My New Year's Eve

You know how writers need bad jobs before we're successful novelists? You know how some of us seek out weird, interesting jobs for the bonus life experience? Yeah... this is one of those stories.

I did my first security job on New Year's Eve, working at a night club in Leamington Spa. British people aren't like Americans, in that British people fight over anything. In the States, things can get bad because people might be packing, but I assure you, casual violence is a MUCH more common thing in Britain.

The evening was eventful.

My shift started at 10:30. The first hour and a half I basically felt like a caretaker, waiting on the dance floor surrounded by pretty people, terrible music thrumming through my body, telling people time and again where the smoking area was, or that I didn't know what was downstairs as I was new.
I heralded the new year by checking the gents toilet and nearly slipping on... something...

Then, pretty much right after midnight, people went insane. I got in two fights, had to verbally intervene on countless occasions and had to kick one guy out just for being a prick to everyone. The most difficult experience of the evening was trying to convince a woman to leave the male toilets. I couldn't physically throw her out (well, I legally could and was actually supposed to, but I wouldn't) and she knew that. So she cheekily patted me on the chest, put her lipstick on and sauntered out.

I also learned that, if you want to know where things are about to kick off, watch the women. Nothing spelled trouble more than an angry woman, and almost every fight, or near-fight, began with somebody's girlfriend getting in somebody else's face. Things would start with a rude remark or a bit of a tiff between the men, but she'd wade in and escalate things horribly, until the men would come to blows, or at least be about to until I showed up.

One time was particularly interesting. I'll describe the man first. He and his friend were older, probably early forties, muscular, covered in tattoos, and quite obviously good fighters. It's in the eyes, the extent of peripheral awareness (how "switched on" they are) and the way they hold themselves when they feel threatened. These guys were tough, and one of them was in a heated argument with a puff-ball, baby-faced 18 year old wiener and his brick shit-house of a girlfriend. The 18 year old was pretty much trying to walk away, but his girlfriend just wouldn't leave matters alone. She was in the coke head's face, telling him he was an old loser, that he was sweating like a pig, that he looked like a low-class poor bastard. She said so many nasty things they blurred together. She wanted to speak her mind, which apparently was quite a disorganised shambolic ramble of hatred and negativity. The problem is, the guy was going to take it out on her boyfriend. The boyfriend looked like he would have been lucky to make it all the way to the hospital. Had things gotten too bad, I can't honestly say I'd have been able to protect him. Like I said, those guys were tough. I can handle myself better than most, but would have had serious difficulty, and probably would have gotten hurt. I'd have hurt them too, but nobody would have looked their best by the end of it.

Thankfully, I managed to calm all the men down soon after showing up, realising quickly that the woman was a lost cause. She kept gobbing off, but nobody was listening to her. The coke head and his friend turned out to be pretty nice guys, actually, and never caused any trouble. He apologised to me for getting mad, and I told him not to worry about it, but just to come and find me if that woman started screaming at him again.

Speaking of showing up, I've been called every name under the sun and discovered, happily, that I really didn't care. I've also shaken hands with many crazily drunk people who wanted to apologise for being a prick before. Gracefully accepted. I had to keep telling them that none of it bothered me, and that I had to keep an eye on the dance floor. Almost every incident wound up with one of the punter's friends telling me how sorry he was for all the things that had been said, and drunkenly trying to explain what was going on, and basically making temporary friends over the whole matter. That was actually quite handy, because it created a good vibe and it meant wherever I went in the club, by the end of things, I had someone on my team.

The most interesting fight, for its ambiguity, seemed at first glance to be about racism. England doesn't have the same kind of epidemic as America. Frankly most of the time here it's just people deciding somebody's being racist because they don't like the look of them. One guy had a fashionable, hipster variation of a traditional(ish) Sihk haircut. He started an argument with someone, who eventually told him he looked like a twat, which he did, and he decided to take that as racist, starting a fight. He was one of the people I had to physically restrain. But like most people who think they're invincible, he was kind of a wimp in the end.

Two fantastic things happened, and both belong in a story. One guy was falling over drunk, and we made him sit in the corner and drink a pint (large glass) of water. Now, for this next part you have to know that the gents toilet was flooded. About an hour after making this guy sit down, I found him in the gents fixing the bloody toilet, shoveling gunk out of it with his bare hands. He was still staggering about, and barely able to speak coherently, but he managed to explain, with a childishly jaunty smile, "While im'z twooo pissed to stand upright, Imz a plummer for mmm... day job, n' I cans still fixes dur toilet!"

By the end of the evening, that same tiolet had a shoe in it. I can't explain that one, but it seems to sum up the evening quite nicely

Post-modernity Does Not Dream of Electric Sheep

Just watched Blade Runner, the classic Science Fiction movie based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick.

And it struck me just how different our vision of the future was back in the Golden Age of SF.

In Blade Runner, hover cars soared above the traffic where the plebs milled about in their cool-looking, angular gas-guzzlers. A great zeppelin roamed the skies, shouting obnoxious advertisements from high above. And of course, genetics became capable of synthesizing humans.

The modern world is nothing like that. This era looks much the same as the 70s, except cars are more round at the edges, people dress differently, and corporations don't need a zeppelin or advertisements on the sides of sky-scrapers to infect our minds with consumerism. Instead, information technology means they just illegally download cookies onto our computers, manipulate our search habits, and convince children to spend half their lives on social media getting manipulated into a consumer-friendly cultural obsession. Even music today basically sounds like it did in the 80s. I hold out some hope that it'll turn on its head again, much like it did in the 90s.

Society lacked both the resources and the gusto necessary to affect real change. In the end, those with money did not want change unless it was in the direction of furthering consumerism. We do not live in the hyper-industrialisation that many writers imagined. The world simply couldn't sustain it, and regardless, no one has the power to build it. Money would never be interested enough in building it. We certainly do not live in the utopia some writers imagined, in which we could clone food for everyone and eliminate starvation. Instead, obesity and starvation are each epidemic, and rather than getting better, each problem continues to compound. We do not have a technologically fascinating infinite fuel source. Instead, people would rather destroy planet Earth in order to frack for oil, rather than use the infinite fuel resources that have indeed been at our disposal for over a decade. Which leads me to the main functional problem the SF writers of the day did not foresee: the world lacks the natural resources necessary to fly hover cars for more than a weekend.

But for all its technical oversights, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a brilliant story. I love the Sci-fi of that era.

In the old days, while it's true that, just before and just after the counter-culture movement, society was rife with modernist, and thus technological fetishism, the stories of those authors did not bear that mark. I must admit that every era of literature has had its share of trash, but the great writers of those days neither fetishised nor demonised technology. They wrote deep, human stories about the consequences of technology, about how society would change and what new moral dilemmas we would face.

But where does such extrapolation lead us now? Phillip K. Dick, and many others, asked where unfettered technological development would lead humanity, and what struggles, on every level, we might face.

I look forward to seeing SF evolve, because we all know where unfettered development leads us now. (At least, those too stupid to have figured it out shouldn't be able to read.) SF must find new philosophical questions to remain relevant. In my opinion, it must soften and look inwards to the Self, but that's just me. One thing most readers and writers can agree upon is that it can never be exactly as it was. In essence, the literature of change must itself change, because society has not changed in the spirit SF had foreseen. The dilemmas we face now, unless one simply writes of apocalypse, are human, social, and personal. As for social development, the question now is whether empathy will trump apathy before it's too late.

Pathways

There has been a long silence, and I owe you guys an explanation. Essentially, I've been locked in a battle with myself, using every shred of energy and will to climb this particularly steep section of my road.  "How dare I," it makes some part of me think, "pretend wisdom and dispense advice? How dare I pretend, even, to deserve an audience?"

Just a little further, and perhaps I'll be able to tell you that I have a book deal, that life has begun. Then, and only then, should I post again.

In a way, that part of me is right.

In another way, it bears the philosophy that my life has not yet started. I deserve better than to feel that way.

