Like I said in my previous post, resolutions are no fun unless you can make fun of 'em.
But they are more fun when you go out for a "Resolution Forging Coffee Klatch" with Mady Virgona and Mike Lorenson! Thanks to them both for some good planning and loads of laughs!
Below is an abbreviated but public record of my resolutions for 2012, so that this time next year, we can all sit back and chuckle uproariously at them.
Health resolutions - The inevitable "lose weight" resolution goes here. For modesty's sake, I won't say how much I plan to lose, but it is an accomplishable goal. I know, because I accomplished it a couple of times last year. I just kept putting the weight back on. And then Christmas happened and I discovered the joys of cooking foods with yeast in it. Mmm...bread...
- Go to the gym 2x a week (or more).
- During the spring/summer months, go play tennis at least one week with Mike and Mady.
Creativity resolutions
- Write 500 words daily. While it doesn't seem like a challenge to someone who can write 60,000 words in a weekend, it is more of a challenge than you'd think. It's the "daily" part that will be the problem. I'm like the whippet of the writing world: a 50-mph couch potato. Once I actually get off my butt and do something, I do it fast and relatively well; but the problem is that I spend more time goofing off than creating something. Which brings me to the next two resolutions.
- Zero Facebook games in 2012. I'm well on my way, actually - I haven't played any in the last three weeks. YAY ME.
- As with last year, no more than 1 hour of TV or movies daily. Hours can be banked, though, which means I can watch a whole movie in one sitting, if I haven't watched any TV the day before. Because nothing says LOSER like leaving the theatre after an hour.
- Read two books a month, and post a *brief* review after. I'm going to try and split my reading into 50% fiction, and 50% non-fiction, because I have such a backlog of research to do...If I do more than that, I can read more fiction! Especially the classics. I love the classics. But reading is a real challenge for me, because I do have a short attention sp - ooh! Squirrel!
- Bake more. Buy no store-bought bread. My bread's better anyhow, and comes free with a sense of self-satisfaction. Self-satisfaction burns calories.
- Paint one picture. I used to do that all the time, back when I had no floor space and nothing but carpets. Now that I have space and hard wood floors, I should be painting more!
Other resolutions
- Learn sign language! If I can find a good (and cheap) course, I can claim it as research for Mummer. Barring that, I have ASL dictionaries at home, and I can always access that fabulous repository of all common experience: YouTube!
- Volunteer 1-2 hours a week as a literacy and/or ESL tutor. A) I have to get out of the apartment from time to time, and B) since I can't donate as much, financially, as I used to, I'll donate more time instead. I'll see if I can volunteer through the YWCA.
- Submit more short stories and novels for publication. That means a focus on critical editing, synopses and proposals. This is more of a business and self-discipline thing, and less of a creative thing.
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Now, I've made resolutions pretty much every year, with varying degrees of success. But I have discovered there are five keys to increasing your chance of success.
1. Make them SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely). "Be kinder," does not qualify as a SMART goal. "Volunteer for 1-2 hours weekly at a YWCA literacy program starting the third week of January" is a SMART goal. Lose weight does not count as a SMART goal. "Lose 15 pounds by June 15th" is SMART, as is "go to the gym twice or more per week". 2. Make them known. Doesn't have to be public, but do discuss them with friends and/or family. Don't just state your resolutions, but make it clear - to them and to yourself - why these resolutions are important and attainable. 3. Have a resolution partner (or two) - preferably someone else who has also made resolutions and is determined to keep them for the whole year. Be accountable to someone for your success, because if they ask you "Have you been writing 500 words a day like you wanted?" you're forced to account for why you haven't been upholding your resolutions. 4. Review your resolutions and success with your resolution partners in a regular and structured way, throughout the entire year. If you don't, by March you'll have forgotten all but one or two of your resolutions. Besides, it helps you, it helps your partners, and it's a great excuse to get out for more coffee with friends. More importantly, it helps you to stop, reflect and digest your year so far, and it allows you to re-track if you've been derailed. 5. State your bad excuses out loud, then keep your resolutions anyhow. I'll bet you buckets of money, if you were to make a list of excuses, "Too tired," "Too busy" and "Too broke" are going to hit the top of the list. Structure your resolutions - and your year - accordingly. If you know well in advance that you're going to counter your resolutions with one excuse or another, then you can either change the goal or ignore the excuses.
I already have two resolution partners, but if you're interested, drop me a line in the comments below, and I'll check up on you, too! You don't have to list all your resolutions in the comments field, not unless you want to make your resolutions public. But don't forget to make them SMART goals, first.
Thus concludes the 2011 series of blog posts, and I'll leave you with one simple New Year's Wish:
Your new year may not be an easy one, but here's hoping the laughs outnumber the tears. You have control over that much, at least.
Resolutions are no fun, unless you can make fun of them.
Sure, a lot of people make resolutions, but how many keep tabs on them? How many actually go back at the end of the year to see how well you've kept them?
Well, in this case, I actually kept a record of my resolutions for 2011 - and because of it, I can look back on my year to see how well I've kept them (or not). And for the longest while, Mady Virgona and I were checking up on one another's resolutions every Monday night, until we fell out of the habit. I think if we had kept it up, or at least, if I had continued to look at my resolutions through the year, I would have accomplished more.
So without further ado, here are the silly, and not-so-silly, resolutions I'd made in 2011.
Take 4 singing lessons. Failed! It's okay, though. I think "singing solo in church, at a baptism and at a funeral, and leading songs at Easter and Christmas" outweighs "didn't take singing lessons". Grade: C-.
Take 8 dance lessons. Success! Unfortunately, it was at one of these dance lessons that my wallet was stolen, so that puts a big black mark on the whole experience. Fortunately, my dance instructor was cute and very funny. I don't think I would go back to that studio, though. Too upper crust for me. I think if I was to go back to dance, I'd return to Cat's Corner on St-Laurent. There, dance was more than an artform. It was FUN, man! And excellent exercise. Grade: B+. (I'd give myself a higher grade if I had taken the last two of the lessons I paid for. But like I said, when your wallet is stolen from a place like that, as rich and hoity-toity as it is, you really don't want to risk it twice.)
Sew one dress (with sleeves). FAILED. And "ha ha ha!" for thinking it up in the first place. Grade: F.
Pay off student debt. Success! Grade A+, for paying it off one month earlier than expected according to my budget, and for paying it off a full eight months before the regular payments finished.
Pay off the credit card. Success, believe it or not! And then I moved and went to IKEA to stock up on furniture. Grade: A, but a month's detention for racking it up again. Darn you, IKEA! Darn you all to heck!
Go to dentist. No comment. Grade: F.
