On goals.

Every time I look forward to a new phase of life, I tend to write back here on the good ol' blog.

(Side note: it drives me crazy when people put the apostrophe on the wrong side of the contraction. Like 'ol. I've seen it.)

Today was my last day of work until January 11, when I will triumphantly stride back into a newly reorganized CAMS to greet the J-term-ers. So that leaves me with almost a month of free time to manage.

I've been looking ahead to this time, thinking about what I want to do with it and I needed to write it out (so why not publicly? This is the digital age, after all...).

Goals for Winter Break 09-10
1. Read the Qu'ran. I need to expand my mind like my public school friends had to do.
2. Finish applying to Grad schools. Which leads into the next goals...
3. Make a game. A short game, naturally, but something to add to the ol' portfolio. I may actually run some beta versions of the games I have on paper, too.
4. Write. Every day. Again. Some more. Blog, journal entry, poem, script, ideas, short story, anything.
5. Ideate. I need to keep stoking the fire of my imagination again. I want to lead and cast vision (How did that metaphor even start? Casting vision? Flicking the fishing rod of our eyes into the stream of the future? I dunno...)
6. Read a fiction book that isn't part of some canon of things I'm "supposed" to read. I can't even remember the last fiction book I read, let alone the last fiction book that I wasn't forcing myself through...
7. Keep thinking about things. All kinds of things: God, leadership, life, writing. Anything but getting stuck in ruts of thoughts.
8. Love people.
9. Have fun. All this goal setting scares me and exhausts me before the break has even started... Sheesh. I just bought Rock Band 2 and I need to finish The World Ends With You. Lots of fun to be had.


Anyway. That's my list. It's longer than I expected, but that's what I get for wanting to be better at a lot of things...

Discovery.

I started writing this in my journal, but I thought "hey, why not share it?" So I am.

This weekend was Thanksgiving. On the drive to Ann Arbor, I pushed my mind to consider Dust to Dust, a story I've been working on for some time. I made discoveries.

There are many similarities between making stuff up for stories and discovering things. Both result in being able to push the story forward Both result in new characters, events, and locations. Both feel good to do for the writer.

But discovery is completely different. It truly feels like the idea exists somewhere out there, floating in space, and all I am doing is plumbing its depths, trying to find more of what exists.

The birth of a story I came to call Legion was like this. I was sitting in 11th grade Humanities class, bored out of my skull and writing, and all of a sudden, there's this guy named Travis. And he's in a battle. And he's sort of killed, but winds up in this glowy whiteness with a sword on a pedestal in the middle. He acknowledges the place and says, "I guess this is the Atrium."

I remember being confused. I, as the writer, had no idea what my character was talking about. I asked all my friends that day, in dumbfoundedness, "What's the Atrium? Why is it capitalized? Why is there a sword there?" None of them could answer me...

Every time I added to that story, it felt that way. I was merely an observer chronicling events that were - somehow - happening.

(Speaking of, did you ever have the idea that all imagined things actually do exist? That the imaginer merely has some kind of psychic tether to some alternate timeline/universe/plane? I did...)

But then I had to finish the story.

All of a sudden, all of these individual scenes had to be tied together. All of the strange dream sequences that involved a small theophany had to be put into the sense of the story. Enemies that were mere shadows needed motivation. And there had to be an ending.

I felt so uncomfortable forcing that story to a conclusion. It lacked all of the reality that the rest of it held in my mind. I tied scenes together that, intuitively, I knew did not belong together. I jumped to thematic conclusions that source material received with coldness.

Since turning that project in, I have not even looked at the final product. It felt dirty, polluted. Like I had sewn together a Frankenstein's monster. There was no way to pull out the good pieces from the bad without ruining them.

But this weekend was different. As I explored a character, I found myself exploring a place. And with that place came events. Backstory. Presuppositions that I knew were there all along were explained simply and elegantly. It was... amazing.

No.

Perhaps divine. It is easy to see why, for so long, the creative spark was regarded as some kind of god.

Perhaps these moments are gifts that God gives to us creatives. We spend so much mental energy trying to tell meaningful stories, but so often, we grasp at straws trying to make sense of a world whose purpose has been so veiled. But God, in his grace, awakens that intuitive grasp that we have of the hidden structures of reality and we truly discover something that has never existed.

Good articles.

This is a story I just read on Relevant Magazine's website. You should read it now. It's short.

I was at work when I read this today, but after the first paragraph, I couldn't stop. The writing was so beautiful, it was as if my eyes were compelled to keep moving down the page.

I sometimes don't know what to think when I read articles like this - so well written and powerful. My first thought was for this man who the author met: how tragic of a story his must be. My second thought was for myself: could I ever respond as elegantly as the author did? Could I, in that moment, love this man? Buying him the diapers would be easy. But would I pray with him? Or would I be scared of... whatever. Embarrassment. Harming the gospel through reckless words. Awkward bumbling.

May God continue to be gracious with me as I rely more on his grace...

Summer.

Naturally, my last post indicating that I'd post more was a complete fabrication. Summer has been busier than I expected, oddly enough.

Here are some things that I've learned:

1. Don't stress out so much when you don't have a job. I was asked to do some temporary(ish) work at my school to help keep afloat. It was great. It got me up in the morning, gave me money, and I still had time for youth ministry. I ended up being offered the full time job that started a few weeks ago. For all my early summer worrying about having a job, God knew that I would have one. Instead of worrying, being irritable, and panicking every few minutes, I need to trust God and know that I'll be okay.
2. I am capable of sitting down and re-setting a vision for my life. I've set goals, made a plan, and, so far, the plan is working(ish).
3. I still love theatre. I love the act of creating a character, of burying myself beneath someone else for a short time. In that, I am thankful to honor my God.
4. God is good. I had numerous conversations over the summer with people who are in a doubt-y place in their faith. What struck me is that we were still talking about it. If I really wanted to leave the faith, something kept bringing me back. God keeps drawing us to himself, even when it seems like he may not even exist. And the fact that he draws us to himself means that he is good.

So far, the fall has been thus:

1. Wake up.
2. Go to work.
3. Eat dinner from 6:00 to 7:00.
4. Go to rehearsal until 10:30.
5. Go home and sleep.
6. Repeat.

As awful as it sounds (I literally have 10 - 12 free hours a week.), it has been fantastic. I have found so much life in moving, keeping productive, and being creative. I have the increasing sense that I need to look forward - to keep writing, designing, learning, and making myself a better possible employee.

So, hopefully, fall will be full of that.

Hello world (again).

Dear Blogosphere,

It's been a long time, hasn't it? How have you been? I've been good. Pretty busy, but good. In fact, far too busy-feeling for a guy who is, technically, unemployed. What's the deal with that, Blogosphere?

Anyway, just thought I'd drop a line and see how you're doing. I'm hoping we can hang out a little more in the coming weeks and months. I've been doing a little bit of studying that bears some sharing, some games I've been playing, and I do have that 250 words a day to write... Suffice to say, Blogosphere, I'm really bad at the whole Web 2.0, social networking, interactive content thing. Although our friend Facebook has been less neglected than you have been, I haven't even kept up with that! And don't get me started about The Twitter.

So here's to a renewed relationship (hopefully),

~Kemp