I'm sure I'll post about my past at some time or another. I've made the decision to be open about it, but we'll wait until the book is coming out for that. Meanwhile, let's just say I've had a tough road to get here. A very large part of me had hoped that upon getting my agent, my hardships were over. But it was not the end of the road--merely the beginning of another.

Ursula le Guin once wrote that a man's weakness is his vanity. It is not enough for him to simply be. I am not Luke. I am a teacher. I am a writer. I am a martial artist. I am a fiance. But I'd be lying if I said any of that mattered to me, in my darker times, other than writer. And I am not a writer.

If you'll allow me:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing. Money suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things... And now abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of all these is money."

George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, from I Corinthians XIII (adapted)

We are not defined by what we do. Not in meritocratic Capitalism. Not in a society in which the word "successful", in conversation, translates perfectly to "possessing of money". We are defined by what we conquer.

I have chosen to live outside of that value system, but only insofar as I'll seek my money doing something I love. Until I achieve the "success" necessary to support myself and those who need me, I am not a writer. I am a guy who writes.

If you were to ask me three years ago how I'd feel if I got an agent, I'd have told you that I'd cry tears of joy. I did get an agent. I did cry tears of joy. Yet they were meaningless, for though my heart filled with hope and passion and zest for life, I had not money.

In some ways, I have never felt such emotional strain. My dreams have been dangling just out of reach long enough that, in my darkest moments, I feel like life is taunting me, that I should just turn back, that this is the closest I will ever come.

I wish I could say that were only a small voice in my head. Instead, it's a fire in me that burns every time I think of it, including as I write this.

The end is so close yet so distant. That large, burning part of me thinks I should not write on this blog until I've achieved success. Yet that's absurd. I can't shut out every other form of fulfillment, or indeed every other aspect of my career, simply because I haven't yet attained the ultimate goal. And what is the ultimate goal? When I have this published, will I find satisfaction in that, or will that have to wait until I'm a #1 Best-seller? I must find a different way. What I need in life now is to feel like my book is a series of manageable tasks, a set of steps instead of a meandering, endless journey.

As such, I've made a decision. As a form of accountability to myself, I'm going to write something here every week. It may be an accomplishment, or a fear, something that helped me or stood in my way. Some of my posts will be short. Some of them will be crap. Some will be long and some insightful. Some will be about writing. Others will be about life. Regardless, they'll appear, and I'll keep moving forwards.

This road is long. It feels endless, meandering, at times meaningless. But it can't be meaningless. I can't let myself believe that. I must find ways to make it feel like a collection of shorter journeys. Sometimes, to feel that way, one needs companions.

So, to whoever still reads this, I didn't mean to abandon you. I just wandered off this path. Now I'm asking for your hand, to take you along, to borrow your ears and companionship.

In some ways, this may read like a diary for a time. I'm not doing it for you anymore. But perhaps, if we're both lucky, you'll get something out of me.

Write Where it Hurts, or Feels Good. Whatever.

Most writers say to write what you love to read.  I say that's very very true, and especially important to new writers, but by going a layer deeper we can understand something about the creative self.

Write what you feel most passionate about. The type of books that have stayed with you the longest, that have really shaped who you are as a person, that have given you dreams and nightmares--those are things worth writing about.

For me, I love reading fantasy fiction, and elements of fantasy will certainly be present in almost all my work. I like science fiction, but usually only love it when it starts to border on fantasy (when it doesn't work to adhere to stringent scientific rules or plausibility). No one can read my stories without seeing my love for fantasy.

The stories I have enjoyed most in my life have been Robert E. Howard's Conan stories. These are grossly underestimated. Bob Howard was a brilliant man, and his intelligence shines through in these stories in his passion for ancient times, the folly of civilization, and the evil of religion. Whether or not you agree with his anti-theist themes, they are ever-present and powerful.

I've probably read A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony twelve times. That's the first book that got me into reading.

But what's the first book that changed my life? A Catcher in the Rye. I read it very young, and it made the whole world make sense. Holden Caulfield made me feel like I wasn't alone, and that other people too saw the way society changes people too easily, how shallowness is lofted as a virtue, and how too many people choose not to notice the problems of the world around them. I am certain that if Holden had been at my school, we would have been friends, and would have listened to Nirvana together. He would have been just as big a fan as I. Things like Nirvana, and A Catcher in the Rye, proved to me that art could really change people, and criticize the world in intelligent ways. That's what made me want to be an artist.

The books that have impacted upon me the most are the aforementioned, 1984, All Quiet on the Western Front, Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, Fight Club, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, a small selection of Conan stories, and A Clockwork Orange. It's a short list. Those aren't the only books I love (indeed, my favourite genre only crops up once) but they're the ones I truly wish I'd written. And what could inspire my work more than that?

I was also very inspired by two poems in particular: Always Comes Evening by Robert E. Howard, and The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare.

If you're a writer, you'll probably have a list like this. It doesn't matter what's on the list, and if it is populated by the genre you enjoy reading the most, then that's great. If anything, you'll probably have an easier time finding story ideas. Nothing wrong with that. All I'm suggesting here is a different way of deciding what you should write about. It's not what you love, it's a question of who you are, and the answer to that rests with what has impacted upon you the most. The goal of narrative, after all, is to impact upon others.

Now, one needs pictures to stick things on Pinterest, so this one represents something that to me both hurts and feels good. There's beauty to me in the idea of nature growing over the remnants of high civilization, but there's also sadness and horror in it. So this one's for Pinterest, and I guess for me:

(I must note that I in no way believe this sort of writing, this desire to change things, is any better than writing for enjoyment. It is merely a question of knowing who you are and being honest with yourself. If what you love are fun stories, for instance, if that's what made you want to be a writer, you'll probably be really good at writing fun stories, and the world needs fun stories just as much as it needs sombre, gritty things. What I love are dark, gritty stories. That's the only reason I want to write them. It is not because I think my goals are any more important or worthwhile. I have to say this because too many authors use words like "serious fiction", and draw a distinction between "literary" and "popular". Such distinctions disgust me, and I have to make it perfectly clear that I am not one of these pretentious douche-bags.)

Suicide and Sorrow, some words for Robin Williams

I must say some words for Robin Williams. Among my generation, he was at his peak when I was a child, and I suspect that's made him the favourite comedian of almost everyone my age at one time or another. You'll find precious few people in their early thirties who didn't see Aladdin more than once, and who didn't watch it for the genie, and that's just one example.




I wish this post were an ode to him. He deserves one, but I'll leave those to people who knew him better--both him and his work. I must stick to what I know, and speak about depression in general, and defend those who have taken heat from displaying their understanding. People are naturally sensitive now, and I've seen some arguments arise as to the nature of what happened to him, and I hope to draw a firm line under it now so that we may cast it aside. This is not the time for bickering, but it is an opportunity to attain some understanding of depression and how we might learn to overcome it, or help those we love when they are in need.

I write this out of respect for him. I must make that clear. Because next I'll talk about what happened to him, and how depression is far more than a chemical imbalance in the brain. This must be understood if we are to respect his memory and the way he died.

Allow me to make some things clear:

1) I know depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain.

2) I've suffered from it.

3) I know that the aforementioned imbalance is made far worse by drugs, especially those that have lasting effects on brain chemistry even when taken in small quantities.

It occurs to me that our devotion to the idea that depression is a mere question of chemicals stems from a lack of empathy. If we can't believe suicide springs from the heart, is that because we feel the need to judge it?

The amount of dumb kids I've heard talk about how Kurt Cobain was just a junkie who blew his brains out leaving a wife and daughter behind, so screw him, makes my head spin. That's a disgusting attitude towards suicide, and it seems the only way we can make sense of it is to say, "Well, he had no choice." Otherwise we think he must be a horrid, selfish weakling.

Again, that's disgusting. We need to understand that we have no right to judge another person before walking a mile in their shoes.

Robin Williams suffered, and if you understand his suffering, you'll know that you cannot sweep it aside with a simplistic explanation. Nor should you, and nor do you need to. A person who commits suicide deserves your empathy, your EMOTIONAL understanding, not your Wikipedia knowledge about chemical imbalances, and certainly not disdain.

