Songs without Words

As a first product of my great effort to “finish things,” I would like to present this short story to you all, which had been placed on hiatus since February 4, 2009 with a little over half of the text written.  I haven’t fully proofread it, so I hope there are not too many errors.

Andromeda, a short story in thirteen scenes

As with most of my recent stories with the exception of “The Swordsmith’s Daughter,” this is really a character study, but it’s a binary character study involving the narrator and her interactions with the titular protagonist.  While mature topics pervade through the story as a necessity for this kind of subject matter, there are no actual “mature scenes.”  The total length is about 50 pages, so it should be a quick read.

I had originally given up on the project because I had second thoughts about not telling the story from the first-person point of view of the protagonist.  It felt strangely constricting to leave out the direct thoughts and feelings of the protagonist in favor of perceptions of those thoughts and feelings.  But in the end, I’ve concluded that it’s okay, because such first-person accounts exist already, and the tale of someone close to and relevant to the protagonist is probably a more widely relatable narrative.

I realize that even amongst tolerant crowds, the issue of how to deal with gender identity in the child and adolescent is extremely controversial, and I don’t pretend to have the answers.  But starting the conversation and increasing awareness has to be the first part of finding a solution, and that’s a part of why I felt this should be written.  More importantly, it’s still a story, and despite the extenuating circumstances placed upon the main characters, I hope that it still conveys the larger journey of coming-of-age that every child in the world goes through.

My biggest enemy is my inability to finish projects that I start.  My professor just pointed this out to me recently, but I’ve known this my entire life.

Why does this happen?

The common theme is that I lose interest, but there are so many underlying reasons for this loss of attention, including:

1. The impetus for beginning the project is no longer relevant.  For instance, the emotions behind the main theme of a song or a story no longer matches how I am feeling.

2. My skills improve over the course of working on the project, and the initial work is no longer satisfying and would need to be redone to a higher standard.  This especially applies to visual arts, because my skill continues to change significantly day to day in contrast to my compositional style or writing style.

3. The project was too ambitious, and it turns out to be beyond my skill level to complete the project as originally envisioned.  Sometimes, time can correct this issue.

4. Something new is more interesting and distracts attention.

5. The project involves a lot of repetitive actions which get boring.  This is particularly true of art projects, where tasks like drawing forests or large bodies of water can simply become tedious.

6. Completion anxiety.  I don’t know how to really describe this, but this is a fear of finishing a chapter of my life, of closing off a story thread and letting it slowly drift into the past.

Why is it so hard to go back and finish things?

The task of resuming an abandoned / on-hiatus project becomes more and more difficult with time.  In general, it’s easiest to resume a writing-only project, provided that a few pages have been written: first, the software doesn’t change rapidly, and text / document files are generally openable in a number of redundant programs; second, while writing style varies from story to story, the language and vocabulary are essentially the same; and third, I tend to leave enough character sketches and descriptions, and plot pointers, to suggest what needs to be done.

Resuming a musical project is much more difficult.  In this case, there are frequently software compatibility issues.  I have used Rhapsody, Finale 2003, Finale 2008, and Finale 2012 to compose, and in addition to not being back-compatible, forward-compatibility is also limited.  Rhapsody files can be read in 2k3 and 2k8, but with incomplete information – tempo changes, dynamic changes, playback channels, and some transpositions (for transposing instruments) are lost – and into a Finale format with missing expression palettes.  Combined with the need to reassign all channels and convert to VST playback, this can be almost as much work as starting input from scratch.  Rhapsody files can’t be read into Finale 2012 at all.  There are also stylistic issues: my musical preferences change rapidly, and I do not necessarily retain the skills for writing in a particular style after moving on.  This makes for a high chance of a disjointed transition from old to new material, for instance in how the development of a theme unfolds.