Land a publishing contract (or, pay for self-pub by end of year 2011). Nope, but close. I still have high hopes for a certain short story, but as for a book...Well, if you were to read back through several blog posts of 2011, you'll see I went through a big BLAH that knocked me right off my feet. Now, entering into 2012, I'm cautiously optimistic. And I won't be self-publishing for a while yet. Grade: N/A. The important thing is, I'm back in the game.
Be a better CWC RVP. Unfortunately, the same BLAH that affected my writing hopes was the same BLAH that took over the rest of my life. Fortunately, I've been doing a lot more volunteering. Unfortunately, I didn't do half as much as I wanted to, and only a quarter of what this role deserves. Grade: D.
Complain less. You know, I think I will actually give myself a passing grade on this one. Any time I have complained, I'd like to think I did it sparingly, and with a lot of sarcasm. But I have been exercising optimism. Like a muscle, optimism needs to be exercised; without exercise, it atrophies and becomes a withered, dead thing in the bottom of your soul; but when exercised, it becomes more resilient against injury, and it becomes easier to hope for bigger and bigger things. Grade: B. (I'd give myself a higher mark if I hadn't substituted optimism with sulky silence so often.)
Read twenty books (5 sf/f, 5 crime, 5 non-fiction, 5 whatever else I want to read). Sadly, I lost track of the books I'd been reading through the year, but I do know I read about 22-25 books, so yay me! Grade: A- (points lost for not keeping track and not ensuring I had a well-rounded reading list).
Lose ten pounds. Well, if you get really technical, I lost about 40 pounds - 2 pounds here, 1 pound there, 3 pounds another week...But, if you balance that against the pounds I gained during other weeks, I lost a total of nothing. I'm at the same weight I was at the beginning of 2011! So, I'm going to have to give myself a "meh" Grade of C-. Bonus points for actually going to the gym regularly during the months of July, August, and part of September. A kick in the pants for not going more than five times total in the months of October, November and December combined.
Get a mentor from CWC. Please refer to the "Great BLAH of 2011". Failed! Grade: F.
Keep house clean. Actually, in the end of the year, I've been doing pretty darned well, if I do say so myself. Now that I have a much larger apartment, I have enough closets, shelves, cupboards and storage units to put stuff where it belongs. Also, because I've become a neat freak when it comes to the floors, I'm sweeping and mopping like a maniac. Still some work to be done, but A for effort. Overall Grade: B-. Next step: empty the storage room downstairs. Heh heh heh. (See, this is how I scare away writer's block. I threaten it with chores.)
1 hour of TV daily, maximum. Actually, yes! If you average out the days I've watched 2 hours or more of TV against the weeks (yes, weeks) when the TV wasn't on at all, I come out at 1 hour of TV daily. Grade: A+.
Out of bed by 7:15 every day. HAHAHAHAHA! Okay, that was just a dumb thing to suggest in the first place. 7:15 a.m. on Sunday mornings, yes, giving myself exactly 45 minutes to shower, dress, take the dog outside, get coffee en route and be there by 8:00 a.m. All other days...8:45 has been the norm. Grade: D-.
Sunday afternoons, zero internet / TV / computer games. Reading only, four hours. Well, I have to split this into two halves. In the first half of the year, yes, actually, I was doing exactly that. And then, for whatever reason, I fell apart. Grade: D-.
So overall, how was the year? I give it a C-, maybe a D+.
When I stop and think back over it, it's actually been a pretty eventful, but up/down kind of year, where the downs zeroed out the ups, and vice versa.
In terms of work, I moved to a different role, and within three months of joining the new team, I had a commendation from not one but two TELUS Vice Presidents (and a lot of leftover pizza). And things have been pretty good since then, though, I will admit, there have been days when I've cried real tears of boredom. The good days more than make up for it, though.
In terms of life, I had my wallet stolen, I lost my apartment, I gouged both sides of the car, and I lost my grandmother, all within 8 weeks. From the beginning of September to the end of October, it was like being slapped, punched, kicked in the groin and then eviscerated, in that order. Then November came, and I was as low as I could get, exhausted, criticized and full of malaise.
But then again, I moved into a much bigger apartment, and I got my first dog! And even when I was criticized and my work torn to shreds, I still managed to come out ahead.
In church, we've lost a lot of people, some of them who had been with us since the first founding days of our congregation; but then, we've gained some, too - people who are committed, engaged, and volunteering.
In terms of writing, I haven't been so close to publication before - short stories, and now two very solid mystery series, with Lady Butcher being a surprise new arrival in 2011. And most importantly, I overcame two of the longest, bleakest struggles I've ever had, and came out stronger for it. The revisions to Mummer's the Word I think are awesome - character development, plot twists, clarity of narration - all that came about because of the "crisis of the heart" I'd had at the beginning of the year, which led to me falling in love withthe essentials of storytelling.
And on top of that, I was tickled pink (and humbled) to have received both the Most Prolific award and the award for Best Adult Fiction in the Muskoka Novel Marathon 2011. Currently, the manuscript (Lady Butcher and the Accidental Saint) is sitting with Marc Cote of Cormorant Press, awaiting a full critique. It may or may not lead to a publishing contract - but the important thing is, only good can come out of the critique.
And in terms of the world, look what's happened so far! Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring, and the deaths of Osama Bin Laden and Kim Jong Il. But then again, Greece is still in turmoil, the Euro is in a death spiral, and we've also lost Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Falk (Colombo), Andy Rooney, Harry Morgan (Col. Potter), Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Steve Jobs, and Jack Layton. And there was also Amy Winehouse, but was anybody really surprised?
Overall, in 2011? A few regrets, a few successes. There's so much more I could have done. I remember long, dull, ugly days when all I did was sit and play computer games, lacking the spiritual and mental energy to just get up and do something. But I overcame it - I forcibly pulled myself out of it - and that, I think is going to be the big memory from 2011.
The year has balanced itself out. It was like winning $10,000 in the lottery and using it to pay of $15,000 of debt. I'd have been happier to win $100,000, but I think I would have wasted most of it.
If 2011 has taught me anything, it's this: it's okay to be sad, but do not despair; the end of a chapter is not the end of the story. And it's okay to be happy, but keep your feet on the ground, or something will sweep them out from under you.
All things zero out in the end, but at least you can keep the good memories and deliberately forget the rest.
It's been a good enough year. A "meh" year. But because I've learned how
to avoid and overcome the "mehs", next year will be that much better. I needed 2011
in order to prepare for 2012.
Now...please bring on 2012. I want to see what I can make of it.
I'm not often moved to talk about a book I've read - mainly because I don't read enough. But in this case, Paolo Bacigalupi has really inspired me to actually write a short critique / reaction thing.
The Windup Girl is a fantastic piece of futuristic science fiction, published in 2010 by Night Shade Books. It's been highly acclaimed as one of the best books of 2010, and was the winner of several sf awards, including the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, the Compton Crook Award and the Hugo. In other words, it won pretty much all the sf awards.
