Joe Vasicek

Zion and Babylon

So, I got back yesterday from my spontaneous trip with my old roommates! It was a lot of fun! Definitely worth skipping the last couple of days of classes! However, I can’t figure out how to upload pictures to this particular blog–I’m sure there’s a way to do it, I’m just not all that proficient at wordpress. Shoot. Well, you can check out my photoblog for pictures, since I’ll probably be posting most of them up there in the next few days. And if you bug me enough, I might just put them all in a pdf or a word file and upload it to this post. So there you go. But here’s basically what we did:

My old roommates are really awesome. I’m really glad that I got the chance to get to know them. They are just a lot of fun to hang out and do stuff with. I drop by every once and a while (you can do stuff like that when you have a car 🙂 ) and Sunday night, I dropped by to find them getting ready to leave for Zion National Monument! And they wanted me to come with them! Well, I’m the kind of guy who takes a long time and a lot of working up to finally decide to do something, so it took me a couple of really strenuous hours of convincing myself, but I finally went! And it was a ton of fun!

We drove until about four in the morning, listening to music and having a general good time, and sticking our heads out to look at all the stars, because HOLY COW you can see a TON of stars in Southern Utah, especially when you’re out in the road in the middle of nowhere! We passed through Hurricane and started looking for a park. Yeah, we’re all pretty cheap–we didn’t want to pay money to go camping at an official campground! Besides, it was 4:30 am. We ended up crashing on the lawn of a local church there–it was kind of funny! I was expecting that we’d stop at a campground, but instead I ended up feeling like I was homeless! But the weather was warm, and it was good. My friends told me that the bishopric stopped by and just kind of watched us for a while, but I was asleep and they were pretending to be asleep, so they didn’t bother us.

Then, after grabbing some breakfast from the grocery store, we went up to Zion’s! And it was awesome! The mountains there are vertical, red, and beautiful. We climbed up Angel’s Landing, which was rather short but fairly strenuous. There were all kinds of switchbacks and stuff, and I think we climbed up over a thousand feet above our starting location. It was kind of funny, because I noticed these signs that said “warning, falls have resulted in death,” but I didn’t realize what that actually meant until we got to the trailhead and on to the part where the trail runs parallel to a sheer cliff. They had these chains attached into the rock, and without those chains, holy cow! every other person to go up that trail would be dying!

I didn’t think much of the chains until I looked over my side and saw how sheer of a cliff it was, and then my legs started to get weak and I found myself gripping that chain very tightly! I guess I’m afraid of heights or something. And, as much as I would like to say that I conquered my fear and went ahead…I didn’t. Yeah. We got to the part with the bridge, and then I saw where the trail was REALLY headed, and holy cow! I just kind of stopped there. Man, it made me feel so…terrestial! Like I was falling short or something! But yeah, it was still something of an accomplishment. And I really didn’t have the shoes for it (I was wearing Birkenstocks, with REALLY sandy socks). And it was still very awesome. So I came back and read for an hour or so on the top of the mountain, it was very peaceful and nice. Read some more of that Madeleine L’Engle quotebook.

So then, on the way down, we spontaneously decided to go to Las Vegas and get a hotel there, instead of spending another night under the stars. Also, it would be kind of cool to experience Las Vegas. I thought that it would be interesting–I’ve heard a lot of things about that place and how evil it is, but never actually been there, so it would be a good experience.

We drove down there, had a good time (man, I love road trips!), and pulled in. The hotels there are really cheap! We got ours for maybe $40 or so. And the parking is free as well! But the way these places really make their money is in the Casinos and nightclubs. We went out and spent the night walking around the strip, and holy cow! I really got to see why they call it “sin city!” I won’t go into details (and don’t worry, I observed from a safe distance–and refrained from observing some of the more immoral stuff altogether!), but it was really crazy! Man, when you legalize prostitution, you get all kinds of evil stuff going on! We had so many people offer to take us to these sleazy places, or give us pornographic business cards for whores (little Mexican women were handing out those cards! Holy cow! How much more evil can you get than that?!), or try to talk with us, and man, it was pretty crazy! My friends had this competition going, where they wanted to get as many girls’ phone numbers as they could (girls who were not hookers). It was pretty funny when they tried to walk into a nightclub with their tattered jeans and ripped t-shirts! The doorkeepers would look them up and down and tell them “sorry, you’re not dressed for this place!” They eventually teamed up and succeeded in getting a couple of legit girls’ numbers, and they were pretty dang happy about it! But by then, it was ridiculously late, and we crashed pretty hard at our apartment. It was hard to get up in the morning, but we did it, and had a groggy but quick drive back to Provo.

