It's Coming

"Nanowrimo is coming…" He whispered, glancing out the window. 
Leaves were changing colors and falling to the ground, more every day. 
The fireplace crackled but he could not feel the heat. 
A chill wind shook the hut. 
He blew on his fingers and looked at the scrolls on the table before him. 
"Blank…" he said, tracing his hand across the smooth papyrus. 
He placed a cup of ink on the table nearby and took a quill from within his vest. 
He dabbed the quill into the ink and began writing. 
"It is time to prepare," he said. 
Soon, the scrolls would be filled with writing, pages upon pages. 
He wrote.

Books

Let's talk about books. I like books. I enjoy reading all kinds of things, from fantasy and sci-fi to crazy post-modern novels about the meaninglessness of our lives. Any way you look at it, books are pretty rad. They are stories from another's mind, translated into text onto paper, which we then transmit into our own minds via reading. We are essentially reading another person's mind in the past. Literally, someone was thinking the very thing you read when they wrote it. That's a pretty cool thing. I like that. I can read your mind, man. Just write down what you're thinking and send it to me. 

Of course the method of transference isn't perfect. There is much lost in translation, which is a good thing. I think there is much 'added' in translation as well, if that makes any sense, which it might not. What I mean is that when a writer puts their thoughts into paper, so much other junk comes with it, from their past, their lives, their experiences. Things they had no idea they were thinking goes onto the page without them even realizing it. We see it, as readers. We see not just what they were literally thinking but also that extra baggage. Of course it's not perfect but it's there. We read into it, we come to it with out own baggage, and as we read these thoughts coming from our own experiences, we see things nobody else will. Think about it. Even if you and I read the same book, line for line, word for word, we actually read different books. I will see things you did not and you will do likewise, simply because of our different pasts. That's amazing. That's why it's fun to talk about books you've read with others. They'll show and try to tell you what they experienced, meanwhile you'll attempt to describe your own understanding. I say 'try' and 'attempt' because that is what they are, you cannot communicate your entire experience to another because they have not lived the life you live. It's fun to talk about, though. 

Telling stories is awesome and honestly, I wish I was better at it in oral form. My dad is fantastic at it. He gets his whole body into the story and really makes you feel like you were there. He uses voices, facial expression and jokes. His stories are pure entertainment and it's enjoyable to listen to the same one over and over. Though, to be honest, this particular enjoyment is partially because he tends to change a story every time he tells it, until who knows what truly happened? But it doesn't matter. It's a story. Truth is beside the point that it's funny, it makes you laugh, feel and think. 

Think about it some more. When someone tells you something that happened to them, they aren't telling you the "truth". They are telling what they experienced, colored by their past and personality. This isn't a bad thing and doesn't mean that everybody is lying to you all the time. We can't get outside our own heads, so we just cannot be unbiased or neutral. We always bring things to the story, and that's a great thing. That's why when you hear a story, you feel like you know the author/teller a little better after, because you get more than just the plot, the sequence of events, you get their feelings and thoughts, their reactions. 

To sum it all up....

IT'S AWESOME. PEOPLE ARE COOL. LISTEN OR READ SOME STORIES. 

...THERE ARE LOTS OF STORIES IN BOOKS SO PICK SOME UP SOME TIME.

Oh man I gotta write another blog post...

Third day, third post. This is already getting hard. I should've written earlier but I was lazy and put it off and now I'm throwing words out like yesterdays garbage. That's a weird phrase, "like yesterday's garbage"? Who creates so much garbage they fill up a trash bag in a single day? Nobody.

Oh well, let's get on with it then. What's on the docket for today? Docket is a good word. I like the sound of it. Just say it out loud. "Docket." It's a very serious-business type term. Anyways, there is nothing on the docket for the day. I'm writing by the seat of my pants. It's very difficult. The seat of your pants is not a very good writing tool.

Let's talk fantasy. Why not? The fantasy genre is pretty fucking awesome right now. You've got awesome old-school stuff, crazy new-fangled hybrid genres, and just damn good writing coming out right now. The Wheel of Time recently finished, a 14-book epic of unfathomable scope. You've got gritty and unexpectable George RR Martin with Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones). Is unexpectable a word? Apparently not but it should be. It means you can expect nothing in that series. Martin suckerpunches you in the nuts over and over and doesn't let up, but it feels good. It feels good because authors just don't murder likable characters that often. It feels fresh. It feels good, exciting, awful and amazing.