You might call it cyberpunk, or post-apocalyptic - you might even make an argument for steampunk - but I'd say, just read the darned thing and call it science fiction. And it's the kind of science fiction I like: thoughtful and mildly disturbing. Not a utopic Star Trek kind of science/future, nor a post-apocalyptic dystopia like The Time Machine.
It's a scary kind of fiction, the kind that comes across as "it still could happen."
Part of the blurb on the back reads: "What happens when calories bcome currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution?"
There's a term for this genre: It's ecotopian fiction, wherein the world has undergone (or is undergoing) massive changes because of an environmental shift. It's also dystopic, which is a fancy way of saying "Life really and truly sucks in this world I made up." I won't give it all away, because it's worth your while reading it and discovering it for yourself. Suffice it to say that the plot revolves somewhat (a lot) around the genetic engineering practices that are happening right now, today.
If I were to compare this world of Bacigalupi's to anything, I would say "Take the moodiness and overcrowding of Blade Runner, throw in an High Altitude Nuclear Explosion so that all or most of the technology is destroyed, add in some famine, flooding and fires, and sprinkle liberally with political interference by major corporations." I really enjoyed the world he created.
Before I get into the nitty gritty, I'll say this much: I almost loved this book. It's rare that I think about a book I'm reading, once I put it down. Not the case with The Windup Girl. Considering the shortness of my attention span, I'm actually surprised at how much I've been thinking about this book, after the fact.
First of all, in terms of style, I'm on the fence. Some of his scenes are brilliantly written, honestly they are. The action scenes are worth your time. The pacing is fantastic - almost.
I have two beefs with the book: the beginning and the end.
His world is beautiful, vibrant, noisy, claustrophobic, smelly, brilliantly laid out. But you need to take lessons in Cantonese, Thai, Japanese and anger management to get through the first, oh, 50 pages or so.
You pick the language up as you go along - if you're willing to stick it out. You learn new words like farang and jai and bodhisattva, and I'm still not sure if they're all actual words or if they're figments of Bacigalupi's imagination (or mispronunciation), but that again is what's so compelling. I can't tell where reality ends and Bacigalupi begins, not without doing my own research.
But dang it, I nearly gave up on the book in the first 50 pages, because there were too many new words, too many new people, every chapter began in a new location with new characters - and while it's well executed, it seems like we're picking up part way through the story. I wouldn't mind it so much if it was only one or two characters, but that many?
As for the ending (the last 50 or so pages), it has the exact opposite problem. I'm not going to give it away, but, in terms of style, I really had the sense that the last forty pages were rushed, as if Bacigalupi suddenly looked at his watch and said "Oh crap, look at the time! I'm sorry to have kept you. Where was I? Oh yes. Right, that happened, and then some more stuff happened (and that was very sad), and then it ends." And that's a crying shame, because I was willing to commit the time to reading the "extended version", if he'd written one. It's like his pen was running out of ink, so he sacrificed quality for getting-it-done. Or worse: like he'd grown tired of writing and researching the danged thing and just wanted it done.
As for the middle 250+ pages, , I couldn't put it down. The middle makes the book worthwhile.
What I really found refreshing about the book is that it's not set in a place I'm familiar with. Quite frankly, I'm sick to death of futuristic stories set in the U.S., to the point where I probably won't read it. Children of Men at least is set in the UK, but even then, it's familiar territory. (For the record, I watched most of the movie, haven't read the book yet.)
But The Windup Girl is set in Thailand, a place I know almost nothing about (save from what I learned in The King and I), but which has its own rich history and future-history, and which has its own neighbouring rivals and pressures, its own ecosystem, its own weather patterns, its own personality relative to the countries that surround it, and its own aspirations.
And it's not homogenous either: there are all manner of cultures - most of the Asian, for which I'm glad - plus a wide range of religions and beliefs.
On top of that, you have people from similar backgrounds who have differing personalities - an absolute must, when you don't want to accuse one ethnic group or another of being corrupt, or greedy, or cowardly, or saintly. What you get, then, is a kaleidoscope of characters - and a fresh pair of eyes to go with it.
The personalities of each character affect their reactions to evolving situations; their actions affect other characters, who act and react according to their personalities and to the changing situations; and the situations in turn influence their personalities. Oh, and just because he does it right, Bacigalupi also gives characters back stories that show how many of these concurrent personalities have evolved over time, and why. Brilliant.
The characters themselves are not static, either. They
may or may not learn from their experiences; they may or may not be
redeemable; they may be 60% good and 40% rotten, or 40% rotten, 50%
selfish, and 10% saintly - you never know, and you won't know as you
turn from one page to the next. It's like...you know...real people.
Character driven? Plot-driven? Understatement. The Windup Girl is the ideal blend of plot and character, where the two are simply inseparable. Character drives plot, plot causes characters to react. Very elegant.
Cover of German translation
And like I said in the beginning, what he's writing about - bio-terrorism, genetic engineering, corporate greed versus ecological sustainability - it's already happening now. Read up on companies like Monsanto, who, on the surface, are trying to overcome real-world challenges, like drought, poor soil conditions, and disease. Then step back and realize that the genetically engineered (read "patented") seeds are actually sterile, meaning you are utterly reliant on the company to buy fresh seed, season after season. More importantly, cut away the debate about genetically modified foods and give a harsh, critical look at the practices of the companies that sell them. (I highly recommend reading this article, even if you don't read The Windup Girl.)
In the olden days, you'd plant a field of wheat; some of the wheat you grind up and make into bread and pastries and spaghetti; some of the wheat you keep, put back in the field, and lo and behold, you have next season's field of wheat. The ultimate in renewable resources. The harvest begets itself.
Now, with genetic engineering - more specifically, with unethical genetic engineering practices - the corporation begets the harvest. Once you're a farmer and you have nothing but a field of sterile grain, you have no choice but to sell what you've reaped, then take the money back to the corporation to buy next season's workload. You no longer work as a farmer; you work as an employee of the unethical corporation.
Worse even: if you're a salaried employee and if your computer breaks, the corporation goes out and buys you a new one. But if you're "self-employed," if your harvest is lost to a fire, if you've lost a year's worth of labour and you have no money to show for it, you can no longer go out and simply plant another field full of grain. You have to go back to buy more seed, because the stuff you bought the first time was sterile. No harvest, no money; no money, no seed, no harvest. You are SOL, through and through...unless you've invested in insurance, which feeds off your bad luck, etc. etc. etc.
And of course, if the company finds out you've been saving and reusing seeds from one season to the next, you could get sued; or better yet, if the corporation finds its patented products in your fields, even if it was transplanted by natural means (seeds blown across fences, deposited in bird dung), you could be in a world of hurt for unauthorized use of patented products). It sounds ridiculous, and it's happening.