If you could speak with him, if you were his friend, would you stop at telling him, "There there, it's just chemical imbalances. Just don't dwell on it." Is that really all you'd say? I would have started by asking him what was wrong, encouraging him to share his feelings (his FEELINGS, not his knowledge of chemical imbalances) with me, then began the long process of convincing him, by speaking on his own terms, how life was worth living. Because it is, and chemicals don't make it worth living. Joy does. And the great secret that's hard to see is, joy is found everywhere. It's dancing in your face at every moment in life. You just, sometimes, grow blind to it.

Chemicals can help you grow blind, but they can't work alone. And telling him all about chemicals would certainly not be speaking to him on his own terms. That would have made him feel that you didn't even care to understand, and he would have been right.

I hear a great deal of crap about depression and suicide, even from friends and family. I tell them it's more than a neurological disease, and they don't believe me. Well, I've been clinically depressed. I've even deeply contemplated suicide. I've lived in more than one therapeutic hospital. All this was while I was a child. My late childhood was a well of nightmares, and I know for a fact that clinical depression comes from (or with, and there's no difference) a perspective on life and, because they're created by joy and sorrow, by dreams and nightmares, perspectives can be changed. Otherwise, why bother communicating? Moreover, what do you think my reaction was when people told me the nightmares were all in my head?

The fact is, though most people are too self-righteous to cognate it, that to brush Robin Williams's problem off as a chemical imbalance is an insult to him, and an insult to all depressed people.

I've mortally offended people by speaking the truth about depression, too. I once had a person physically attack me (and not successfully, I must add for reasons of pride) because I said attempted suicide is almost always a cry for help. I've probably met over a hundred kids who have attempted suicide, and they all confided in me something they would never admit to an adult: it was a cry for help. It's not hard to kill yourself if you truly want to. Actual suicide is a decision to end life, not to cry out to those you love. There is a big difference, but there's also a big similarity along the road, and it's found in a person's inability to see the love and compassion and joy around them, and it's well beyond the chemical.

You'll see what this stuff really looks like amongst teenagers in my book. Know that I've been told a few times that it's not realistic, and I don't know what it's really like in those hospitals et cetera. Well, I've lived in those hospitals. I was one of those kids. I know exactly what it looks like, what it feels like, and I also know most people don't have a clue what it's like to be depressed, suicidal or truly isolated. The reality isn't pretty, it isn't simple or easy to explain, and it isn't purely sentimental either. I hope you can accept that, and I hope I've helped you see that depression is not something to brush aside as a chemical imbalance. It is a disease of the HEART, the SOUL, and the MIND, not the blood stream.

The essence of my point is, chemicals didn't kill Robin Williams. Sorrow did. And it's the sorrow that must be understood. If I didn't believe that, I'd be in the pharmaceutical industry, but drugs don't solve the problem. They just push it aside long enough to be dealt with. Communication and understanding and regaining the ability, that we are all born with, to see that joy, is what solves the problem, and I would urge anyone who feels depressed or contemplates suicide to heed those words. Joy is all around you. Take your medication, but don't expect it to fix everything, and don't despair if it doesn't work. It's a nudge in the right direction, not the end of the path, and it's a path worth walking, and there are helping hands all around you if you trust enough to look.

As for the rest of you, become a helping hand, listen to people who are depressed and become one of the myriad hands that deserve to line the path they'll walk to happiness. To accomplish this, look, see, listen and hear, and understand that depression is a fraught journey not to be brushed aside.

Mega-death by Considerably Fewer than a Thousand Cuts

No, not Megadeth, the band with the most on-the-nose name in the history of Heavy Metal.  I'm talking about taking a character in a novel, and killing her.

No, not in the story.  Not that she gets killed.  I mean, actually eradicating her from existence, as though I were a god and she were a creature of my creation, and I control her destiny and all that stuff.

A week ago I got another email from my agent.  It turned out she thought the novel would work better without a certain character--a major character.  She gave the advice so casually.  It was off the top of her head.  And at first I felt like screaming.  Writing a new beginning was a pain in the ass, not because of the beginning itself, but because I had to go through the entire damn book afterwards with a fine-toothed comb, making sure I referred back to the beginning wherever dramatic, and making sure everything made sense.  That took forever.

Imagine how long it would take to get rid of a vital character.  It would take forever, right?

The thing is, Leslie (agent) was right.  It wasn't a vital character.  I was amazed and appalled that it took me all of two days to get rid of her.  I worked solidly for about 14 hours per day, but still.  Most of it was easy.

All the same, I still can't believe just how long this process is.  I like having an agent who's a perfectionist, but I had imagined you get an agent, she contacts publishers, you sell your work (or you don't).  Apparently it's nothing like that.  You get an agent, she has ideas about nailing a market, you work for what seems like forever, then... what?  I don't know.  I'm still at phase two.  As I said, it seems to last forever.

There's a lesson in all this for me.  Sophie, who is now dead, served the purpose of leading the main character forwards.  This detracted from my central character's dilemma, in a way, because it stopped him from having to carry his burden alone.  She wound up serving the purpose of explaining things, letting the reader know where we were going all the time.  That stops the reader from engaging with the dilemma, too.

So next time I want to bring somebody to life, I'll ask if they really deserve to be there.  I'll tell them that they can have a state pension, health care, all that stuff people should get from first-world countries.  I'll do all I can to make them healthy and vibrant, so long as they're willing to get a job.

Death by a Thousand Cuts... and Re-writes

First, let me say "AAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!" just once.

Phew.  Thanks for that.  Now I'll get to the point.

Something cool happened to me.  I'll post on that later.  For now, let's stick to the horrible part, as that's what I'm presently feeling.

I sent my book off to the agent.  Pretty cool, huh?  I went through a brutal editing by my fiancé, talented writer and brutal editor Ruth Akien, which involved basically realising what I'd done was a bunch of overly introspective waffle, and I had to re-evaluate my book and have a long think about how I need to go about plotting a novel.

(Every writer, I believe, has their own process for figuring out their book as a whole.  I have now discovered mine and I'll gladly share it with you, but not in this post.  If I did that, the post would become unfocussed waffle.  See what I did there?)

So, a few long months later, I finished the re-write.  I'm happy with it.  Like, I actually feel confident that it's my best work.  I didn't rush or cut corners.  I figured it, and myself, out to no small extent and I feel like a real writer for the first time in my life.  So off the story went to the agent.

After doing that, if you have a really good agent, apparently there can be a bit of a waiting game.  This I didn't expect.  Whenever I email Leslie, even if it's 2AM, she gets back to me like 10 minutes later.  (I don't know how the hell she does that.)  This time, she took a few weeks.  That's because she wanted to give the book a long think, and she had lots of other work to do with other authors.  That's good, right?  She has other authors in her list of clients and she works hard and frequently for them.  Sounds like my kind of agent.

So then I waited.  I decided to take some well-deserved time off.  I went to video game land, book land, relationship land... all that crap.  But it turns out I'm a work-o-holic.  I started writing a new book, plotted the first third and figured out how I want it to end, and got to work.  Things were going great.

Then I got my manuscript notes back from Leslie.  Great!  I was told I had "great elements".  ... ...

...

Okay.  So what the hell did that mean?  It could be that the story's great, and just needs a tweak, or that the story sucks, but something with similar characters might work!  Should I be elated or should I tear my hair out?  I had no idea how to take it.

It turned out, she thought the book needed a new beginning.  So I had to drop my previous project and get stuck back into Paint the Raven Black.

One thing I've learned is that writing a novel is an emotional rollercoaster.  Sometimes I love it.  Sometimes I hate it.  Right now I hate it.  I want to set my computer on fire, run screaming and laughing into the night, and get a job working at McDonald's or something.  Or maybe I just wanted to write a blog post.  McDonald's pays better, but this is probably more cathartic.

Well, back to work.

Story Question

 

 

Recently on Facebook I commented that my new kitten is helping with my novel by eating the corners of my plot outline. A friend said that so long as he didn't eat the "main story question" I'd be okay.

