Sing to Me, Oh Heavenly Muses

Those of us who are creative know of the voices in our head who speak to us and tell us what to bring into the world. Those voices may be quiet or loud, clear or requiring time to interpret. The artist brings something new into the world, but it is not necessarily of the artist himself.

The Muses were the offspring of Zeus and Mnemosyne -- of God and Memory in more modern terms -- and every artist knows and understands this. It is the job of the artist to provide the information for memory (reading other works of literature, etc.), but reading literature is something many others do without creating works of literature. The difference is . . . what else is there to describe it as than as God, as tapping into the great universal, bringing the patterns of the universe into the world so all may see and understand it -- whether clear or requiring times to interpret, and whether told quiet or loud?

What connections, what networks make up the world. A microcosm of the cosmos, brought to you through me. Am I being too bold? Perhaps. I can only tell you my experiences and how I experience my own bringing-forth of my art.

In other words, everything I say here is true -- and everything my characters say, speaking through me, is true -- because they are not my words, but the words of others. I am their mere reporter.

UTD in Pictures

Since all of the characters in Googling Facebook are going to UT-Dallas, I thought I would share some pictures of UTD, so you can get a sense of what the surroundings look like. Sure, I could paint a picture with words, talking about how the university is dominated by these beige concrete structures that are dull and repetitive and mostly ugly, though there are a few buildings of interest, including one with complex architecture and dominated by its turquoise color, but then, there is that cliche about the relation between pictures and the number of words involved.

One can find all sorts of pictures of this building online:


But it is hardly representative of the rest of the buildings there, as this more typical picture shows:


The poet Frederick Turner once observed that the ugliness of the buildings make the trees look that much more beautiful. I think that is abundantly clear here.

And these are the apartments/dorms:


More pictures -- and a little more information on UTD -- can be found here.

An Apology for My Shortcomings

My last two posts only confirm the fact that I am and have always been horrible at summaries of my own work. For me, it's complexity or nothing! The characters are far more entertaining in person than my horrible summaries of them indicate, I promise! And I also promise that I don't use exclamation points all the time! But some of my characters are very fond of them. It is who they are, and I let them be who they are. They're much more entertaining that way, too.

A Trio of New Characters

More characters are pouring in. Of course, not all will get their own voices. Donna, Clarie, Andrea, and Marc, for example. And more will of course appear over time. Now we have:

Brent Berkowski, a born-again Christian, raised in a Baptist church, from Distovia, Kentucky, who is dating Claire, a born-again Christian, raised in a Baptist church, from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He's a biology major and a creationist, though he didn't want to go to a Christian college to major in biology. His roommate is Marc, who is gay and FWB with Alex Mandeville is a biology major and a "fully functional" hermaphrodite. She believes paradox lies at the foundations of existence, and she's currently living with her girlfriend, Andrea. Carlos because she is quite literally bisexual. With those close to her, she is quite open about her being a hermaphrodite, so it is probably best to let her continue telling the story herself.

Vance Gamble is a graduate student in the humanities department at UT-Dallas. He is dating Donna, who weighs 450 pounds, and is a nursing student. Everyone who meets him think he's gay -- which in the past he has used to his advantage to get women to sleep with him. He's partial to large women, but Donna is by far the largest he's ever dated or been with. He is an aspiring novelist, and he's writing a novel that he's posting on his blog. A novel inside a novel? Well, if a play within a play was good enough for Shakespeare . . .

Introducing a Few Characters

This is the main page of Googling Facebook, but this is not where the novel will primarily be written. There are chapters to the right. They are told in first person point of view by the characters.

I have thought about these characters off and on for years, and I have written different things for them as I've searched for the right medium for them to tell their stories. Here is where they will tell their stories. It being blogs, the stories are in a sense told backwards -- but that is the nature of blog structure.

Maddy Meserve will be starting college at UT-Dallas. She is from Patchogue, NY, where she lived with her aunt and uncle the last few years before going to college. I want her to tell her own story, so I won't say much more about her other than what she may not mention about herself. She's around five and a half feet tall, a little on the heavy side -- which is good, considering her mother was obese enough to have to get stomach reduction surgery -- and has black hair and blue eyes. It's a family trait. Her uncle and her mother both have the same hair and eyes, as do their mother. It is doubly reinforced in Maddy.

Carlos Fernandez is in his second year economics student at UT-Dallas. He grew up in San Juan, TX and has three brothers and two sisters. He doesn't know that his father has another entire family he supports, which is where he really went every weekend, and why his family had little money. He is going to school with student loans and grants. He discovered Austrian economics by reading Jesus Huerta de Soto. He is roommates with . . .

Greg Harvest, a second year Child Learning and Development major, intending to become a grade school teacher, grew up in Richardson, TX and saw no reason to leave to go to college. There's little reason to go into much detail on Greg, because he's open -- all to open.

More characters will come over time, but there is plenty to digest with those who have begun.

Introduction

Every time a new medium has been invented, a new literary form has emerged. Writing allowed for epics. The printing press allowed for novels. And now we have the internet. What will emerge? That cannot be predicted any more than the novel could be predicted from the time of Guttenberg himself. This novel is going to be a step in the direction of the new, keeping its roots in what is well-known and well-established.

As indicated by the header, this novel will be "epistolary." Of course, that is not entirely accurate, as epistles are letters, while these characters will be writing for a general, public audience on their blogs, on Facebook, and on Twitter. The characters will know each other (some immediately, some eventually) in the physical world. The social media outlets are where they will tell their stories.