In a sense, in places where the genetic is king, farmers have become serfs once more, slaves to both government taxes and to the thuggish corporation.
In Bacigalupi's story, he takes it a step further: these corporations have played god - but they're playing with their own food supply. I think what he captures most brilliantly is the raw, blind greed of some zealous corporate executives, who are perfectly willing to trade their own sustenance for the prospect of total market domination, even at the risk of massive loss of life.
Finally, what I really found fascinating about this story was the moment when I let go of guessing and let Bacigalupi tell the story. Usually when I read, I'm trying to anticipate what's going to happen next, sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm close. But in the reading of this story, I realized I no longer wanted to guess. I just wanted to know what happened next.
Beautiful DeviantArt by SharksDen
The plot is well engineered and dynamic. Character A plots X, but independently, Character B plots Y - which will undo X. Then along comes Character C, who for perfectly rational reasons does Z, which forces Character A to do something spontaneous, which in turn forces the hand of Character B - around and around and around it goes - not confusing, not jarring, just...very, very well done.
Honestly, if he had balanced out the overly busy beginning with the too-minimalist ending, I would have loved this book inside and out.
But who am I to criticize the guy who won pretty much everything you can win in speculative fiction? He won those awards for very good reasons: ex-patriotism, research, realism, probability, and an excellent eye on human nature in the 21st century.
-- With thanks to Michael Lorenson for loaning me the book.
These days, there are those who say "Commercialism has wiped out all the tradition from Christmas," and there are those who say "You don't even know where half the 'traditions' of Christmas come from, so stop complaining."
I'm going to avoid that whole argument for now, and I'll leave it at this: this year, I want to make Boxing Day the day for presents under the tree, and I want to do something quiet and contemplative for Christmas.
That said, I'm still a kid at heart. There are still things I want to get this holiday season and for the year to come.
I want to get out of my chair. I spend my workdays in a seat. I spend a lot of my spare time writing, or editing, or mucking about on Facebook. Dang it, I want to get outside, spend some time with the dog throwing snowballs or hitching her up to a sled and pretending Mont Royal is the new Iditarod.
I want to get better at writing. I want to be more entertaining, to be more thought-provoking, and to be faster - not in the sense of typing speed, but in the sense of efficiency: more time spent thinking through the plot and characters, and less time behind the keyboard.
I want to get off my butt and get things accomplished. Two months have gone by, and I still haven't set up the spare desk in the bedroom. It's languishing unassembled on the bedroom floor. I want to stop saying "I'm too tired" and start recognizing when I really mean "I don't want to", then doing it anyhow.
I want to get along better with my coworkers, to leave behind that gut-reaction that prevents me from listening to what they have to say. I may have made a mistake, and it may take a lot of work to repair it, but isn't it better to be humble and right, than wrong and arrogant about it?
I want to get over myself and out of my own head. I want to stop taking my goals and my problems so seriously, and not to take my talents for granted either. I want to look outside the dusty confines of my own brain pan and see what - and who - is out there, what they're up to, what they need and what they see.
I'd like to get more out of my time. I'd like to practice diligently, but not desperately - writing, singing, drumming - but to practice in moderation, instead of in breathless bouts of zeal. I want to learn patiently and to apply what I've learned. They say practice makes perfect; I'd like to practice what's right, slowly and regularly, rather than madly practice the same mistakes over and over again. I think that applies to life in general, too.
I want to get back in the gym.
I want to get rid of clutter - the material clutter in my apartment, the mental clutter in my head. I'm not a hoarder, but I'm not actively clearing out the useless junk, either.
I want to get involved in the community. I want to be engaged in
making life a little better for someone else - not just during the holidays, but year round. I may not have a lot of time -
no one does - but to spend a couple of hours every month, it can only do
good.
I want to get that sense of pride back, the one I used to get when I collected food for drives, or collected spare coins for food banks, or dropped four or five bag loads of food in the drop boxes. I want to reclaim my sense of charity.
I want to get more involved in the lives of friends
and family. And that one's going to be tough for me - not because I
don't care, but because I tend creep into hiding for weeks and months on
end. That's just my nature. But it'll be worth it in the end - not
only for myself, but maybe...just maybe...I can help someone else crawl
out of their shell too.
And most of all, I want to get back to feeling worthwhile: in the morning, having something to look forward to, no matter how small, something that will get me out of bed at a decent hour; and in the evening, going to sleep with a clear conscience and the sense that I've accomplished something. I want to say "I did this for somebody today."
And of course, I'd like to get published, but that's another story.
This year, I really don't want anything for Christmas, no presents, no rushing around, no deep theological debates about the meaning of Christmas. I'd like maybe a turkey dinner with my mother, a dog at my feet, a mug of hot chocolate in my hands and a movie on TV, but nothing more than that.
For now, you can keep your arguments about commercialism and big box stores undercutting the little guy during the holiday blitz. You can keep your trees and your glittery lights, your hand-to-hand combat that is Christmas shopping, the stress and drama that is the modern family dinner, and you can keep your purchase-inducing Christmas music, those cheap and old-familiar tunes you blare over loud speakers at strip malls.
It's been a busy couple of months, to say the least. The fact that it's been a full month between entries is a good indication that I've been otherwise indisposed. And what, pray tell, should have absconded with so much of my time?
Darned if I haven't been asking myself the same question. "Dog" and "data reruns" come to mind, but I know there was also a NaNo involved.
This morning, I was thinking, "Man, am I glad to get back to other projects again!" I thought of Mummer, and how much more I love the story - I mean, the characters are really coming through now, the plot makes more sense, the historical details are cleaner - in fact, the sheer amount of work I've done so far makes rewriting the end just that much more intimidating! I'm terrified that the ending won't do the beginning sufficient justice!
And I thought "You know, I've got some great feelings about Lady Butcher, too!" That one just seemed to come together all by itself - granted, with a lot of research, but it all fell together. The characters came alive in the very first draft, the plot was solid - the ending was rushed, but I would expect nothing less. Starting and finishing a novel in under four months will do that to your story.
And yet, this last NaNo...oof. Technically, the piece has some superb moments. See, the whole thing was designed to be a series of vignettes, or even chapbooks, each with unique and individual characters and their own stories, leading up to a final conclusion. It was supposed to be about the rise of two new species and the sunset of the human race. In fact, there are some parts I hope to salvage - the opening vignette, the second vignette, and the fourth (that one involves a train wreck, some explosions and a horrific revelation). Each of those have a certain lucid-dream quality about them that gives me the willies (in a good way).
But overall, the whole story sucks!
Die, meandering and pointless tome! Die!