You've got fantasy mixing with the modern, like Dresden Files where fantasy meets the modern world and a hard-boiled detective-wizard solving magical crimes. It's fantastic! And fun, and downright hilarious at times. You've got all these shows with old fairie tales reimagined in modern times, and even though they might be awful, at least they're trying.

Fantasy is in a really good place right now, becoming more and more commonplace, with movies and novels exploring, with new ideas. I've got an idea for a fantasy-western story which sounds really awesome in my head at the moment. Genre-mixing is a great thing.

I'm feeling tired and this post is probably pretty bad. Probably won't be in my top ten of all time, but then, writing one every day isn't about writing great posts, it's about quantity. Output.


 Enjoy your daily word-vomit

A blogpost a day keeps the sanity away.

In preparation for Nanowrimo, the month where I, along with hundreds of thousands of others, will attempt to write 50,000 words in the month of November, I have decided to write a blogpost every single day, starting yesterday, until the end of October. Man, that is quite the beginning sentence. Kind of a slog to get through that one, but oh well, it's written.

Because these posts will be prep for Nano, I will edit them very little. They may go off-topic, or wade into ridiculous topics and side-rants. Who knows. The point is to put words on the screen. Quantity, not quality. Feel free to skim the posts to see if anything is funny, useful, or interesting. Mileage may vary.

So. One post a day. Not bad, right? I didn't even set a minimum length. It will be a breeze, a piece of cake. What makes a piece of cake so easy, anyways? Or pie? Easy as pie. Is pie really that easy? If so, why have I never made one? If pie is so easy, why do we pay so much to buy one?

Regardless. My journey has begun. It actually began yesterday, with my post about being Bored. I guess I just dislike hearing that parents buy their kids electronic devices just so they won't be 'bored'. Being 'bored' is part of growing up. Ehh, no need to rehash what I said yesterday.

What am I going to write about in these blogposts, you might ask? Who knows? Whatever comes across my mind. Whatever's goin' on up in the ol' mind-noggin. Random snippets of flash fiction? Perhaps. Random rants about how spoiled kids are these days because I'm an old man? Probably. Whatever catches my whimsy.

Word-vomit. That's a great phrase and is particularly keen in regards to NanoWrimo. I'm going to need to spew out word-vomit on a daily basis. MmmMmm good.

So that's the deal. A post a day until November starts and then it's off to the races. If I don't do it, I'll buy you, my reader, a beer if you call me out on it. If I do complete this, then you owe me a beer. It's only fair, right? Right. Makes sense to me.

I'm out. Check back in tomorrow.

Being Bored is Okay

We seem to despise boredom. We fight it with phones and music and tv and games. We fill every second of our lives with entertainment, all so that we won't feel that we don't have anything to do. Parents buy their children ipads so that they won't get 'bored' on long road trips. Really? Give me a break. You know what I did on long family roadtrips? Looked out the window. I thought about stuff. I talked to my family.

Not to go all "back in my day" on everyone, but let's be serious here. Why are we so against being bored? It's a freakin' luxury to be bored. We should be happy to be bored. It means our needs are met, we aren't hungry, tired or dehydrated. It means our lives are so perfect that we don't have to be doing anything. It's amazing. It's time to think, ponder, reflect. But we'd rather turn on the tv and channel surf, or put on music so we don't have to interact with anybody else.

As adults, it's fine, do whatever, but for children? Kids should be bored. It forces them to think. To be creative. It forces them to make up their own games, their own stories, their own minds. If we stuff 'entertainment' down their throats every moment, they'll never have to think on their own. If they're constantly in contact with friends through a digital device, they'll never be forced to just be alone and think They won't have to deal with being bored, they'll just plug in and tune out. Let your kid look out the freakin window on road trips. Let them be bored because, hey, it's okay. Life is going to be boring and they should learn to do something other than sit in front of a screen.

I remember those long road trips, head against the window, staring at the landscape flying by, and just thinking. Creating stories in my head. Visualizing. Kids shouldn't need ipads to fight against boredom, they should be able to use their imagination, as corny as it sounds.

Anyways, that's my rant in defense of boredom. It gets a really bad rap and really, it's your own fault if you're bored. You've got a freakin' human brain in your head. If you're bored, you're not really using it.

Curiosity Didn't Kill the Cat

I am a curious person. I walk by a building and wonder what sort of work goes on inside, what types of people work there, what are the politics of the place, what are the interpersonal dramas that go on? Essentially, what stories are happening within?