The highlight of the trip was definitely Zion’s. It was a beautiful day, and a wonderful climb. As we were driving away from there, I was trying to sleep, but all I could see in my mind was the car driving off of one of those cliffs! It took a while to finally get the immediate impression of them out of my mind, but I must say that it was quite awesome, and I’d definitely recommend heading over there! And as for Vegas, it was quite an interesting experience to see that place. Now I know why the stuff that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. And what was really interesting was that it wasn’t tempting and it wasn’t scary. It was just there, and just wrong. The casinos didn’t really entice me, and all those crazy pictures and skanky people were more jarring than arousing. I’ve already figured out that I don’t want that in my life, so it’s really not an issue at all for me.

One thing really got me riled up, though. My friend Steve told me that he knows of a professor at BYU who did a study on the sex workers in Las Vegas–the ones who work the brothels. He said that 45% of them are Mormon, and that most of those come from dual income households where the wife lost her job–and they both decided together for her to go into the sex industry. HOLY FREAKING COW. Most of those people are probably inactive anyway, but that just boggled my mind. I would amputate my right arm RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT if it was necessary to keep my future wife from working the sex industry–and I’m sure that once I’m finally married and in a deep relationship with my future wife, I would be willing to sacrifice my life to keep her from going into that line of work! Yikes! THAT got me riled up quite a bit!

So, yeah, sorry there aren’t any pictures here. I have tons, I just don’t know how to post them! If you would like to see them, either bug me or check out my photoblog over the next few days.

rrrrrrRRRRRRR!!!!!!! ALRIGHT I’M GOING!!!!!!!!!

Drek says this blog is boring. He says he doesn’t like reading post after post about how many words I did each day. He says my life as a writer is boring.

I’m going to cry.

But I have a chance to redeem myself. Because my old roommates are completely and totally insane. They decided today to skip the last two days of classes and drive down to Zion’s National Park, just for the heck of it. No plans, no nothing. Just go and do something crazy.

Well, it was a tortuous process, but I finally decided to go with them! So yeah, we leave in like half an hour, and we’re totally going to be trashed when we get back Tuesday afternoon, and my parents are going to think I’m crazy, and I’m going to feel guilty for skipping so many classes, and I won’t be able to write, and I have no idea what I’m doing or what’s going to happen…

But it’s going to be awesome! YEAH!!!

An awesome day!!!

Today was an AWESOME day for the Quark club! We had a ton of really great activities and meetings, and it was really fun!

First, we had a book club meeting at 11…with a special guest! Brandon Sanderson joined us to discuss his book Mistborn! It was a lot of fun to ask him questions and hear about the way he writes his book, as well as to discuss the Mistborn universe and other stuff! I also asked him about coming to a writing meeting, and he sounds up to it! We’ll probably do it in the winter semester. I’d like to hear him come speak with us about submitting and getting published. That’s a really big step that a lot of us haven’t taken yet.

Then, we had a writing meeting right after that. It was also a lot of fun! We had some good turnout, reviewed some good stories, and got off on a ton of fun and interesting tangents (ok, I’m not very good at staying on topic–but at least our tangents had something to do with writing science fiction and fantasy!) On the way out, Danke made the comment “man, every time I come out from these writing meetings, I’m always so energized and ready to go!” It was her first time submitting something to the group, and she was really nervous about it, so it was good that it turned out so well! We had about ten people there, but with four stories and two hours, we aren’t hardly pressed for time at all, which is nice because everyone gets a chance to say what they want and we don’t have to worry about running out of time. We actually finished early, and I think that everyone had a really good time.

Then, in the evening, we had a writing party over at Jakeson’s and Gamila’s! It was WAY fun! Gamila was kind enough to bake cookies for us, and we had a great time just hanging out and working on our stories for two hours. Well, we did occasionally become unfocused, as people would get distracted and talk about other things. But it was way fun! And we DID focus every now and then! At the end of the party, I figured out everyone’s wordcount, and the total collective wordcount came to 7,126! Yeah! I managed to get in 980 words, and I’m slowly but steadily making progress towards the part of the story where I want to be! Yeah!

