And then, my head exploded: Exploding Head Syndrome

Actually, my head didn't explode. But I do occasionally suffer from Exploding Head Syndrome, a weird phenomenon that, since I've had it for as long as I can remember, is probably more common than anyone realizes. It's just that, who are you going to tell? And what are you going to say?
(Simulated conversation)
"Honey, someone hit the house with a car!"
"Um, no they didn't."
"Then it must have been an earthquake!"
"Um, no. No earthquake."
Googles. Sure enough, no earthquake in the news. "All the doors in the house slammed at the same time?"
"Now you're just being silly."
"Okay, okay. It must have just been my head exploding."
"What?!"

I've felt burning, prickling, and even stabbing sensations in my sleep associated with dreams, or perhaps the dreams try to 'explain' the sensation by making me suddenly walk over sharp coral or getting shot or stabbed. And no, I don't wake up with a body part that's fallen asleep when this happens. So that's pretty weird. I've had full-color (which isn't supposed to happen) full sensation, vivid dreams that border on hallucinations. These dreams, separate in experience from my other dreams, are associated with a period of time when I had severe sleep disturbance issues that they tried to treat and ended up giving me epic nightmares. Ugh. I've also had 'normal' full color, no sensation dreams that nonetheless seem so vivid and important that I remember them for years afterward, like the one where I found a newspaper article about the first centaurs created by science in someone's tower-house attic. I've done lucid dreaming (fun, btw) where I can consciously seize control of the dream environment and continue to dream. And my creativity is clearly linked in a reciprocal fashion to dreaming. If I don't write with full engagement of all my powers of Kami every day, I'll start to dream weirder and more vivid dreams, then nightmares, until finally I find a time when I can do some serious writing and then the dreaming returns to my regularly scheduled programs. And if I'm in the middle of an intense writing period, I'll get incredibly lame, super-boring dreams where I'm shopping for an item and can't find it, or I'm at work. And then I have to wake up and go to work or go shopping. Ugh. What a waste of good dream time. It's like all the creativity that poured out of me into my writing drained my lake-o-inventiveness and left behind a sludge of boring.

But this annoying thing, this exploding head syndrome thing, though it doesn't happen very often (maybe a couple of times a year) is so bad, so frightening ... and yet it's happened often enough now that when it happens and I wake up (today it woke me at a reasonable hour, 5:30 am, which is nice because now I can get an early start on my day) I can accept (almost every time–not this morning though, whoooo boy!) that no, the house wasn't whisked away in a tornado and we didn't just land in Oz with a tremendous crash that killed one of the wicked witches.

As awesome as that would be.

And I can usually go back to sleep.

Not always, though.

This morning, it's good that I'd pretty much had a full night's sleep because I could not have gone back to sleep. My heart was going a million miles an hour, I felt hungover (and no, didn't have a drop of alcohol, actually hadn't had even a nightcap since Sunday–hey, could that be my problem? :P ) and I was absolutely, positively sure that an intruder had dropped something incredibly heavy, as in, the entire house when the jacks had given way (except there was no falling sensation just before so maybe it was just the half of the house I wasn't in.) (And there were no associated rattles or glass crashing so clearly it was emptied already of all our stuff.) (And the wood framing had to be stabilized in some way because there were no snaps, crackles or pops.)

It was really unpleasant and frightening, to say the least. I was actually afraid to explore the house, I was so sure that there was a crazy, clumsy intruder downstairs.

Some doctors believe that you'll get clusters of these exploding head thingies when you're stressed. I don't know about that. I am incredibly stressed and overworked right now, but I've been incredibly stressed before and I didn't get them. There's no way for me to remember if I was stressed when this happened before. I suppose, now that I've blogged about it, I can make a little note on future blogs at the end and we can track it together.

So, if you see something about my head exploding at the end of future blogs, don't be alarmed. It's for science.

And now that my head has exploded, I can start my day. I hope you have a great one! And may your head never explode.

+5 vs Scammers

I thought something smelled funny, but I kept it around anyway. Today I looked it up because it was really starting to stink, and I found this:

http://saltydroid.info/

How did I not know about Salty Droid before? This is awesome.

I love a lot of things about the internet. Probably my favorite thing (besides cute overload and instant communication with family and friends) (and art stuff) is how it can be such a great tool for education. I've been educating myself via the web for a while now, and I'm learning to get better at it.

Sadly, the internet is also a great place to get scammed and misinformed. Well-meaning friends (myself included) unknowingly spread stuff that isn't true or even actively harmful. This is why we need resources like Salty Droid, which outs scammers, and Snopes. What? You haven't heard of Snopes? Please. Please please please become acquainted with Snopes, an urban legend website. It's not perfect. No site is. But when you get one of those forwards from someone about the dangers of eating pop rocks and drinking cola at the same time, before you send it to everyone on your email list, first, go to Snopes and check out if it's true or false. There have been false positives and false negatives, of course, but they do have a mechanism for correcting those. At the very least, it's a great place to start.

Whatever you do, though, don't start reading around Snopes or Salty Dog because you'll get sucked in and before you know it, three days will have passed and you'll have no clean dishes or laundry. (But at least you'll be better informed!)

Often, the easiest way to keep your identity and your money safe on the internet is to simply use the internet itself against internet scammers. Salty Droid, just like Snopes, is one resource out of many and may not be perfect. For one thing, you have to be able to read nerdish, which can be byzantine in construction and unclear as far as what is meant as sarcasm and what's meant as an actual statement. Anyway, Salty Droid and many others out there exist purely to help you make certain that money or time (and let's face it, the time is usually more important than the money) isn't wasted on someone or something awful or potentially damaging to you. A few minutes of searching is time well-spent to defend yourself against bad things.

Of course, no Kami blog entry on scams and lies would be complete without a (re)mention of Writer Beware!®:The Blog and the Absolute Write Water Cooler. All you writers out there, if you get the least bit of opportunity, be sure to spread the word about this invaluable resource. There are still plenty of newbie (and some experienced) writers out there unaware of the horrid that is bad publisher and agent behavior, not to mention the many other pitfalls of writing.

Sometimes it feels like there are more pits than road.

The more mention there is on the internet of these kinds of resources, the harder time bad people will have stealing, and the better educated we all will be as lies and misinformation are snuffed out. Or revealed for what they are, which are stinky piles of stink. Or perhaps just laughed at. Maybe turned into silly videos we can all enjoy on YouTube. With cute kitties illustrating the main points.

Thusly armed, you can enjoy the wealth of educational materials (for free!), business opportunities (real ones with real value provided!), and of course, the ability to quickly communicate with family and friends on a scale unfathomable just twenty years ago (and look at cute animal pics and videos) and have a far smaller chance of getting ripped off or victimized by people abusing the awesome that is the internet for selfish gain w/o actually generating any value for the people they're hustling to.

It's like using the internet against the internet to better enjoy the internet. Somehow, it works.

Again with the Creds!

A couple of days ago, I read another 'would like to be a panelist' email. I'm not trying to be mean here. This is for educational purposes. But dang, it's hard sometimes to keep a civil tone. I know agents and editors get this way too, just because they see it so much. Have you ever seen the Palpatine on the Escalator skit by Robot Chicken? (Warning, language, politically incorrect, and, btw, Palpatine, not a good guy, right?) Anyway, the point being that, try as I might to not be, I think I'm getting jaded. Which is bad. The 237th person to query might be annoying because they're making the exact same obvious, dorky mistake that 159 people made before them, but it might well be their very first time querying, so how could they know? They're like Gary the Stormtrooper on the escalator (the one that bows his head and says aww) who gets cussed out for doing the same thing everyone else did, the thing he was supposed to do as far as he knew, btw. They totally don't deserve the brunt of someone's annoyance that has built up from the gizillion people before, right?

So, with that in mind ....

The person emailed the programming department, which is the right place/people, with their micro-publisher hat on, saying that one of their authors was local to a con and was interested in attending as a panelist. The person then asked who to contact about this, and signed with their first name, last initial, and the name of the press.

What's wrong with this, you ask?

Nothing, except that the email was phrased exactly as I paraphrased it, with no specifics. No name of the author. Last initial instead of full last name? Really? No link to the press website? (Turns out there wasn't a website, at least not one I found.) You're going to make me Google you? Seriously? Oh, and, this is the killer part. They did not mention *which* author was interested.

So, I do the Google dance. At this point I'm only mildly annoyed. The only thing I could find of any substance (and by substance, I mean something more than just a listing on a list page) was on B&N, so I click on the link. There are four books on the B&N publisher page. As far as I can tell, it's a full list. Four books, well, that's pretty tiny even by my standards, but I'm not going to knock them for that.

So, Name F. looks like he wrote two books that were authored by Name Full-last, but it could be coincidental, right? Maybe. At this point I'm grinding my teeth. Is Name F. inquiring on behalf of Name Full-last, which is probably himself? Then why the flip not say so in the email? Hi, my name is Name Full-last, I wrote a couple of books and I'd like to come to your convention. Here's a link to my stuff. Thanks for your time!

See how easy?

