The Paradigm of Process (Mine)

[akirlu]

Pretty much how my writing brain works: I have a major revelation. About the metaphysics of vampires. And how they relate to demons, angels, and gods. And how all of this is just an instantiation of Thomist metaphysics, and accounts for the problem of vampire souls and disappearing gods in my story.

Inevitably, this occurs in a location where I am totally out of contact with the means to write stuff down as I think of it. Sometimes I'm in the shower. Sometimes I'm on an elevator. Or a very bumpy bus ride. This time, I was on the toilet. Okay, I guess there was paper. But no.

I would start carrying pen and paper everywhere I go, but my fear is, then I would stop having ideas altogether.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I understand those feelings very well. I never see so many pictures as when I don't have a camera with me.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have the problem of seeing pictures when I'm camera-less, too. One of the things that's nice about our little Lumix is that it's compact enough to drop in purse, backpack, or coat pocket so that we have *some* camera with us most of the time. Still, not quite the same as having a good SLR to hand.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

This is weird, but I had a similar sort of a thing occur to me yesterday during the middle of the night...weird.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

For me, it's just the way things are. I've learned a series of coping strategies, so that most things get saved, any more. Sometimes that means weird scribbles in the margins of my deposit slips, but having the subnotebook is a big help, now.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

No I hae the same process--I am so constantly interrupted, even in the middle of the night by the kids, dogs, etc--I cope the same way.

I mean what sounds like a similar realization about vampires, or rather the mythic understructure.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, I gotcha. Yeah, that is pretty weird.

What I realized was that for my purposes, the conversion to vampire has got to be an alternate type of transsubstantiation -- what once was human undergoes substantial change to become a vampire, and that new substance is not a soul that has a collection of carnal accidents (there's a phrase for you), but rather another sort of immaterial non-soul that projects the outward appearance of many of the same accidents that the former human had. Vampires have no souls not because their souls went elsewhere but because their souls transmuted into something else altogether. Moreover, the rules for killing them are different because there is no actual flesh that the vampire spirit inhabits and depends on for incarnation -- for a vampire flesh and spirit is all one thing. Likewise, it's trickier to kill demons, angels, and gods than to kill men, because immortals have not flesh to discorporate from, merely the appearance of flesh. This also accounts for why the gods disappear after they die. They are translated to the afterlife in toto. "Eureka!" says I.

I have no idea how much of this will actually show up overtly in the book, but it helps me enormously to understand how this all works.

Notes to Myself as I think "Aloud"

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh. And of course, the reason why Catholic iconography in particular has an effect on vampires is because Catholicism regularly deploys the traditional kind of transsubstantiation in its rituals, and so the props of the ritual, especially much used ones, would have, over time, absorbed a great deal of that power over substantial change that the ritual produces. The tendency of Catholic holy objects is to partially reverse the substantial change the vampire has undergone. By extension, it would make sense that Anglican and Lutheran holy objects should also work -- maybe Eastern Orthodox also? -- as would those of any church that ritually converts ordinary wine, bread, and water into eucharist and holy water.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I finally found this...yes, I'd been thinking about Transubstantiation going awry as well.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

It's your brain's way of training your memory. Brains is weird.

MKK

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, and some brains is weirder than others. I do, generally, remember stuff long enough to record it, I just hate it when the idea comes as a little flash and then I get distracted by something else, and its just gone again.

[urlgirl.livejournal.com]

I used to carry around one of those mini cassette recorders, and would speak into it whenever I had a jolt of inspiration like this. I never transcribed most of those notes, but it did make me feel better to have the tool at hand. The anxiety of having to hold something in my head for fear of losing it before I could "get it down" would dissipate, letting me get on with the rest of my day.

Also for me, much like taking notes with pen or keyboard, the act of recording a thought has the effect of simultaneously committing it to memory. It's like it needs to leave my brain and transfer to another medium before I can memorize it - so that along with the original thought, I now also have a memory of recording that thought. The medium doesn't seem to matter.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much with you on any method of recording the thing sets it in memory. Much of the time, if I just focus on the thing and play with it, mentally, even that is enough to get it fixed in memory, at least long enough so that I can jot it down later. A small audio recorder might be an idea for when I'm alone in the car, though, just because I'm often also listening to NPR when I drive, and if I don't record the thought before the next segment comes on, I'm likely to be distracted by the news.