Spider Prophet

It is too bright here. I am sitting in what used to be the cafe section of a food court on my college campus. Visiting the boyfriend as I wait for my new job to start, I figured I’d steal away to a place that used to be one of my favorite spots when I was attending school here. However, after a summer of redesigning the space, trying to find ways of opening it up, streamlining so that processing customers is faster as making selections is easier and the now claustrophobic space in which one picks one’s food makes the dominant desire not satisfying hunger, but getting away from all the other bodies.

Originally, the layout separated the cafe area from the eatery, giving the feeling that they were two distinct places–with different names, hours of operation and a small flight of stairs separating the two areas, this was not hard to believe. Hidden from direct sunlight and with lights that seemed to dim as the day went one, the cafe area usually carried a more muted tone than the eatery. The quiet subdued conversations being a wall that fought against the noise from the other side of the wall.

However, the dimness that I had welcomed as a writer is now gone. I’d always considered writing to be something that was done from dusk and onward. Almost like scrying into a bowl of water, it was about about trying to get clarity out of the murkiness. And submerging myself in it seemed like the best way to do this. I’ve never met anyone who felt that writing was something that was bright, or done without have to discern a concept, idea or sentence. Writing as enlightenment, often becomes the light with which darkness is banished, but that is only because it knows the nature of it so intimately.

However, though I may find the bright light attacking my right eye debilitating to the task I came here to do while he catches a few extra hours of sleep (battling is own light demons), I’m trying this new thing: not coming up for excuses to not write and read. I seem to have made a habit out of it, and hopefully I’ll be getting rid of the need to do that.

- Spider

I started writing again recently. Though something perhaps doesn’t require major broadcasting, I’ve been feeling so motivated that I needed to express it. It’s going slowly at the moment, but I suppose that what matters is that it is in motion at all.  But on to more amusing matters.

A Fanboys Moment

Hud went to Midtown Comics this Wednesday for our weekly comic book gathering. Though there are few titles that I read, there are the three or four books that I will make my way to midtown Manhattan to pick up. Having picked up our titles and browsing the shelves for possible future purchases, I mention to Hud:  

“Did you get my text about the BKV signing this week?” We start gabbing about the prospect of going to see a writer that we both have come to respect and whose projects we were holding in our hands at the moment. As we continue talking, we’re interrupted by a man on line to pay who says:  

“I was just walking behind him upstairs!” There is a look of understanding in his eyes, before he turns back and responds to the cashier asking if anyone is paying in cash. Jason and I look at each other, weighing our options. Next, we’re making our way to the back of the store and up the stairs when a short, bald man with a green button down shirt walks past us holding an action figure.

Jason does a 180 on the stairs, looks down at me and the man about to turn and points into the palm of his hand, mouth “That’s him”. “I think he saw me point at him,” Hud notes as we make it up the rest of the stairs. “Why did we just go up the whole way if we already saw him walk down?”  

“So we’d look less conspicuous?” I shrugged. 

We made our way back downstairs and got on line to pay for our books, noticing that BKV was perusing the aisles himself, and had been sideswiped by a fan. We kept our judgment of being one of those types of fans to ourselves as we walked closer to the register. Once we arrived, I noticed a strip of paper advertising BKV’s signing at Midtown Comics-East on Thursday. I proceeded to pass Hud the paper, and once we both paid, marveled at the fact that we’d both missed a huge poster with the BKV’s face on it, announcing the signing. 

“Fuck!” Hud says under his breath. 

“What?”

“I just pointed at the sign and turned and saw him looking at me point at the sign!” 

“Oh…” 

We made our way out of the store and downstairs to the street and laughed the moment we could hear the cars and people. We agreed that we had better leave before he came down the stairs and wondered about the two guys who seem to be following him, but lingered about trying to decide if he would remember us if we chanced a the book signing scheduled for the next day. As I started to complain about being hungry and lifted my arm in a gesture, I looked to my right and locked eyes with BKV as he walked out of the store. I immediately turned back to Hud and explained that we needed to know where to go eat, and BKV walked behind me and into the mass of people on 40th & Broadway.  

“Nice save. Where do you want to go eat?” 

“Anywhere that isn’t in that direction.” 

- Spider

Finding the motivation to write is sometimes the hardest part.

Personally, I would argue that writing is a lot like going to the gym. When you do it often and regularly, it makes you feel great. You’re mind is clear, you feel more motivated and you’re ready to go back for more. However, if you stop going for a week, the sluggishness takes over and you find that it is that much more difficult to make youself interval-jog at 7 AM.

There may be some readers who find such a statement odd. Shouldn’t writing be like this incredible experience that just flows from the writer? All that a scribe has to do is sit at a desk with a pen, typewriter or keyboard and they’re off! I think that this view is rather uncommon, if not implausible all together. We don’t all just free write with an inner monologue like Carrie Bradshaw.

I’d argue that most writers don’t experience that easy of a time when they write at all. In fact, I think that for most writers, writing is a lot of work, and if done right, kind of painful. To bring us back to the gym metaphor, and probably not unlike what the mind actually is, writing is exercising a muscle (not that anyone hasn’t heard this before, but some may have not, so work with me here). And no, I don’t mean your hand . When writing, one uses their brain similarly to how a person works out their biceps with a set of free weights. And if you’re doing it well, you’re upping the weights and getting more strength out of it. Yeah, the finished product looks great, but it takes a hell of a lot of work to get there.

And I guess the point of this, was to re-exercise my brain. Damn does that feel better.

- Spider

Tonight is the launch of the LWC}NYC (Literary Writer’s Conference) at the New School in New York City. As an intern for the organization running the event, I get to sit in on the various panels and discussions for the next few days, featuring various magazine editors, publishers, literary agents and, of course, writers.

The second event for the season (the first being a Spelling Bee featuring notable people from the literary scene) is meant to bring together (literary) writers from all over the area. Give them a sort of fundamentals boot camp in what they can expect as they try to break into the writing world, whether you do fiction, poetry or creative non-fiction, it’s a chance to get with other like-minded individuals with similar goals as you.

- Spider