I finished my NaNo on the last day of November, which is highly unusual for me. For my second NaNo, I wrote a total 177,000 words in 30 days, the equivalent of 3 short novels - and it goes without saying I can muscle my way through a 72-hour marathon pretty well, too. It wasn't entirely a case of my energy and motivation going AWOL (though that was partially the case); it was because there was a lot of heavy lifting involved.
I actually said to my mother "I love this idea, but man, I wish someone else would write the book for me." She suggested Tobin Elliott. Tobin, we should talk. (*Call meeeeeee!*)
It's not the first time I've written something I didn't enjoy, and it's not the first time I've quit a project after or partway through the writing of it. As a matter of fact, during the last 72-hour novel marathon, I actually cut out about 50 pages during the marathon because the story was going the wrong way. There were details I need to use in another book, but I'd been trying too hard to wedge them into the one story.
So I've begun to realize that a good story - the one with the most potential - is more often mined than crafted. Even Stephen King said in On Writing that a good story is found.
Well actually, what he said was "Your job isn't to find these ideas, but to recognize them when they show up."
I would disagree a little. I would recognize a 1944 aircraft worker's dance ticket if I saw it, but I think I'll have a better chance of finding one in an antique shop, and a non-existent chance of stumbling across it in a pile of salty Montreal slush.
I would rather say, "Be present, be open-minded, and even if the ideas is half-baked, write it down so you can judge its merit later."
Writing, I have discovered, is a lot like pulling a dirty, shapeless lump of minerals out of the ground and seeing what you can make of it. But you have to go mining first.
Coal for diamonds
Let's say you hit something that's harder than the dirt around it. You pick it off, rub off some of the dirt, and you realize, yes, you have "something."
It could nothing but a chip of granite wrapped in clay.
Or it could be a precious mineral you're not familiar with, like Boron or Cobalt: very useful, extremely valuable, but on the surface, it looks like pretty bland stuff.
Sometimes you fail to recognize its potential for all the dirt and inclusions, so you toss it over yours shoulder and pass over a perfectly useful mineral. People who say "Oh, I can't write, my writing sucks, I'll never be good enough, no one is ever going to read something I wrote" are the ones who mistake diamonds for coal.
But there are those who experiment with what seems like an obscure and relatively useless substance - like the people who discovered that galena could be used not just in kohl (ancient mascara), but also in batteries and in the earliest wireless communications. It took a long time and a lot of experimentation to get from mascara to crystal radios, but someone did it, because someone experimented with a seemingly innocuous idea.
So be not so quick to assume that what you've found is worthless. Sometimes it only needs another element, or better refinement to make it useful. Sometimes its worth is utterly unknown - for now.
These are the plot ideas I often come back to, time and time again, viewing it from this angle, from that era, with this combination of characters - such has been the case with Her Poison Voice. The only way I can know for certain if it's a good or bad idea is by writing the whole thing out; and as I get closer to what I want, I can salvage more and more of the story, transmuting it, adding as-yet-undiscovered elements, until I hit the sweet spot.
I know there's something here, but I just can't seem to make it pull together. Yet.
These are the stories that require a lot of delicate cutting and polishing to bring out the inner light; but it's worth it. It is so, totally, worth it - because these are the ones that you've worked for, the ones you can be most proud of. When I get it right, I think Her Poison Voice will be my favourite, even if it isn't my best. It'll be my favourite, because I haven't given up on it.
Semi-precious gems
Even if you are a fantastic writer, you're not always going to be able to put out diamonds. You have to mix it up sometimes. And sometimes...you deliver coal instead.
Ellis Peters wrote 20 books in the Cadfael series alone. The eleventh in the series, An Excellent Mystery, was such a beautiful story that Edith Pargeter (Peters' real name) has successfully ousted all past and future authors as my all-time favourite. There's simply no room on that pedestal for Peters and another author. I have to create more pedestals, like one entitled "Favourite New Canadian," or "Favourite New Author who Should be Canadian but Hasn't Had the Good Sense to Move North Yet".
But my word...I think Peters had an aversion to the number thirteen, because the 13th in the series, The Rose Rent, was so strangely written (and so sappy, and so un-Cadfael-y) that I swear, she let a ghost-writer tackle it for her.
Fortunately, she regained my adoration with the 16th in the series, The Potter's Field, which is in part inspiration for Lady Butcher.
That's not to say that The Rose Rent was badly written. Technically, there was nothing wrong with it. It just stands out from the rest of the series. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some people said that The Rose Rent was actually one of her best. So long as the story is logical, well constructed and well written, then the only difference between "good story" and "bad story" is the reader's point of view.
Still, because the story seems so out of place from the rest of the series, I didn't like it nearly as much as the other nineteen.
So perhaps it wasn't a lump of coal in place of a diamond. Maybe it simply didn't suit my tastes.
Periodot
Emerald
<-- Still semi-precious.
But not my favourite. -->
Flashes in the pan
Sometimes you get onto something, but there's never enough substance to make it worth your while. It's like finding flakes of gold, when you're really after the nuggets. But you have a flash in the pan. You know there's something here. Maybe it's an indication of vein; maybe it's an indication that someone further upstream has sneezed too hard and lost his gold filling. Who knows.
The best you can do is patiently collect what particles you can find - a scene here, a character there - and melt it down into something you can use. No inkling should go to waste; two partial ideas fused together can create an epiphany.
Or, as King said it, "There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun." I'll agree with that one.
That's basically what happened with Mummer's the Word. Random protons and electrons I'd been collecting for years suddenly came together and created a new atom.
I'd been experimenting with other characters who'd been robbed of their ability to speak; I'd also gone a year and a half without being able to fully open my mouth, and I was just at the point in my learning of French where I could understand everything that was being said, but not enough to reply. I'd always had a fascination with Camp X, I'd long ago developed a love for all things '30s and '40s, and I had just come off a writing jag for some old radio plays I'd been working.
Then on October 31st, 2007, the title came to me, and without realizing I'd been collecting little bits of story for the last few years, blammo - everything came together in one neat and tidy package, and I wrote the story in 9 days (hence, "Nine Day Wonder"). I even stole a character directly out of one of the radio plays, personality, name and background intact.
But even though all the elements smashed together quite suddenly, I was already in the process of trying to think up a story. There was an active, creative process involved, followed by nine days of intense writing, and four solid years of reworking, editing and polishing. And even when this story is accepted somewhere, there will be more work to do.
So if there is a flash in the pan, even if it isn't a fat nugget of literary goodness, write it down somewhere. Use it somewhere; use it multiple times, if you need to. Maybe it doesn't go in this project. Maybe it's a puzzle piece out of a different box. Maybe this character or plot device belongs in another project, one you haven't conceived yet.
But you'll never know what will become of a half-idea, if you don't actively collect all the little pieces and blend them together to see what you get.
