Poem Number Seven

I wrote this a long time ago and its really the only thing I've ever written that has received a consistent positive response. I hesitate to publish it here in this blog because I wrote it under false pretenses and gave it to someone while pretending to be someone else. I've lost contact with that person and have never bothered to correct the lie.

At this point, I don't really plan to because the Lie is my burden to bear alone.

In any case, here is a poem. I'll let it stand alone for now. Perhaps on another day, I'll blog about it in more detail. Perhaps I wont.

===

Seven shining strands there were.

Shimmering in the Night

Connecting me to thee and to

A distant golden light

The one was Red and strong and gave me purpose in this life

The second more an Orangey hue and kept me safe from strife

The one between us yellow was, but sometimes green and blue

A mixture then of many things of knowledge old and true

The others were of lesser note, except perhaps the one.

A dark and silent hidden thread its purpose never done

It held me fast and would not break and went I know not where.

Though not to light and not to you it promised pleasures fair.

I followed it some time ago, a century or three.

But pain and death and sadness wrought their misery in me

I fled and hid and fled again, a century or four

And followed for a time the yellow strand right to your door

I never opened up that door, though oft I wonder why

The dreams we dreamt were only dreams, imaginary sky.

Imaginary yes ... and no. No more than you or me.

For when one travels into sky it ceases then to be.

Returning now I follow yet another thread of light

Of pale blue hue and soft and warm, immune to any blight

It shields me from the pain and loss and misery I knew

But still allows the song be heard, though distant no less true

Return again I shall someday, a century or five

And as I wander lonely, still you'll know that I'm alive

No sound or image soft or fair, I wish you understood

But power lies within such things ... resist them? No-one could.

===

There's no such thing as good writing

This morning I was running late to work, had a splitting headache, and had enough different things going on in my head that I was in a constant running-through-mental-lists state of mind in order to ensure I didn't forget anything important.

Stumbling out the front door while kissing my wife goodbye, I was greeted by an unpleasantly cold morning with frost all over my car representing yet another obstacle preventing me from getting immediately on the road. I really didn't feel like digging out the scraper and clearing the windshield so I climbed into the driver's seat, turned on the engine, and bundled myself tightly against the cold while waiting for the car to defrost itself.

I figured it would be at least five minutes or so before I could get moving, so I grabbed my book -- I'm always carrying around some novel or other for times such as these -- and started reading from where the bookmark indicated I had last left off.

The novel in question was Confessor by Terry Goodkind. The present events were unfolding in the middle of a vast army (the bad guys) laying siege to the last bastion of freedom and hope in the known world. Kahlan, our heroine and the Confessor of the book's title is a captive of this army and is simply following her captor around and thinking to herself about recent events.

Well I was riveted from the first paragraph. I forgot about my headache, my lateness, the cold, even where I was. I couldn't stop reading even well after the car had warmed up and even now am not quite sure what external event broke the spell and allowed me to continue on with the day's (more important?) activities.

So was this good writing? Apparently, based on the title of this post, I'm going to claim that it wasn't. But on one level of course that's absurd. Clearly the author did an amazing thing here. And not just for those few paragraphs. In Kahlan, Terry Goodkind has constructed a character that has come fully to life for me. I love her. I care about her. I'm terribly distressed about her current situation and am desperately seeking for some sort of reassurance that everything is eventually going to be ok. Terry Goodkind is therefore, in my book, a great writer.

Great writers are like great fishermen, but since I really only know about fly fishing I'll restrict the analogy a bit. Being truly successful at fly fishing requires different tactics for different fish. One can't simply choose a fly at random, tie it to a line, go out during an arbitrary season, in arbitrary weather, to an arbitrary location and expect results. One has to know exactly what sort of fish one wants to catch.

And then one needs to really understand that fish. When does it eat? What does it eat? What sort of water does it like (temperature, flow, oxygen level, etc.)? And so on.

