Randomness
March 26, 2008 by Michael
I was surfing the Internets recently (like I do for most of my waking hours), and I came across this nugget of wisdom:
Writing is 1% inspiration and 99% not being distracted by the Internet…
I cannot emphasize enough how true that statement is for me (and too many others). When I have something important to do (usually a big paper, or story, or article, or report, or something related to my increasingly useless-looking major), I freakin’ waste time in every way imaginable — everything from blogging, music, driving around after I convince myself I have to go somewhere, doing laundry and not folding the clothes for hours, etc.
Half the time, the internet and my computer are what keep me occupied. And I’m either blog-hopping, reading about music and bands ad nauseum, or going on a never-ending train of “Hmm…I’ve always wondered about that, I’ll look it up!” Then I go to bed cussing myself out for wasting the whole day away, and I vow never to do it again. The next night usually ends the same way.
On another note (pun most enthusiastically intended), are there any songs with “Michael” in the title or lyrics? Seriously…it’s one of the most common names ever and for most of my life I’ve always had to deal with being “the other Michael” (or variations on “Michael #1, 2, or 3..”; or having to go by “Mike,”"Mikey” or the full “Michael Kim/Mike Kim”) in almost every class, job, room, or general vicinity of existence.
And yet, how come it’s so freakin’ hard to find an equal surplus of “Michael” songs?! Life sucks. I only know one “Michael” song off the top of my head, and it’s Franz Ferdinand’s song of a homosexual dancing frenzy. (They wrote a song about a gay friend named Michael who went to a club one night, I think.) An excerpt from the song:
Michael you’re the boy with the leather hips sticky hair, sticky lips, stubble on my sticky lips. Beautiful boys on a beautiful dance floor, Michael you’re dancing like a beautiful dance whore.
It’s actually a very catchy tune but I am looking for a “Michael” song that is more in line with who I am. (I am no “beautiful dance whore.”) I’m tired of everyone else having their own little name songs…like this one girl I knew back in Texas. Her name’s Annie. She has Ben Folds’ awesome song, “Annie Waits.” Or my other friend, Johny. Although his name is spelled kind of weird, he has Chuck Berry’s (and Marty McFly’s) “Johnny B. Goode.”All I have for now is Franz Ferdinand’s “Michael.” And I still have to deal with every other guy (and newborn) having the same name as me.
While I’m feeling annoyed and slighted, I’m going to go on to my next random topic. I have my share of annoyances and pet peeves…and will vent some of them now.
1. People who drive with their high-beams on.
Seriously…why do you people do this? I know many people don’t realize they’re on but c’mon, I know the majority of people do know — and they do it anyway. In my experience it’s usually the young kids or the middle-age to retiring age people who do this. The young kids do it because it looks cool? And the old people do it because they can see better. Well hell, quit being so damn insecure, kids, and quit being so damn selfish, old people. You do realize you’re annoying and dangerously distracting EVERY CAR in front of you when you have those damn things on. Okay, so perhaps many don’t know their high-beams are even on…you still have no excuse. Please learn the basic functions of your car.
2. People who don’t use turn signals
All right, I live in southern California…my whole list can be comprised of complaints about traffic and driving. (I can’t imagine having to drive in places like NYC.) But this one is just as annoying as #1. If you’re going to drive like an idiot anyway, the least you can do is give a few seconds of advance warning to everyone you’re putting in danger. Even if you don’t drive like an idiot, you should still use your damn turn signal — it’s not that hard. Why the hell don’t you use it people!?
3. When people get offended so easily these days.
People playing the race card, or the sexist card, or the religion card, or whatever card so eagerly. I understand that there are all too many things for which there is a reason to get offended and act on it. But not everything is racist or sexist or classist or anything-ist. Sometimes, that’s just how it happened and nothing more. Or it’s not even offensive and you’re just being offended.
4. My horribly inconsistent internet connection (I put this in here so I won’t look like I hate people that much. I actually kind of like people.)
I could be talking to someone on an instant messenger, diligently keeping vigil over potential fantasy basketball moves, trying to blog on here, trying to upload batches of files to put on this blog, checking comments for this blog, emailing, downloading/uploading torrents, or, umm, doing some school work…and my internet will find a way to fail. I hate it. I’ve actually seriously considered moving many times in the past six months solely based on my inconsistent internet connection.
I am an obsessive post/comment editor. But I’ve been wondering…is there a certain unspoken rule about that? Is it ever not okay to edit your own posts and comments? I do it all the time. There are many times in social situations in the “real world” where I do or say something and I look back a few minutes, hours, or days afterwards and think “Dammit! I’m so stupid. I wish I could do that over.” With blogging, I can! So I do.
I look back and I make little tweaks when I wish I could’ve said something better, or if I phrased something wrong, or if I just wasn’t as witty as I originally thought I was (then I change it back when I realize my edit wasn’t that witty either). Just grammatical mistakes themselves make up about 50% of my edits. I’ve even edited another person’s comment on my Quiet Company post.
Songs of the Day: (A massive, unprecedented amount of songs for today’s edition!)