Sadly, this story gets worse. One of the authors of the four books is clearly a pseudonym. Either that, or a family that coincidentally has a fantasy-sounding last name decided to name their child after one of the major characters in LotR. And I can't help but think, could this be a pseudonym for Name F.? Which makes me suspect that the other author name (which looks like a traditional American name, more or less) might be a pseudonym for the same person too. At which point I'm so done with this person. Because 'one of our authors' should actually be 'I'. Anything else is a lie.

I must operate from the benefit of the doubt position, and assume that there are at least two people working together here, but that didn't stop me from developing a bias against this person. I'll combat that bias to the best of my ability, but, sorry I can't erase the experience from my brain and I don't feel I should have to. Every email I get builds the relationship between us, whether its a 'argh, more spam, I hate you!' relationship or 'yay, an email from my friend!' relationship. If there's more positive than negative, I'll look forward to our next correspondence. If, OTOH, it starts with vagueness that stinks like bullshit, and continues on to even more odiferous bullshit, that's hard to recover from.

The publisher's cause is so-not-helped by really poorly designed book covers that look like they were done by the publisher's art department, namely him again. If he hired out, he needs to change book designers and find one of a multitude of pro designers that work for cheap.

I haven't seen a response from this person yet. I'd like to think he's too busy doing publisher stuff or doing day job stuff. Hopefully he's not thinking up vague specifics to the questions the official staff sent back along the lines of which author? What creds? What experience/knowledge would this person bring to the con?

Things the staff shouldn't have to ask, because it should have been in the first email.

I hope that by writing about this stuff, more people will have a better idea of how to present themselves. Because cons need fresh ideas, new people with unique backgrounds to trot out and entertain their members. I hate to think of all the people that got passed up because they put their literary feet in their storyteller's mouths. Much of the time, I think it's like a slush pile–there isn't enough development there to be at the pro level yet. But sometimes I think the ability is there, but the communication disconnects as people try to present themselves as something more than they are.

If you think you're not enough as you are, then either grow to be what you dream to be, or accept that you may in fact be awesome enough as you are and run with that. Lying, bad. And misrepresenting or puffery is lying. Be honest, true, clear and specific, and you should be good, no matter how it breaks.

That works in writing, art ... everything.

How to Get on Convention Panels & Generally Impress Folks

I just reread someone's application letter for a convention. I reread it because he resent it, most likely because he didn't get a reply the first time. There's a reason he didn't get an immediate response.

Here's the deal, all y'all who want to be panelists on conventions, or want to include creds in a bio, etc. People aren't dumb. They can see right through the very thin veneer of vague to your lack of applicable experience. Trying to gloss over a thin or non-existent qualifications does a lot more harm than good. Trust me! Especially when it comes to hitting up a convention committee for inclusion on their panelist list. This goes double for cover letters for submitting writing to a publisher.

Here's a classic: twenty years of experience. That particular number irks me because it's used so often by people who are trying to sound impressive, when really they've been part-timing or hobbying for that twenty years. Which is cool to do, and extremely valuable time spent while learning your craft, but trying to make it sound like you've been doing something full time for twenty years seems to say one of several things. I'll mention two here:

A) You've been struggling to break through for twenty years and yet can't point to a single, specific, wow-worthy example of the fruits of your labors in your letter? Ouch.
B) You're seriously going to make me Google you instead of giving me something exact and definable so I can gauge your skills?

This person may be amazing. I can't say one way or another, and that's the problem. I feel like I'm being lied-at, even though the words may be true. I've had this happen to me before, quite recently*, actually. Most of us have. I would be far happier if, say, this person said that they've worked on this movie or that script or published in this magazine or through Cute Micro Press than try to sound all important about how they've been in the biz for twenty years.

My mood was not improved when I did Google this person and found some stuff that could have been easily included, and would have sounded a lot more appealing than the generic, hand-wavy references made in the letter. In fact, it wasn't a lot of accomplishment for twenty years. He did, however impress me with what he'd done. If I hadn't known it took him twenty years to do that, I might have said, kewl, this is nifty and worth exploring further. Instead, perhaps unfairly, I had the feeling that it wasn't a lot to show for the time expended.

So please, dear persons trying to impress folks with your creds:

Time spans aren't as important as specifics. Look at Stephen King's cred list sometime on his books. For the man who seldom needs an introduction, there's a mention of number of total books so far and a couple of current ones. For someone who hasn't been writing prolifically and famously for that long, a couple of specifics are fine, or even none. Yes, I said none. If you're working on a novel, say you're working on a novel, not that you've been writing for twenty years. If you have written a novel based on your experiences at a Space Camp, that's awesome. I want to know more about the Space Camp and maybe other folks want to hear about it too! If you're writing a cover letter and this is your very first short story, let the short story speak for you and just write hey, I wrote this thing and I hope you like it. Thanks for your time. I did that on cover letters for years, and it works just fine. If you want to be a panelist at a convention, think about the things that people might want to hear about, and if you have something to offer, mention that. Say, that you worked for three weeks with script writers for a movie produced by Twentieth Century Fox ... that might not sound like much compared to twenty years of something if you look at it one way, but from where I sit, I don't feel like someone is trying to deceive me, and that's something specific and true that I can consider.

Besides, as much as you might want to be at a specific convention or sell at a specific time to a magazine or whatever, it's better to look at the long term than the immediate pay-off. Maybe you don't have quite enough going for you this time, or this specific story doesn't fit in with what the editor wants right now. Selling it harder isn't going to make it happen. Living well and working hard is going to help you achieve your goals. And as you achieve them, you won't have to write vague letters anymore. Maybe they'll even hunt down your email address to invite you to conventions and anthologies and all kinds of kewl stuff.

*I was trying to work with a guy on a design and during the hour-long conversation he kept bringing up the fact that he'd been working in the biz for fifteen or twenty years or whatever. All I could think was, how is this relevant to getting the job we have to do done right now?

Animals

I've probably written about this before, but it's petting my peeve again, so forgive me while I go on about animals in fiction.

As fun and terrific as talking animals, telepathic animals, anthropomorphized animals, and were-critters are, I have to say that I'm ready for some more actual animals to turn up in fiction. It's all over the place in non-fiction. James Herriot (James Wight: Herriot was his pen name) is one of my favorite authors, and I reread his stuff over and over again. Animals and people make an intoxicating combination for a lot of readers, not just me, and a good writer will not only recognize that but understand how it works.

I think anthropomorphizing or giving human voice and/or human dialogue to an animal can be charming, but it takes something away, maybe even more than it gives to the story. The challenge of communicating with an animal, working with an animal, even just taking care of an animal on a basic level is an almost magical interaction in and of itself, and requires no embellishment.

For example, I feed hummingbirds. At the moment I have three, or four, maybe more. It's hard to tell. They go through a lot of sugar water, enough that I don't have to worry about it spoiling before I have to make another cup of it. (One cup of water microwaved for one minute, 1/4 cup of sugar (plus I add a smidge. It's not like they have teeth to rot) and left to cool, covered, on the counter until it's room temp. Spoils in about three days, less in very warm weather and/or if the feeder isn't kept scrupulously clean.) Although they keep their distance and are very wild, we communicate through the feeding. They watch me take the feeder, and bring out a full one. (It's hard to say if they know it's the same feeder.) They're growing used to me, though they still don't trust me. And they have very full, at times stressful, social lives. I've watched them defend territory, build nests, court, feed, and I've watched them watch me. Turning them into an aggressive, vain companion with lots to say about my choice of husband takes away that odd and enchanting relationship that I and many others have had with their wild birds. I've held a hummingbird in my hand. I've had wild birds land on me and fly away without an 'oh shit' moment because they understood somehow that I wasn't a threat, despite the fact that many people are.

It's the same thing with cats and dogs. We tend to take them for granted and put words in their minds for them, and that's all good. I don't mind seeing that on the page at all. But how much deeper and more awesome it feels when an author captures that sense of 'other' in the dogs and cats they describe. I especially like it when they capture the feeling one gets when approaching a large, strange dog they don't know and the careful maneuvers both dog and human make to determine if they're going to be friends or enemies or whether they're just going to go their separate ways because the trust just isn't there.

Life of Pi captures this well. I was relieved to see that the animals remained animals, even though they were also symbols, and in many ways mystical. Animals are just as mystical and fascinating as humans just as they are. And this can extend to fantasy animals as well. I enjoyed Smaug's dialogue in The Hobbit, but honestly, non-speaking dragons that display cunning and intelligence in many ways are more frightening. The creature in Cloverfield never speaks a word, but it is utterly terrifying ... and fascinating. Creatures that don't speak and yet display intelligence equal or greater than ours in non-verbal ways are even scarier, and more awesome.

I think, too, that the more we pretend to know, the more we steal from the mystique of animals and monsters. One of the reasons the Godzilla remake didn't work for me was all the explanation and science they put on the screen. Not knowing has so much more power. And, though we can predict with fair accuracy that the purring cat on our lap will sit contentedly and knead our thighs with sharp claws until we shove it off, as a visiting friend found out, they may also unexpectedly, after a few minutes of mutual enjoyment, give a little love nip, or as another friend experienced, a not-so-loving swat from a claws-extended paw and a rapid, raking departure. For reasons unknown. For reasons unknowable, if we want to be honest about it.

