Yesterday, I tweeted a link about the 26 Moments that Restored Our Faith in Humanity this Year on my Twitter page. It was retweeted twice.
Today, someone I follow tweeted an article about a certain religious group who I will not name and their plans the picket the funerals of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. It's been up for a little less than a day and it's already been retweeted 30 times.
An interesting discussion sparked about the concept of hate groups, what makes a hate group, and what, precisely, we can do about them under the veil of the First Amendment. The fact of the matter is, the First Amendment exists to protect the people of this country from the stifling hand of the government. It means you can say what you believe without the threat of censorship or incarceration.
It does not, however, mean that other people have to listen.
After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, I turned on a talk show and found them interviewing members of aforementioned group. Over 200,000 people dead and countless of lives and families destroyed, and this talk show had reached out to a small group of religious zealots who have never suffered a day in their life under the safe haven of the American mid-west to come and share their opinion about it. And an entire audience showed up to listen.
Even after I turned it off I figured it was a phase; a sick oddity borne from the sheltered womb of a society nurtured by full stomachs and empty minds. I imagined it would fade into obscurity, after this group said their piece and people figured out their game.
And here we are, eight years later, and they are still talking. And we are still listening.
I won't go as far to lay complete blame on the media, although I think that they have sifted their fare share of this burden to everyone else. Everyone who works in this industry, whether they will admit it or not, knows that hate sells. Hate is a wonderful commodity. It's cheap to obtain and easy to maintain. It is easily riled and even more easily fed. It travels on the inertia of its very own existence. Hate makes for fantastic ratings.
Right now, there are 27 families, friends and neighbors mourning the loss of their children, their sisters and their brothers - people they loved. Dawn, Mary, Lauren, Victoria, Olivia, Emilie, Rachel, Anne, Charlotte, Daniel, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Anne Marie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Avielle, Benjamin, and Allison. 27 people who will never wake up to see another sunrise, who will never eat another pancake, who will never watch television again or walk their dog or sing a song, ever again. 27 names.
When you think about Friday, how many of those names come to mind? Because not many did for me. I had to look most of them up.
But I bet almost everyone reading this knew the name of the "religious group" I referenced without even blinking.
The good people do in this world - Dawn, who oversaw the installation of a new security system at the school, or six year-old Emilie who was a shining star to her little sisters - they don't get the retweets. The mothers of children with mental illnesses who fear for their lives when their children get lost in the system; the children who walk door to door for hours asking for pennies for the March of Dimes; the woman I know who busted her butt collecting bottlecaps from around the country to help raise money to pay for a funeral when a child she taught died in a car crash; the people you and I know who do a little good in this world one moment at a time; not many people listen to them. We interview religious nutjobs on national television who do nothing more for this world than teach their children how to hate.
We have in our own hands a powerful tool. The power to listen is a beautiful thing. It gives us perspective, it gives us experience. It helps to nurture our understanding of the world and helps us develop our own opinions. It's the reason we should listen to what people have to say, and it's why the First Amendment exists.
Our Constitution allows the right for every single person in this country to have a voice. It does not, however, give them a right to an audience.
Stop following these people on Twitter, please. Stop watching them on television. Stop listening to them on radio shows. They've said what they believe, over and over again and we've heard it now. We know and there is no reason to listen anymore. My hope is that when the media covers the funerals of the Sandy Hook Elementary School victims - which I am sure it will - their concentration will be on the people who will no doubt show up to block the spews of rancid hate with a human wall. People who will fly and drive across the country, taking time away from their own families during the holiday season to do whatever they can to cushion the grief of other suffering families. Those people are driven out of love, not hate, and their voices are worth listening to.
Hate is a cheap commodity. Love is not. Love comes with hurt. Love is something people shy away from because it isn't always as wonderful as it sounds. Love is an investment. And it's worth every penny.
I've heard the phrase "I have lost all faith in humanity" too many times in the last three days. If you really feel that way, I think you aren't listening hard enough.
Take a break from the horrors of this world and give love a listen. I think you'll like what it has to say.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Monday, May 3, 2010
If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. - Barry Lopez, "Crow and Weasel"
I have a story to tell you.
When I was six years old, I asked for a typewriter for my birthday.
It was actually a word processor, but before the times of Windows 97 and netbooks it was the best thing since a pen and paper, and it even had a little screen and a tiny harddrive where it would save your files for a short period of time.
