{"id":1124,"date":"2013-01-26T12:59:25","date_gmt":"2013-01-26T16:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/?p=1124"},"modified":"2013-01-26T13:00:05","modified_gmt":"2013-01-26T17:00:05","slug":"inkstains-day-21-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/?p=1124","title":{"rendered":"InkStains: Day 21-25"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I used one of my Free Days this week. Thursday night, the 24th, after having worked a full 10+ hour shift at the day job, knowing I had a four-day weekend ahead of me (Friday &#8211; Monday), I decided to relax for the night and read instead.<\/p>\n<p>It filled me with a great deal of angst. Even as midnight approached, I fought the urge to break open the Moleskine and write <em>something<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Day 21 was my first attempt at non-fiction. Here&#8217;s a sample:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Corvette Stingray.<\/p>\n<p>Let that sink in a moment. You&#8217;ve probably got a preconceived notion that looks a lot like mine: a &#8217;72 with curves over the front tires, long and sleek, a fast as hell work of art.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Day 22 I thought of old gods and their ghosts.<\/p>\n<p>Day 23 I explored maps.<\/p>\n<p>Day 25 was inspired by a light bulb popping in my bathroom.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"InkStains\" title=\"InkStains\" src=\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8471\/8416399933_177d661051.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been told about studies suggesting the mind works differently when writing by hand. I haven&#8217;t seen those studies yet, but I&#8217;m interested. I think it&#8217;s true. I&#8217;ve noticed a lot of my pieces have themes running through them, as though they&#8217;re somehow part of a larger thing. They&#8217;re not meant to be, except in that they&#8217;re all part of the larger thing called my body of work.<\/p>\n<p>The physical act of handwriting, the paper and the ink, focus me in ways the computer does not. I&#8217;m not just thinking about the stories every day, I&#8217;m thinking about my overall life arc, the paths I&#8217;ve taken and the paths before me, the choices I have yet to make, the ways and means by which I can make writing (and by extension, photography) not just a part of my life, but make them <em>my life<\/em>. The idea isn&#8217;t to abandon the Day Job, but to make such a thing unnecessary and superfluous.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve also become very conscious of the fact that, overall, the collection of these InkStains stories is, in fact, a piece of art in itself, and therefore the stories are part of a larger thing. I do not yet know the form that larger thing may take. I&#8217;m beginning to have ideas.<\/p>\n<p>Also, something else I&#8217;ve noticed: the ink is taking over my life. I live and breathe ink now. I bleed ink. I am ink. I gave a speech this morning about ink, the importance of ink, how ink is one of the three essential elements (light\/shadow, music, and ink), how ink is your means of achieving the three divine tenants (clear, concise, and simple). I lent my pen to a woman at the post office and the pen impressed her. Ink is a powerful thing, and becoming more and more powerful in my own life. It&#8217;s always been there, in some way. But I&#8217;m feeling the difference between the ink after a thing has been typed and the ink you lay down with your own hand.<\/p>\n<p>I like ink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>I used one of my Free Days this week. Thursday night, the 24th, after having worked a full 10+ hour shift at the day job, <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/?p=1124\" title=\"InkStains: Day 21-25\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}