Resuming an artistic project suffers primarily from rapid growth in skill.  Use of the wrong brush settings in an old artwork can be very frustrating to overcome, because touching up line-art is as difficult if not more difficult than creating new line-art.  Old poses and expressions can also be off on second glance, and rotating a face by 5 degrees in three dimensions is nearly impossible without complete re-painting.  While overall skill level improves, there may be missing information about past settings (e.g. the method used to create meshes in 3D, or a particular custom brush used to create an artistic effect or pattern) which prevents continuation of an incomplete portion of a larger region in the work.

Finally, resuming a scientific project is plagued with incomplete information – missing documentation of previous experiments with important data; experiments performed by people no longer in the lab; lack of reagents from the same batch or even complete inavailability of the reagent altogether.  It is often difficult to restart pipelines to plug in holes that become apparent in hindsight. Use of proprietary software formats can make data impossible to retrieve and re-analyze if done improperly the first time around, and programming code can be hard to decipher if poorly commented or written by someone else.

What I want to do about it

Leaving masses of unfinished work takes a psychological toll – each “open file” requires a working memory of present status, and an internal to-do list provides automatic reminders.  This becomes unbearable when the magnitude gets too large and a significant portion of ‘brain cycles’ are consumed for reminders and maintaining a fresh memory of works in progress.  Flitting from one idea to the next means that nothing will ever get done, as attention and time become divided into unsustainably small quanta that aren’t large enough to make any progress.

The solution is to release such unfinished tasks, either by definitively abandoning them or completing them.  My priorities for finishing are the following:

Writing:

I have countless unfinished stories.  But ones with only a page or two and generally unsalvageable – there’s not enough plot and characterization to go off of.  The two most important stories that I’d like to finish are the episodic “La Petite Princesse,” a series of tales in the same style as “The Little Prince,” but exploring modern allegories; and second, “Andromeda,” a story near and dear to my heart about a boy who wants to change, as told from the point of view of his twin sister.

Art:

Nisuna and Faxuda portrait in front of a tree (very nearly completed)

Andromeda and Irene’s portrait (3/4 completed)

Angel’s portrait (draw it again – 2/3 completed)

Music:

Trio for Flute, Violin, and Piano (3/4 movements completed)

Violin Concerto No. 60, 2nd movement (tutti and main solo theme written)

Games:

Tales of Graces f (now completed)

Final Fantasy XIII (final chapter)

Disgaea 4 (final stage, I believe)

Atelier Totori (final arc – building the ship to find Totori’s mother)

Scientific Projects:

Communicating nanoparticle project

Lung tissue engineering project

Anticoagulant nanoparticle project

I haven’t written formally for awhile, but I thought of an interesting seed this weekend that reflects on the many times I’ve walked through Cambridge in the morning and late at night after lab.  The result is this short philosophical compilation framed, unsurprisingly, from the perspective of a Cantabrigian walking home after parting ways with friends.

Read here

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Unrelated to the festivities, I have finished a story three years in the making. Perhaps in a twist of fate, I wrote the first part of this story in 2006, yet left the years-later segment until yesterday, when I uncovered the tale and realized that it was time to reunite my heroes.

Without further ado: “Love Isn’t a Promise”

As always, I’m afraid that it is necessary to resize your browser to make this readily readable. I’ll try to make a browser-friendly version later.

Details after the cut.

Continue reading ‘[735] Love Isn’t a Promise’ »

I’m really excited about the new story project I decided to work on.  The idea struck me this past Saturday morning, and I jotted down a few pages and a preliminary character sketch.  At this point, I have the beginning, middle, and end pinned down, with the two emotional climaxes still in the works.  Since the last completed story I wrote – way back in June of last year, if you can even remember that – was rather plot-driven, I decided to let this one unfold in a more character-driven way.  It is a story about fraternal twins growing up and coming to terms with who they are, starting at age 5 and ending at age 23.  The “main character” is not the narrator, which was a difficult decision to make, but I felt that it was necessary in order to help the audience relate to some of the subject material.  At the same time, this mode of storytelling sacrifices a lot of opportunities I would’ve liked to explain the thoughts and feelings of the main character which instead have to come indirectly or through dialogue.