Hikaru Dorodango
And then there are times when you feel like you're polishing a big old ball of dirt. The Japanese have made an art of it. I'm not trying to say anything at all against Japanese writing, either - I mean it most literally! The Japanese have made an art of polishing big balls of dirt. The final results are actually quite compelling. Very shiny. Very smooth.
But underneath all that hard work, it's still just a big ball of dirt.
Or worse: on Mythbusters, they actually turned a big old pile of dung into a work of art.
That glimmering ball of scat is exactly how I feel about my latest NaNo Otherlings. Sure it's pretty, sure it's technically well put together, but it's all flash and no substance, like a Michael Bay production. Well - not quite. Like a Michael Bay production, it has substance, but unfortunately, that substance is putrid and can only be handled under controlled circumstances, with gloves and a gas mask.
You can spend a lot of time polishing one project and one project alone, and you'll get a very shiny project; but be sure that when someone cracks the surface, they'll find something other than poop at its heart.
Sometimes, it's okay to let go.
Just don't quit mining. Because...
Diamonds in the Rough
Every once in a while, you stumble across something truly special, something that cannot be made, but must be, in some ways, unmade - shaped, cut and polished with extreme care to bring out, not the artist's own quality, but the true, inherent value of the story itself.
Sometimes, you pick up a black rock, chip away at the ugly exterior, and discover a dull gleam of light within. With rising curiosity, you scrape off more of the inclusions, more of the crusty exterior, and discover with growing excitement that you really, really have something here - something that's well formed and symmetrical, something that seems to glow with a light of its own. The idea's so good that you're afraid to speak it out loud until the whole story is written.
Sometimes you can see the nascent story for exactly the way it is
- the way Michelangelo could see the figure of a man in a formless
block of marble - and all you need to do is chip away the extra bits,
polish it, and put it on display. With all the flushed obsession of a maniacal genius, you carve out the plot, nick out the characters, sand down the grammar and pacing and research; and when the moment has passed, you blow off the last bits of dust and wonder that this thing, this marvel of art, came out of your own imagination, and not someone else's. It is a thing removed from you, like a child prodigy you brought into this world.
That was the case with Lady Butcher. The whole thing just came to me in one chunk, characters, plot, place and all, like Athena springing forth fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. And yes, partway through a marathon, I had to chip away enormous pieces of the story because they were leading me astray.
But it wasn't a plot so much written as it was discovered. I intervened here and there (partially to add length and suspense to the mix), but the essential story itself I was able to capture betwixt carefully chosen words.
I still have some polishing to do (these things happen when you've only been working on a story for 4 months), but the core value of the story is there, its potential value already visible.
But again, I found this gem because I was already mining. I wanted a story to write for the Muskoka Novel Marathon, and I actually had two or three competing ideas; it was Lady Butcher that had the most potential, and boy, am I glad I didn't ditch it when it first came to mind.
So what did I learn from this year's NaNo?
First, that it's okay to let some projects fall by the wayside - so long as you gave it the benefit of the doubt for as long as you could. Better to go back to the mine, rather than wasting your time polishing your one and only ball of dung.
Second, you can only measure your quality by comparing your own works against each other. If you have only one project, you can't tell whether it's your best writing or not. If you have two stories, you can only say "this one is better than that." But if you have a few ideas on the go, you can line them up in order of highest potential, and work on only those that are worth your time and effort.
The more you write, the better you can measure the value of one story over another.
Thirdly, today's half-baked idea is one half of tomorrow's great idea. There are parts of Otherlings that will be reincarnated somewhere else, I'm sure of that. I just don't know what the missing elements are yet.
Finally, I realized that the more ideas you have, the easier it is to let some ideas go. The premise of Otherlings is great. The premise of Her Poison Voice - even the plot itself - is great.
But Mummer's the Word and Lady Butcher are two great and complete stories, with well-developed plots, and awesome characters, and the writing is solid, if I do say so myself. Those are worth my time and dedication right now.
Once they're done, I can look at Her Poison Voice again, or Allua, or Helix, or The Fog of Dockside City, or even Otherlings, working from the story with highest potential and interest, down to the ones that need the most work - unless I stumble across another gem, as I search for the solution to another story.
So yes, sometimes, a flash in the pan could be fool's gold, or somebody's lost tooth, or the reflection of the sun. All that glisters is not gold; and no matter how well written or how much time you put into them, not all of your stories will be great.
That's what makes great stories so precious: their rarity.
But sometimes...if you're lucky, if you're patient and if you are present, you'll get what you're looking for, and so much more.
So yes, there will be disappointments. But unless you get out there and dig, you'll never find what's gold.
Just after Thanksgiving weekend, I accepted a new roommate: a Shepherd/Lab cross, a golden-tan colour except for her muzzle and one spot on the top side of her tail, long-legged, about 60 pounds the last time she was weighed. Her name is Dixie.
She's already survived her first life-or-death crisis. She was on death row when I adopted her, because someone wanted to be rid of her.
Granted, I'd been a little concerned about adopting. I asked myself all sorts of questions, like, what if she was abused, and what if she barks a lot, and what if she's too big for me to handle or what if she bites? It was an odd circumstance, too, the way I adopted her. I only had a photo to go from. She was like a blind date, or a mail-order bride. I didn't know what she wanted to eat, or what she would like in terms of treats; what might upset her stomach or give her diarrhea; I didn't know anything! But I took a chance, and I was pleased with the results.
The hair around her lips is white - it's not foam, I promise. I call it her milk mustache.
Dixie loves napping under my desk, preferably on her back and in uncomfortable contortions, and usually with her eyes open. If she can make some kind of contact with me while she sleeps, she's in seventh heaven - right now, she's asleep on my foot. And she sighs in a most eerily human fashion. When she can't get to sleep (i.e. when the neighbours are too loud, or I'm reading in bed), she'll groan loudly and pathetically before rolling over and trying again. Scary days (like trips to the vet) mean nightmarish naps, complete with whimpers, whines, groans, and running feet.
When I sit at my desk, she naps - which has really shown me how much
time I spend at the desk. When I get up, she gets up. When I go to the
bathroom, she waits for me outside.
She's a quiet girl, normally. She's more likely to bark when I sneeze too much than when someone knocks on the door. She comes over and whines and wiggles and barks at me when she hears the neighbour's tiny dogs. She really, really wants to play with them - except by "play" she usually means "I like to substitute small dogs for soccer balls and bat them around until they stop moving".
And she's sensitive - something I hadn't foreseen. She's woken me out of at least one nightmare by jumping on my bed and batting my stomach with her paw. Considering I'd had a week of nightmares, I'm pretty sure she was tired of me thrashing and gasping for air.
I think she knows when I'm getting a migraine, too; the times she's come over whining and pawing at me during the day are the same times as when the migraine sets in. It could just mean that we're both suffering headaches at the same time, and she wants me to make it go away. I dunno. But it's something I'll continue watching.