And not-knowing can be good. We don't have to be know-it-alls. We can just appreciate and experience without claiming them. They, along with all other living and non-living things in our universe, are our companions in existence, and that existence at its core is mysterious, mystifying, and fun (and harrowing and painful and full of grief) in part because we don't own it. We're a part of it, within in, together. And because we don't truly own our animals or communicate as effectively as we communicate with each other, though we take responsibility for them and take care of them (or kill them or torture them) there's always that edge in any relationship with an animal.

Attraction

Why are so many characters in fiction attractive? You only have to look at the word attractive and you'll know.

Writers write about attractive characters because they attract. They attract readers, and they attract the authors themselves. Authors don't generally have an immunity to beautiful people (although some will sneer and believe that beautiful people have easy success or that a beautiful person is always vain, etc.) While conceiving a character concept, especially when generating a love interest, they'll reach for that low-hanging fruit. Although not everyone finds the same things sexy, there are characteristics that most people reliably find attractive. Muscular characters suggest strength and stamina. Long hair has been a symbol of virility and an object of envy since ancient times. Strong chins, clear eyes, perfect skin, physical symmetry, upright posture, smoothness that suggests a healthy layer of fat without hiding too much of that coveted symbol of power, muscle ... these are symbols of perfect health and suggest genetic fitness.

But a character doesn't have to be beautiful to be attractive.

Chicks dig scars because scars imply strength and good survival traits. They also lend a sense of danger or imply that the person engages in risky behavior, which suggests a wild and uninhibited nature. Such a person might not necessarily be ideal for a stabile home life, but they could be passionate lovers, intimidating protector figures, and they might be wiser and more fit than someone who has never tested their limits to the point of failure.

Certain expressions of intelligence are very attractive. Knowledge of other languages or cultures suggests worldliness and self-reliance. Engineering skills can represent good planning, measuring, estimation, and thoughtfulness, all good things in a mate. Many skilled crafts are extremely attractive, and quite a few of the cliche lover-trades (blacksmith, for example) combine strength with a sensitive eye and long practice. Extended practice at anything difficult requires loyalty and devotion, which might be bestowed upon a lover. Even if it isn't, the suggestion is that there will be a level of care and attention to detail that might extend into sex and maintenance of a relationship.

Above-average height and weight can be powerful symbols of strength, intimidation power and success while simultaneously suggesting an appealing softness and heat. Weight has lost some of its glamour as the poorest members of society have gone from skeletally unhealthy to sugar drink (my mom calls pop hummingbird food for a reason) and factory processed food health problems. But a careful writer can still appropriate the traces of remaining admiration for certain kinds of fatness if they tap the source and head-off the negative stereotypes associated with fatness such as lack of hygiene, low intelligence, slowness, laziness, and lack of discipline. How? As writers always have, by showing the character engaging life with intelligence, nimbleness, discipline, etc. and describing them in appeal terms in regard to their physical traits including scent and strength.

I can go on, but by now hopefully it has become clear that in order to make a character attractive, you don't have to make them into some sort of supermodel cardboard cutout. In fact, some of the most attractive traits in a human being are their ability to provide and care for others. Students of writing know this and utilize this by revealing charitable, courageous, self-sacrificing or other kinds of behavior to show how good a character is. We care about people who care about others and who contribute to society rather than leech off of it.

Besides, fashions come and go, markers of health change from lean to fat to skeletal to huge, or muscle-bound to super-flexible, but the core traits that make humans appealing, like the capability to think, protect, act with decisiveness, care about others, and to weather adversity mentally, emotionally and physically, haven't changed and probably never will.

Fitness and Fiction

I think there are a couple of destructive attitudes that exist out there about fitness that get in the way not only of realism but also are missed opportunities for character depth and development.

Attitude One: It's good genes, is all.
Um, no.
A very good friend of mine a very, very long time ago gave my DH a dirty look when he mentioned something about physical fitness and said, to paraphrase, "Well it's easy for you. You've got good genes."
It's never easy, even with good genes. As the years have gone by, my DH and I have to work harder (and eat less) to stay in reasonable shape. And we are not in particularly good shape. I try to look at my workouts as tricks I'm training my body to do, rather than view it as a routine, because routines are boring and never, ever end. For example, the latest trick I'm trying to teach my body is to be able to push up with my hands under my shoulders, flat-backed, from a position where I'm flat against the floor. There's not much leverage from that position. I can do it once if I arch my back a little initially, but that's cheating. After my morning attempt (failure) I usually do some plank exercises in hopes that the next morning, I'll be able to do a real one. And after I've done a real one, I'd like to do, say, five, and then I'll make up some other weird goal for my upper body. For abs, I'm working on a full body belly roll. And for my dex/aerobics, I'm learning how to jump rope again. I used to be pretty good ... when I was eight years old. Now, not so much.
Anyway, even those of us with decent genes can't slack off, so neither can our fictional characters. And many of them don't have gyms to go to, or even a culture that embraces exercise. So either they're going to be engaging in some sort of physical labor, or walking or horseback riding everywhere, or doing some other sort of practical training where there's an obvious pay off.* It's not going to be auto-magic. And by practical, I mean life-saving training where the goal may not necessarily be to look buff, but to stay alive. As the beautiful quote in Zombieland goes, "The first rule of Zombieland is cardio."

Attitude Two: Well, fictional characters have all their off screen time to get into shape and stay in shape, or they can do it with a montage.
Yes, but if it's a daily thing, and there's a lot of variety or a ritualistic quality to it, there's opportunity to show what your characters are made of. Some of them may be the equivalent of gym bunnies and work on their bodies all day, while others could do a short stint of intense exercise and then they're done for the day. Either way, it doesn't have to be some automatic thing to blow off. They should work hard, and be punished or rewarded accordingly. (Don't forget your overuse injuries!) By the way, new research shows that ten minutes of intense exercise a day has the same benefits as hanging out on the treadmill for hours reading a magazine. Sweet! But it has to be intense. So give them an excuse to do something intense every day, or make it part of their training routine, and create some consequences and characteristics that carry over to your story, and see what happens. Three letters. MIB. His fitness and spirit carries through the whole first movie. It's a beautiful thing.

Failing that, consider giving a character an average or even overweight body. Why not? They can still be attractive. In The Ladies' Number One Detective Agency, the main character is 'of tradition build' and is very desirable. We can celebrate health in all different sizes, a full range of capabilities and disabilities in our characters, and have it make sense. Which reminds me, remember, a lot of folks in wheelchairs are athletes too. It's not all about the chair. It's about the person in the chair.

There's a huge variety of awesome humanity out there. If the Phantom of the Opera can be seductive, than anyone can be.

I guess what I'm suggesting, ultimately, is that realism doesn't have to be a drag, any more than real exercise has to be a drag. I love my exercise time (when I get around to it. Ahem.) That's me time. And for those that don't ... you don't have to be Arnold or Demi to be sexy, healthy, happy and effective. Neither do your fictional characters. Give the reality a chance on the page and see what happens, just for fun. There are zillions of sexy long-haired whatevers out there in fiction who get their sleek, fit bodies for free. Dare to be different. Dare to be closer to life, and see what truths you reveal in your story that might not have turned up if you hadn't thought about physicality beyond a description of height and eye color.

And that super-fit guy with the lightning reflexes? There are few things that will gut him faster than not being strong enough to succeed when he's the strongest thing around. Then we'll get to see his real strength, and that's powerful stuff to see on the page, and in real life.

*One of the most painfully laughable scenes I've ever seen on exercise was in Cave Dwellers where the characters had rigged up a weight machine with rough rope, pulleys and rocks. WTF? He's a sword-slinger! You don't think his arms would be strong enough just from that? And he can't afford to be muscle bound. Oh for pity's sake ... but at least they were trying to explain why he looked like a body builder, I guess. Still. Oh. My. Gawd. That was so silly. Conan the Barbarian? Way better. Just saying. Although, it would have made more sense if that wheel wasn't in the middle of nowhere. It would have made more sense if it was in the middle of town or at least near a town and they were grinding wheat or something. Still, better than rock weights. A lot, lot better.

Learning From the Worst

I took my first creative writing college course in 1986. I had a really bad teacher. He could be described by many of the clichés as far as bad instructors* go, and yet I learned a lot from him. Some of the lessons he taught were unintentional, but much of his good advice had a solid foundation and he had some idea of what he was talking about.

So, even if you happen to end up in a really cruddy class or you pick up a book on writing and it's, let's say, almost completely wrong, you can still get a lot out of it, and not just the right parts.

For example, that really cruddy teacher? He told me that my writing was outstanding (yay!) and he suggested that I not waste my time in 'genre fiction.'

Though I was a rather impressionable young thing at the time, I silently disagreed. I also didn't argue with him. I did, however, learn that I had talent from someone who disdained my subject matter. Normally writers can't hear praise and focus on the negative, but in this situation I didn't hear the message that my story was crap because it was fantasy. Instead I heard the message that he loved my writing even though he didn't like the story. That was a very valuable lesson, though I didn't realize its importance at the time. I also learned that no matter what anyone said, I would write fantasy. I might have suspected that about myself, but I didn't know until this instructor applied pressure.

