Outside Looking In

This is where I am most of the time, on the outside of life, watching it go past and wondering what it's all about. I have always been an observer, and a recorder of observations. It's not really something I chose; it's a part of my nature.

Have you ever had the most intense realization about the most mundane things? Thinks like: I'm eating pizza that I made myself. I have been overwhelmed by such realizations. On some level, of course I understood not only that there was pizza, but that I'd made it and that I was now eating it. It's not as though I'd somehow failed to grasp this concept entirely. It's just that for a split second I was somehow aware of how incredible it is that a universe where pizza is possible even exists, and I was in awe. I somehow switched from 'participant' to 'observer' in my own life.

Or perhaps it was the other way around, or both at once. Perhaps I went from going through the motions to being acutely aware of my own participation in life. Whatever it was, I found myself looking at that pizza as though it held all the answers to life, the universe and everything (which is ridiculous since it didn't look a thing like 42.)

The pizza isn't the point. The point is that there is something in my nature that allows me to shift perspective at the drop of a hat. Life is constantly a case of looking at a vase and suddenly seeing two faces, and I think this is why I write. Scratch that. I don't 'think', I know. I write because no matter how much I find myself on the outside of life looking in, what I see is so fascinating that I must find some way of capturing it, recording it in such a way that I might be able to share at least a fraction of it. I write because the only other option is to sit here watching the world go by.

Do you ever have moments like this? Do you find yourself on the outside looking in? Alternately, why do you write?

I've Agreed to Disagree With Ray Bradbury

I love Ray Bradbury. There are many reasons for this, possibly as numerous as the stories he's written, but there is one reason above all others: he's the first of my idols that I've ever disagreed with.

I didn't grow up with Ray Bradbury in the same way that I did with Douglas Adams(more about him in the future, I'm sure,) but he was there during that weird, confusing, universally upsetting period when I wasn't quite a child any more, but I definitely wasn't a teenager yet. I read Fahrenheit 451 in school, and made it my gospel. I cherished the copy of Something Wicked This Way Comes that I was given one year for Christmas. I remember fondly the summer spent on swing sets, reading Dandelion Wine with my mom and my sister. His prose had a way of carrying me away just that much more completely than other books, and for a child with an over-active imagination, who got lost in any story e came across, this was something special indeed. In my eyes, for the longest time, the man could do no wrong.

Then about four, five years ago, I reread Something Wicked. The book hadn't changed of course, but I had.  I'd grown up some, read a whole lot of other things, and had done some of my own questioning about the nature of 'good' and 'evil'. And as I was reading I realized that I no longer agreed with what he was saying, or at least parts of how he was saying it. I still loved the book, and I always will, yet it was a rare and precious moment, realizing that I could disagree with my idol's point of view but still respect him and love his work. It opened me up to the possibility of questioning my other idols without losing my love for them.

Why did I suddenly feel the need to share this with you all? Well, a few days ago TheEchoInside brought this video of An Evening With Ray Bradbury to my attention. It was a wonderful thing, listening to him talk about the art and the craft of his writing. There were many things he said that I agreed with, things like reading. A lot. Reading everything you can get your hands on, no matter how random or unrelated. Short stories, poetry, essays. Anything. And again, as with Something Wicked, there were things I didn't agree with. Mainly the value of the internet.

He seemed to view it as some sort of cultural sink hole, the information here trivial and without substance. I became incredibly aware then, the difference in perspective that a couple of generations and ten years of advances in information technologies can make(the video is from 2001.) I could see why, from his perspective, the internet could never hold a flame to hours spent exploring a library, and it's true that nothing can replace that experience. However, I don't see the internet as trivial or unimportant. Here I have access to information, even ancient information, that I wouldn't necessarily be able to find at my local library, and I have access to people I would never have come across otherwise. People I can share ideas with, who get excited about the same things I do, or have the same fears. Even ten years ago this was possible, if slightly more difficult.

In short, I love Ray Bradbury. His works will always have something to say to me, even if I don't always agree. And that's ok.

My Writing Process: Making It Up As I Go Along

Just based on process alone, it's painfully obvious that this is my first novel.  I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I started, or what I was getting myself into.  Hell, it started more than anything as a writing exercise.

It all started when this character with the unlikely name of Michael Pariah wandered into my head and politely requested that I write him down.  And so, not knowing any better, I did.  The whole first chapter was just me getting to know him.  (The fact that I've since completely cut that chapter is beside the point.)  I was just writing. I would write when I felt like it, and I'd often have to read what I'd already written to remind myself not only what was going on, but what kind of voice I was using.  I'd also edit.  A lot.  I was committing that most heinous of all writer crimes: editing as I went.  Honestly, even after I'd heard about it I thought I was above that rule.  I'm not, and neither are you.  I'd ask you to believe me, but chances are you won't until you've figured it out for yourself.

Well, between the long breaks and the constant editing, it's really no wonder that my novel fell by the wayside for over a year.  Even though I had begun to get an idea of the plot instead of pantsing it completely, I was storing it all in my head and losing momentum.  Other things got in the way, and I'd made it far too easy for these other things to distract me.  That is, until I noticed this intriguing little Twitter hashtag: #NaNoWriMo.

I'd figured out through context that it had something to do with writing a 50,000 word novel in a month, and thought, what the hell.  I've got that Michael Pariah thing sitting around doing nothing, might as well pull that out and see what happens.  It was already a couple of days into November when I finally found the official NaNoWriMo website, found out it stood for National Novel Writing Month, and joined up.  I found out that there was a whole community involved in this, and a local branch with in-person writing sessions that I resolved to take full advantage of.  This began my second writing phase: writing every day.  I still had my outline in my head rather than written out in any way, but I was keeping up momentum and I wasn't editing as I wrote.  I also began reading a lot more about the craft of writing, most notably at Terrible Minds, a blog by the brilliant and bizarre Chuck Wendig.