I remember walking in the living room one day and commanding my mother to write out as I dictated my current story idea to her. And that story was a Star Trek: The Next Generation fan-fiction. Mind, it was surely terrible, but I loved nothing more than sitting with my mother, chattering about a show we had in common and adored, as I pulled out the freshly printed pages and penciled in illustrations that helped bring that story to life. My story.
Storytelling is instinctual, and it runs deep to the core of being human, and it's a constant that has adjusted itself to our very basic evolution. If anything, it has actively effected our evolution. Between writing epic tomes that strike deep at the very nature of our existence or simply recounting that funny thing your cousin did when she was drunk at last year's family reunion, there is not a single person in a single country in a single village over the length of this vast world who has not, in one way or another, told a story.
Yet, in the time of big-name publishing houses and multi-million dollar book sales and vicious battles over the nature of copyright, this simple aspect of human existence has instead evolved into something that must be owned. It must be marked, it must be labeled, it must be sold and it must be made completely known that this precious book is one in a million, and it must be placed on a pedestal above all other stories because it is just that special.
That being said, let's get back to fanfiction.
As someone who was (obviously) writing fanfiction before I could even understand what copyright law was, it's difficult for me to grasp the absolute abhorrence many writers have for this phenomena. We write our books, we put them on the market, we say to people, "Come with me; I have a story to tell you, I have a world to show you. Let me take you on an adventure, and let me make you laugh, cry, love and hate every moment of it. Let me into your heart and soul and we can share this moment, just you and I."
And people do. They buy books; they laugh, they cry, they beg for more when the story has ended to soon. And then some of them take what they have in their hearts and begin to tell their own stories. Whether or not they do it well is irrelevant, because what matters is that they loved it. "Speak not of a man who loved wisely," Shakespeare once wrote, "but too well."
Is fanfiction wise? Probably not. From my experience, it's one heck of time waster. But some would say the same about facebook, and twitter, and a million other things humans in the modern age do to bide away their time. But it is something, ultimately, that is born from love. Once you have drawn someone so deeply into an experience as writers hope to draw our readers, we then expect them to never imagine experiences of their own. And as writers, who are we to say in what manner they wish to experience these stories, when we, ourselves, draw from our own experiences and from other stories to make what we then sell?
Don't get me wrong - there is a fine line between fanfiction as a hobby and those who plagiarize, and common sense generally dictates to the hundreds upon hundreds of fans that what they are doing is for fun, not profit. But see, us writers are lucky. We get to do what we love, and we get to do it every day. And then we forget that there are those out there who don't - people who get up every morning to go work somewhere they hate with people they can't stand, because they need to pay the bills. And when they come home, they want to escape into a world that they love, even if it's not one they've necessarily created. And they've chosen our worlds to escape to.
Why is that so offensive to writers, when it should be an honour?
One day, I would love to visit Paris. And one day I will take a picture of the Eiffel Tower, and I have no intention of asking the man who built it if I can do so. And then I will show people that picture, and the story I will tell will be about my experience. It will be my adventure, even if I wasn't the one who created the world and the centerpiece in which it takes place.
At the heart of it all, isn't that all fanfiction is? Good or bad, deep or shallow, it is nothing but a photograph of the reader's experience. And I have seen photographs that are much more haunting than the subject of it alone would be, and I am glad whomever created the subject did not take the time to moan about copyright.
But I think, most of all, what people have forgotten is what I remember from being that six year-old writing a Star Trek story; adults are just kids all grown up. And we love to play. We love to pretend. We love to wrap ourselves into a world not of our making because, let's face it, sometimes this world really doesn't cut it. And if your story is special enough to enchant the child-soul of its readers to the point that they want to live in it a little while, then you have succeeded in your goal. Don't worry about them doing it right or doing it justice, because they know it's still your story. They just want the chance to experience it with you; they want the fleeting moment of calling a tiny aspect of your story their own. They want to feel that they were, however artificially or however small, a part of it.
I have a story to tell you. And when I'm done, I want you to know a little part of that story will always belong to you, too.
When I was six years old, I asked for a typewriter for my birthday.
It was actually a word processor, but before the times of Windows 97 and netbooks it was the best thing since a pen and paper, and it even had a little screen and a tiny harddrive where it would save your files for a short period of time.
