ieva melgalve » Impressions

transhumanism research

ieva — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 09:46:17 +0000

I’ve done almost zero planning for more than a week, but at least I am at the very happy stage of getting ready for writing when everything seems to contribute to the novel.
Ie yesterday I stumbled upon transhumanism, which seems to pretty much deal with the main conflicts in Newil. (I am, yet again, dumbfounded by the fact that despite this being a prominent movement and right into my line of interest, I hadn’t heard about transhumanism before. I am trying to convince myself that it’s due to vastness of information out there, not my own denseness.)
I don’t have any conclusions about the whole transhumanism thing. My guess is that, like most social movements, it is advocated by geniuses and self-serving, arrogant jerks, as well as genius self-serving arrogant jerks, and it would take a bit of time to tell them apart. For now, I’m satisfied with them posing good questions (and giving funny answers to them as a bonus).

afterimages and anticipation

ieva — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:25:53 +0000

Last Saturday, I spent a beautiful day with Emma Jones, and am still digesting her book, slowly, a poem-on-poem basis. Emma is one of those people with whom I reach immediate contact—and have no way of adequately expressing it afterwards; or maybe I’m afraid to talk about it too much lest I shatter that gentle feeling of connection. It is a fleeting thing anyway since I very likely won’t meet her again, at least not in a foreseeable future.
My Trusted Reader (and a trusted friend), Russell, is coming to visit Riga on October. I have been reluctant to write about this, since it all feels very unreal to me. This is the backslash of modern relationships, I guess—the virtual connection is very different from the real one, and the mind just cannot translate it properly. So it’s waiting, stalled, like a rabbit preparing to jump just as soon as the passer-by gets close enough.
Up until now, I could have shuffled this to the background, but October is right around the conrner so I can’t do that any more. And now there’s almost zero chance something could go wrong with his journey. So yeah, I will see Russell in real life very soon, and it’s so exciting and confusing, and, above all, amazing.

I actually like the ending I’m about to have. Unexpectedly, I used one of less explored side-effects of the “magic” to bring it around satisfactory (instead of just using powerplay and relying on my villain’s good behavior). I expect it to be done next week, or maybe even this week if I really set my mind to it.

read what you love to read

ieva — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:43:57 +0000

Lately, I have been so busy at work, that I barely have the time to breathe, let alone blog.
However, there is something I can’t forego sharing.
A couple of days ago, I suggested my co-worker would love to read “The City & The City” (a book I’m switch-reading simultaneously with “Fool’s Errand” by Robin Hobb). He said that he’d love to but he has so many books in his to-read list that he simply can’t squeeze it in.
On an impulse, I said: “Oh, come on. Just read the interesting books.”
Don’t get me wrong, he is a natural born reader, and I am sure his taste in literature is way better than mine. I mean he is only reading good books, and books that are worth reading, if not for their quality then for their value as Educational Materials in Latvian Modern Literature. I think he’d be embarrassed to admit that he’d ever read light literature, you know, mystery or thrillers or, God forbid, romance. Even if he does, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t.
Me, I’m reading things that are an easy read. I read books with an engaging plot, and books that are the top picks in fantasy. I read “Soulless”, which, for all of its qualities, is not exactly a thought-provoking Literary Read. I read “Monsters” by J.M.Greer, and all my skeptic friends (including my husband) would cock an eyebrow on that. I read–well, basically I read everything that I can gobble up fast, and I don’t care if it’s something profound (like Crichton’s “Sphere”) or something merely curious. And I read a lot I don’t have a “to-read” list. I have a “books-to-buy-when-I-have-almost-finished-what-I’m-reading” list.
Well, all right. I have books that are in my “to-read” list, books that I realistically won’t touch any time soon. There are such books in every reader’s list: the ones that you “have” or “need to” read but never really get around to reading them. It’s good. Sometimes, after all, you do open that sort of books.
But what I think is paramount to constant reading is: don’t just read what you have to read. Read worthless books as well, read books that probably won’t give much to you but that will keep you entertained. It’s way better than not reading at all because you can’t make yourself to open another hard-cover, hard-content book.
Allow yourself the pleasure of reading. Just like you sometimes cook even if you’re not creating a culinary masterpiece, or hang out with a friend even if it’s not your best, or most valued friend.
Literature is not just about improving yourself. It’s about improving your everyday as well, it’s about bringing a new highlight, even if it’s just a tiny sunbeam, in your life.
If you read out of obligation only, you won’t be reading much, nor enjoying the process overly.
If you read for fun, well, some of your friends will smirk at you for reading, say, “Twilight”, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you had your fun; and you had new insights, even if the insights weren’t particularly profound.
Read what you love. And then, at some point, you will learn to love what you need to read–provided you really do need it.

on my way to finncon

ieva — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:08:44 +0000

So I’m sitting in a bus (with a wi-fi connection), waiting to depart from Riga to Tallinn, leaving for Finncon. I think I’ve checked a hundred times whether I have my passport and tickets. Right now, I’m a bit past worrying and have come to a calm acceptance of my fate, whatever that might be.
Yesterday, I realized that this is actually the first time I’m traveling alone–which says a lot both of my sedentary habits and the enormous support I’ve had from my friends. Right now, too, there are may people who have helped me out with this journey–my husband and Russ, and Irma and Tiina in Finnland.

