Thinkbook 5 | Untitled

~ This is a #thinkbook entry on #ruckology in which Brandon L. Rucker returns with new brainjuice after a two-week break ~

The last couple of weeks have not been optimal for regular blogging, due in part to my being busy creatively on a couple of projects. That’s a good thing. In that span there’s been so much on my mind I’ve wanted to lay out here in the form of brainjuice leakage that there’s no way to condense (nor remember) it all here for a single entry. I usually don’t do this particular series with much pre-planning or forethought, instead going for a more spontaneous approach, digging back into the deep pockets of my mind to squeeze out the past week’s high or deep thoughts. What usually occurs is a scattershot cranial explosion. Or something.

This week I’ll start by pulling a thought or two that I shared during the week on my Facebook page. First, some bad news.

Local/National News Story of the Week

In reaction to this news story about a deadly new synthetic drug scourging the streets of America, claiming 50 lives nationwide, two from my native state, I wrote:

++ The inventiveness of this kind of stuff seems boundless. It highlights that one of the saddest aspects of the human condition is the inability to cope without chemical assistance. My heart goes out to those who face any kind of existential crisis that leads them down this path. Stay above ground and keep breathing, y’all.

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Legacy News of the Week

In response to the news that Francis Ford Coppola is officially “relaunching” Zoetrope.com with an added new focus on short films, I wrote that Zoetrope.com is the place:

++ Where so many of us writers, editors and small press publishers cut our teeth back in the late 90s and early 00s. Not only did we learn so much about writing, editing and publishing from and with our peers, but the workshop/virtual studio was essentially the forerunner of social media. It’s where we learned how to (and how not to) act online. Big thanks to FFC, of course and a huge shout out to sysop Tom Edgar. Commence the renaissance.

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Political Thought of the Week

++ None of these things that people try to sling at Hillary Clinton can effectively negate the positives about her, especially all her years of public service benefitting women and children. I’d stack up her service record against any of the candidates we had going this cycle NOT named Bernard Sanders.

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Now let the brainjuice tap drip for . . .

Three Random Thoughts

++ A disturbing thing I’ve had to grudgingly but consciously admit to myself is that some days, often many days, I just don’t have the desire to wordsmith. As stated in yesterday’s Notebook 7, I’m always in a creative state. However, productivity surges and wanes to an imperceptible rhythm that a mere mortal writer like myself (i.e. not currently paid to do so) has not yet mastered the ability to perceive and ward off. Nonfiction stuff like social media or blogging, is rarely ever effected, but the kind of creative writing that fiction requires has always arrived from a mysterious well of unknown depth and unknown quantities of resources. Usually, this can be assisted by simply reading a diverse array of things, which I do regularly. But even this past week I slacked on that. #Writer’sPlight

++ Still, due to the inspiration of one of my favorite writers Warren Ellis, whose weekly newsletter Orbital Operations and an online journaling have been one of my primary inspirations here, I want to try to write something here every day without fail, as he is attempting to do for two uninterrupted months on his semi-daily blog Morning.Computer. Ideally this would be the month of September, leading up to and through my birthday weekend holiday. We’ll see if that happens.

++ I am a notorious tinkerer. I tinker and tweak everything. I’m a fine-tuner who believes in continuous improvement. So it’s very possible I may tinker with things here yet again, such as the theme, colors (though I love the stark monochrome), menu layout, etc. So don’t be surprised if you see things looking different around here (if you, ya know, even pay that much attention to that sort of thing).

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I’m going to have to stop it there and continue things later in Lifebook 11 where I focus on something equally communal and personal that happened last night. Right now I have to get ready for a wedding.

Be mindful and good to each other, m’kay?

– BLR