I remember walking in the living room one day and commanding my mother to write out as I dictated my current story idea to her. And that story was a Star Trek: The Next Generation fan-fiction. Mind, it was surely terrible, but I loved nothing more than sitting with my mother, chattering about a show we had in common and adored, as I pulled out the freshly printed pages and penciled in illustrations that helped bring that story to life. My story.
Storytelling is instinctual, and it runs deep to the core of being human, and it's a constant that has adjusted itself to our very basic evolution. If anything, it has actively effected our evolution. Between writing epic tomes that strike deep at the very nature of our existence or simply recounting that funny thing your cousin did when she was drunk at last year's family reunion, there is not a single person in a single country in a single village over the length of this vast world who has not, in one way or another, told a story.
Yet, in the time of big-name publishing houses and multi-million dollar book sales and vicious battles over the nature of copyright, this simple aspect of human existence has instead evolved into something that must be owned. It must be marked, it must be labeled, it must be sold and it must be made completely known that this precious book is one in a million, and it must be placed on a pedestal above all other stories because it is just that special.
That being said, let's get back to fanfiction.
As someone who was (obviously) writing fanfiction before I could even understand what copyright law was, it's difficult for me to grasp the absolute abhorrence many writers have for this phenomena. We write our books, we put them on the market, we say to people, "Come with me; I have a story to tell you, I have a world to show you. Let me take you on an adventure, and let me make you laugh, cry, love and hate every moment of it. Let me into your heart and soul and we can share this moment, just you and I."
And people do. They buy books; they laugh, they cry, they beg for more when the story has ended to soon. And then some of them take what they have in their hearts and begin to tell their own stories. Whether or not they do it well is irrelevant, because what matters is that they loved it. "Speak not of a man who loved wisely," Shakespeare once wrote, "but too well."
Is fanfiction wise? Probably not. From my experience, it's one heck of time waster. But some would say the same about facebook, and twitter, and a million other things humans in the modern age do to bide away their time. But it is something, ultimately, that is born from love. Once you have drawn someone so deeply into an experience as writers hope to draw our readers, we then expect them to never imagine experiences of their own. And as writers, who are we to say in what manner they wish to experience these stories, when we, ourselves, draw from our own experiences and from other stories to make what we then sell?
Don't get me wrong - there is a fine line between fanfiction as a hobby and those who plagiarize, and common sense generally dictates to the hundreds upon hundreds of fans that what they are doing is for fun, not profit. But see, us writers are lucky. We get to do what we love, and we get to do it every day. And then we forget that there are those out there who don't - people who get up every morning to go work somewhere they hate with people they can't stand, because they need to pay the bills. And when they come home, they want to escape into a world that they love, even if it's not one they've necessarily created. And they've chosen our worlds to escape to.
Why is that so offensive to writers, when it should be an honour?
One day, I would love to visit Paris. And one day I will take a picture of the Eiffel Tower, and I have no intention of asking the man who built it if I can do so. And then I will show people that picture, and the story I will tell will be about my experience. It will be my adventure, even if I wasn't the one who created the world and the centerpiece in which it takes place.
At the heart of it all, isn't that all fanfiction is? Good or bad, deep or shallow, it is nothing but a photograph of the reader's experience. And I have seen photographs that are much more haunting than the subject of it alone would be, and I am glad whomever created the subject did not take the time to moan about copyright.
But I think, most of all, what people have forgotten is what I remember from being that six year-old writing a Star Trek story; adults are just kids all grown up. And we love to play. We love to pretend. We love to wrap ourselves into a world not of our making because, let's face it, sometimes this world really doesn't cut it. And if your story is special enough to enchant the child-soul of its readers to the point that they want to live in it a little while, then you have succeeded in your goal. Don't worry about them doing it right or doing it justice, because they know it's still your story. They just want the chance to experience it with you; they want the fleeting moment of calling a tiny aspect of your story their own. They want to feel that they were, however artificially or however small, a part of it.
I have a story to tell you. And when I'm done, I want you to know a little part of that story will always belong to you, too.
Monday, March 8, 2010
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler."
This previous summer I found myself begrudgingly laid up in bed, with something slightly worse than the flu but not quite as bad as the plague, for almost a week. During that time, I realized the shallow merits of sitting alone, in my room, stuffing my face with an endless amount of chicken soup and watching what was likely to the cheesiest, culty-ist, most dangerously delightful television series about vampires that my best friend could dredge up in her impressive DVD collection.