Heh heh heh - you funny.
She's so dignified she's above embarrassment. She has suffered a week in doggy diapers, without blushing, whining, paralysis or sabotage. And while her flatulence is surprisingly loud, she doesn't make a big deal out of it.
She's smart, in her own way. Okay, granted, she hasn't figured out that if I put a treat between the folds of her dog bed, she need only move the fold of the dog bed to find it (though she has mastered the look of "Well, you put it there, you get it out!"). But she's learned tricks I didn't even know I was teaching her, like, "Stop" and "Go in" and "Turn your head slightly to the side so I can undo your face harness" - though she hasn't figured out "go lie down on your bed" yet.
And she knows who her new "parent" is - right from the very first
day. When she arrived, my mother was here. But that first night, I put a blanket down beside my bed and pointed to it. Dixie came over, lay down, and once the light was off, she didn't move from her bed beside me until morning. No whining, no wandering, nothing. When she had to go out, she looked to me - not my mother. When she was hungry, she wouldn't eat unless I was nearby, also eating.
Before she left that weekend, my mother went to the treat closet,
and I told Dixie to lie down. She watched my mother like a hawk. My
mother rattled the treat bag, made some yummy sounds as she opened it,
and then held out a treat. Dixie didn't move. "Come 'ere, Dixie," my
mother said. Dixie didn't move. She whined, but she didn't move. So
then I said, "Okay Dix - " That dog leaped up and had all four paws in
motion before they even hit the floor and nearly swallowed my mother's
hand along with the treat.
Who's a goofy girl? I am! I am!
She can be pretty funny. When she's in her goofy moods, she'll get a crazed look in her eye, and she'll loll her tongue out the side of her grinning mouth. When she's really happy, she'll pounce like a fawn, or get up on her back legs and try to jump. When she wants attention, she's figured out how to wedge herself between my chair and my desk; she will literally push my away from my keyboard and half out of the office, in order to get attention. She also knows she can get a rise out of me by coming into my office, letting rip an SBD, then grinning and fanning the air with her tail.
One morning, when I steadfastedly ignored the alarm, she stood up on the
side of my bed and smacked me twice in the face with her paw. When I roared at her, she jumped back, threw her head back and grinned. I insulted her (and her mother) and she only cavorted around the bedroom, fanning the air with her tail and making that breathy "dog laugh" sound.
And there was one morning - I was sitting here at my desk, and she was in the other room having a drink. Suddenly, without preamble or gasp, I sneezed. Dixie fell over and skated on the hard wood floors, trying to find some place to hide. Then, with her head bowed low, ears flattened and tail slowly wagging, she came and looked me over as if to inspect me for missing parts.
She's a teacher. She's already taught me the importance of putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher, right away, and how important it is to shut the bathroom door before I leave her alone for a couple of hours. And she's taught me the importance of positive reinforcement over punishment. She responds beautifully to spontaneous, loud and physical reinforcement; she never forgets how she was rewarded for good behaviour, and always means to replicate whatever she did right. She's taught me patience, too.
She's taught me to be an observant and adaptable dog-owner. The first week was the worst, when it came to going for a walk. Dixie, I swear, was bred for a champion sled team. Unfortunately for both Dixie and I, we have neither sled nor snow at the moment. Regardless, if I didn't wear shoes with good traction, I would go cement skiing (as one of my fellow dog-owner friends called it). And most of my friends and family know: I ski more on my face than on my feet. Within two days, my back and arms were exhausted from trying to reign her in; I tried rewards, chastisement, grabbing her by the harness, muzzle-swatting - everything. Then I tried her on a Halti (a face harness - not a muzzle), and instantly, her behaviour changed. We didn't have to fight each other. It wasn't only up to her to change her behaviour; I changed mine first, and she changed. It was an immediate life lesson in leadership, for me.
There's a lot she's had to teach me in the last couple of months. It's because she's a mystery. We don't even know how old she is - though the vet thinks she's about 3 years old (even if she still acts like a puppy first thing in the morning).
She's sweet, funny, charming, laid-back and well-behaved (unless there are squirrels, pigeons, wood-peckers or small dogs in the area), and somebody left her for dead. They didn't want anyone to know what she was like, either.
Her previous owners dumped her off at a high-kill SPCA and didn't bother to leave any kind of medical or life history. We don't know how many owners she's had before, or if there were children in the house, or other small dogs. Dixie knows, but she can't tell anyone. It's up to me to learn her language.
No one knew if she had had her shots, or if she'd been spayed, or mistreated in any way. All because someone didn't bother to take the time to surrender the dog properly.
I don't blame the owners for having to give her up; sometimes giving up a dog is the hardest thing in the world to do - like giving up your three-year-old daughter for adoption because you know it's the only way to give her a better life. Maybe Dixie threatened a newborn baby. Maybe the family had to move off the continent. Maybe they just didn't have the time or the inclination to look after a dog anymore. I don't know, and I don't really care. But couldn't they have taken five minutes to fill out the paperwork?
We didn't know what tricks she knew, or if she "spoke" French or English. Nobody knows what her "language" is - what behaviour means she needs to go outside for a bio break, what behaviour tells me "Mom, I have no FOOOOOOD" or "Mom, I'm thirsty..."
Everything we know about Dixie now, I've had to learn through experimentation and observation. When she was cranky, I learned to check food, water and environment. When she barked outside, I learned it's because she's got lousy night vision (she only barks at people when it's dark out). I had to learn that she gets terribly excited (read "Psycho Dog") if I take her outside between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. - because there's traffic, people, students, squirrels and other dogs, all out at the same time. Take her out at or slightly after 9:00 a.m., and she's fine.
This first month has been a period of discovery.
My mother and I learned quickly that she had been trained before. Dixie sat when I told her to, she lay down when I told her to, and with some extra behaviour modelling, she mastered "stay" - so long as the behaviour was rewarded with a treat. And unless she wants the treat I'm holding (or if she wants to get her Halti off), she won't sit for nobody. She doesn't know "shake paw" or "beg" or "roll over". Though she did display "play dead" the one time I breathed on her, though I don't think that was on purpose.
But most interesting of all: she's been trained in "sign language" - signs I stumbled upon when testing her repetoire of tricks. A snap of the fingers and pointing at the floor means "Sit promptly!"; flattening my hand parallel to the floor means "lay down, promptly!" (seeing that handsign, she usually falls to her elbows like the legs have been cut out from under her); and holding my hand up in the "stop in the name of the law" fashion means "don't move!"
Dixie wasn't abused. I know that. She was underfed after 3 weeks in the pound, but she doesn't show any of the cowering, submissive peeing, or flinching you'd normally find in an abused dog. I think she was well treated, despite the stay on Death Row.
