# Deus Ex Marina (with author's notes)



## JustRob (Feb 9, 2017)

Later this month I will be attending a course on breaking the rules of style and form in writing, if only to get some perspective on my way of writing, and need to take an example from my own work, so have written this poem as a candidate.

The recommended reading prior to the course is _The No Rules Handbook for Writers_ by Lisa Goldman and in that book rule number 24 is "The writer is the invisible hand." The author opens that chapter with a quotation from James Joyce's _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_, which reads

"The artist like the God of his creation, remains within or behind or beyond his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails."

Well, let's see how well I can wreck that principle.

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The boy stood on the burning deck,
Then dived into the sea,
(_Had he remained upon that wreck_
_Another boy he'd be.)
_ 
The water lapped around his neck,
He'd drown eventually,
(_What can I write? Oh, what the heck._)
He grabbed a passing tree.

He thanked creation's architect,
"My God, you have saved me,"
(_But that's, with my profound respect,_
_not my identity.)
_
The tree was swallowed by a whale,
Quite whole surprisingly,
(_But that must be another tale_
_and not one told by me.)
_ ​


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## Firemajic (Feb 9, 2017)

LOL... completely LOOOOVE this! The understated humor [ at least it was humorous to me] was sublime... no nits to pick.... seriously... NONE...


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## The Fantastical (Feb 9, 2017)

I rather thought that the paired lines where the Boy thanks god and your comeback was clumsy compared to the other lines. It has less humour to, the other lines are funny this one... just sort of felt like a statement. That pairing just needs a little jazzing up. But other than that I think that you broke the fourth wall nicely with adding the authors comments.


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## JustRob (Feb 9, 2017)

The Fantastical said:


> I rather thought that the paired lines where the Boy thanks god and your comeback was clumsy compared to the other lines. It has less humour to, the other lines are funny this one... just sort of felt like a statement.



Yes, I wasn't so happy with those lines either. As to the lack of humour there, I think I am reticent to make fun of anyone's faith, even if it is faith in the wrong thing. Breaking the fourth wall between fiction and reality is one thing, but breaking the fifth, between who one professes to be and who one really is, is quite another matter.

P.S.
As is often the case with my poetry, the part that I enjoyed the most was finding an appropriate title for it, "Deus Ex Marina" being a reference to the glaringly obvious _deus ex machina _in the writing, this in itself breaking yet another rule of good writing. That title really was a godsend. I do like to kill as many birds as possible with one well aimed stone.


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## The Fantastical (Feb 9, 2017)

JustRob said:


> Yes, I wasn't so happy with those lines either. As to the lack of humour there, I think I am reticent to make fun of anyone's faith, even if it is faith in the wrong thing. Breaking the fourth wall between fiction and reality is one thing, but breaking the fifth, between who one professes to be and who one really is, is quite another matter.
> 
> P.S.
> As is often the case with my poetry, the part that I enjoyed the most was finding an appropriate title for it, "Deus Ex Marina" being a reference to the glaringly obvious _deus ex machina _in the writing, this in itself breaking yet another rule of good writing. That title really was a godsend. I do like to kill as many birds as possible with one well aimed stone.



Maybe there need to just be a whole rewrite of that section then. If you are unable to write it as it should be, then there needs to be rewriting so that you are comfortable. 

Amazingly I did get the joke lol. Deus Ex Marina/_deus ex machina _​it was funny.  lol


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## JustRob (Feb 11, 2017)

The Fantastical said:


> Maybe there need to just be a whole rewrite of that section then. If you are unable to write it as it should be, then there needs to be rewriting so that you are comfortable.



If only I was a writer, but the being who creates my stuff does it while I sleep and I just write it down in the morning. That's why it never gets edited later, because he never bothers and I don't know how. Of course he's a time-travelling plagiarist who just reads what I wrote the following week and then suggests that I write it this week so that he can read it then. Therefore he, simply being a later version of me, isn't a writer either. Yep, I'm just a no good two-timing fraud who managed to break out of our temporal prison. 

DISCLAIMER: Any similarity to the author, either living or dead, is entirely paradoxical. 

P.S. 
Consequently the reference to Dirk Gently in your signature is entirely appropriate, but then it was bound to be, in a holistic sort of way. Everything in life really is connected and apparent convergences into coincidences are simply series of events developing backwards in time. Adams was a smart bloke.


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## The Fantastical (Feb 11, 2017)

JustRob said:


> If only I was a writer, but the being who creates my stuff does it while I sleep and I just write it down in the morning. That's why it never gets edited later, because he never bothers and I don't know how. Of course he's a time-travelling plagiarist who just reads what I wrote the following week and then suggests that I write it this week so that he can read it then. Therefore he, simply being a later version of me, isn't a writer either. Yep, I'm just a no good two-timing fraud who managed to break out of our temporal prison.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Any similarity to the author, either living or dead, is entirely paradoxical.



lol... Yes, well, this is the trouble with Time Travelers, a bigger bunch of plagiarists you will never find under the currant sun. It really is a shame that they never use their powers for good! What is really needed is a Time Marshal, but unfortunately they were all turned to the dark side shortly before they were hired as Time Marshals. ;P



JustRob said:


> P.S.
> Consequently the reference to Dirk Gently in your signature is entirely appropriate, but then it was bound to be, in a holistic sort of way. Everything in life really is connected and apparent convergences into coincidences are simply series of events developing backwards in time. Adams was a smart bloke.



Oh there is much truth in the wild ramblings of Adams for the wise to find. Hidden between the Electric Monks and the Babble fish there are ideas that are deeper than the deepest part of the ocean. One thing that I have always loved about is writing is that he had a great understanding that the impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks. There is much to be found in the darkness of the impossible. Much truth as well.


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## Thismare89 (Mar 15, 2017)

Wow, really? I have never heard of it.


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## JustRob (Mar 15, 2017)

Thismare89 said:


> Wow, really? I have never heard of it.



Never heard of what? The subtleness of the superficially crass writings of Douglas Adams? He consorted with very clever people from many disciplines, such as science, philosophy, religion and politics. He then created his bizarre ideas by taking their concepts to the absolute limits, i.e. he applied infinite improbabilities to them. In other words he used the principle that the exception proves the rule, "proves" in this context meaning "tests". If a rule is a very good rule then it should hold good even in the extreme case. That is why there is a strange sort of logic to his writing even though we feel that it ought to be nonsense.

I play a similar game in my currently, and potentially forever, unfinished trilogy of novels. Conventionally couples marry until parted by death; that's how the old wording of the relationship in the eyes of the Church goes anyway. Okay, so what are such a couple's moral obligations when they are both unexpectedly resurrected as much younger people? What if one of them remembers that they were married but the other doesn't? What if the latter partner had forgotten that they were married years before he died as a result of Alzheimer's? It's hardly any surprise that it's a trilogy, given that that isn't by any means entirely what the story is about but just a side plot. 

It's all about bending the rules to see whether they break or not.


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