I try not to say bad things about books, so I won't name names, but I'm reading a book about writing technique that had a lot of muddy and poorly-illustrated examples to support flimsy points that weren't helping me learn more about writing. I persisted and now I'm in chapters of that same book that are fantastic and will hopefully improve my writing game.

This book inspired this post because the author admitted that he gave very bad advice in previous books and during creative writing courses he taught for various universities. (No, he wasn't my instructor, although that would have been fun if he had been!) I'm learning a lot from him, despite the fact that he's flawed, is occasionally unclear, and has admitted that he (potentially) led impressionable young writers astray. And that's important to realize and accept when we learn anything from anyone. Not everything someone teaches will work for us. And some of the instruction will be absolutely wrong for everyone, including the person doing the teaching. That person, like my first college creative writing instructor, might be working on an insipid, self-absorbed piece of so-called literature aimed at a small section of society he feels nothing but contempt for (this really happened, and as far as I know that thing was never published, thank goodness) but he may be the right person at the right time to talk about the use and abuse of adjectives and adverbs in writing, or active voice, or economy of language, or any of the gizillion things that need to be in a writer's brain working in the background while we take a roller coaster ride on the chemicals zipping between synapses in our brains.

You can learn just about anything from any instructor. Even the worst ones. It may not be the lesson they're intending to teach, but you'll learn just the same. And, there's always the chance that what you think is wrong and awful is actually right and good. You might not know enough yet to tell the difference. So it's important not to rely on one source for learning. More importantly, it's a good idea to look beyond the instructor and focus on the material itself. After all, it's not the teacher who is the focus of your work. Your work is the focus of your work, and the teacher is there to help you decide how to accomplish it, either by way of good example, or sometimes, by bad example.

*The bad college creative writing instructor cliché is as follows: has never published except perhaps a thesis or academic paper, worships 'literature' and disdains all other forms of prose, is ostentatiously well-read and reads all the correct literary magazines (preferably ones you haven't heard of with very small distributions,) helps edit or is senior editor of the university's own literary magazine that no one reads except the contributors, has a small stack of form rejection slips from the New Yorker that collect dust because the writing goes very slowly, and is very sure of self despite limited or zero credentials. Optional: has a substance abuse problem, is involved in an adulterous relationship or a relationship with a student, believes s/he is disliked because s/he is too intelligent to be understood by the common person, and consciously or subconsciously dislikes the characters about which s/he writes (which leads to a rather unpleasant form of writing where the author tortures or destroys that unlikeable character for no apparent purpose).

Thrones

Another amazingly gorgeous sunny day in the Pacific NW.
I will, of course, be at my day job. I have to laugh. Well, I'll have a walk during my lunch, and sometimes I have to do stuff outside, so it won't be a total wash.

About leadership as depicted in fiction and film:

Rewatching The Hobbit always does this to me. Why are revered leaders sitting on their asses on thrones? Good, evil, doesn't matter. What exactly made their flat butts worthy of sitting in such an exalted place?

Let's ask this another way. What do good leaders do?

I have a good leader at work. If it weren't for his snappy dialogue, the look in his eyes, and the big red vest, you wouldn't necessarily peg him for the leader if you came into the store in the middle of the day. He stocks shelves and helps customers same as the rest of us. A customer interrupted him as he was answering yet another call (probably from someone needing leadership advice–he fields such calls all day–or from his boss) and he stopped and helped them. Didn't just tell them what aisle something was on. Led them to the product, asked them if he could summon additional help for them as he was on his way to answering a call. Excellent customer service, just like he drills into our heads every day. Leading by example. Working by our sides. Relentless in his mission to make us the best store in the system, and demands more of himself than his employees. This, from someone who will retire in less than two years.

Contrast that to the great orc chieftain, sitting on his ass, barking out orders. Even his ride sits on its ass when the killing of a subordinate is required. I wasn't filled with a sense of dread. I thought, this dude makes his lackeys do all the dirty work, and criticizes them when they get it wrong without any investigation whatsoever. He's got nothing. He's not a badass, he's the kind of bad manager/war cow-er-leader who gets his people killed. Why are they even following him?

The goblin king was even worse. He was comical, pathetic, lazy, self-aggrandizing ... he must have oversnacked and overslept his way to the throne somehow, because he sure didn't get there through leadership or even prowess. He fell over without a fight when he faced his enemies. I couldn't wait to get through that scene because watching that bad guy made me groan in sympathetic embarrassment for whoever designed and executed that scene. If his people had been insubordinate, if there was danger to him and he was barely holding on through bravado, I would have bought it. But no, his minions cheered on their weak, useless leader without sneers or sarcasm, and without backstabbing attempts to take advantage of enemies in their midst to finally get rid of the idiot.

Watch Band of Brothers if you want to see creative non-fiction depict a real leader. Major Dick Winters was so famously good at being a leader that despite his long years of quiet retirement and his death early in 2011, he still inspires the people he led.

One thing  The Desolation of Smaug got very right is the sense of decay, frustration, and misery that comes with bad leadership. (Can't wait to watch that part again!) The kingdom of the wood elves still has splendor–there are those that still care, and passionately–but many are self-medicating, there's the ever-present threat of insubordination, and the leader, terrified of what he sees coming, is barely holding it together. He clings to his throne because it's the only thing he has left. Without that symbol, he's got nothing to keep his people together with anymore. That's drama. That's awesome. I'll watch that all day. That's real leadership, not at its best, but compelling and real and I even sympathized with the king who is slowly, painfully losing everything he holds dear and doesn't know how to save it. And, perhaps not surprisingly if you think about it, I feared the King of the Wood Elves because I could tell how desperate he is.

How much more powerful and dangerous would the orc leader seem if he led by example, praised his troops when they did well, rewarded success, gave them working strategies and tactics to succeed when they failed to succeed on their own, and swore to avenge them when they died? He could still kill his own people, but not for failing him, no, for failing their own brethren and getting them killed through bad strategy, cowardice, etc. What makes evil leaders evil is not their thoughtless savagery. Thoughtless savages don't become leaders. Thoughtless savages need leaders to accomplish anything of any real scope beyond serial killings. Evil leaders can ramp up a sense of rabid devotion like no one else, because they can reward with things that good people would rather die than allow to exist. And evil leaders don't have to feel bad when they employ scapegoats, tap into addictive tendencies, publicly give rewards to undeserving scum to give the star players a little more motivation to prove their worthiness, betray a good soldier to establish a better one for the good of the organization, throw weak and underperforming minions under the bus, etc.

Perhaps the most painful moment in The Hobbit though, from a leadership point of view, was the telling of Thorin's history with orcs. Seriously. Stand on the edge of a cliff and brood while someone sings your praises and tells of your sorrows? Gawd, every real leader I know would be shaking their head and either insisting that it's ancient history and we've got real problems to deal with now, or they'd walk away in embarrassment. They'd protest, don't build me up to the newbie, please. Or, that's not how it happened (because from their pov they were scared spitless and not heroic at all at the battle that cost just about everyone they know their lives. Can we say survivor's guilt? Can we say, thinking over and over about what he could have done instead so that just about everyone didn't have to die that day?)

So, please, writers, get your fictional leaders off their butts and into the action. Even the bad guys. Maybe especially them, so that they don't just fall over at the climax of your big confrontation scene. Thanks!

Sexy Tears

After four rainy days off, I go back to my day job ... on a spectacular sunny day. I think my work schedule is more accurate than the weather man as far as predicting sun and rain.

On to today's topic.

I rewatched Star Trek: Into Darkness, and I have some observations that I hope will be useful. Forgive my wee preamble, please: I actually like this movie a lot, and I'm sure I'll watch it many times. I don't want anyone getting the idea that I thought it was painfully bad and in dire need of shredding.

Uniformity of reaction:
One of the tougher things to do as a writer is to characterize. I mean seriously characterize, as in define and express character. To use a great example of characterization, every one of the Avengers has their own way about that. Part of that is great acting, but acting is restricted by dialogue, the situation, and correction–which means that some of the fault falls onto the shoulders of the writers and director. Into Darkness had characterization problems.
Writers are people (I know, I know, that's just crazy talk but let me finish) and have their own personal reactions to situations. They have verbal tics, like saying "this rocks!" when they like something (or "awesome" or whatever) and they may cry readily ... or stifle sobs rather than go into full cry mode whenever possible. Their own responses are what they know at gut level. The difficulty is to then write characters who react in imagined ways to imagined situations who are not only different from oneself, but different from each other, but still fall into what the writers and director classify as worthy of admiration. In Star Trek: Into Darkness, there's a monotone. Just about every major cast member sheds a sexy tear, including Khan. Khan? Really? Khan the Ice Rage Machine? This very specific, fairly rare, delicate emotion becomes so repetitive that it could be turned into a drinking game.
Characters need to react to emotional situations differently from each other, especially in film where it's all visual and the internal stuff is harder to define and differentiate between characters. In writing, the difference between characters should be crystal clear. Which means, if a writer wants to have any range to her or his cast of sympathetic, admirable characters, that writer has to imagine, before a word is written, how a hothead can express grief and passion in an admirable way, how a genius creative can express grief and passion in a different way, how a cunning, savage mastermind can express grief and passion ... you get the idea. And that's true for every emotion characters express.

