for starters don’t be fooled by any of my mumbo-jumbo: all of my ‘programs’ are as of yet utterly simple and basic, they are just a way of opening up working creative methods to present day programming.
i formalize what seems to be working for me and then i stick to the routine, that’s it.
sticking to a routine is very hard for obsessively creative end-of-stair cases like me, but i have learned that doing just that can be made easier and even fun with the aid of some IT.
it all becomes very game-like even when you are writing down extremely intimate stuff, which is great when you’re into literature.
that is to say: at least T. S. Eliot would agree on that, and that is quite sufficient for me.
key questions
i think of my programs critically by asking some key questions whenever i start working on a new one in each of these domains considering the new program: (in order of importance with their key questions )
- as therapy (does it make my own living experience better?)
- as research (can this or that be done better using IT? )
- as a way to replace cultural functions that have largely disappeared (can i improve the quality of my writing by using them?)
- as an empowering tool (can i minimise the skills required to use the program to an acceptable level?);
i keep these key questions in mind constantly so all these programs that i sketch out only run for as long as each of these four questions can be answered with heartfelt affirmation.
now sure this only means that they work for me.
but last time i checked i’m still human, so there’s a big chance that the program will work you as well.
that’s the thing with a program as opposed to a creative method:
if they work for one user, they tend to work for anyone.
if your programs are that good why are you not Belgium’s most celebrated author?
well, sure again, it looks like i am somewhat in shambles, and indeed i have hardly any readers left (they used to flock to my sites in three figure numbers until 2008, nowadays i’m doing great if i get 10 visitors a day of which most will be bots), but hey,
that’s partly the way it is for all online writing these days and
partly by my own intent and doing for these reasons:
- because of my sickness i was subconsciously always working against my self, from constantly belittling my own creations to downright sabotaging stuff to ensure it couldn’t get to be a succes (that ought to fade out now as i consider myself cured from what was haunting me),
- because well, researching subjects like ‘disgust’ tends to spread active instances of the subject to the researcher and exposing the literary establishment for what it is doesn’t get you very far with most readers
- the kind of gloomy look on this world that i seem to present (i still think of myself as an optimist, but that is obviously perceived otherwise) will never be applauded very much. very few of the writers i adore have had any succes in their lifetime, i am starting to find my peace with that as a given, applicable to myself.
- because i dogmatically refused to actively search, apply or beg an editorial board or some publishing company for printed publication.
i have published in literary magazines but only (and then joyously so) upon request.
i will keep on that course till i die or succumb to the very consumer madness that is scorching this planet (you don’t know what they will come up with next, one can never be sure).
because i firmly believe that if you want literature and creative writing to have any future at all, practicing it out in the open, publicly and freely accessible to all like you can since we have the internet, is the only real and effective way left to us, the lovers of literature who love creative writing for its own sake.
we are imho way past the point that we could ‘save’ literature.
if only because the ideology the old literary culture was built upon is untenable in our current configuration. literature, like most of the arts in the old order, was exclusively male and white, labeling books as literature and pretending it can be otherwise now, is fooling yourself and the reader.
literature, the shared cultivation of the written word as a means of personal expression, can only be revived;
and reviving ‘literature’ can only be done by ignoring or abolishing it’s rotting remnants (i try to fool myself i’m very Tao in this, not the abolishing or even the saving type, but then, like with anyone i know who is into writing, there’s my narcissism, my love of the killing epigram, my perverted joys, relishing in orgastic destruction, it has taken root in my flesh even before i was born i suppose. so i try and temper that, because it works fine, but one should remain within certain bounds of decency and respect for the Other you are addressing, especially if you are writing to and for yourself: if ever writing can kill, it will only kill the author. how your writing is being used, that is and should in my view be way beyond your concerns when you are writing.
creative writing for me is definitely not about writing for a reader market that inevitably has very strict demands on your intended ‘product’.
for me – and by jove don’t take this personally – when you are in that mainstream of so-called ‘literature’ you’re in my eyes just typing out consumerist propaganda, no matter what you are in fact typing because you are, in the dungeons of my antiquated and parochial thinking, betraying your own creative desires in order to get them published 1handwriting is always an exception on this radical judgement: anything you may write down in your own handwriting is great literature to me..
now, you may object, having to yield to commercial or other conditions, that has always been the case in the history of literature, but we are in an entirely different situation here, in 2022 and have been so since the start of the century.
that’s 22 years.
me, i have been writing online since 1999, not needing any publication and, up to 2010 enjoying a proven readership that leaves many a published author far behind.
since 2009 i seem to have been suffering the rather harsh consequences of my ‘rebellion’
sure, i ‘d would welcome any publication, consider it a great honor, and i may be tempted for a while, but i will never never ask anyone for it myself.
everything i ever wrote is available online at the site and preceded with the note that all of it is released in the Public Domain.
so if you consider any of it worthy of being printed i am not stopping you..
concluding: i have been following this programming approach to writing explicitly since about 2017 and i can only testify to the astonishing effect these tiny algo’s have had on me and on my writing. so i guess i will continue on this impossible path.
it’s heartbreaking fun.
Noten