Did I win, did I beat the NaNo challenge of 50,000 words?  No.  But that wasn't really my goal.  My goal was to finish my first draft, a goal that (I thought) I had accomplished.  The fact that I'd only finished the first plot-arc is a post for another day.  The upshot here is that I got into the habit of writing, and writing every day.  I'd take my laptop on the bus with me, I'd plug in a few words before bed.  I was writing and I was reading about writing.  And eventually, when December rolled around, I started actually plotting.

Admittedly, I still follow a pretty loose format for my outline, more a series of progressions per character group of this action leads to this action, each one indented further than the one before until it looks like way too many nested replies in a forum thread.  Some of it still reads pretty vaguely, like: →Possibly by becoming Timoth's property as well, pulling a Michael? Perverse... Potential. Need to plot on this...  There's also a lot there that can only really be understood if you're living in my head, but it gives me something to refer to, something to give me a direction.  I've also been noting what scenes I've already written, and in what order so I have a better idea of where I left off and what plot-line to pick up next.

Is it a perfect system?  Hardly.  I'm still learning as I go along, but the more I do the more I can fine-tune my process, and what I do have now is in part thanks to reading the advice and experience of others.  Who knows, maybe by the time I write my second book, I'll actually know what I'm doing.  Until then, I'll be doing a lot more reading, and a lot more writing.

How about you, what does your process look like?  Is there anything you find particularly helpful?  Has your process changed much since you started?  I'd love to hear about it.

Making And Breaking The Rules Of Fantasy

I'll admit right now that I am a one, maybe two genre guy, depending on how closely related you consider Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Yes, I'll read other genres, and it's even possible I'll write other genres down the line, but this is where my heart is.  Fantasy, especially.

When they say "write what you know," this is what I go to.  It's true that I've never dealt with daemons, travelled strange and fantastic lands or wielded mighty magics, but if there's one genre I know inside and out, this is it.  I know the rules of Fantasy instinctively, the same way I know when a Chinook* is rolling in.  And the biggest rule is?  There are no rules.

Ok, that's a lie.  There are lots of rules, and they're different if you're talking about High Fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy or Urban Fantasy.  Good and evil are more black and white (or at least you know which side a character/creature ought to be on,) magic and fantastic creatures abound, and chances are someone has a Destiny.  The fun part is, even within these rules, you get to reinvent the world each time.  In fact, that's pretty much the point.  While there's only so much you can change about a certain "race" or "species" and still have it be recognizable, you get to take it and make it your own, with your own rules.  For example, there are certain things that make a faerie a faerie or it isn't a faerie, but that can range from sweet Victorian flower fairies, through Tinkerbell right to something downright malicious like Jenny-Greenteeth.  Don't like what came before?  Reinvent it.

Vampire stories are notorious for having a different set of rules for every author, and while each reader has eir own preference, we can (usually) recognize that it is a vampire when you tell us so.  As long as we have drinks blood + immortal/unnaturally long-lived, we'll go "yep, that's a vampire all right," even if the rest of the details get changed faster than topics in an ADD conversation (though some of us still draw the line at sparkles.  I mean, seriously!  He's a vampire, not a disco-ball.)  The upshot of this is, in Fantasy you get to change the rules.  A lot.

One thing you can't do is break your own rules.  Once you've established a magic system in your universe, you have to stick with it.  Your trolls turn to stone in the daylight?  You can't have one suddenly take a noonday stroll.  Your vampires are allergic to garlic?  They probably won't be going out for Italian.  Whatever else you do, you have to keep up an internal logic or the reader with think you have no idea what you're doing.  Keep that in mind when you're doing your world building; consistency is key.

If you're writing a Fantasy story, how well are you sticking to your own rules?  Think I'm full of crap here?  Tell me why.  I'll never learn otherwise.

*For those who don't live just west of the foothills of the Rockies, a Chinook is a warm wind that comes in from the Pacific Ocean, over the mountains, and is known to raise the temperature above freezing in winter.  Also known to cause nasty headaches from the pressure changes.

In The Beginning...

Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.

              ~Faber, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

     When I decided that I wanted to write a blog, I knew that I wanted it to be a place where I could examine
my views and ideas, a place where I could define and refine them.  I spent a while mulling this over, and the above quote kept coming back to me.  It absolutely describes what it is I intend to do here.  Right now, I am a young man.  I have thus far been doing myself a disservice by keeping myself on the sidelines of discussion, and never showing my ignorance.  How am I to learn if I don't know what it is that I don't know?  Also, by the magic of the internet, I can promote discussions to expand the minds of others in the same way. 

    In particular, I want to take an uncommon stand on today's issues, particularly those which impact myself and my community.  I want to examine the concept of privilege, rights and community activism. I want to understand what people are doing in these areas, why they are doing it, and if in the end it's doing any good. I also want to understand and solidify my own views on these issues, how it effects both myself and my interactions, as well as what I need to work on in order to become a better person, and what will lead to actual positive effects. I want to see where sensitivity to a cause becomes over-sensitivity and reactionary behaviour.

    I want to try to take an outside perspective on a community that I am a part of.  This means equally the queer community, the trans community, and to a certain extent the art community, because art is one of the many ways we influence opinion.  I also want to look at community efforts on a larger scale and look at the fine line between a need for better protection and the sense of entitlement rampant in contemporary society.

    This is an open invitation to participate!  Learn, discuss, tell me where I'm wrong and why.  Hopefully, we will both learn from this experience.