Between sporadic and seemingly endless visits to urgent care, I allowed myself to reflect on the strange reaction my psyche had to such a television show. I was enraptured in season 2, disc 4, an overflowing trashcan of tissues on one side of the bed and a cooling pot of ginger tea on the other, when I began to wonder why I could never be lucky enough to bag a dangerous and sultry blood-sucker-turned-hero and find the true love to end all loves. I got to the point when I could no longer rid myself of the gaze of those sinister-yet-somehow-plagued-with-eternal-innocence eyes of my television hero, and I eased my aching spirit by stuffing my face with more freeze-dried soggy noodles.
With every bite came the sinking sensation that, once I'd shaken the virus, there was a good chance those size-10 skinny jeans I bought at Ross to wear to that Sci-Fi convention I recently returned from were, probably, never going to fit quite right again. Of course, with that came the reminder that even at the Sci-Fi convention, and even in size-10 skinny jeans, I wasn't able to land even the tiniest make-out session with one of the desperate engineers who, instead, spent the evening salivating over my best friend. My best friend, who (while having tremendously good taste in television entertainment) is somehow always prettier, smarter, skinnier, and all around more approachable that I can ever be, especially when I'm stuck in bed coughing out what's left of my internal organs in between sobs over the adventures of the equally skinnier and more good-looking starlet on the television show. The girl who managed to not only bag herself a good-looking vampire but who, most certainly, never even gets the flu.
Just before I resolved myself to a slobbering mess of mucus, it occurred to me exactly why I find such television adventures to be so rewarding. The shallow merits of television lie in precisely what life cannot offer very few; the endless adventure that constant danger offers, the sweet torment that forbidden love elicits. In reality, there is little appeal to me in the constant onslaught of adventure and certain death – I get all I need from that driving in car. Not to mention, who would really want to date a vampire? Cross out those afternoon picnics in the park, and never mind that morning when you find a strand a grey hair and realize time will never be quite as kind to you as it offers to be to an immortal. At the end of the day, when the shadows set in and the television goes off, it's nice to have shared an adventure with someone I will never have to be. Watching a teenager stave off the evils of the spirit-world makes that ever-growing pile of laundry in the corner of my bedroom seem entirely more manageable.
I love stories because they remind me of things I wish I was, and sometimes they remind me of things I'll be glad never to be. They fill me with hopes and fears and expectations and disappointments, and it's like the weight of the world is off my shoulders when I can press the pause button and remind myself that the seductive darkness of the world is not mine alone to bear.
Sometimes, life is about being swept up in the emotion and the call of adventure. Sometimes, life is about being taken in completely by the desperate hope of that final battle, of that doomed true love, or of the hero or heroine that lay within us all, waiting for that shadow at the window to take shape into something we can vanquish forever.
And sometimes, when we're really lucky, life is just about romancing a bowl of chicken soup.
Friday, January 2, 2009
"An optimist stays up to see the New Year in. A pessimist waits to make sure the old one leaves." - Bill Vaughan
I remember in school being told that the bitter taste buds are found on the back of your tongue. I was told when I take a pill, the best idea is to put it on the front of the tongue, so it tastes sweet.
But it couldn't be located anywhere more appropriate. Bitterness lies in the darkness of all things, steaming and pulsating and spreading, oh so quietly, until you take the pill that reminds you it is still there. It pounces, explodes through your being in the most unexpected moment, burning your throat, reminding you what it is like to be angry.
It can be forced back into the darkness, ignored, but it's always there.
There is something about the New Year that reminds me of these things. Not that it's any different; the sun will rise, pretty much the same, and set, pretty much the same. You'll get up, go to work, drive the same car, locate through the same spiral of streets with the same other perturbed drivers, you'll probably stop at the same light and realize you will be late, the same as you always are. You'll vaguely make resolutions that will eventually be forgotten, in the hustle and bustle that is every day life. The world won't feel any different, in the shining, brilliant light of the New Year... because it's not any different. You'll go home, talk to the same people, go to sleep in the same bed, and wake up and do it all again.
"Change" is the catch-phrase of 2009. And people will spend the year idling away, waiting for the change they waited for through 2008, and then will spend 2010 waiting for it again.