But even deciding on what to catch (choosing an audience), and learning everything you can about what you've decided to catch (being in touch with your audience), are not enough to make you a great fisherman. The last and most important piece of the puzzle is of course the craft itself. And part of that craft (for a fly fisherman) is tying flies.

Now admittedly this isn't the tightest of analogies, but lets say the author is the one tying the flies and the written words and collections of words are the flies themselves. To finally get to my point, all I'm saying when I say that there's no such thing as good writing, is that there's no such thing as a good fly. A fly can be made of the best material and the most immaculate construction, but if it never lures a fish, what good is it? Or it may lure plenty of fish this year, and then never again. Would it then be correct to say it was a great fly, but only for that one year? Or a fly may be perfectly capable of tempting hundreds of fish consistently year after year, but only minnows or so-called trash fish. What can we say about its Quality-with-a-capital-q in that case?

In my opinion? Nothing. Its simply wrong to point to any arrangements of marks on paper and say: "Now that's great writing." To do so is essentially meaningless. Or, rather, if you find yourself expressing that sentiment, you're really making a statement about the author and not about the writing. And what you might be saying about the author is still completely unclear at that point. Did the author say something original? Did they tell a great story? Did they write down something which moved the authorities of the day to track them down and march them to the gallows? Or did the author simply made you fall in love? If the latter is the case then say it. Its much more precise, and a hell of a lot more impressive.

What's all this then?

Well I still love Branagh's Henry V the best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRj01LShXN8&feature=related

Admittedly his protrayal was the first to which I was exposed, so I'm accordingly biased, but somehow his performance finally got accross to me the sheer realism of Shakespeare. By that, I guess I mean that he made me feel that the words were more than that. That they were history.

I suppose I should include a link to that "other" performance of the St. Crispin's Day speech for compaison (at least to provide evidence that I'm aware of it). So here you go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jXFnQUU7yg&feature=related

And then, as far as that topic goes, I should probably just leave it. I'm no scholar, I'm not particularly literary, I'm not a writer, I'm no-one really. But far too often I'll find myself reading some blog or other (usually for the first time) and finding myself boldly replying with strong passionate albeit naive opinions which I really have no solid basis for having, let alone putting out there for all to see as if I was some sort of authority on the matter.

So Branagh is a God and Olivier Sucks. Is that what I'm saying? Heaven's no. I'm saying I like one thing and not the other. What I wish I understood better was why?

So, to the title of this first post. What exactly is this? Well its supposed to be a blog about the written word. Mostly fiction. Most likely and often to be introspective crap about my attempts to produce said written word. I may, and hopefully will, wander around and grab material (links, what have you) from people I admire: Isaac Asimov, Orsen Scott Card, Stephen King, Terry Goodkind, William Shakespeare, to name a few. And perhaps I'll stumble across those things which keep me from actually becoming a writer and fix them.

The name Galled Rock? Well it would be cool if I could say that the metaphor of the galled rock from the once-more-into-the-breach speech (also from Henry V) had always stirred something in me, or some such nonsense. But the truth is, I simply had a terrible time coming up with an available blog name. I've been really annoyed at myself for quite some time regarding my failure to simply start writing loudly and often. Writer's write after all, do they not?

But somehow today, on my way home from work I made the bold decision to go ahead and create my own blog, not unlike every other person on the planet at this point, or so it seems. I knew I was going to start right out with some sort of Shakespeare thing since I seem to like to go back to his material the way OSC likes to return to the Book of Mormon. But the sad truth is, I really don't know Shakespeare much at all and I would hate to give the impression that I've actually studied his works. I have not.

So, pulling up a few of the passages that I do have some familiarity with, I noticed the metaphor for the first time (yes just today, even though I've read the speech to myself countless times -- this shows how unobservant I can be). And promptly discovered that the name galledrock was indeed available. Yay! Only then did I realize that it really does fit this blog. I'm still at that once-more-into-the-breach stage of my writing. I'm fearful yet determined. To misuse Shakespeare's metaphor entirely, I am that galled rock.