Guns N’ Roses - “Anything Goes”
Elliott Smith - “No Name #3″
Franz Ferdinand - “Michael”
Ben Folds - “Annie Waits”
Chuck Berry - “Johnny B. Goode”
Spoon - “Idiot Driver”
Headlights - “Some Racing, Some Stopping”
Kings of Convenience - “Misread”
The White Stripes - “Offend in Every Way”
Sufjan Stevens - “Dear Mr. Supercomputer”
Director - “Reconnect”
The Beatles - “Fixing a Hole”
The Velvet Underground - “That’s the Story of My Life”
ok, I have three comments:
A) the statement about the 99% distraction time is probably too generous. Seriously, I never even watch TV anymore because I am sucked into the endless loop of “researching” ideas and topics.
B)There are no songs with Kristiane in them, and never will be. I can accept this as then there cannot be a BAD song with my name in it, though there will never be a good one too.
C)I, for whatever reason, have not one time had an issue with my internet connection since I moved about nine months ago. I would knock on wood right now but I am in class and the room is full of concrete and molded plastic. Whoops.
I used to be like that too. But once I realized how blurry my future was, I was forced to learn to prioritize my life.
Kristiane: Your name would be a really tough one indeed to find a song for. But it’s still pretty unique as it is. I, on the other hand, am stuck with a name that is way too common, and yet there aren’t many songs for it at all. But you bring up a good point. With such a common name, I should be thankful that there hasn’t been an explosion of bad songs written about it.
leafless: Prioritize my life? I could do that later…right now, I’m going to check out some youtube videos and procrastinate some more =)
…while I’m at work.
Your first paragraph describes what I consider my unpaid day job. The internet makes me smarter, yet stupider at the same time. I’m supposedly writing a novel and sometimes in the middle of the process I would get a random thought that I can’t help but to look up. I love information and useless facts that typical people never use. I also like looking up trash on reality tv stars and my favorite music videos from childhood on youtube.
Sometimes I would be looking up something specifically for my novel and end up reading random garbage for three hours. For example, I was supposed to be looking up common languages spoken in West Africa and translators for them (rare) and some how ended up becoming fascinated looking at the American dollar drop real time and related economy stuff for three hours. WTF?
What I do to help that problem is I turn off the internet sometimes (meaning hardly ever) so that when I click on firefox and get a blank page I know I’m not connected because whatever I’m thinking most like has nothing to do with my story and I force myself to focus again.
I don’t know if that’ll help you, but it’s worth a try. It actually works for me when I do it.
I have tried that…but then I just connect the internet again. I had wireless where I live so it’s just a mouse click decision.
You’re experiences are dead-on. It’s so damn easy to get distracted. I almost think that all those old writers had it easy with just a typewriter, ink ribbon, and some paper.
Although, I’ve had some luck lately because the wireless router is broken and I’ve had to connect through an actual cable. This router happens to fail a lot for me and I have to bother the guy who rents out the room next to me to reset the router (the router’s in his room).
So…I usually figure I’ll get some work done instead of dealing with the hassle of asking for a reset…especially late at night, when I do most of my time-wasting. This has been working out marvelously for me. I’ve heard talks that the router may have to be moved to my room. That will be the end of me.
(What is your novel about?)
I’m actually writing two and taking my sweet, sweet time with them. One is high fantasy the other is urban fantasy. The one I’m concentrating on now is the urban one, though I’m at about chapters 18 in the high fantasy. That one is so complicated that it frustrates me and I take month long breaks from it.
I don’t want to go into much detail about them online because both of them contain ideas and beings I have never seen in any fantasy novel to date and I want to keep it that way. If a book is published that contains my fantasy people (or something like them) before I get to do it, I’ll be pissed. It’s not the typical fantasy with magic, elves, dragons, witches, vampires, and werewolves. I’m sick of reading about those. In the high fantasy I created my own type of people with their own world in which the main character must fight against an accepted form of social injustice.
The urban fantasy is about a new race of people in THIS world. They are separated from the rest of humanity where few know they actually exist. The main character in this one is must also struggle against a form of social injustice within her own society, but she’s not going to try to gain acceptance. She going to go through a whole lot of crap… She won’t get her acceptance at the end, but she’ll get something else. This ones seems easier on me write because I know how I want everything to play out vs the other while I’m 18 chapters in, I still don’t know wtf I’m doing with it.
Wow…not one but TWO novels in progress!
I, like everyone else and their moms, have the dream of writing a novel one day. It’s cool to know that you’re actually doing it.
Novels are too big of a scope for me right now. I have enough trouble with short stories and stuff like that. Maybe I could gather up enough material for a novella or something. Maybe.
Both of your stories seem like they’ll end up being complex and enjoyable…and carry some substance too. I’m sure you’ve heard this, but you know, it’s oftentimes the ones that we have no clue where it’s going until we write it that turn out to be our best work. Personally speaking, knowing how everything will play out is one of my biggest weaknesses, I think.
Let me know when you win the Nobel or Pulitzer! (Perhaps one for each novel?)