The world isn't going to change. The sun will rise and set, regardless of who hates who, who is president, what war is fought in some far off country with a name no American can correctly pronounce. No one is going to wake up to a shining new day of peace and eloquence, because you can't wait for the world to change to fit your needs.
No matter how many times my health teacher may tell me to stop putting pills in the back of mouth, I never remember to. She couldn't stop me from tasting the bitterness, because I never chose to remember too. Because the bitterness will always be there, and there's nothing I can ever, ever do to change that.
I spent much of 2008 being bitter, thinking of the things that weren't fair, that should have been different, that should never have been at all. I spent 2008 waiting for the world to change to be fair, to not hurt, to wipe away the bitter taste in the back of my throat that I couldn't entirely forget.
But without the bitterness, maybe I would forget the taste of what is sweet.
So for me, 2009 is no longer the year of waiting for the world to change. It is, instead, discovering what can be changed within me, to create around me the world I want to be a part of. I will stop lamenting the ills of the unchanged world, and instead celebrate the power of how I can change myself. And a lot of that is remembering that even through the taste of the bitterest pill, there is sweetness lying somewhere too, patiently, waiting to be remembered.
But it couldn't be located anywhere more appropriate. Bitterness lies in the darkness of all things, steaming and pulsating and spreading, oh so quietly, until you take the pill that reminds you it is still there. It pounces, explodes through your being in the most unexpected moment, burning your throat, reminding you what it is like to be angry.
It can be forced back into the darkness, ignored, but it's always there.
There is something about the New Year that reminds me of these things. Not that it's any different; the sun will rise, pretty much the same, and set, pretty much the same. You'll get up, go to work, drive the same car, locate through the same spiral of streets with the same other perturbed drivers, you'll probably stop at the same light and realize you will be late, the same as you always are. You'll vaguely make resolutions that will eventually be forgotten, in the hustle and bustle that is every day life. The world won't feel any different, in the shining, brilliant light of the New Year... because it's not any different. You'll go home, talk to the same people, go to sleep in the same bed, and wake up and do it all again.
"Change" is the catch-phrase of 2009. And people will spend the year idling away, waiting for the change they waited for through 2008, and then will spend 2010 waiting for it again.
The world isn't going to change. The sun will rise and set, regardless of who hates who, who is president, what war is fought in some far off country with a name no American can correctly pronounce. No one is going to wake up to a shining new day of peace and eloquence, because you can't wait for the world to change to fit your needs.
No matter how many times my health teacher may tell me to stop putting pills in the back of mouth, I never remember to. She couldn't stop me from tasting the bitterness, because I never chose to remember too. Because the bitterness will always be there, and there's nothing I can ever, ever do to change that.
I spent much of 2008 being bitter, thinking of the things that weren't fair, that should have been different, that should never have been at all. I spent 2008 waiting for the world to change to be fair, to not hurt, to wipe away the bitter taste in the back of my throat that I couldn't entirely forget.
But without the bitterness, maybe I would forget the taste of what is sweet.
So for me, 2009 is no longer the year of waiting for the world to change. It is, instead, discovering what can be changed within me, to create around me the world I want to be a part of. I will stop lamenting the ills of the unchanged world, and instead celebrate the power of how I can change myself. And a lot of that is remembering that even through the taste of the bitterest pill, there is sweetness lying somewhere too, patiently, waiting to be remembered.
Monday, November 10, 2008
"Say your goodbyes if you've got someone you can say goodbye to." - Matchbox 20, "How Far We've Come"
I think there is an end in sight!
It's actually a bit strange, really... I wrote an event today in the novel that has been in my mind since I wrote the short story when I was 14.
It is really appropriate, I think, that ten years later I would be seeing it come to some kind of advanced completion. I can tell you how many times I've written this story: three times in high school, twice in college, and now once for real, and numerous times only in my head.
It's changed, yes, but in it's heart, it remains the story I always envisioned it to be. Hopefully it will, after revision, be as good as I want it to be too, and the story will serve the characters, and be testaments to the lives they've lived in so many multiple forms through my life.
What's more, in a few short days, I will no longer be "writing" a novel. Before June, I was thrilled with being able to no longer having to be one of the millions of people who say, "I want to write a novel." Instead, "I am writing a novel." Soon, I will no longer have to say, "I am writing a novel." I will get to be one of the few to say, "I have written a novel." And perhaps, "I have published a novel," or "I am a novelist."