He hasn't eaten any really vital plot points, and has perhaps helped put things into perspective a little bit. All the same, the phrase "story question" brought back memories.

I remember doing the Creative Writing Home Study Course, reading books like "The Creative Writing Course Book" and "Cracking the Short Story Market". I'm not knocking those books. That wouldn't be my place. But they certainly weren't for me. I remember reading, somewhere, about the "story question" and being annoyed, yet not really being able to articulate why. It just seemed pedestrian to me, like I was being told to think in a very shallow way. I thought I was probably wrong to feel that way, and that I needed to just shut up and learn.

The thing is, I was right. Hearing that friend, who's a ravenous absorber of books on writing, mention "story questions" brought the memories back. I remembered how the phrase angered me, and now, with hindsight, I can see why.

I hope she reads this, because I've offered her help in the past and, while she hasn't accepted my offer, I'd like to help her anyway.

The trouble is, what the hell does it mean? Nothing. That's what. My story isn't a question. It has a purpose, a road from beginning to end in which people, if I've done my job, change in interesting ways. But that's it. Good writing comes down to simple concepts. For instance:

POV. That means understanding whose story it is and why the reader should give a damn. 

Narrative Time. That means not boring the reader with crap that has nothing to do with the story. It also, in a more subtle way, means understanding pace, and being sympathetic (having a good "ear") to how your reader is feeling, when you need to speed up, heighten the emotions of your words, or chill out. Every good story will have such combinations, and if I've done my job, they'll be artful in mine.

Man I hope I've done my job.

POV and Narrative Time aren't necessarily the end of the road, and certainly aren't the only way of looking at things, but they are concepts worth thinking about.

Story "question" implies there's something my reader doesn't know, and I want to make them want to know it, and when they do, they'll be fulfilled. I can see that, but it's a purely intellectual response.  The reader does not sit there thinking, "If only I knew what the hell was going on, this would be GREAT! And for some reason I still want to know what's going on!" The reader is sitting there thinking, "Why should I give a shit?" Or, you've done your job, they're not thinking at all.  Their just following you on the journey. They'll think about what you've written later, or when they pause for a thoughtful look out the window. If you've done your job, they're absorbed. For the time being they're through thinking.

Most vitally, NOT EVERY STORY WILL HAVE A QUESTION OF ANY KIND! These charlatans who teach writing in terms of "story questions" are telling you not only that your story must have some element that the reader wants further revealed, but that it's the MAIN thing, among the most vital elements of your story. This is simply not the case, largely because it's a purely intellectual response. Those are great. I'm not knocking them, but it isn't why we read. What a story must attempt to garner in order to not be an academic essay is an EMOTIONAL RESPONSE. Books can make you think, but questions about the narrative are not what makes a good plot.

Questions come into it when the story has a mystery, and most stories will, at some point, have a mystery, but that's not the most important thing. Basically, if what the proponents of this way of looking at things are referring to is unanswered questions within the narrative, little mysteries and cliff-hangers, what the hell is a "Main" Story Question? They don't mean any of that stuff. That stuff would make sense, but it isn't what they mean.

But these people are also saying that Story Questions are one big difference between books that sell and books that don't. People who try to peddle those kinds of easy answers make me sick. Why? Because they're taking advantage of people's hopes and anxieties. Because I was an aspirant author. I know how frustrating it is trying to learn the craft. I'm still trying to learn the craft, and any artist worth their weight in goop would say the same.

What these people mean is plot. What's the "Main Plot Thread?" is what they're trying to say, but they're trying to simplify it into this WAY OF LOOKING AT THINGS that constitutes a  holy grail of narrative technique. Again, good writing comes down to simple concepts. That means there's no shortcut or buzzword that will make you understand. All that will help is an understanding of reader psychology, and that comes with patience. There's a plethora of writing advice on this blog. I did an MFA in Creative Writing and am thankful for every second I spent learning, and I've tried to share much of my experience. If you've noticed a general theme, it's that there are no shortcuts. What it boils down to is writing is something you have to teach yourself. A good teacher is, as with any subject worth studying at grad school, just a guide, and one who claims to have an easy answer is full of shit. 

Same goes for books on writing. If you're thinking of buying one, if you want my advice, have a quick gander at the contents and the back of the book. If the author tells you there's a series of steps that will take you from aspirant to best seller, or if they say that they've unlocked some kind of secret, or they guarantee all authors think about things "like this!" and if only you knew, or any of that crap, throw the book down and save your money.  If you already own it, build a camp fire.  Roast some marshmallows. Make yourself some new shelf space. Letting people tell you the solutions are simple will only hurt you in the end, as will agonising over the wrong things.

If you're looking for something to agonise over, ask yourself if you've written anything in the last week. If the answer is no, stop reading this stupid blog and start writing a story. Practise makes perfect.

Truer words were never spoken.

A Plea for Awareness

It doesn't seem to me like many people noticed, but we've lost one of the most significant battles of modern times. It is now possible for corporations to sue governments. I have little doubt that the apathy our world's distractions breed will keep most people from considering the symbolic significance of this, but this is a decisive assault on liberty. Governments were our only recourse to fight against the wild vagaries of power and greed. It is not a question of evil overlords. It is a question of the nature of economics. Economics does not care for individual freedom. It cares only for competition, and thus power. Economics is inherently dictatorial.

Democracy is a state of affairs in which the natural urges of power must be regulated by a larger authority (the people). Democracy is not freedom. It is regulation upon the freedom to subdue and be subdued. That is precisely why Ayn Rand was a short-sighted imbecile. She did not understand that pure freedom leads inevitably to fascism. One only needs to look at history to realise that free societies eventually have chiefs, that chiefs become kings, and kings become emperors. Emperors were at last disenfranchised not by violent revolution but by a long process of the arts acquiring influence over politics while the sciences acquired influence over economics. This process culminated in a period rightly called the Enlightenment.
 

I reiterate for those for whom it's necessary: in a free society, a powerful body has the right to subdue, enslave, or even kill a less powerful body. This is natural. This is a tiger eating a deer. In a regulated society, the people as a whole can make decisions such as "Slavery is wrong." Then action can be taken on this decision's behalf, like how Britain began patrolling the coast of Africa arresting slave trader vessels for many years in 1807, and paid Portugal £750,000 (a lot of money back then) and Spain £400,000 to cease trading, or like how Canada declared all Canadian residents free in 1819. Slavery was economic efficiency having control over human lives. People decided it was wrong. Money disagreed. That's why the voice of the people, the government, had to make it illegal. We earned our right to a government. It was a long and hard battle, and it was our communal voice that stood against oppression. It was a government that stopped the ships circling Africa like wasps around a beehive. It was the government that stopped the East India Company from exploiting India in 1874 with the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act. In every historical circumstance you can name, ever since the voice of the common person mattered in government, it's been the government that's championed human rights against a free economy.

 

(Another side-note: I would love to live in a world without governments, but it won't work so long as people are capable of being ignorant, self-oriented scum, and such scum are capable of becoming powerful.)

For governments to be sued over policies that their people have helped dictate, in democratic fashion, is for powerful, privately vested interests to have greater say over a nation's actions and decisions than the people themselves. It is Ayn Rand's ideal of free economics. It is the ideal of Freemasonry, unregulated economics and the natural and inevitable subduction of the weak by the strong. It is an ancient ideal, centuries behind the society our ancestors worked so hard to evolve into. It is nothing less than an ancient evil. Humanity is now absolutely disenfranchised. All you see around you, all the freedom you enjoy, is now an illusion. We are now truly ruled, and our relationship with the powerful is that of emperors and serfs. Break the illusion. Don't think I'm crazy. This is a vital moment in history, and the tragic fact is, nobody's looking or listening.

The amazing horror is, society is now so reliant on what these corporations offer, I see no realistic, immediate means of fighting them. I don't believe this to have been a conspiracy, but I couldn't have devised a better one. All we can do is start back where our ancestors did, with art and science. I will do my best to influence politics by enlivening the spirit, making people open their eyes and believe in themselves, making them care. That, to me, is the purpose of art in any troubled time. Scientists must play their part as well.