The homage:
I was on board with the re-envisioning of the original Spock/Kirk death scene from Wrath of Khan, right up until Spock cried out Khan's name. The original Kirk, yes. New Spock, no. Spock could have gone animal (and I loved how the actor went into enraged gorilla mode on Khan's ass in the following fight scene) right there, total predator. He could have lost it in any number of ways. But the Kirk echo didn't work for me. Wrong character. Not the way Spock would have expressed rage ... with a word. Howl? Maybe. Or total silence, or a growl .... lots of choices. None of them taken. I'm not sure why. Because they went a different route with the New Kirk. I'm scared? Gorgeous. Beautiful. Human. Very unlike the composed and calm Old Spock in the same situation. So why not give New Spock the same option–to be Vulcan-ish, but in the way we don't see Vulcans very often because it's so rare for that primitive side of them to escape? And what is a primitive Vulcan? I propose it's the mindless gorilla with the looping fist strikes that will smash an enemy to unrecognizable pulp before it gets its mind back, and that sort of critter doesn't have words. Yes, yes, Spock is half-human, but that's not what makes him different from Kirk and the other characters. It's his Vulcan nature, a nature so volatile that as-a-race they have tied themselves up and caged themselves because they fear it so much. So, writers and directors of Star Trek–show us why they're scared of it. Maybe there's something even scarier, something truly alien in there that Spock would have revealed. Lost opportunity.

The take-away:
Working out who characters are is something writers like me, who don't outline, discover as we go along (and then sometimes we have to go back and make changes, which is annoying! but necessary.) During the formative period, characters may sound and act the same. Usually they sound and act like whatever idealized heroes we have in our heads. If the writer has been at the game a long time, they may have their go-to archetypes and have some variety in the beginning. Some writers rely on what they've seen and read, so they'll have a cast that strongly resembles, say, the Avengers, or the Fellowship, or Griffindors .... I think that's better than having characters that are all Dirty Harry, but still. Characters are the heart of great stories, and some attention ought to be paid to the important details. Those details aren't in hair and eye color, or shallow details like whether they're a clothes horse or like curry (unless they take it to radical extremes–then it becomes really important!) The details are in the devils, and angels, inside of them. Every scene that evokes powerful emotions in characters is an opportunity to express the uniqueness and beauty of living creatures when they're at their best, or their worst. I hope more writers take advantage of those opportunities, because I want to see what happens when they do.

Weight and Self-Image, Part 2

There's a lot of fantastic stuff in the comments in the last post. I'd like to continue thinking out loud in an actual post rather than writing vast blocks of text in the comments. I tried to be succinct, but I got carried away, so, here we go.

During a writing course, one of the things the instructors hammered home is the idea that most writers can't hear positive things about their work. Even when they do hear it, they often dismiss praise. I was taught in the class to write any praise I receive down and study that part of my writing *more* than the negative. The aim is to reproduce success rather than try to eliminate failure.

I try to extend this to the rest of my life, too. I try to hear praise like Rory gives, and see myself how he sees me. That way I keep fighting to 'stay in shape' or to work on physical goals that have some other payoff than a number, like to be able to run a certain distance, achieve balance in a yoga position or be able to stand on my hands. I think that's healthier than 'get in shape,' which doesn't work from a premise that I'm okay where I'm at too. I also try to avoid aiming for a certain number of pounds (up or down, thank you Regolith for reminding me that some people think they're too thin), or to 'look good in a bikini' – I have to repeat over and over that Rory likes the way I look in a bikini right now, rather than listen to the self-revulsion of the thought of myself in a bikini (or LBD, or whatever.) And if he didn't like the way I looked in a bikini, why in the world would I strive to try to look good in one? As if that would make him love me more ....

I'm sure he'd be pleased if I had the flexibility of a gymnast and less excess in certain areas, but he's not unhappy with where I'm at right this second, either. I don't have to do a damned thing if I don't want to, and that places the things I do in the arena of my choice for my own purposes, rather than trying to satisfy some idea of what I think he might want me to look like instead of the way I look right now. My DH has the power to make me feel overweight, underweight, ugly, old ... and he has more power in my mind than society. He's not just my friend and lover and husband, but an ally in my mind when I battle self-image monsters.

If I remember to listen to his loving words, hear them, and believe them.

If he wasn't an ally, well, why would I listen to him? But that's a whole 'nother post about relationships.

It's still there, of course, the self-talk that emphasizes the negative. And it's tricky. Working from this paradigm seems to say, be happy with yourself the way you are, The End, and that's not a concept anyone will buy, for sensible reasons. We don't want to lose our drive to constantly learn, improve, to grow. If we're satisfied with the way everything is, from the state of the housekeeping to the mechanical soundness of our vehicles, what's going to motivate us to get off the couch?

But that's not what being happy with yourself actually does. Time moves on. We can be happy with the mechanical soundness of a vehicle, but it's going to need an oil change in X number of miles, and tires need to be rotated or replaced entirely, and inevitably there will be a crack in the windshield bad enough that a new windshield will be required, etc. I can love my car as it is, but I still need to take care of it.

I love my car, therefore I take care of it. If I'm okay (see, I can't even say if I love myself–ugh) with myself, that doesn't mean I stop doing all the things I always do. Nor does it mean I'll lose all motivation to try new things, or to get better. I will paint that old pick up truck, not because I don't love it the way it is (and I really do! Scratches and all!) but because I do love it. I want to play with it. I want to express my love for my truck by turning it into an art project, and of course I want to maintain it too so that it runs as long as possible. Would I fuss with the truck if I didn't love it? Of course not. I would let it languish or ignore it.

So if I didn't love myself, would I be motivated to take good care of myself? Would I only take care of myself because I'm supposed to, or because there's a tiny hope that if I take care of myself maybe in some distant future I'll be lovable? That's working from a place of pain and despair. That's less motivation, not more. And some people, because they don't love themselves, let themselves die or even speed their deaths.

Self-love also seems to mean vanity, arrogance, hubris, and other nasty things that we can safely agree are bad. I love Steve Barnes' approach, though I have to say this is my read on it and may not be his actual words or thoughts. We've known each other a few years, so what he's written and taught are tangled up with my own thoughts. Anyway, one of the lessons I've learned from Steve on this subject strips away all the bullshit, negative, backward-thinking societally-reinforced garbage we allow to rot in our minds.

Most people want to nurture children, love their friends, etc. If you saw yourself as a child, would you want to protect that child? If your friend was in pain, would you want to comfort your friend? If your favorite cousin needed help to survive, would you give it? So, assuming you say yes to these things, and assuming you consider this a positive aspect of yourself, can you see your self as your own child, your own friend, your own favorite cousin who you love? Sometimes I picture myself as a little girl and give her a big hug and tell her I haven't forgotten her, and that I love her. That's easier for me and reaches deeper than looking in the mirror. In the mirror, the whole world seems to see my flaws along with me through my own eyes. But when I picture my child self, the little blond, fragile, creative, loving, sensitive, horse-adoring, kitten-nurturing non-stop reader who loved playing by the water and building miniature architectural wonders with child-made ponds and rivers, I adore her with all my being and if the world wanted to hurt her I would destroy the world to save her.

Is it a trick of the mind? I don't think so. Looking back, there are things that hurt so bad and I wish I could go back and tell her that she's loved. So I do. I go back and hold her and tell her it's all right, I'm there for her. I'm her friend and ally, her mother and sister, her dragon if need be to fight her monsters and turn them into bits of charcoal. I don't want her to be so sheltered that she never grows up and never becomes strong, but by the blessed world she deserves to know she's loved and that she's not alone!

It's harder, maybe too hard, to extend these feelings to my grown self. I don't know if there's value in trying, when there's so much power in embracing the child within and honoring her. It's hard to see myself as Rory sees me, but I don't know if there's value in that either, when there's so much strength and joy in not just hearing the words, but accepting his love.

So that's where I'm at. By hearing and accepting praise, we let ourselves be loved, and can love ourselves. If we love ourselves, we're more likely to take care of ourselves, nurture ourselves, and grow. We can't always be stronger, or wiser, or more beautiful. Disease, age, genetics and all kinds of other stuff stand in the way. But the only thing that stands in the way of accepting love, loving ourselves and taking the best care of ourselves that we can is ourselves. I see nothing to be gained with self-loathing, and everything to be gained by being a friend to myself and help myself achieve my goals.

Maybe someday it'll be easier to do that. Even now, after all I've written and knowing it's true, it's hard to accept that liking myself isn't narcissistic horror. And maybe that's a check-and-balance within ourselves, to keep from become self-centered monsters that don't give a crud about anyone or anything else. But negativity and self-doubt should be just that, a thing to help keep balance, not the only thing in our minds. Ever.

Weight and Self-Image

I've been putting off writing about this for a long time, because I don't like to write about my more unattractive personality traits, no matter how human and normal they might be. But someone's gotta do it, damn it. If no one ever wrote about unpleasant things, nothing real would ever get said. In part I've been inspired by The Divided Mind by John E. Sarno, M.D., in particular a part where he talked about one of his own episodes with psychosomatic illness. He developed symptoms while on vacation with his wife (you'll have to read the book to find out what kind) and he had to admit that he resented taking her on vacation before the symptoms would let up. As he said in his book, this wasn't a very nice thing to have to admit, and he didn't like that about himself at all. It made him feel like a horrible person. That's the awesome and scary power of the unconscious. Sometimes it's easier on our egos to feel physically ill or cripple ourselves than admit that part of us is whiny and selfish, or whatever else might be going on. When I'm done with this book I'm going to check out some of his other ones. They sound fascinating.

