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The End Of The Year


GSR

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It is getting so dark that I can scarcely go on writing; and my brush is all worn out. Yet I should like to add a few things before I end.

I wrote these notes at home, when I had a good deal of time to myself and thought no one would notice what I was doing. Everything that I have seen and felt is included. Since much of it might appear malicious and even harmful to other people, I was careful to keep my book hidden. But now it has become public, which is the last thing I expected...

Whatever people may think of my book, I still regret that it ever came to light.

-Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book

 

Hah!

As a fellow documentarian, I can say this with authority: Shōnagon's covering her ---. It's false modesty, so don't believe a word of it.

-Jane Takagi-Little, My Year of Meats

 

Year's end, folks. I thought I would open up this little blog entry with an excerpt from the end of My Year of Meats, a novel I read this year and enjoyed very much. Much of the novel is concerned with the idea of documentary and interpretation, and so prefaces each chapter with a bit of Shōnagon - and just sometimes, the main character gives a response. This particular passage and response wound up a favorite of mine, perhaps because of how this year went for me. Frankly speaking, it was a bit of an oddball year, for reasons quite numerous and quite boring to anyone who isn't me. But maybe the oddest thing of all was that I started writing. In years past I kept a small "journal" of sorts that I added a new entry to every three years (and then every year and a half); I suppose it was the closest thing to a "pillow book" I had. But this year I actually sat down a couple times, opened up notepad, and just wrote about whatever was going on at the time. And it was, for lack of a better word, helpful.

 

And then with the year winding down I actually sat down and wrote a short fic for SSC8 - the first I'd written since I was 10 or so. I submitted it, then spent the next two weeks very consciously avoiding the topic because I couldn't stop going over it in my head and picking out every problem with it that I could see. I'd honestly planned to take it down once the contest was over. That didn't happen, of course, and honestly though I can still see all the flaws in it it was good to hear some positive opinions on it as well. And besides, did you read the above quote? I like to think of myself as modest, but I guess you don't write something if you don't expect someone to read it. But contest aside, really, I'd just enjoyed writing it. So there it is for 2012 - a way for me to unwind. God help me, I have a new hobby. And god help me, I've got plans. Well, a plan. A somewhat silly plan that would rely on a lot of careful fact-checking and a lot of spare time to revise. But I think I just might do it. If I did it wouldn't really get kicked off until March, for a couple different reasons, but I'll probably post a general summary and some bits and pieces here soonish.

 

A lot's going to happen in 2012 for me. With some hard work and a bit of luck, a very good opportunity might just fall into place. And even if it doesn't, my studies are starting to really get rolling. But while I'm not busy making myself a responsible, respectable member of society, I'll write. Or I'll look back at this in a month and feel right silly, one of the two. But probably I'll write.

 

So goodbye, 2011. Adios. さようなら. 2012, do your worst.

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