I think about everything. Everything I see and hear, I imagine details and situations, possibilities that stem from what I experienced. How things might be put into a story or used for a dilemma or conjuring up a tense situation. I hear people speaking and imagine their lives, where they might live, what they might do. This might sound sort of creepy but it's completely innocent. I enjoy thinking about possibilities, all kinds of possibilities. I enjoy using my imagination to create entire worlds from minute details. It's not only a sort of mind-imagination exercise, it generates numerous amounts of substance for stories, for writing, for crafting realistic fictional characters and situations.

Curiosity is a good thing.

Yet we are afraid of being curious or of having knowledge. We say things like "Ignorance is bliss" and "curiosity kill the cat" which is bullshit. The news stopped telling the truth because we didn't want to hear it. Now, we have a fictional news show that actually tells the truth, only about events that happened months ago so that it's "okay" and hey, it's just a tv show, not real life. We live in our own cocoons of personal knowledge and are afraid to admit that somebody else might be right, that we might be wrong about things, so we only listen to people who agree with us and insult those who disagree and that way we never have to face the idea we might be wrong.

I had no idea I would go off ranting like this on this blog post but here I am.

I am a curious person. When someone does something, I want to know WHY. Why did they do it, why did they feel the need to do it and why did they think it would be a good thing to do? Why is a very important question and most of us probably don't even understand WHY we do certain things, much less try to figure out why other people do things. We're all bundles of water bags filled with emotions and thoughts pressured by the experiences of our lives, driven to do things by our past.

It helps with writing characters. You always have to know the why, even if you don't reveal it to the reader. The character needs a past that influences them, the pressures that we all experience in our daily lives.

I get this curiosity from both of my parents. My father is always thinking about why things happen and how the world works. He constantly theorizes about situations, why this thing happened as opposed to this other thing, why this might have happened but not this. If he doesn't know something, he's not afraid to imagine the answer, to hypothesize using what he does know. It's actually a great skill in life, using what you know to figure out what you don't know, and even if you're wrong occasionally, it helps you deal with situations and think about new situations.

I think my mother is curious about people. She wonders about their feelings and their thoughts, and what drives them to do things. She wonders how she can help them. I, too, am curious about people. There are times I watch cars go by and just wonder about whose driving, whose riding, where are they going and why? Who are all these people driving down this road at this exact time? What do they do? What are their lives like?

The drive for knowledge is just basic human nature. We want to know, we need to know. The more we know, the more power we have over our own lives and choices in life. Perhaps we think of cats as curious because they are more independent than other pets. They do their own thing, they do what they want, when they want.

Maybe curiosity did kill the cat. Perhaps the cat ventured out into the night to see what was out there, and got eaten. But guess what? We're not fucking cats. Be curious. Learn things. There is information literally at our fingertips. Never has knowledge ever been easier to acquire. Get some. Learn something.

Perspective-Taking (pt 2): In Writing

In my last post,  I wrote about how perspective-taking is a skill everybody needs and uses. It's essential for social interaction and establishing relationships. It's how we relate to one another.

Today, I'm going to talk about how perspective-taking is a must for writing. It is crucial to authors. It's easier and more difficult to take a character's perspective. First of all, they are made up, they are created, they are imaginary. How do you relate to an imaginary character? How can you consider their thoughts and feelings?

You created them for a purpose, to act in certain ways and do certain things, and yet they must have their own motivations. They must have thoughts and feelings, reasons for acting the way they do, or else they will fall flat. They won't feel alive to the reader. Even the villains need good reasons for the things they do. Why do they hurt people? What in their past has made them act like this? How might we all come to such evil actions, if circumstances were different?

The best writers do this well. Their characters feel alive. Indeed, sometimes a character can become so alive, they do things the writer doesn't expect. That might sound crazy but it's true. They can take a life of their own, and if they do, the writer is doing their job. You can't force a character to do things. You can create the motivation and the reasons they do them, though. It's a writer's job. Humans do things for a reason. Something motivates them, something makes them think it is what they should do. Characters should be the same way.

The best villains are the ones we relate to. The ones we realize we could become, if our positions were reversed. They are also the most troubling. See the situation from your hero's point of view before you make him save the day. Why is he saving the day, besides the obvious? Why fight or struggle?

If you're rushing through a draft of a story, it's okay to ignore things, but you can't forever. You have to go back, view the character's actions, and ensure they have good reasons for doing so, even if those reasons only seem good to that character.

Get some perspective.