While this story is not terribly long, I thought it would be fun to go back and tabulate the longest stories I’ve written, in terms of words.  This list should be definitive, except for two stories which have the potential to be in the top 6 for which my computerized versions have been lost, “Cell Wars 0” and “Emptiness in My Heart.”

Today as I was watching “Today in Class 5-2,” I was reminded of all the innocences and complexities and emotions of youth – and its wide-open honesty.  Five years ago, on New Year’s Day, before I was in a relationship, before I received notice that MIT would accept me after that heartbreaking deferral, before I had ever considered becoming a doctor . . . even back then, I had already unfurled the full expanse of my dreams and ideals.  Those fantasies warmed my heart even as my life leapt and plunged forward through rocky times, and they kept me alive through the imagined interactions that touched my heart in a profound way that maybe only artistic creation can achieve.  This particular short story (a diary-like entry which is best imagined as being spun patiently by a voiceover talent as the reel plays back the memory) is one that marked a turning point in my understanding of my heart’s deepest desires.  It was a time when I was untamed by the forces of adulthood and unafraid to write about a perfect world and a perfect life.  Love has since entered my life (two years and a month), a duration coincidentally approximately the same as the romance below.

You’re already there, a bundle of warmth in the forest glazed in snow and ice. The snowflakes are falling intermittently. I catch one on my tongue, relishing the brief sensation.

In a way, that crazy passion has already worn off, grown into the deeper, more subtle love that could last an eternity. I’m sure you feel the same way. It’s like how the trees seem to greet us now as if we’d been inhabitants here for all our lives – a tree’s romance, a faerie’s tale: a slow dance under many a moon, under the stars as they change like the sand dunes on the beach.

I’m wearing the little ring; I hope you notice! I still remember your cute whispers last year when you gave it to me. You tried to be confident and logical, but alas, even I, watching with my eyes, felt that overwhelming wave as the light leapt off the simple gold band. You were blabbering, and I loved every word of it.

I still remember our meeting two years past, when you had to keep your promise and tell me what you’d done when you slipped away that day we were shopping in our mother land. And oh, how I knew before you even showed it to me that I’d forgive you for keeping a secret! I still finger the necklace every day when I wake up to dawn’s radiant shouts. I can imagine the words of some future construction worker who should dig up my coffin by mistake and find the necklace still there – “Aw, she loved him all her life!” And I should hope that they’d say the same about you!

Oh, you’re already there, a bundle of warmth in the forest glazed in snow and ice. I approach your huddled figure, sitting down on the rock beside you. There isn’t enough room and I have to press against your side lightly to prevent myself from sliding off. I hope you don’t mind.

This year it’s my turn – I got you something special this year. I hope it can be a memento worthy of our four years of friendship. Carefully, I hand it to you; it’s in a wide, flat box to protect it from the snow. Delicately, you open it.

It’s a painting of this very spot, but in our place are two young trees in full bloom. I say that I couldn’t paint you well enough, so I had to think up something else to represent you. You say I’m just being modest. I just blush and remember the other painting I have stashed away in my room; I tried! but sometimes things don’t turn out how you’d like. That’s life, too.

I love the way you squeal in delight like a little child on the swings for the first time. Oh, squeal more; it makes me smile. Gratitude is best expressed in those little cartwheels of the voice.

To protect the painting from the snow, you close the box, getting your fingers caught in between the top and the sides. We both laugh but I don’t let you fix the box because I suddenly have you in a tight embrace, our heads side-by-side so that we can hear each other’s ears doing whatever ears do on cold days. I don’t giggle like this very often, and it feels so good. The wind is blowing against my short hair and my crimson cheeks. Don’t you wish it felt like this every day?

Shyly as always, we move about our faces until our lips brush against each other. The kiss is gentle and pacific like the air around us. ‘I love you,’ I think as I close my eyes. I love you I love you I love you. We don’t have to wish for it to feel like this every day; it already does.