Anyway, I've been fighting with my weight most of my life, even when I was skinny. I just didn't know I was skinny at the time. That tells me that I don't see myself very clearly. It makes it extremely difficult to know where I'm at. I can't look in the mirror and say hey, I'm huge or hey, I'm looking pretty good right now. I have a very athletic body and so I weigh a lot more than other people my height. Although I use the scales, it's better for me to use a tape measure around my waist and my pant size to gauge where I'm at. So, at 5'6", I'm about 175 pounds (right now less, two weeks ago I was a bit over) and wear a size 14. I know of very few women who are my height and weight that weigh as much as I do. So, there's the visual distortion, there's the weight wackiness (I feel ponderous whenever I look at the number on the scale), my intellectual goals which want me to be at a healthy weight where I can do all the stuff I like to do without hurting myself, my rational goal of maximizing my longevity and quality of life, and my not-very-subconscious goal of looking great and feminine and sleek (sleek's not going to happen with my shoulders. Just sayin'.)

Most of the time I'm okay with my size, and I'm strong and I have decent endurance though more cardio training is always good. I haven't done that in a long time now. Months.

Here's the ugly part, the things I don't like to admit.

Somewhat big doesn't trigger this–I grew up with a family where some members were perpetually round and I have some wonderful friends who are round that I consider healthy. But I'll see someone really big and the wow, how the hells, why the hells start going around in my head. I'm instantly ashamed of myself. And then I often imagine what it would be like to be that big, and to see that in other people's eyes every time they look at me, and I think, crap, I might never leave the house.

I have days when I want to do nothing but sweat so I don't have to face the scale at a given weight. I get really twitchy when I start to approach my pregnant weight. At the 175 mark I'm within five pounds of that. Maybe ten, if I'm generous with myself. 180 is the number in my head, but I think I went over that slightly when I was pregnant.

Pregnant. I'm almost as heavy as I was when I was pregnant with my first born child, with no child in my body. That slays my hopes and dreams and desires to be that super-fit grandma I might become someday if I'm lucky, the one who charges up and down mountainsides and goes skiing and fishing and all the things my mom does and other older women I admire do.

And now that I've said those things about my weight, I'm scared that someone I love and care about will think damn, if Kami thinks that's heavy, what does she think of me? I fear I'll hurt someone who has the same or worse self-image problems that I do, or that they'll hate me for thinking these things when they believe that I've got it good compared to them or whatever, and I start to make myself crazy and fearful.

So add to this mix of emotions that make me loathe myself, I have people I love that can't do all those things and I see them as beautiful and strong. One of them is very ill and believes they look fat. They don't. In my eyes, that person is thinner than I am. And that person probably is. I bet if we adjust for height and everything, that person is slimmer than I am. But that person doesn't see themselves that way, because that person's self-image is all messed up. Just like mine.

So I see someone super-heavy by my internal scale, and I try not to stare and try not to think the awful thoughts that I always do about how someone can 'let themselves go' and I think about myself and think, like I have room to talk, I have rolls like the Michelin Man, (but hey, my arms are totally like that, so, bonus!) and I go into a death spiral of shame and self-loathing and pity for the other person and I have this desire to try to help and encourage them. How awful is that, on top of everything else.

I'm ashamed to admit that I have the nerve to want to encourage and help someone who doesn't know me and would find it incredibly intrusive and arrogant and horrible to have a stranger try to be supportive about something so personal, when they have absolutely no knowledge about what I've done and been doing or not doing about my weight. I have my decisions to make and no one can make them for me. Our friends can keep us going, but a stranger has no business butting in. Just because someone is a certain size, or has twins, or moves with the aid of a wheelchair or whatever does not make them public property to ooo and aahh and approach with praise or sympathy or whatever. And yet people do this. And I think it.

Is social pressure to change our bodies all bad? I don't think so. Some social pressure is good. Social pressure reminds us to not be jerks, and helps motivate some of our other better natures including picking up trash, volunteering, etc. It's not the entirety of a given behavior (at least I don't think that people do everything just to please others and fit in) but it can be a valuable piece of a motivational spectrum to help get me off my butt. But some social pressure motivates people to distort their natural beauty, to carve up their faces and bodies until they don't look like themselves anymore, or to become housebound because they can't bear the stares. And some of that social pressure is entirely imaginary, about what I think people see when they look at me, versus what they really see. Some of that social pressure is distorted by a culture that is itself distorted (think the scary-thin models) and some social pressure is motivated by cruelty and our less-attractive selves. I don't like that part of me that stares at huge people, but others revel in it, laugh, make awful comments, and use weight as license to demean people and think less of them. I'm not sure that my desire to help overweight people become healthier is any better than the people that make fun of them. It's just as intrusive, but in the opposite direction.

There's nowhere I can take this. Society is what it is, I am who I am, and people are who they are. I just wanted to write about this because I'm a talker and a writer and I feel compelled to get this stuff out of my head and into the light. I think it's important to poke at this stuff, figure it out, and then do something positive if at all possible. I don't expect to change the world, or make people be nicer to each other. But maybe I can start a dialogue (or monologue.) This stuff has all been discussed before by others, but maybe not by all my readers, so, here you go. You've got thoughts in your head. What are you going to do with your thoughts, if anything? They're yours to keep, or to share, whatever you want or dare to do. If they're not what you want them to be and you're willing to fight to change them, I'll be here, silently cheering you on. I wouldn't dare actually cheer you on unless you asked me to, because ... well, you've read this far, so you know.

I'm scared to butt in where I'm not wanted.

I almost deleted this post. I don't know what it means that I didn't, and I don't know what it means that I put it up despite my qualms. I just hope that getting the thoughts out of my head will help someone or something someday.

Public Face: Who's it all about?

Recently I spend some time investigating some writers I'd never heard of for a friend who is handling the programming for a convention. Two websites and a few blogs later, I noticed a pattern of not-goodness. I'm keeping this super-generic because I don't want anyone assuming (wrongly or otherwise) that it's them. I don't want anyone to go hunting for a rock to crawl under. Nor would it be any fun if people assume I'm talking about them and get all defensive and decide that they're an exception for whatever reason.  I just want to offer some advice that hopefully everyone can use.

There are a lot of writers who blog about writing out there. Writers write, and writers obsess about how to write, when to write, why to write, who or what to write about, what music to write to, where to write, etc. I went in with that knowledge and expected that a writer's blog will involve writing on some level. So that's fine. It's natural for writers to obsess about writing on their blogs.

But.

Assuming that a writer blogs because they want to connect with their audience, it seems to me that it might be a good idea to make the blog about the audience. Impart useful information, write teasers, talk about cats [because the interwebs were created for cute cat pictures, instant information (right or wrong might not matter as much as getting it right away) and porn, as we all know] or whatevs. Get excited about the latest book coming out, or report on the awesome that's the convention, book signing, movie that came out, fab new writing haunt, etc. But I would suggest avoiding what these authors did, which was make it all about themselves. I don't mean, don't make it personal. Personal is fine. But there's a difference between sharing and narcissism. These websites seemed very narcissistic to me.

Most readers tolerate promotion so that they can find out the latest about the writer's new work. There's the work, which readers like to read about so they can snag the latest info about the story they love, and there's the author, who is the respected creator but not the focus of the reader's interest.

The posts had nothing to do with me as an interested party who wanted to know more about the author's work, and the author themselves. I didn't care about how hard it was to write the synopsis for the person's latest work, though I've been there and it does suck. Discussing an imagined slight of The Author's craft by some unwashed, unworthy fellow author or a critical reader or whoever–I wanted to bounce off the site but I was doing research, so I reluctantly read on. I do enjoy reading about stuff like that sometimes, but usually only if the author is a celebrity and is misbehaving. In other words, I read about that at their expense, usually through a third party. (See the Anne Rice example coming up shortly.) I also like to hear about famous authors being awesome, but again, through a third party.

I did actually want to know about the authors. And I found out plenty, though probably  not what the author intended. Reading between the lines, the authors sounded more interested in themselves as authors than they were their own work, or anything else going on in the world for that matter. They may be perfectly fine writers, but I'll never know because their web presence didn't inspire confidence in their writing. I'd expect that their books are in keeping with the level of self-awareness and insight into the wider world expressed in their blogs. Which is to say, they seemed to be using really tiny windows to look out at the world, and there were a lot of mirrors outside those windows.

I think an author-focused blog can work very well. Jay Lake famously blogs about his cancer journey. In fact, he's stated that he has more hits on his blog from others wanting information about his battle with cancer than his books. I think it's valuable to study how Jay talks about his cancer and how people respond, especially others who are facing cancer or have family with cancer. The information he gives helps people feel less alone, and prepares them for the things they'll have to face and decisions they'll have to make. This is valuable (and generous, and courageous.) I've also enjoyed author blogs when the authors discuss their trips to foreign countries, antics with their pets (again with the cats!) and stuff they've learned through research.