Still, here are three immediate means of loosening the grip of the most powerful corporations:

1) Do not borrow from the bank. (In fact, mortgaged homes provide a perfect example. If your home mortgaged, you do not own your house. The bank has provided the privilege of living in a place you can not truly afford, for a cost. It is the bank's house. Consider the symbolic significance of that. It is a metaphor for much of what is wrong with our society, and how much we rely upon those wrongs. It is perhaps not feasible in our society to live without a mortgage, but one can still allow an awareness of that symbolic significance to pervade other elements of your life.)

2) Do not shop at supermarkets. This is easy. Just go to a local shop whenever you have the chance. More will spring up. Eventually we will overcome an unhealthy marriage of convenience. They provide. We take because it is simple. Consider the symbolic significance of that, and how it harms us terribly in the end.

3) Invest in ways to limit your use of oil based energy sources.

If I inspire one person to take one action, I will have at least accomplished something. These three ideas are direct means of disempowering the three most powerful forces of our subduction.

All of this talk on the nature of governments requires understanding of a fundamental irony: so long as governments are headed by those interested in power, the common (decent) person must remain vigilant. The government is not our ally, and certainly not our patron. It is a recourse, and a constant potential enemy. It is a two-faced partner, and if we turn our backs for long enough, it will stab us.

Even back in the 1800s with the abolition of slavery, it took years of petitioning, decades of authors writing stories and poems about how slavery was wrong, and several judge rulings (setting precedent) in order for the government to finally declare the abolition of slavery. We live in an era of constant petty gratification. Let us not forget that important changes take time and effort, and are worth fighting for.

Boys and their Toys

I just learned about a scientist named Eric Kandel, and an experiment, for which he earned the Nobel Prize, performed in the early 70s on a a type of large sea slug known as Aplysia.

Kendal prodded the side of the slug over and over, right on the gills. Take that, slug. And that. Poke poke poke. Neat how he curls up, huh? A reflex reaction. Poke Mr Slug enough times and he gets used to it.

I was reminded of one big reason why I hated science classes when I was a child. I had too many of my own ideas, and the discoveries I was forced to read about, bullied by a system that constantly hammered home the notion that my future depended on conformity to their education (poke poke poke, and eventually I got used to it, and consequently better at ignoring them) were boring. Scientists like Kendal could win a Nobel Prize for "discovering" something every little boy already knew. Poke a slug enough times in the side, and it gets used to it.

However, before the tone of this post feels too snide, let me clarify something. I was reminded in an amused way. Kendal won his Nobel Prize for something deeper. He discovered that Mr Slug doesn't just stop caring, his "learned change in behaviour was paralleled by a progressive weakening of the synaptic connections." (Quoted in Doige, Brain that Changes Itself, p. 201)

Mr Slug's brain was changing.

The possibilities of such things had been theorised about before. Sigmund Freud was a researcher in Neurophysiology before his idea that the brain was made up of separate cells gained him such derision as to push him from his original dream, and lead him to find new grounds to explore in Psychology. 

Canadian neuroscientist Wilder Penfield had already made a sensory map of the brain back in the 1930s, and Michael Merzenich in 1968 took the idea a step further by cutting off a segment of a living monkey's skull and prodding his hands while he was strapped, conscious, to a chair with needles and probes jabbed into his brain. What a nice fellow.

Evidence for neuroplasticity (the idea that the brain can reform itself based upon stimuli) had sprung up by 1950. In a series of lectures broadcast by the BBC, British biologist J. Z. Young argued, "There is evidence that the cells of our brains literally develop and grow bigger with use, and atrophy or waste away with disuse." (J. Z. Young, Doubt and Certainty in Science: A Biologist's Reflections on the Brain, Oxford University Press, 1951, p. 36),

What Kendal accomplished in prodding Mr Slug is to prove that the neurotransmitters actually reforge on a cellular level, that the sensory map alters with stimuli. This had been theorised, but it had never actually been mapped. Slugs make great subjects for such experiments as their nervous system is both simplistic and large. Kendal showed us the cellular reason behind age old childish wisdom, poke Mr Slug and he eventually gets used to it.

In showing us proof that even those things which science would scoff at, those things that the innocent and un-indoctrinated know to be true, Kendal gives strong evidence to the idea that such wisdoms will frequently be proven. This discovery made me wonder about all aspects of the universe. Science itself dictates that an absolute truth is impossible (this does not purely refer to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) and that discoveries will lead us into new ground. What else is there a cellular (and is cellular as deep as it goes?) explanation for?

Mr Slug didn't "just" stop caring, but he did stop caring. There were biological reasons behind a deep, intrinsic response--an "intellectual" response, so far as a slug's intellect is concerned. This is true of human brains as well. It draws me to a question for the scientists and science fiction writers: does this cheapen the neurological experience? Does biology ruin magic, or is it magic? What's the difference?

It also makes me wonder about scientists generally--the kind, at least, who offended me so as a child, and the kind who ousted young Freud. How can we be so ignorant of our own methodology and principles as to decide that thought, or indeed a piece of age-old wisdom, is wrong on the grounds of not having yet unearthed the explanation?

As you can see, learning of this turned the ignition of my imagination, and, to be perfectly honest, I wrote this as much to force myself to remember as I did to share it with you. Such is the benefit of having a blog. I hope you've enjoyed my new-found knowledge and thoughts.  (This is rushed because I'm supposed to be taking my mom out for coffee.)

An Atrocity

I am re-posting this as it's one of the most important, and horrific things I have ever seen. This abysmal attack on democracy must be stopped. If there is one responsibility of the modern individual, it is vigilance. We must be proud to live in a democracy, and that pride comes at a cost. In a world where economics is more powerful than legislation, corporations are more powerful than governments. It is our duty to remind ourselves of the dangers of these times and stand against economic oppression wherever possible.

I'm proud to have a medium with which I can let a decent number of people know about such a crime against liberty as this.

Please read the below, and thank you for lending your ears.

Wm. Luke Everest



Dear friends,





We have just days to stop a top-secret global corporate power grab that attacks everything from a free Internet to environmental protections. Trade ministers are packing their suitcases for a trip to finalize the deal -- but we can stop them from putting profit over people. Let’s get 2 million people to crash their secret meeting and keep corporate hands off our laws:








Monsanto, Philip Morris, and over 600 of their closest friends have spent years building a massive Trojan horse to give corporations the reins to our democracies. They're planning to deliver it at a key summit this week -- but we have the power to send it back where it came from.


12 Trade ministers are scheduled to meet this week to finalize the super-secretive deal that could allow corporations to sue governments over their own laws and undermine things from life-saving affordable medicines to Internet freedom. But a leaked draft has revealed a widening rift between countries and fueled a civic uproar that could keep them from signing.


Let's back up the leaders pushing for people over profits -- when we reach 2 million signers, we'll cover the capitals with Presidents standing up to the corporate takeover with ads urging them not to back down and work with lawmakers in those places to have their backs. Sign now, and tell the world:


http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_corporate_death_star_1/?bWbSKfb&v=32059


The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a major pillar in efforts of US corporations to extend their power to bend laws around the world to their benefit. It would set up a system of opaque tribunals that hand democracy's reins over to multinational corporations. Similar quasi-courts have let Philip Morris sue Australia for protecting kids from smoking and undermined Quebec’s ban on unsafe mining practices because they stood in the way of profit.

It’s SO secretive that only three people in each treaty country have seen the whole thing -- not even law-makers know what’s in it! We’ve known all along that there’s a lot at stake, but we didn’t know exactly what until Wikileaks published one of the chapters. Now the battle lines within the negotiations are out in the open and politicians are racing to distance themselves from its anti-democratic provisions.