So, thanks everyone for coming and making today such a fun day!

527 words–I did it!

Yeah! I was tired, and thought that I’d throw in the towel after writing just a couple hundred words, but I kept saying to myself “come on, you can at least stay awake to write fifty more words–come on!” and it worked! I met both goals today, and I feel that the story is progressing very nicely again! A couple thousand pages and I’ll get to the really awesome part where Ian tries to go and rescue the captain–in the middle of the lands of the ancients! I have some good ideas for what to have happen in the next chapter! I’m excited!

I’ve also been reading more of that L’Engle quote book, and it’s really good! I plan on dedicating at least a post to it. She really treats writing as an art, and a spiritual one at that. It’s very different from what I’m used to hearing nowadays from all of the writing and publishing podcasts that I listen to (I’ll have to do a post on that as well–sheesh, this blog might require as much or more writing than my actual stories!). I’ve never heard of someone making so many connections between writing and spirituality. It’s very compelling to me, actually. I’m very interested in finishing reading this book.

Also, my friend Steve told me today that he needs to write more often. He is a film major, and he’s written a few screenplays and won a few contests, but he usually gets pretty distracted when he goes to sit down and write. He wants to write every night. That works out really well, actually, because I don’t like writing in my apartment (too much noise), so I like to come over to his place to write! And, er, there are just as many distractions there, but at least I can find a quiet place to sit down (it’s where I am now, actually). So, I will be helping him out and we should be hanging out more often to write together! Good times!

And I’ve got to publish this before my battery dies! So here you go!

not too much

Tonight, it was late, and believe it or not I actually do value my sleep (not as much as other things, but I do value it nonetheless), so I didn’t write anything original today. Instead, I went back about ten or fifteen pages back and did some light revision while reminding myself what’s going on so far.

It was actually quite good! Helped to renew some excitement for me in the story, which was nice. Good motivation for writing tomorrow. And, day after tomorrow, there is a writing party over at Jakeson’s and Gamila’s (who actually live on the same block as me, I found)! I am definitely looking forward to getting WAY ahead during that night!

Man, I suppose I’m either a wimp or just really busy with other things to only be doing 500 pages a day, and some days less than that! I hope I can learn to balance writing with my career (not to mention career and writing with family!). As it is, I can’t hardly balance anything. Not the important things, anyways. Temple, scriptures, friends, homework, tests, papers, readings, reading for recreation, vs. all the stupid things that can waste one’s time…shoot man! It’s a hard, difficult battle!

And I really hope that writing is more than just a “good thing” on that list. I really do. If it’s just a “good thing,” then it means that I should cut it out of my life, because there are already so many “good things” that I could be doing that I don’t have time to do them all! It would be a matter of cutting them to allow time for the “great things” and the “best things.”

But then again, I think it’s quite likely that writing fiction IS something more than a “good thing.” I’m reading this collection of quotes from Madeline L’Engle, the fantastic writer of children’s literature who wrote A Wrinkle In Time, the book that (believe it or not) hooked me onto Science Fiction and becoming a writer. In this book, L’Engle talks about writing as something holy and sacred, about serving the story, and about how art and creative writing is a profoundly important and spiritual thing. It’s quite interesting, because it’s very different from my current view of writing (which is basically “I want to write because it’s cool and there’s something compelling me to do it that I don’t understand”). Very thought provoking, actually. I really want to understand where she’s coming from and see it for myself. It could really change the way that I approach all of this, in a very positive way. I’ll have to blog about it once I’ve read the book.

And you know, this might be me going out on a limb, but if writing really is a way that I could profoundly shape the world for good (or the life of an individual, which really is the same thing ultimately) then it would make sense that Satan would want to put doubts into my mind about my writing and my stories and the possibility of getting published and all of those other problems. If it has the potential to be that good on a spiritual level, then it makes sense that there would be so much opposition. In which case the answer, of course, really is faith–stepping out into the unknown, trusting in something greater than yourself to show you the way and lend power to your writing that you yourself could not have put into it. I believe quite firmly that all of this is possible–I just need to make the leap. I’m still trying to control my own writing too much, and not focusing on the ultimate potential that lies beyond my limitations. If it is true that there is a place for spiritual significance in writing, then I need to make space for God and enter with Him in a partnership to do this.

