Loira, Morena, Ruiva

When I wrote earlier about blogging as I produced my presentation for Thinking After Dark, I had assumed it would be a gradual affair, moving through chapters in a modular essay as I've done twice previous. And it's not from lack of material that I haven't - quite the opposite, as I find myself sitting atop a heap of writing that may not be so much the basis for a 30-minute spiel as the start of a book. Let it be said that I am never accused of bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Rather, the things I've find myself drawn to write about over this last month have been all peripheral, concerning the process of writing this as opposed to the actual article. This may stem from my structuralist baggage, which leaves me with a chronic craving for metanarrative... though I prefer to think of this as a side-quest.

Always when I sit down to round up my data, I am amazed by the intricate play of facts against one another, forming patterns of data that were imperceptible until plotted. As the opposite of quantum events that collapse upon observation, these are configurations that seem to leap from the page, called into being by their very arrangement. I suspect this is a sensation that is felt in earnest by mathematicians, programmers and Spirograph-enthusiasts... where the layman sees a scrawl, the crunch-head sees patterns: blonde, brunette, redhead.

It's in this fashion that when I sit down to write, I instead catch myself writing on writing. Of course, in this case I am writing on writing on writing. You can see how quickly this becomes ridiculous. Despite everything, though I can't fault the process - it's always an unintended thrill when you set out to produce one thing, and get something entirely other instead. Ta da! Magic!

Here's to the little alchemies of our age.

- Rook