If this all sounds crazy, it's because it is -- countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, and New Zealand are getting fed up with the corporate bullying and are pushing back. But the deal has friends in powerful places -- it's the #1 trade priority for Obama and the world’s biggest and dirtiest front for greedy corporations, the US Chamber of Commerce. They’re hellbent on wrapping things up before January and are pulling out all the stops to make that happen. Our voices now, amplified into the right sets of ears, could make the difference. Sign the urgent petition now:


http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_corporate_death_star_1/?bWbSKfb&v=32059


US Senator Elizabeth Warren recently said: “Corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters, because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people." Let’s reach two million PEOPLE to stop the corporate takeover of our governments.
With hope,

Alice, David, Jooyea, Alex, Aldine, Julien, Ricken, and the Avaaz team
SOURCES:



WikiLeaks publishes secret draft chapter of Trans-Pacific Partnership
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/13/wikileaks-trans-pacific-partnership-chapter-secret


Secret TPP Negotiations Resume in Salt Lake City (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/secret-tpp-negotiations-resume-salt-lake-city


Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (Wikileaks)
http://wikileaks.org/tpp/#QQG6


The Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty is the complete opposite of 'free trade' (The Guardian)
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/19/trans-pacific-partnership-corporate-usurp-congress

The Near and Far Future of Everest by Fog

Last week I thought Wednesday was Tuesday, and I thought Friday was Saturday. I'm not an alcoholic or a heroine addict or any other really expensive thing like that. We'll see what happens after I get a book deal. Until then, I satisfy myself with cheaper things like video games and books. But I wasn't even doing that. I was just waking up and working.

I'm almost back, so hold onto your hats, readers. Take it perhaps as advice on what to do, and indeed what not to do.

1) I'm getting loads done! If you can bury your head in a project like this, do it. Let yourself get obsessed. Just make sure you're obsessed with perfection, and not completion. The former is a hard road. The latter is a mudslide to Crap Town.

2) I'm putting on weight (not much yet, but it's weight by my standards). Each morning I look like I've spent the night punching myself in both eyes. I never see my friends, and I never write on my blog. If you want to take something from this, my advice is to find balance in your life, which is something I've learned I'm not truly capable of.

Soon I might begin a PhD. If my book deal doesn't happen soon, I'll defer, but so what? You've noticed how much I blab about self-motivation, I'm sure. It is the only thing that will carry you through to a career in writing, and it is, I believe, the healthiest form of motivation in general. If I practise what I preach, I must be someone who doesn't need an academic institution breathing down my neck to get my work done.  It's a research degree. That means I do the vast majority of the work on my own anyway, so I don't need Royal Holloway University of London. Regardless of whether I can go work with Adam Roberts (check him out here: http://www.adamroberts.com/) which I would of course love to do, and regardless of whether I can have other smart, motivated colleagues around me, I can study plenty of sociology and narrative theory.  I'm already qualified to teach at University level in the latter. As for having colleagues around me, I've never cared much for working with others. Playing, yes. Working, no.

Essentially I'm going to include a lot more interesting research in the future. I'm also quite an ancient history buff, and my secret love is Sword and Sorcery fiction. I'll be cranking out posts related to that as well as I do novel research in other directions. My career intention is to write one work of what I consider "important art" per year, and one or two kick-ass fun novels in the meantime. I've tried taking breaks from writing before. They don't work. It's like my fingers are addicted. If I don't type in a day, I go insane. Same with not thinking stories over. I have to do it. I'm also very prolific. "Important art" takes longer. The narratives aren't necessarily more complicated, but I have much more to say and I want to ensure everything is poignant. Kick-ass fiction just requires good writing skills, which I'm always working to improve.

See you 'round the twist!

I'll be back soon. I promise!

Why I Write (very short form)

Reading the gold mine that is Narrative Technique by Thomas H. Uzzell, one discovers in the first paragraph of Chapter One the question, "Why do you wish to write fiction?"

"If you expect to secure the utmost benefit from this study," he goes on to say, "I wish you to pause right here in your reading and answer this question seriously. Write it out as completely as you can. Exactly why are you interested in writing narrative? Why do you prefer this form of writing to other forms? What do you hope to accomplish by your writing? What is the greatest success you can think of for yourself in this field? How did you get this way?"

If you like, if you're interested in writing, break down his question thusly and try to answer it. You may surprise yourself with how important such reflection is. Herein lies the dissolution of the myth that technique should not be studied because true art stems from inspiration. Here is your purpose, your inspiration. Craft will only assist you in empowering it.

I've read the beginning of Narrative Technique twice, and I'm re-reading it now for a class I'm teaching. The last two times I read it were before having written Paint the Raven Black, and I often say to people that it's in writing my novel that I've discovered my artistic purpose, and indeed my style, and what sort of fiction I intend to produce. I've discovered who I am as an artist. I was pleased by how readily I could answer Thomas H. Uzzell's question this time around. The last two times, I worked hard at convincing myself I had a full answer. This time I didn't blink. I spoke from my easy chair to the far wall of my study, imagining Thomas standing there, and thought I'd follow his direction and type my speech. And what better forum for an artist than the public?

I write with what Orwell called "political purpose". He meant "political" in the widest possible sense, as in, "of the polis" or "regarding the state (not political state) in which people live" which is a more accurate and socio-anthropologically sound delineation of the Greek word than to merely translate it as "city".

I write because I see a world of insanity that I wish to impact upon, to help people grow, be good to each other, see clearly and appreciate both the beauty and the horrors that surround us. I write to open eyes and influence behaviour, hopefully for the better.

I write for metaphor, for the potency of message and for the beauty of life and small truths that can be found in human behaviour. I believe through metaphor one can touch the human essence of a thing and in offering that piece of humanity, one can make another feel. I believe that's beautiful. I write speculative literature in part because it is a realm of metaphor, and in part because I believe questions of reality and the self are more relevant now than ever. I believe the reasons for that truth are worth criticising, perhaps even fearing, and overcoming. (Note: to fear is not to cower, but to recognise a strong enemy and let your adrenaline surge.)

But most of all, in truth, I write because it cleanses my soul and lets me feel the things I care for. I write what I would want to read, and that so happens to be books of strong theme and "political purpose" as Orwell said. It is not out of pomposity, but the simple fact that books without said purpose don't hold my attention. I write for myself.

I wish to draw a distinction: writing for myself does not make it a self-oriented process. To write for myself is merely to choose those dramas that I wish to invest in, that I feel passionately for, and that I wish others to feel in kind. Why this form of art? Why not write sociological essays? Partly, in truth, because I love books, but mostly because it is through metaphor and drama that one can touch the true emotional, human essence of a thing, give it significance and purpose, evidence its human significance, the weight of it within heart and mind, and make others feel the same. That is the beauty of art. That is my mission and hopefully, one day, a worthy gift to you.

Painting a Clown Face on the Mona Lisa

Subtitled:  "The Hobbit: The Never Ending Journey"

I tried to resist writing this, perhaps for long enough that it's no longer topical and nobody cares. Then I went to IMDB and was horrified to see the 8.1 rating of The Hobbit. I looked out of curiosity, and I have very nearly lost my faith in humanity.

VERY VERY MILD SPOILERS. YOU MIGHT NOT EVEN NOTICE.

Story: 10/10. It's the Hobbit. It's one of the greatest stories ever told, in my opinion.

Execution: I'm too offended to give a number.

The Hobbit is not the crowning achievement of Tolkien's. Lord of the Rings changed Fantasy Fiction forever with its anthropological depth and detailed world building. But as far as the quality of narrative, The Hobbit is an unassuming, honest story that reads brilliantly from beginning to end. By contrast, LOTR delves for long passages into desultory details of the world that are fascinating if you've already decided to make yourself love Middle Earth, but rather laborious if you haven't. Again, LOTR is ingenious, but The Hobbit is honest, good fiction, and better told in my opinion.

Why belabor this point? It's exactly what the film failed to accomplish. The book is simple, short, punchy, beautiful. The trilogy (TRILOGY!!!) of films will, in the end, go on for 9 hours.

Is there plot and/or character material to keep the story going for that long.  H*** F*****G **IT B**CH NO!!!!!

The first fight scene probably lasts around thirty minutes. I am not exaggerating. The story is padded not with character or plot or setting or anything of value. It's not even padded with really cool violence. It's padded with dwarves falling off cliffs. Seriously. Not exaggerating. You must spend a good twenty minutes of the film just watching dwarves fall off cliffs. Then they hit their heads after 100-300 metre drops and still feel fine. Much of the rest of the padding consists of things that could make a dwarf fall off a cliff, like orcs, or rock monsters, or more orcs, or some other less interesting monster.