On to another great year of our lives!

If that last entry of “ancient writing” is not your cup of tea, perhaps you might want to read my new short story instead?  A PDF (39 pages) can be found here.

Enjoy!

At a fictional university in Anytown, USA, a literary magazine editor named Melissa decides to compile short essays and stories written by her female peers on the subject of Valentine’s Day.  This is the result of her efforts, a small little collection containing a candid window into the students’ lives.

I hope that you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Will post later this evening – I’m about halfway done (preface and two and a half stories complete).

Subway

Metal is a rather peculiar thing. There’s that scent – you know, when you hold a dime in your palm for too long and it gets sweaty and all and it starts to stink. The tokens are like that, too, but they also have that ugly, dull brassy look to them that is more pallid than antique, although I suppose now that they’ve phased out the tokens, they may as well be antiques, beside those old torch-lights and slightly-tarnished menorahs and wrought-metal weeping willow sculptures that probably would cut your hands before you could wind them up enough to play back that old tune your grandfather used to hum to your mom when he would sit her on his lap on the front porch.

I have a token in my pocket at this moment; it is pressed between my index finger and my thumb. I can feel the impressions on each side, the asymmetry of it all. It’s awkward. I flip the coin around with a quick half-turn of my fingers, over and over again, like lovers opposite one another in a revolving door with no exit.

I keep this token in my pocket for good luck. Or rather, more on that unlikely glimmer of hope that maybe one day, time will turn back. I’ll know because the proximity readers will be replaced by those little tin cartons with the slits in the top. I’ll know because there’ll be a person sitting in that booth again, listening to the radio, reading a book, doing anything but giving you tokens – and even then, counting your change wrong, to your dismay. They don’t listen. But then again, neither does the empty booth that’s there now.

The subway is full of relics of times gone by. Even the trains themselves are getting kind of old. Only one thin little ring around the wheels stays that pristine, paladin-armor silver. The rest of the wheel is some strange shade of mauve that looks kind of like rust that it is, but without that sickly peeling that seems to always peek through abandoned buildings and really old cars.

Still, the trains have a function; my token does not. As my left hand swipes the card, my right hand stays firmly in my khakis, turning the warm coin over and over. I walk out onto the platform, steering abruptly to the right when I see that bright yellow slab that you’re not supposed to step on, although a couple guys are playing some sort of game of chicken on it.

I wait, leaned up against the wall, the tiles on this narrow mosaic of sorts squeaky clean, the whites shining brightly to create an effect something like seeing an wrinkly, scruff old man who nevertheless has some pretty spanking new dentures in his mouth. I’m leaning against the subway’s dentures.

The wait is kind of long, not agonizing, just long. There’s a fan nearby, although it’s pointed the wrong way and blowing the heck out of this little kid, who’s jumping up and down and up and down, his red-and-blue jacket swaying about and coming off til it’s barely clutching his elbows.

My spot, with the clean tiles, has some rather stagnant air. The wait is really getting long. There must be a crowd at the previous station, holding up the train or something. Or maybe they just don’t have the right number of conductors to run the system anymore – I hear the transportation authority’s pretty far in debt these days. The fare hikes certainly are complicit in that conclusion.

The times change; my valueless token is an artifact; the trains will break down and be serviced; that fan will be replaced by a bigger one; the kid will grow up and become a man; these tiles will grow old and dusty and chip off in the middle to reveal the cement behind them. But the subway isn’t about any of that. The subway is about waiting, and that’s something that will never change.

the relentless pursuit of a wretched god.

royalty is a spectacle.  pilfered philosophies and glands of steel.

rivers course by and you can see the Corinthian columns of marble and sandstone ..
.. covered in mildew.

stand by the wayside as blue renews itself with black,

and green renews itself with red,

and the yellowing hearts of ugly men

are scrubbed to brown with copious amounts of whitening toothpaste.

spectacles are orgasmic

but they smell bad.