Tag Archives: Ideas

“Don’t steal my armrest! Quit wrecking my night vision!” (or, Why I Might Have to Stop Going to Concerts)

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I am a music lover.

As I mentioned for one of the seven things about me when I was nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award, music is both the filing cabin and the encyclopedia of my mind.  It helps me make sense of my life through my tendency to categorize and understand my various experiences according to specific lyrics or sounds.

Music is also intrinsically tied into my writing life, for I can’t write well without it, and it likewise inspires my daydreams, my imagination, my stories.

My love of music was one of my largest motivators for finally giving up on shared living last year and getting a place on my own, for I couldn’t play my stereo at 6:30am since my roommates didn’t get up that early.

My love of music also resulted in a 30km-journey to the suburbs by public transit to buy a pair of high-end second-hand Harman/Kardon speakers.  I hate public transit.  I’m not wild about the suburbs either.  But I believe that true enjoyment of music is obtained, not through earbuds, but when it’s played aloud and you can feel it in your solar plexus and the soles of your feet.

Hence, my love of concerts.

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Building a History

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(A/N: Post title is a play on the song Building a Mystery by Sarah McLachlan.)

I never planned to become a writer of historical fiction.

Cooking and feasting – The Bayeux Tapestry, circa 1070, England

From what I gather from various authorities on the matter, no sane person ever would.

When I first started taking myself seriously as a writer and writing with a view to someday attempt getting my work published, fantasy was my genre of choice.

Fantasy, after all, was the genre unbounded by the rules of the modern world, and even the natural world.  It was the genre in which anything could happen so long as it was properly motivated and followed some manner of internal consistency.

It was the genre in which you could make your own rules.

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The First Rule of Engagement, or “How Routine Can Work Wonders for Artists”

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You didn’t think The Rules of Engagement was just a name I gave this blog to make it sound kickass, did you?

Anyone who knows me (which, admittedly, not many do yet by way of this blog, but perhaps, in time, that will change) knows that I love rules.  Seriously.  Someone actually accused me once of taking the proverbial “rule book” to bed with me at night.  It’s hardly something I can deny; I did already out myself on my “About” tab as being fairly left-brained, rational, and rigid, and to quote (or misquote) Popeye, “I am what I am”.  But my love of rules is not because I lack sufficient imagination or ability to think for myself, but rather, I find that when the structure and consistency that rules promote is in place, creativity and imagination are able to flourish.

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