It could easily be forty minutes of dwarves falling off cliffs. I lost count when my brain turned to mush. Either way, there's probably 1.5 hours here of dwarves fighting and falling. I'm not exaggerating.

You will spend a good 2 hours, probably 2.5 hours, watching fight scenes and landscapes. There is enough story in The Hobbit for maybe, at a serious stretch, 2 and a half hours. A punchy, compact and excellent story could not exceed 2 hours.  The story of The Hobbit would make one of the best 2 hours of cinematic experience you'd ever see.  It is a superb story, worthy of a superb movie. What Peter Jackson has done is not only make something offensively garish out of one of the best stories ever told but he's created an offense to art itself. He has made a clown drawing and called it the Mona Lisa.

Honestly, and again I must stress that I'm not exaggerating, I would like to see Peter Jackson punished for this. I would like to see law suits, violence, him falling off a cliff for at least 20 minutes, fighting orcs for one and a half hours. Make him fall off a cliff for 40 minutes just to be safe. Then see if he shakes his head and feels fine afterwards. If so, make another two films out of it. This film is an offense to cinema, to Fantasy Fiction, to Tolkien and to the artistic traditions of our culture.

If I were in charge of the Tolkien estate, I'd be filing a law suit.

Burn, Peter Jackson. I hope you hang your head in shame for at least two hours of every day, and it should probably be two and a half hours just to be safe. If the next movie doesn't begin with a personal apology, I'm not watching it.

I Got Interviewed

My first serious author interview is up on Elizabeth Twist's great website. I'm not sure how big her audience is. I don't really care. She asked some tough questions that I was proud to answer. To all my fans, and people who just accidentally clicked the link to my site (in your face! I mean... welcome!) I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

It was a cool experience. I had to make many tough decisions about how much to reveal, not only artistically and intellectually, but personally too. I'm glad to have made the decisions now. In the public eye, you have to be very careful what you say, because your words are indelible. Any half-truth or over-statement or just plain thoughtlessness will haunt you. I remember China Mieville saying that in one of his interviews, and it stuck with me.

Thanks a million to you all. Before starting this blog, nobody wanted to interview me. I'm proud of every one of my readers, and I'd thank each of you in person if I could. I hope to do your appreciation justice with some good books one day. Until then, here's a good interview!

http://elizabethtwist.blogspot.ca/2013/08/interview-with-luke-everest.html

Why Write-a-thons are Awesome

Note: they're also bull.

Amazingly, this grand paradox actually expresses in itself why they're awesome.  Read on.

If you're a speculative fiction writer, you know about Clarion.  If not, I've turned the name into a handy link, as well as that link button, and this one.

Another note:  This post is posthumous (if my unconscious mind just created that pun, rest assured my conscious mind has told him off). I must apologise. My regular fans will have noticed that I haven't been blogging much for the past month. A lot of bad personal stuff that I won't tell you about has happened, but I've also just been writing really hard core. I'm always pretty hard core, but I desperately want to get a finished product to my agent by the end of this month, and it's going to be a rough ride. I wrote this post two months ago and forgot to hit the "post" button. Sorry. I'm on the ball again, I promise.

Anyway, in my time, I've been skeptical of Clarion for two reasons.

1)  A group of established writers selecting proteges based in part on the perceived quality of their ideas will create an inevitable bias towards established tropes. It seems reasonable that the ideas highly regarded by the establishment (thus the established writers) are, at any given point in history, inevitably already established.

I've come to think something else.  So long as established writers are actively seeking originality, this won't necessarily be the case.  Thus it will only sometimes be the case, which leaves it, in my opinion, in the category of valid concerns.

I have serious trouble trusting authority.  The more I've learned about art, life, academia and society the more I've become proud of that fact.  It isn't that I'll never trust an authority figure.  It's that my first instinct is, "Watch this person closely.  I must choose whether or not to trust them on the basis of their own virtues, not on their being an authority."

2)  You can't become a better writer in a couple of months (or however long it is). Now, in a sense, you become a better writer every day. And there will be the occasional leap in understanding, and it will take place in a small time frame, but they will be far apart. It takes years to learn the craft and years to find your own style and purpose within  the art.  It's ridiculous to think that after eight weeks (or however long it is) of study a person will go from un-publishable to professional.

What a good teacher can give you is a plethora of tools to carry forward into your own learning process. If any of you decide to study an MFA in Creative Writing (or MA or MSt--whatever) if your teacher says that by the end of the year you'll have a publishable novel, they're probably a bad teacher. It take a long, long time to become a writer.

Here's the good news.  Some of you might be worrying that you'll spend years of your life slaving over this amazing craft that you love.  You'll write a million words and five books that never sell and you'll read voraciously and just after your husband/wife leaves you and your bank balance runs dry and your roof caves in on your computer and you can't afford a new one of either, you'll still fail.  Do you know how many people that happens to, or has ever happened to?

NONE!!!!

No one will ever slave over the craft to fail at it!  Never in your life will you meet a person who has honestly given something the best they've got and failed to achieve at least some measure of success at it.  A person who wants to be UFC Champion might never make it, might never even fight in the octagon, but they'll sure as hell be a damn fine martial artist, able to teach it professionally, if they put in over four hours per day of solid training between the ages of 16 and 26.  Same with everything.  A person might never compete in the Olympics but they'll wind up a damn good swimmer, or whatever.

Every writing tutor worth their meat knows that the VAST majority of people they teach won't ever succeed in writing!  Why?  They're not going to keep at it!  Yet a shocking number of Clarion students do succeed. Why the smeg is that?

1)  They learn the atmosphere of creativity.  This is something you can get on an MFA, but you have to do it yourself.  On my MFA, a group of four people became fast friends, meeting twice per week to talk about creative writing and once per week to critique each other's work.  This was purely extracurricular, but it meant writing became our whole lives.  Two of those people have gone on retaining equal focus.  One of those is me, the other is my fiance.  We still edit each other's work.  One of those people now works as an editor at the Lagoon Group and one of them now works in advertising.  That's three out of four in the literary industry.

Nikole, Ruth and I are the only three people on the MFA to carry our writing aspirations into the future.  That's three out of twelve, and all three came from a group of people who made writing the chief characteristic of their SOCIAL lives.  That's what Clarion does.  Students work together.  They constantly think and talk about creative writing, and they make close friends (or nemeses, who can be equally helpful) to encourage them to keep trying their best well after the event.

2)  You also get this on an MFA, but only if your supervisor(s) like you.  I was fortunate enough for this to be the case with Scott and Paul.  Through being around real writers, we get a sense of how they work, who they are and how they approach not just the tasks of craft, but of life.  Through a human relationship we come to understand on an emotional level that authors are human beings.

3)  Clarion students will be inundated with the knowledge that will carry them forwards into their writing education, which will in vast part happen alone.  You might think this should be number one, but we're talking about Clarion here as distinct from other writing courses.  Clarion is a fast paced, pound you in the head kind of experience.  It's possible on an MFA to do the bare minimum intellectually and emotionally.  Even someone who gets a good grade can detach themselves most of the time, letting life into the foreground while you're trying to learn.  In acquiring these tools, you are trying to completely alter your creative perspective.  Again, unless you are a rare exception, you will not be able to use them right away.  But if you do your MFA right, you will never be the same after it.  That, too, is what Clarion does.  It shoves people into an atmosphere in which they can't avoid making the craft their entire life, having craft technique, creative and personal-life perspective crammed into their brains.  Even in a short space of time, after Clarion a writer will never be the same.