But see, now I am ahead of myself. So I will go back to reiterating my joy of seeing an end in sight, and knowing that, perhaps, all the hours spent creating this world will one day pay off. I'm lucky in this has been the year I have got to do two of the things I have always dreamed of doing; making a movie and writing a novel. How can 2009 compare? I guess we'll see.
On the other hand, I don't know if my novel is quite agreeing with the word count of 75,000 words, it will be done when it's done; and if I am a real writer, that will probably be never, even if it ever gets published. But I'll keep it as a generalized goal, and we'll see what happens during the long editing process ahead of me.
It's actually a bit strange, really... I wrote an event today in the novel that has been in my mind since I wrote the short story when I was 14.
It is really appropriate, I think, that ten years later I would be seeing it come to some kind of advanced completion. I can tell you how many times I've written this story: three times in high school, twice in college, and now once for real, and numerous times only in my head.
It's changed, yes, but in it's heart, it remains the story I always envisioned it to be. Hopefully it will, after revision, be as good as I want it to be too, and the story will serve the characters, and be testaments to the lives they've lived in so many multiple forms through my life.
What's more, in a few short days, I will no longer be "writing" a novel. Before June, I was thrilled with being able to no longer having to be one of the millions of people who say, "I want to write a novel." Instead, "I am writing a novel." Soon, I will no longer have to say, "I am writing a novel." I will get to be one of the few to say, "I have written a novel." And perhaps, "I have published a novel," or "I am a novelist."
But see, now I am ahead of myself. So I will go back to reiterating my joy of seeing an end in sight, and knowing that, perhaps, all the hours spent creating this world will one day pay off. I'm lucky in this has been the year I have got to do two of the things I have always dreamed of doing; making a movie and writing a novel. How can 2009 compare? I guess we'll see.
On the other hand, I don't know if my novel is quite agreeing with the word count of 75,000 words, it will be done when it's done; and if I am a real writer, that will probably be never, even if it ever gets published. But I'll keep it as a generalized goal, and we'll see what happens during the long editing process ahead of me.
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61,214 / 75,000 (81.6%) |
Thursday, November 6, 2008
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln
Just wrote the first main climax of the novel.
Not at ALL what I expected. As it seems, one of the characters earlier on actually hijacked one of the major villain-esque roles I had intended to assign to a previous character. And in that, said character also managed to hijack the climax scene with some super completely unplanned villainy and probably a wee too much exposition, and now things have turned out quite differently than previously imagined.
I don't know if it's any good. I know there is going to be A LOT of revising on my part because the nature of my writing serves for such. There's things I need to add and get rid of, and it's been murder forcing myself to continue writing until it's done, rather than going back and revising chapter by chapter as I have every other time I have tried writing this thing.
But the one thing that pleases me above all is the joy I have when my characters decide what I am going to write. If anything, this small character that originally was no more than a placeholder turned out to be one of the most defining characters in the story, and I'm looking forward now to revising his/her role and making her more of a serious player early on. (Sorry I am being so secretive about pronouns, but he/she is one of the major villains in the end, and it wouldn't be nice to give that away, would it?)
I'm pretty happy with this climax as a rough draft, because it's driven straight from the characters and what they would do, rather than me struggling to adjust them around the plot. If anything, I'll have to go back and adjust the plot somewhat to them, which I find fantastic because, for me, it's been about the adventure with these seven characters since the beginning.
(Oh, and I'm not even at the end, and it's already asking for a sequel. We'll see how that plays out once I get it done!)
RIP Michael Crichton.
Not at ALL what I expected. As it seems, one of the characters earlier on actually hijacked one of the major villain-esque roles I had intended to assign to a previous character. And in that, said character also managed to hijack the climax scene with some super completely unplanned villainy and probably a wee too much exposition, and now things have turned out quite differently than previously imagined.
I don't know if it's any good. I know there is going to be A LOT of revising on my part because the nature of my writing serves for such. There's things I need to add and get rid of, and it's been murder forcing myself to continue writing until it's done, rather than going back and revising chapter by chapter as I have every other time I have tried writing this thing.
But the one thing that pleases me above all is the joy I have when my characters decide what I am going to write. If anything, this small character that originally was no more than a placeholder turned out to be one of the most defining characters in the story, and I'm looking forward now to revising his/her role and making her more of a serious player early on. (Sorry I am being so secretive about pronouns, but he/she is one of the major villains in the end, and it wouldn't be nice to give that away, would it?)