Contrast that to talking about how mean someone was when they offered unsolicited criticism of the author's work. If there was some insight, humor, something to entertain me, as a fellow crazy writing person I might have felt a connection. I've certainly had my share of weird, cruel and off-putting critiques. But as a reader, a potential buyer of the author's books, those posts turned me off more than anything. And, sadly, even as a writer sympathetic to the plight of other writers, my main reaction was to wonder if the author had a thick enough skin to survive in the business. That, and I had a flashback to Anne Rice's reaction to a bad review on Amazon. I still get a chuckle out of that. As entertained as I was by that whole debacle, it didn't endear me to Anne Rice, no matter how much I can sympathize with how hard it can be to deal with a bad review. She looked terribly unprofessional.

And these websites and blogs were just that. Unprofessional. It's not about the author. It's about the work.

And cute pictures of cats.

The Divided Mind by J. Sarno

My DH and I are going to be at Norwescon 37. I hope we'll see a bunch of you there!

For once, I'm not overbooked. I'll have plenty of time to visit with folks. I expect I'll be spending a lot of time at the NIWA (Northwest Independent Writer's Association) table and possibly some time at barcon. I'm a bit of a foodie so if anyone has a suggestion for fantastic food around the SeaTac area, let me know.

Otherwise I'm assuming that I'm going to relax, do some writing, go to some panels, periodically sit in a hot tub, do some reading, and visit with friends.

Speaking of reading, I'm currently being blown away by "The Divided Mind" by John E. Sarno (which looks like Samo in the current font I'm seeing it ... see the whining in my last post for more rant-astastic information on this topic.) It explains a lot about the state of the physical and emotional health of, well, pretty much everyone in the western world right now. I firmly believe that not enough people get help for their mental and emotional problems and I think that this is in part because there's not a lot of quality care available, or maybe people just have trouble finding it or funding it.

I think a good indicator of whether or not a mental health specialist is worth the research, referral (if necessary,) time and expense is if they make things better within a finite period of time. And that may be what's going on with the majority of cases, but the public perception, or at least my perception and I don't think I'm alone, is that it takes years to work out your problems with your upbringing, and that puts the expense both in funding and time out of reach of just about everyone I know. What I like about this book is that the author addresses a problem and puts it in perspective. He then lays out a blueprint for how to deal with this problem, and what it's going to take. If all is as he presents it, then his methods are easily accessible, take a relatively short period of time to bring relief, and isn't going to rob you and your family of valuable resources forever. If the average person believed that this was what they could expect from a mental health program, I think most of them would sign up.

If. If they knew that the problems they're experiencing are mental rather than physical, and it seems that many of the problems we're facing, including lower back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, dare I suggest planar fasciitis, GERD, etc. may in fact be caused by a rather insidious mechanism triggered by the subconscious. It's actually been recorded and studied for over a hundred years. And yet psychosomatic illness is what happens to the other guy, or to the hypochondriac, not to, well, everyone. Really. It's, like, normal to have psychosomatic stuff going on. I should have figured this out. I had horrible dizzy spells that stopped me from going to school. No cause was ever found. And when I stopped going to school and we finished moving and things settled down, so did my dizzy spells.

Normal. It's not dumb, or a deficiency. It's a coping mechanism. And like a lot of coping mechanisms, sometimes it's worse than what it's trying to help us cope with or get through.

This book makes me happy. It's hard for me to contain my enthusiasm and delight. I feel I need to, though. I can't foist this on people who I think might need it. I can't wish stigmas away. If I could, then yes, I could go to people and say, oh, oh, you have to borrow this book from me and read it right away because it might help you! and they won't feel like I've just slapped them in the face and called them crazy and dumb and on top of it intruded into their private life.

Sometimes social stuff makes me crazy. Sometimes I really want to open my brain to someone else and let them see that all the things they might imagine that I believe about them isn't true. Sometimes I wish I could turn off the feeling that people assume things about me, because chances are they're thinking about the latest awesome You Tube video and don't give a crap about what I think about them. All that can help us be nice to each other and polite and kind and considerate, but it also can be an excuse to not say what we really want to say and it keeps us from telling the truth. Not the mean truth, but the scary truth, the real truth, the truth that exposes ourselves as much as it exposes the person we're speaking to.

Anyway, I'm only halfway through the book, but so far, I can definitely recommend it. The style is repetitive, but I suspect that's because the author is accustomed to disbelief and denial. Be prepared to be amazed.

Dear Font Designer ....

I spend several hours a month looking at fonts that I might want to acquire for my business. I'm pretty choosy. It's not just a matter of expense. I budget for fonts that will set me back over a hundred dollars and purchase them shortly before I need them (or sooner if they go on sale.) So if price is (usually) no object, what's getting in my way?

When I'm roughing the design for book covers and interiors I don't always have a specific thing in mind, so browsing through fonts helps me focus and suggests ideas. This means that your font design might suggest a concept that will result in my buying and using your font on my next project. I don't want to limit your creativity. Your vision and passion are an inspiration to me, and I'm always eager to look at your latest font.

Having said that, I'm often frustrated by some typographic tropes and give lots of gorgeous fonts a fast pass because of problems that come up when I'm trying to create a cover. Here are some very, very common problems that keep me from buying otherwise wonderful fonts:

Letters that look similar to other letters:  Usually, font designers are good about making certain that their letters look different from each other. They do a less-consistent job of making letters look uniquely like themselves in the grand scheme of all of typography. I see S letters that look a lot like a fancy P, and lowercase L letters that look like a lowercase T. A slanted, narrow, lowercase E when placed next to a F, T, or other letter with an overhanging element can be mistaken for an i with the dot obliterated. Here's the thing. When you have the entire font or a big block of text to look at, these visual misinterpretations by the human eye are rare because the context of all the letters helps our wonderful pattern-recognizing brain tell the letters apart. But if the title of my book is FiSh, which must stand alone on that book cover, it might look like FePh, or Tilk, or any other number of weird things depending on the font's idiosyncrasies. Those idiosyncrasies can have strong artistic and traditional foundations, but tradition doesn't help me a darned bit when I'm trying to make the reader understand that the book's title is FiSh. I recently saw this illustrated painfully in an otherwise beautiful poster where STRANGER seemed to read SIRANGER. For real. I even had a whole phrase to help me interpret the typography and I still had to take about fifteen seconds to see it. This is mainly a problem in swash and cursive designs, but I've seen it in decorative serif fonts as well.

Which leads me to letters that run into each other in unhelpful ways or that are spaced poorly, aka kerning and white-spacing: I think it's fair to say that all typographers, except perhaps novices working in a vacuum, address kerning and negative space to the best of their ability. For titling, I can adjust kerning to a certain extent and I'll be fine. Having said that, there's really nothing I can do with an r and n that combine into a figure that looks like an m but that, when I adjust the kerning, have awkward negative space around them so that they look ugly. The most common problem I run into? The capital letter M whose legs have such an extreme lean to them that even when the following letter's stem is touching them, the spacing still looks far too wide, white and awkward. The abbreviation Mr. and MA suffer in particular, and neither of those are an uncommon letter pairing. I find it maddening that this happens so often. All by itself, I have to say, the broad M letters look quite nice, but letters don't usually live in a vacuum. I rejected a huge number of otherwise wonderful fonts for the title job for MASKS because the combined slants for the M and A created a huge amount of white space that was not carried through to the rest of the title, even when I adjusted the kerning for SKS. As for body text, I'm not going to go through a whole book checking to see if rn looks like an m, so please, play safely out there, typographers.

Asian-inspired brush scripts that have letters that are too rough and have truncated parts meant to serve as absence of brush or a 'natural' brush look but end up looking unfinished and awkward:  Some of my clients are martial arts writers and would love to have a font that had the elegance and sophistication of good Asian-inspired brush calligraphy. Me too! The most common problem with the fonts I've looked at are incomplete letters. (The capital letter T in particular seems to always have a broken stem.) The second main issue is an almost random baseline and x height. I appreciate a certain looseness to the baseline and an overall feeling of freedom, but more often than not the baseline looks like someone tried to make a font that looked like Chinese or Japanese writing which is artful and gorgeous, but doesn't translate well into roman letters (roman letters are what most American and English readers think of as 'normal'). There's little respect for the roman letters in their own right and even less respect for the 'normal' baseline aesthetics for roman letters. Roman letters written as if they're set on a vertical rather than horizontal line and with a huge variation in ascender, descender and x height invariably looks sloppy, no matter how lovely the individual letters might be. More griping about baseline: capital letters are used to start the word more often than not, right? How am I supposed to ground my baseline with a broken stem? Sadly, such fonts that I attempt to use on a book cover end up looking like a Japanese or Chinese restaurant menu rather than a professional book design. I like that look ... on a menu ... but I'm trying to sell a book here, not food, and more often than not I need a formal mood. Artistic, good. All over the place, bad. Very short book titles can work using a rough font provided that the individual letters in the title harmonize well, but unfortunately, often they don't. Longer titles result in very poor results. I often have the feeling that the typographer is speaking with an awkward accent rather than working with a true understanding of the language of brush calligraphy. It would be very, very nice if there were alternates, btw, so that commonly used letters that repeat in words: e, s, t, o, a, r, etc. (and especially letters that are doubled) can have an alternate to make the title look hand-written. It would also be excellent if all the capital letters had alternates so that it's easier to ground that all-important baseline with something that will enhance the rest of title. I suspect that if I want a book title with Asian-inspired typography, my best bet will be to contact a brush calligrapher and commission a custom piece. Otherwise, I'll have to stick with calligraphic fonts with no brush-style elements but which have Asian architectural influences. There are some fine Asian-influenced brush fonts out there, but sadly they are very rare.