I honestly don’t know. Until I sat down to write this, I didn’t know that I had these doubts–indeed, maybe they didn’t enter into me until I started to write this. And I honestly don’t know what I’m saying or where I’m going with all this spiritual stuff. It’s something I still need to think about. But it really does seem like it’s something worth pondering and contemplating. I feel that it has the power to profoundly and fundamentally change my approach to creative writing in general. For that reason alone, it is worth focusing a fair measure of my attention. I will definitely be doing this, because I have a lot of questions.

About 500 words and some frustrations

Man, I wrote about five hundred new words today, but I’m really dissatisfied with them. I wrote them late at night / early in the morning, so they aren’t all that coherent. Towards the end, I was practically asleep hitting random keys. My brain is like an old machine right now that you have to hit a couple of times to keep it running. It’s no good!

It seems that the only time I have for writing is late at night, when my writing sucks because I’m incoherent. Of course, if I were to get more homework done each night, I’d have that time between classes to write. That’s worked out really well when I’ve done it. I’ll have to arrange things so I can keep doing that.

Also, I’m kind of frustrated that I’m writing this novel in 500 word chunks. Sometimes, it seems that I lose sight of what’s been going on in the past 15 or so pages, and so when I sit down to write it’s like shooting from the him. If I read a little of the story first, it can help. But then, I really hate it how each time I write, I’m not sitting down to write out a scene, I’m sitting down to pop out a certain number of words. It’s like these scenes just don’t end! And they’re probably not that good because the way I’m writing them is too…chunky. I don’t know. I suppose I can go back and smooth them out (and that’s basically what I”ve been doing), but in the meantime, it’s like I don’t know what I’m doing. Adn =I’m getting very tired around now. Tiem to go to bed………………………………………

515 words and this last week of school is killing me

Yeah, I sat down tonight and wrote it out. You know how you feel when you have an idea in your mind of what you want to happen on the next page, or you think of a good exchange of dialogue, and when you sit down to write it you forget it? That was what tonight was like. but it’s so late that I’m loosing coherence in my thoughts. I figure if I just lay it down for now, I’ll pick it up later and do better at it.

Today was the really tough day. I had a midterm, an Arabic quiz, and a Philosophy summary. I think I aced the test! But that ate up the morning (not to mention President Monson’s BYU address, which I thought was pretty good). Then, Arabic was something to stress over, but it was fairly straightforward. Then, this summary–which I’ve been wrestling with for a few hours. Blech. But at the end of it, I came to thin gthat Kierkegaard was a pretty cool guy. But man, I whish I could do these summaries faster!

I have a lot of things I’d like to blog on–for example:

The AML conference and why my friend Steve and I think that all literary types are perverts (well, maybe not ALL, but quite a few of them!)

Some cool exercises that we did at the AML conference, on conflict, setup, and other stuff.

A review of Mistborn (if I get around to it).

Some crazy thoughts about how you could think of writing and critiquing on different levels of analysis, kind of like you have your three (possibly four) levels of analysis in Political science.

Just some stuff exploring my characters a little more. I really want to do this! Maybe I could stage some kind of a mock interview on this blog, and explore each of them that way–write them up like guests on my show here, and just talk with them about stuff.

And now I”m losing my coherency. It is WAY past my bedtime. gnight!

Finished revision (for now), ready to plug ahead

Between classes, I finished the revisions that I wanted to make to that one section that I sent out for the last Quark meeting. I rewrote a lot of it, and in the end, it came to about 1,000 words. Excellent! Now, to move the story forward. Some really cool stuff is going to happen soon!

And I’ve got to go if I want to catch some lunch! Sya!

A Rebuke from the Past

I’ve been reading through a lot of my old journals recently (and by old, I’m talking 1994-ish, back when I was in 3rd and 4th grade), and I’ve been learning a couple of surprising things! For one, I’ve learned that my writing style back then is about as grammatically correct as my blogging style on this blog (yeah, I’m pretty laid back when it comes to blogging). Another thing I’ve learned is that I use about as many YEAH!!!‘s and AWESOME!!!‘s now as I did then–possibly more, actually.