I'm pretty happy with this climax as a rough draft, because it's driven straight from the characters and what they would do, rather than me struggling to adjust them around the plot. If anything, I'll have to go back and adjust the plot somewhat to them, which I find fantastic because, for me, it's been about the adventure with these seven characters since the beginning.
(Oh, and I'm not even at the end, and it's already asking for a sequel. We'll see how that plays out once I get it done!)
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54,690 / 75,000 (72.9%) |
RIP Michael Crichton.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
"Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon." - Woody Allen
We went down to the beach side. It's sort of hot and muggy, all the time, and when Hurricane Katrina went through it pretty much uprooted everything off the beach, leaving debris and foundation and a strange smell of death. Things change little in two years, I've learned.
It's not like I haven't been to a beach in a while; on the contrary, we go in Florida every couple of years, but you get used to soft, hot sand on your feet and clean waves and clear-cut shorelines, you kind of forget that a beach is just like anything else and not all of them are beautiful.
There wasn't much of a shoreline. It lay jagged, small bodies of ocean water separated by the land, like small islands. The waves were low and the sand where the tide is highest was packed and muddy and cut with the lines of the waves. We found two hermit crabs, scuttling their way across the beach and hiding in their shells for little afternoon naps. We took pictures in the shallow waves and fell into sink holes, and I wouldn't go back in the water as I watched the dark, inky cloud of mud rise and swirl across my vision. We found two dead crawfish and Queen Arachnia almost stepped on a jellyfish floating, like it was suspended in time, in one of the cuts of water across the beach.
We came across a jellyfish, fully intact, laying in the sun, too far away from the water to reach. We took a picture and I saw it shutter and move, breathing, as if it were gasping in the air. It was evening and I wondered if the tide would rise enough to wash it back to sea before it died. QA filled a hermit crab's shell with water to dump on the jellyfish. The crab poked it's eyes out of the shell, glaring and silent.
We trudged from the water and across the beach, my mind heavy with bitterness that this awful city didn't even have a decent beach to offer; it gave us, instead, cuts and isles of dirty water and black sand and death.
I caught a flicker of movement in the water. The water rippled again. Before long, I could see the sliver bodies of hundreds of minnows, scales silver in the sun, leaping from the ocean that before offered not movement or life beyond the summer breeze. QA found a flopping minnow on the shore and in one solid scoop tossed it into the water. They danced back and forth, leaping from the water and landing in streaks, hundreds of little splashes, so alive.
It's not like I haven't been to a beach in a while; on the contrary, we go in Florida every couple of years, but you get used to soft, hot sand on your feet and clean waves and clear-cut shorelines, you kind of forget that a beach is just like anything else and not all of them are beautiful.
There wasn't much of a shoreline. It lay jagged, small bodies of ocean water separated by the land, like small islands. The waves were low and the sand where the tide is highest was packed and muddy and cut with the lines of the waves. We found two hermit crabs, scuttling their way across the beach and hiding in their shells for little afternoon naps. We took pictures in the shallow waves and fell into sink holes, and I wouldn't go back in the water as I watched the dark, inky cloud of mud rise and swirl across my vision. We found two dead crawfish and Queen Arachnia almost stepped on a jellyfish floating, like it was suspended in time, in one of the cuts of water across the beach.
We came across a jellyfish, fully intact, laying in the sun, too far away from the water to reach. We took a picture and I saw it shutter and move, breathing, as if it were gasping in the air. It was evening and I wondered if the tide would rise enough to wash it back to sea before it died. QA filled a hermit crab's shell with water to dump on the jellyfish. The crab poked it's eyes out of the shell, glaring and silent.
We trudged from the water and across the beach, my mind heavy with bitterness that this awful city didn't even have a decent beach to offer; it gave us, instead, cuts and isles of dirty water and black sand and death.
I caught a flicker of movement in the water. The water rippled again. Before long, I could see the sliver bodies of hundreds of minnows, scales silver in the sun, leaping from the ocean that before offered not movement or life beyond the summer breeze. QA found a flopping minnow on the shore and in one solid scoop tossed it into the water. They danced back and forth, leaping from the water and landing in streaks, hundreds of little splashes, so alive.
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