4)  This last inevitability must be mentioned.  People will bitch about this, and probably some readers will, in the first half of this paragraph, think that I'm bitching too.  This happens when you do an MA (or MFA or MSt) as well, but to a lesser degree.  You will have met a great deal of professional, successful, well connected authors.  What you further get at Clarion is a large clique of distinguished alumni, and a serious accolade.  These aren't bad things.  I don't care if you think they're unfair.  It's irrelevant.  If you bumped into Stephen King and he told you he liked "the cut of your gib" (or however he expresses himself) and wanted to help you into the industry, would you tell him "That's not fair!  Go to hell!"  If the answer is yes, you don't take your aspirations very seriously.  The fact is, people have to work their asses off to get into Clarion, and if they get a head start in their career as a result, which they most certainly do, good for them.  They've earned it.

So why are Write-a-thon-s great?  They get people encouraged by the existence of Clarion!  I've already established above that the SOCIAL atmosphere of education is by far the most important thing.  That's what's happening here.  If we all get excited about Clarion, share ideas and take interest in each other's work, we're actually doing the most important thing about going to Clarion without even being there.  So let's get excited.

Why are they bullshit?  Don't let anyone tell you how much, when or what you should write.  Find a system that works for you, that you can get excited about, and make the most of it.  Anyone who offers established rules about how to go about Write-a-thon-ing doesn't know a smegging thing about the creative process.  The important thing is just to get cracking and have fun.

Initially, when I'd written this post, I'd said this:  "If I were doing this right I'd offer excerpts of my work every couple of days. Well, that's not how my creative process works right now. Plotting a novel requires smeg-loads of thinking, and most of my work is done by pen on a sheet of paper and has arrows drawn all over it. Scanning and posting my rambling diagrams will not engage the interest of most people."

Now, back in the present, I can't post excerpts anyway, but my point still stands.  Perhaps next year I'll set aside the time to write short fiction and post as I go.

Regardless, whatever helps you, do it!  My purpose in any given a-thon is to encourage my readers to have fun and forge a productive social network.

Two Editors, a Gun and a Mental Disorder

***PROFANITY WARNING!  DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE A SISSY!***

I was in an argument with a Facebook acquaintance some time ago, and for some reason this has stuck in my mind. I have to share this with you. This is what inspired my post on Standard Manuscript Formatting.  This person, who if she reads this knows who she is, is an editor. She was adamant that writers should only use one space after periods, and that failure to do so was sheer blasphemy.

"Did your publishing house inform authors to use one space?" I said.

"No. Why should they? Fuck you!"

"Well, standard manuscript format says to use either, and most writers use two spaces."

A friend of hers who works at Random House, one of the biggest publishers in the world cut in with, "Any Random House editor would kill you if you used two spaces."

Excuse me? Most professional, best-selling, money-making, business-existence-assuring novelists use two spaces, and one of the biggest houses in the world wants to kill them instead of make money off them?

"That can't be true," I said. "I've met editors from Random House. They're business people. They were talking about the importance of discovering talent and turning it into money, and how the speculative fiction market is unpredictable these days." I remember because I asked one of them if that's because the most thriving market is young adult, and you aren't sure what those readers are going to grow into. I even asked if they keep a close eye on the video game market to know what gamers will expect of fiction later in life. They thought the first was an interesting question and hadn't considered the latter, so I got a pat on the back. I like pats on the back from publishers, which is why I remember.

So I imagined all these business people thinking more about spaces after periods than making money, and it didn't sound right. "I'm fortunate to know people who know people," I said. "I'm fairly certain when my agent pitches a manuscript she cares most about the content, and I'm pretty sure most publishers haven't attempted to kill her."

"Fuck you! My friend works at Random Fucking House!"

"The Random House guidelines don't specify one or two spaces," I said, after double-checking.

"Why should they have to? Fuck you!"

Imagine the business meeting to discuss a manuscript that's taken the interest of the Random House decision makers:

"I love this story, Harvey. We've got to publish it."

"Yeah, this will make a mint, Bill. Let's give the author a small advance, just enough to keep them happy, and see what comes of them. We'll buy their loyalty later if the project pans out."

"I think we should just invest big-time right now. New talent is impor... holy shit."

"What?"

"This manuscript...." Bill's hand starts to shake. "I... I can't read it!"

"Why not?"

"Take a look." Bill passes the paper to Harvey.

"What the hell? This has two spaces--two spaces!--after every period."

"Is that why it's illegible? Why could we read it before?"

Harvey punches the arm of his chair. "This must have gotten past the slush readers. I'm going on a firing spree after this meeting."

"An agent submitted this one," Bill says.

"...I'm going to kill this writer. Nobody submits two-space-after-period-having manuscripts to Random House. No one."

Bill strokes his chin. "What was that key command for find and replace?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You can hit Ctrl-F, or something, go to Find and Replace, then type in spaces somehow and it fixes stuff for you."

Harvey loads his shotgun and stares at Bill. One of his eyes twitches.

Bill raises his palms. "Never mind! It was just something I heard one of the youngster slush readers telling me about!"

"Let's go kill that youngster, then kill this author." Harvey looks out the window for a long moment. "Did we remember to put up the new guidelines on the website, informing authors of our pathological hatred of multiple spaces on paper?"

"You want to ask that after getting your shotgun out? You're getting soft, Harvey. That's worse than my Ctrl-F comment. Let's swing by my office on the way to kill that slush reader. I have a magnum under my desk."

"Cool."

They leave together. A shooting spree ensues.

Here's the real kicker: could you read that story? I used two spaces after my sentences--periods, exclamation points, question marks, you name it! Did you even notice? Apparently if you were an editor at Random House, you couldn't have read it. You'd think such a disability wouldn't get you a job in publishing, but actually, when you really think about it, that's probably why they all had to get jobs at the same publisher. Either that or Kelly and her friend are completely full of shit. Which do you think is the case?

Let's have some will. Shall we?

"I shall be a writer," said the lazy posh git.

Will and shall are often confused, but it breaks down like this:

Things that shall happen are going to happen. It is outside anyone's control. It simply shall occur.

Things that will happen are things that one will affect (in the sense of the word, "to act upon").

So saying you"will" become a writer means you're striving for it. Saying you "shall" means it's happening without any work. Posh gits used it in olden times to sound composed and indifferent ("nonchalant", if you like French) not because it was just a fancier word. They used it, in essence, because they were gits.

But what separates the people whose wills become reality?

See the difference? No, not just the handsomeness, but the difference in the metaphors.

The Ancient Greek word "Arete" is commonly poorly translated into English as "excellence", but Arete wasn't seen as something to become, or to have others gift you with the perception of. It isn't something to do or to wait for. Arete has much more of a Fight Club ideal behind it: to achieve Arete is to let go of all things holding you back, because Arete is something to BE.

I could get into the sociology of the Ancient Greeks here and use fancy words like "eschatological", but let's suffice to say that the Greeks didn't see time as linear, with beginning and end. Their conceptions were much more focused on the present and on individualism. Life had no purpose except in and of itself. They had mythology, but their gods were largely metaphorical (to break another common misconception). To say Achilles was blessed by Ares was to say he had superhuman skill with the blade, not to say that some sword-slinging sky-man flicked him on the ear when he was a baby and told him he was going to kick ass. Their conception of what destiny meant was very different from ours. They did not see it with finality. They saw not inevitability, but potential. They did not think in eschatological terms.

I think most modern people agree that we don't have destinies. But in the Ancient Greek sense, we do. Everyone does. I bloody well do. There's a goal I make every possible effort to achieve. If I fail, it's going to be because I'm not good enough. Simple. It won't be because I'm lazy.

So what's your destiny, in the Greek sense? If you're on this blog, I'd imagine your destiny is not to play solitaire, watch television or surf the internet. Not that I'm saying you should leave. I don't want you to leave. But if you want to be writing instead of reading this, then I say good for you.

Every second you waste letting yourself think you'd be better off after a good rest, watching television, talking to yourself in the mirror or shooting kittens with water pistols is another moment that you are closer to death. Do you really just want to be another "normal" person?  Then you don't want to be an artist.  Artists are weirdos. If you really do want to be an artist you need to not have, but give yourself Arete.

Arete doesn't mean "self-creation" anymore than it means "self destruction". It's something to be. It means waking up every day and being the best father, mother, son, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, daughter, friend, mentor, cat owner and writer and whatever else that you care to be, every day.