But the coolest stuff I’ve been learning has to do with my childhood ambition to become a fiction writer–an ambition that has probably been one of the few things about me that hasn’t changed much in the past fifteen years. By far, I wrote more on all the stories I was coming up with and how much I wanted to be a writer than anything else. And as I was reading them yesterday, I came across something that really shocked me. Here it is:

When I grow up I will be an author. And that is not just a dream that might happen. It WILL happen!!! And I might be an engineer, arcitect, paleontologist, or ~~mabye mabey mabye~~ maybe, just maybe, a movie maker. And when I retire, I might be a, a…I don’t know.

Wow. And just at a time when I’ve been wondering “is this something that I can REALLY do professionally/semi-professionally? Can I REALLY get published?” I think it’s pretty clear what my 4th grade self would say!

All of a sudden I had an image of my 10 year old self chasing me around with a whip. Don’t worry; if it takes you a moment to get back off of the floor from ROFLing, I don’t mind.

Also, yesterday, as I was in priesthood, my mind wandered and I started to ask myself these questions. The priesthood lesson was on marriage and all the usual things that go along with it–namely, how to provide for a family–and I started to wonder what it would be like if I made a portion of my income as a fiction writer. After all, that’s kind of what professional/semi-professional writers do.

And…it’s weird. For a second, I had this image of myself actually doing it. It wasn’t so much of an image, actually, as it was concept. Just…writing books and getting published. And doing that part time for work. It’s hard to describe how it made me feel, but it actually surprised me. It was…slightly scary, but exciting at the same time. The big thing, really, was how different it was from the current paradigm I have, where I see myself working as…I don’t know. To be honest, this was actually how my thought process went:

You know, for some people, family is all they care about. Like that guy I knew who worked receiving at the MTC. Work was just a job that he did when he wasn’t doing what he really wanted to do, which was to be with his family. There’s something stifling in that, but…not as stifling as I thought. I wonder if I could do something like that? Like, instead of choosing a vocation out of a passionate, all-consuming desire to do work in that vocation, focus instead on my family and have the vocation just be a means to an end. Hmmm, if I did that, I might actually have the time in my life to write. I might actually be able to be a semi-professional writer! Hey!

It didn’t last for very long, and I don’t think it was predicated by any divine revelation or anything, but it was a thought that really challenged my paradigm. Could I REALLY do this? Could I REALLY write fiction and get published professionally?

My friends seem to think that the answer is yes. Aneeka was telling me the other day that even if we get discouraged and give up now, we’ve got such a long life ahead of us that eventually, in one way or another, that writing bug is going to come back and bite us. She also said that the really stubborn writers tend to be less fragile than the other kinds–that we’ve got thicker skins, and that crushing disappointments don’t…crush us as much. I can see that.

If that’s all the case, then I think the only thing that can really stop us is 1) self-doubt, and 2) an inability to finish what you start. Apathy isn’t a threat, because the desire to write just isn’t going to leave us alone. I know it won’t leave me alone. If it’s been bugging me for the greater part of my lifetime, it’s not going to stop! And defeat isn’t going to be so bad, either, because the stubbornness will just kick in and keep us doing it–no matter how illogical or stupid it is. But self-doubt and fear could cripple me, if it got too bad. If I don’t really believe that I can get published, or that I can find success in this, then I’m going to lose a lot of motivation. And the inability to finish what you start is a HUGE thing. It’s what I’m currently wrestling with, with writing this novel. I have NEVER finished a novel–not even a rough draft! But if WHEN I do this, it will be a tremendous personal victory! And a sign that I won’t be stopped from my life-long desire to become a writer!

Just some more light revision

That’s all I did today. But I’m keeping my goal of writing at least SOMETHING every day!

I got some good feedback at the last writing meeting on this one section, and it’s going to take a little time to make all the changes. It’s important, too, because it affects the character and backstory of this devoted religious character named Saeed, who has an important part to play in the next scene I need to write.

Soon, Ian will be off into the lands of the ancients, to try to find the captain and the rest of the crew! That’s when things start getting REALLY interesting! And then, when he comes back, they get even better! Jealousies, rivalries, prophecies, an ancient, lost civilization in the jungle, and all kinds of crazy goodness! My character Ian is going to be so lost and confused when he gets back, it’s going to be AWESOME!