao Tzu

( Illustrated version. )

Do they have paws? Or feet? Or claws?

I want to ask my friends three questions but right now my mind is in vaporlock from the rush here at work. I'll get there, I hope.

Quote of the day:

"The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones."

—Joseph Joubert

Writingness of the day: Apparently Charged with Folly got jealous of its brethren with the godawful complicated plots because in the last couple of weeks (especially this week), the plot has plunged straight into the plot complication wokka-wokka machine. So instead of a nice, straight-forward adventure romp--up the revolution!--it's turned labyrinthine on me. Appropriate, I guess, for a story with a labyrinth as its central metaphor. Also, apparently, the first half of the book is going to be a steampunk revolution and the second half is going to be a very strange, steampunk quest story. I can't conceive of writing this in one book, so perhaps I need to reconsider and start asking myself hard questions.

It occurred to me today that I don't seem to be able to write straightforward plots. They bore me. I seem to need the twisty-turny to entice me to spend that much time on one project. I don't mind reading straightforward plots, but . . . meh.

I've also been pondering whether I should just say, "F*** it!" and embrace my paranormal-romantic nature and pump out even more of the damned things. I don't want to write nothing but p-r, and the p-r I've written is hardly typical fare, but maybe it's more marketable? Or not, since I haven't sold anything. The reason I bring this up is because it occurred to me, while all the occurringness was going on, that a novel I wrote nearly 75k on before its central conceit collapsed on me in a pile of steaming guano, that I might possibly be able to salvage it as a werewolf story. The central metaphor there was all about wolves (the working title was even Brother Wolf, but that's way overused and will have to go) and I think I have a semi-original hook that could turn it paranormal on me. Worldbuilding to do and some rewriting, but I think most of the story can be salvaged.

Yeah, I know. There are almost as many werewolves out there as vampires (though not quite as many). Thing is, they're still selling, and people are still reading them. It would be nice to have another book done in a shorter amount of time than usual. It remains to be seen if I can pull anything of the sort off. Keep your skeptical spectacles on.

Because I'm on vacation and can meme if I want to.

( Behind a cut to save everyone. )

2004 meme. From

riemannia who got it from

yhlee.

On balance, a good year. But on my last day of work for 2004 I find myself to be very tired and so looking forward to Christmas break.

The year in review right here.

1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?

Got an editor to read my novel.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I can't remember what they were, but I actually stopped doing them some years back because I never kept them.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

5. What countries did you visit?

England.

6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?

A publication contract.

7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

April 20 when I left for England. Because it was a fun and soul-nourishing trip and because it was the first time I'd left L.A. in years.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Finishing my novel and two rewrites.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Going more deeply into debt and eliminating my surplus cash because my 17-year-old car finally died for good just before Xmas.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

A couple of very bad colds, but fortunately no return of major illness, no injuries.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

A fricking car. (But even though I hate the debt, it's nice having a new car.)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

KM Kibble, for his patience.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

George Bush.

14. Where did most of your money go?

A fricking car. And those credit card things. Oh, and the computer I bought which I wouldn't have bought if I'd known about the car, but I'm glad I have the computer anyway. The trip to England was saved up for two years in advance and increased my debt not at all.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Besides England? Writing-related things.

16. What song will always remind you of 2004?

Can't think of one.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? Happier. Despite the bit at the end it's been, on balance, a good year.

ii. thinner or fatter? Slightly thinner.

iii. richer or poorer? Poorer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Love affairs.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Worry and bitch.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

Quietly, with family. Nice.

22. Did you fall in love in 2004?

Sadly, no.

23. How many one-night stands?

With another person involved?

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Ghost Hunters.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

No. Rummy, George, Dick—I've pretty much hated them all along.

26. What was the best book you read?

Hmmm. The one that pops to mind most readily is The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce, but I think there were others.

27. What was your greatest musical (re)discovery?

Rapa Iti by the Tahitian Choir. AMAZING layering of voices.

28. What did you want and get?

A new computer.

29. What did you want and not get?

A publishing contract.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

Finding Neverland.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I went to work.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

See 29, above.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?

Is it clean and ironed?

34. What kept you sane?

(or what passes for) Writing.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Le Depp.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Don't even get me started. Iraq.

37. Who did you miss?

My dad.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Most of my new acquaintances were here online.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004.

Do not wash red socks with white clothes. Actually, I've known that one for years, but it bears repeating.

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Echoes in a Hollow Space

I'm here because I'm here because I'm here

Entries tagged with questions and answers

Say what?

Draw your own

Unsolving

Unsolving

I am a Quester

Que?

Que?

In media res: is it a genre requirement?

Ask me something silly—please?

Here's your chance to ask me embarrassing questions

An answer

'Tis the gift to be simple

Mixed messages

Voice Post Meme

A paean to my cubicle

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Viewing the world through skeptical colored glasses

40 questions

2004 Meme

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