That about covers it for now. Thanks for reading!

Much To Do About Everything

Ack! It's been almost a month!

I've been using a list to keep track of things I want to accomplish. It's been working great, except that I've begun to realize just how much stuff I've got to do. That can be overwhelming. I'm more productive, but I'm also feeling constant pressure to get my list worked down so that I can have some leisure time without feeling guilty. I suppose I could have leisure time scheduled on my list as well ....

Which reminds me about something Steven Barnes teaches. Several times a day, take a few minutes (I try to do two or three minutes but sometimes I only do 30 seconds) to just breathe. Focus on your breath, make sure the breaths are deep and even and calming. Try to put everything else out of your mind. I wouldn't recommend doing this while you're driving. The point is not to multi-task and belly breathe while you're doing something else. The point is to take a mental break.

I've been doing this and it really helps. For the fifteen minutes total it takes out of my day, it gives me back a restfulness that's worth more than a nap of twice that length, and without the guilt of 'lost time' or the grogginess. Plus, on days when I don't do it or just do a couple of cheater 30 second sessions, I notice I'm less productive. If I don't give my brain the total break-and-breathe treatment, my brain takes it anyway, usually in the form of playing Bejeweled for a far longer period than I would have taken with the breathing. Besides, the breathing focuses me and clears my head. Playing mindless games on my computer A. keeps me at the computer, so it's not a real break and B. with my brain occupied the whole time, I don't get any silent, non-visual, black time.

What's black time? I don't honestly know what goes on. But when I breathe deeply, with my eyes closed, and deliberately don't think about anything, ideas start to pop in my head. Maybe I connect with my subconscious. I'm not sure. I just know that I come out of black time with workable stuff to do, whereas when I'm done playing a round of computer games, I have to spend time getting back into the working groove.

Weirdly (or maybe not) watching really good movies, reading good books, or tuning into a well-written tv series puts my brain into a great creative space too. I think it puts me into a playful mood. Not just any playful mood, either. Maybe my brain sees people at play and develops a desire to play Let's Pretend too. It's not as good as black time, but it's still better than playing computer games. The art equivalent of watching good movies is visiting Inspiration Hut or surfing Pinterest. I also enjoy paging through design and art books.

There's a big difference between how I view work and inspiration now and how I approached it as a kid. As a kid, inspiration was something that just happened, and I had a tendency to either do nothing until an idea whacked me in the back of the head, or I sat down and tried to think hard, and then I'd go with whatever came first that didn't seem lame. Now it feels less random. It's still mysterious, but I know if I breathe deeply, and then start to doodle, or do this, or do that, the thing that I'll need will appear and I can start to shape the vision into reality. It's nice to get excited and feel inspired, but I don't have to wait for that feeling to arise first. That feeling will come if I head in the right direction. I might be uncertain when I start on something, but if it's a good idea, guaranteed I'll be sucked into the project within a few minutes and the time will just fly on by. When I'm there, I don't care how much work I have to do. When I'm there, work feels like a blessing, and I want to do it all.

Another Helpful Hint: Don't hurt yourself

My posts about retail life and small acre farming are my most popular subjects, so today I thought I'd treat you all to one of the more important safety tips when working in a farm environment.

Don't clamp the gate's Y latch on your finger.

I know, I know, everyone does it, but it's not safe. Not safe at all. We're all especially prone to do it when the wind is blowing and our fingers are numb and the gate doesn't want to shut because there's a ton of snow in the way. I pulled hard on the top part of the gate while I braced against the pole on which the Y latch would clamp onto. My finger was in the way. And in the thoughtless way that all folks do these things, I pushed the latch down first chance I got anyway.

It took off a chunk of skin, which hurts, as these things tend to do, but the thing I seemed to have forgotten about (as one does when working around a farm) is that when metal and metal are forced together by extreme external pressure, any bone and flesh that gets in the way squishes.

Fortunately it only bent the joint backward rather than breaking bone or snapping tendon. I talked to the gate for a little while, and then I squeezed my finger nicely for a while, and I admired the blood dripping onto the snow. That's always pretty. And then I went home, talking to no one in particular because I'm quite the Chatty Cathy when the mood strikes me.

So, the point is, no matter how tempting it might be to go the easy route, remember, don't close Y latches (or any other sorts of latches) onto one's own fingers even when you're in a rush or you don't want to be bothered with doing it right. I got off easy. Next time, I might cry.

And that would be bad. That's, like embarrassing. Way worse than pain.

Just don't do it. Be safe. And stay warm!

Brownie Love

While the wind mutters and the snow continues to drift into amazing sculptures ...

I bake.

Here's the thing about brownies. You mustn't overcook them. They're not cake. They're meant to be gooey. Also, although it's possible to add too many chocolate chips, I've yet to see it happen in my kitchen. Lastly, to bake in cast iron is divine.

Assuming you're cooking with real ingredients and/or have a high-quality mix, they shouldn't stick to cast iron. The directions on the extremely yummy Dassant chocolate chip brownies (they taste like homemade because they have awesome ingredients–for real, read the label!) call for parchment paper and greasing the pan. Ha! I lift my chin in disdain at your parchment paper!

Preheat the oven with your super-awesome 8" round cast iron pan in the oven. Mix the brownies according to the recipe. Add chocolate chips, or butterscotch chips, or white chocolate chips, if desired. When the oven is preheated, remove the cast iron pan and carefully pour (or rather scrape and shovel) the brownie mix into the hot pan. The sides will rise much more than the center. Don't be alarmed. It will still tasted good. Check the brownies earlier than the directions say, as the hot pan may cook them faster than the directions state. When the center no longer wiggles like jello and a toothpick inserted comes out only slightly goopy with mix (most likely it's melted chocolate chips anyway), remove from the oven and allow to cool for as long as you can stand it.

Ice cream is not amiss in such situations.

This is how your pan should look when you remove the still-warm brownies:

Notice the lack of brownie stuck to the pan

You may notice that the brownie in the bottom of the frame has some crust peeled off. It had risen to a height too great to abide, so I ate it.

Should the brownies for some reason stick a bit to the pan, run the pan under hot water. The residue should slough right off.

Cast iron is amazing. Love your cast iron pans, and they'll love you right back.

Brrrr

Like a lot of people, we're in the teens (F) with snow coming down. It's a good day for hot brandy and writing with a dog curled up close by. Not so good for going out and covering roses that should have been covered all along (oops) but my DH and I did that too.

This is how mean I am. I make my DH smoke outside, even in this weather.

I hope everyone is warm and safe and well-fed. Keep your pets close, and don't forget ... in about ten days you can start some veggies from seed, provided that you have a plant light combined with a sunny window or sliding door area (the combination really helps) and that you're willing to pot your plants up at least twice. Herbs, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are all worthwhile starting right now. And if you like hanging baskets, if you start them in March they should be huge by the time it's warm enough to put them outside! Just remember about that light requirement. They need a lot of light, and a good spectrum. I like using 4' aquarium lights in a shop fixture next to a window. I have my lights on a timer. Right now they're over my orange trees. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I start my veggies, aside from make my annual mess when I rearrange everything.

Also next month, if you took your fuschias and geraniums into the garage, find a spot to hang them in the house where they'll get some light, start watering them, and prune them. The warmth, moisture and light will stimulate growth, and they should be in peak form by Mother's Day.

Weird things Kamis do

Kamis are notorious for doing weird things.

This morning, this Kami got up at 6am so she could take down the hummingbird feeder (which she forgot to take in last night), thaw it, and fill it with fresh, warm nectar. She was very happy when the hummingbird showed up about an hour later to tank up.

Then she decided to take a look at her African violet seed pod. It was ripe! She danced a little happy dance, picked it, and then took a picture of it. This is what they look like:

African violet seed pod

 She's really looking forward to planting the seeds and raising them up to be new african violets. She has a bunch. This one was probably fertilized by a fly. Since then, she's hand-fertilized several other blooms, and once again her plants are pregnant. It takes months for the pods to develop and ripen.

This may not seem all that weird until you realize that this Kami already has lots and lots of African violets. Yet she wants to make more. She will probably have to start giving some away.

Kamis have also been known to go out in their robe and slippers into the snow to take pictures of their cats:

Wizard in the snow with cute paw prints

Kamis also take delight when their chickens do weird things, like lay miniature eggs:

Tiny chicken egg, laid 2/2/2014

They'll even take pictures of said weird eggs early in the morning for a blog post. It's a good thing when Kamis have others, especially Rorys, take care of them because they may be too silly and weird to survive on their own.