I really don’t know what to expect from my first con… Currently, I’m trying to set my mind in a “losing con-virginity is exciting and I’ll never have so fresh perspective again” route rather than “ohgosh everybody will think I’m a total noob, and justly so” one.

I’m alive

ieva — Thu, 13 May 2010 18:48:35 +0000

..which is the best estimate of my current position.
I have cold so bad that every time I cough I keep expecting my lung to fall on my keyboard.
But I’m alive, and it’s a lot.

This spring is beautiful though. Every sunny day after work, my husband and me spend fifteen minutes (or half an hour) sitting on the bank of Daugava river, watching the swans and the reflections in the water. There’s something soothing about the spring air so warm that it flows into your lungs like water; and you’re drowning in life.
Drowning in life. It is good. It is infusing me with life.
And I’m alive.

The House

ieva — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:16:15 +0000

I built a house on a broken hill
Broken and mended with my own fears
I built a house on an empty space
That my mind produced instead of a cure

A house of plaster, a house of words
A creaking, cracking house of dreams
A house that held against all the winds
A house that was the birthplace of streams

There is still a place in the basement deep
A hole that opens in the deepest of dreams
It peers down deep into the abyss
Deep down, there’s a mirror of all that exists

And there I lay down on a floor, and I look
And in the reflection, there is not any house
I see myself floating up in the sky
And the streams of tears and blood flowing out

There is nothing to keep me and nothing to hold
There are no cracks and there are no seams
But there’s future below me and past up above
And me, flowing freely. A thousand of dreams.

haiku

ieva — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:59:39 +0000

A snowy morning.
We are stopping the traffic
With a goodbye kiss

collapsing things

ieva — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:54:28 +0000

First, thanks for the good wishes, folks – I’m remarkably better. I’m, actually, too good, come to think of it – I managed to get healthy enough to promptly stir up my personal life in ways I shouldnt’ve done.
However, that taught me not only some “maybe you don’t wanna do this” things I’m not sharing here; it taught (more like reminded) me also the fact that I feel, in a weird way, more comfortable in messed up situations than I do in stable ones.
I feel better when writing as far as my headlights go instead of consulting a map of outline.
I feel better during recession than during corporate headbutting in economically safer times.
I feel better when I’m uncertain about my relationships than when I plan buying a country house for us when we’re 70.
I feel better when my kids are misbehaving, when they’re quiet I wonder whether they’re sick or sad or doing something forbidden.
I feel better working in an ever-stressful advertising agency than I do, say, translating a book.
So I’m thinking, if I feel so good in collapsing, messed up and awkward situations, then probably I shouldn’t fall into mass hysteria of “literary market is collapsing, nobody reads books and if they do they don’t pay for them” but instead embrace this situation and feel great about it. After all, I write non-conventional stuff (which should be doing better in non-conventional situation), and I’m just starting. Whatever I do, it’s going to go better from this point on. And, this being a crazy time, I can try out things that work better for me, make more sense to me and doesn’t mess with my writing.
The people who say they know what’s going on and how to proceed are just as lost as I am. But unlike me they have dignity to lose.
Me? I know (from recent experience) that I’ll be making blunders anyway. So better to make ones I enjoy making.

feeling of security

ieva — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:04:44 +0000

I’m thinking that people are trying to pressure others into changing their ways basically because it’s scary to differ. Even if you are a part of a larger movement (say, pop music listeners), you feel intimidated by that single rapper in your vicinity, because you don’t know what to expect from him, and, moreover, you never know whether probably rap is “cooler” than pop. If that guy listened to pop music, just as you do, you’d feel better because, if you’re wrong, you’re both wrong.
Same about language use; the bigger languages seeping into the smaller languages, the marketing folks using marketing-speak, people cursing, people not cursing even when they’re aggravated beyond imagination.
Same about people maintaining that literature should be “deep”, same about people maintaining that unless you’re writing in three act structure your story will be boring, same about people who say that fantasy is rubbish or literary sucks.

If there were more people talking like me, thinking like me, choosing the ways I choose, writing the way I do, I would feel a lot more safer, thinking that I’m probably right, and even if I’m not right, there’s a high enough chance that nobody’s right. (And, come to think of it, this is why I’m writing this. If not to convince people I’m right, then at least to muddle the waters.)

That would be a scary, scary world though. Scary, but safe, because nobody’s wrong.

after the weekend

ieva — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:45:11 +0000

This has been one of those weekends that stretch forever, offering tidbits of real world and how differently people see it.
Also, a small and uncomfortable lesson on how much am I willing to listen to people, accept their views, play along in their worlds, be they carpeted by emerald green fake grass or sickly “they all might be lying to you, using you on their behalf, and your willingness to believe is your weakness”.
I have my own emerald green grass and my own sick suspicions, which is a good enough reason to protect myself from infections of others.

But is it normal that I, a writer, am so immensely surprised every time when I see how differently others perceive this world? How overwhelming their perception is–and how easily I twist myself to my own private nightmare.
Or, to put it in other words, is writer somebody who deciphers dreams and nightmares or somebody who gets carried away by them?