Fortunately, Paws For Life did an awesome job of finding her a home. They've got a set-up that I like: yes, she's more expensive than buying a puppy out of a store, but the fee covers all her vaccinations and her sterilization - something that she's scheduled for later this month.
And she's got a good owner, I think. At the very least, she has one who has given her word to look after this dog for as long as the dog shall live, despite the allergy fits, despite the frustrating mornings and the ongoing challenges with "walkies" vs. "jerk-and-ski", despite the shredded bathroom garbage and the SBDs in my office. I made a commitment to care for this dog; it's a lifelong commitment, and I'm standing by it.
Dixie is not a disposable dog. No dog is.
See, when you go to a pet store, you don't need to sign any agreements. You don't have to prove that you know what you're doing, or that you have access to dog parks; you don't have to prove that you know the proper techniques for dealing with abused dogs; you don't need to sign any promises to take the dog back to the same adoption centre in case things do go awry in your own life.
And there's no legal obligation for pet stores in Quebec to check where the pets are coming. That cute, squirmy little ball of fur in the pet store could be excited and desperate to go home with you because they're terrified of going back to the puppy mill.
Puppy mills would not exist if it were not for people buying animals on the cheap. I could show you all the pictures of what it looks like, inside a puppy mill, but I think most of you know what one looks like. If you don't, check this.
There's no reason why anyone should need to buy a puppy from a store - not when there are so many more animals in shelters that are perfectly loveable. Yes, they may have bad behaviours, but even when they grow up, the puppies you buy end up with their own bad behaviours too.
And adopting an adult dog means you know exactly how big they're going to be, how much work, how much food and water, how much space they take up - no surprises, no underestimations, which is often the reason why people bring their "used puppies" to the pound, once they've grown up.
And for the love of mercy: if you buy an animal, get it spayed or neutered. If you can't afford to spay or neuter the dog, you cannot afford to buy the animal.
If you have a dog and you know you can't look after it anymore, have the human decency to see to it that he or she gets a good home - or at least goes to a good agency.
Let's not blame the SPCAs or pounds. We can't entirely blame puppy mills either.
The problem starts with irresponsible owners.
Puppy mills wouldn't exist if people didn't want to save money buying a cheap puppy from a store or from a backyard breeder. Accidental breeding wouldn't happen if male and female animals are sterilized. And animal shelters wouldn't be overcrowded or underfunded if it wasn't for irresponsible owners who treat animals as disposable toys.
And be realistic when considering whether or not to adopt. I
learned recently that a family attempted to adopt a Husky cross, with
the intention of letting their four year old walk him. A four year old cannot walk a dog. A four year old rides a dog. Needless
to say, the adoption did not go over well. So, the dog had to find another
"forever home", meaning the adoption agency has to start all over again, expending twice the resources for one dog - all because of another irresponsible owner (and dumb parent).
The only dogs that should be left un-neutered are those intended for responsible breeding by a small, specialized breeder: one that can afford to raise one or two litters at a time until and after the pups are weaned; one that gives the female ample time to recover between litters, and who gives her access to all the comfort, care and resources she needs; one that understands the principles of genetics and inheritance, and breeds out health-affecting traits and avoids inbreeding.
If your heart is set on a puppy, be sure you know what to look for. This site is a good guide to what makes a good and reputable breeder. More than looking at their "certification" papers (which can be falsified), look to their actions.
Instead of complaining about shelters or puppy mills, let's start investing time and resources in proper breeding and adoption centres. Passing legislation against puppy mills and the sale of cats and dogs in pet stores can only drive "cheap" animal breeders underground; and the more cheap "throw-away" animals we allow them to create, the more reputable shelters are overrun.
By the way: if you're in the Montreal area and you're looking to adopt, consider Paws for Life. Sofia Hadjis has been fantastic - we had a lot of trouble with the adoption process (due greatly in part to the shelter where Dixie was), but Sofia pulled out all the stops to make this adoption happen, and she's been working with me post-adoption to make sure Dixie's settled in. Sofia, you're wonderful. Keep up the good work!
So yes, Dixie has her quirks and bad habits, yes she's big and demands attention sometimes, but I wouldn't trade her for all the cute, store-bought puppies in the world.
How much is that doggy in the window? A couple of hundred dollars. Rescuing a dog from the death chamber? Priceless.
Following is an easy to follow, step by step guide to surviving the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), as described by a five year veteran.
Step 1. Commit to telling a story.
Step 2. Activate the writing implement of your choice.
Step 3. Write stuff.
Step 4. Finish.
Optional steps between Step 3 and Step 4 include:
bathing and other personal ablutions
taking the dog/cat/child/life partner for walkies
minimal housework
stretching
cavorting with other WriMos
ingesting caffeine and/or sugar and/or junk food (in moderation!)
Don't add extra steps between #1 and #3. Trust me on this.
Mostly-non-optional distractions include:
eating and rehydrating
using a washroom for personal needs
getting dressed (unless you're a nudist, then anything goes)
feeding dependents and/or changing diapers
going to work (if gainfully employed; substitute "search for work" where
applicable; if you're retired, good for you! Now go write some more.)
I know it seems oversimplified, but there's a lot hidden between the lines.
The first step is a biggie, but remember this: You can commit to telling a story without knowing what it will be. "I dunno what I'm gonna write" does not classify as an effective excuse. So stop saying it.
Yes, sometimes it is easier to write a fully formed story idea. Sometimes it's more fun to wing it. But I know people who are just as comfortable writing off the top of their heads as they are sitting down to sculpt out a good plot before writing it.
But if you need to, outline your story. At least have an idea how the story is going to end. Plot as you go, if you need to. I use my travel / showering / eating time to plot before sitting down to write later on in the day. Sometimes I plot in my dreams.
I've actually made a point of not plotting before entering a marathon; I think about the story, a lot, but I don't plot on paper. If I've put a lot of thought into it, I end up writing only what's stood the test of time and memory - in other words, only the good stuff.
The second step is hardest of all: activating the writing implement. There are involuntary disasters that crop up - exploding dishwashers, the flu, American Thanksgiving - No one goes a full month without some crisis or urgent life matter. That's what makes life interesting.
But if you intend on winning this year's NaNo, you have to eliminate the voluntary distractions - the TV, Facebook, and the Nevergudy Nuff. These things are designed to make you mentally drowsy. Every one of them.
The TV does not want you to turn it off. Broadcasters do not get paid if advertisers know people aren't watching, so they've psychologically engineered their shows to make you believe that you must watch the TV, and do nothing else. The longer you watch TV, the more money they make.
Facebook is more than yummy advertisements and cheesy games, because a lot of it is user-contributed content. Your family, friends and pseudo-friends all get a kind of mental high when they know you're reading their posts. That's why, in the last few years, people's status updates, their funny photos and "de-motivational posters" have become so much more interesting. The more "likes" and comments, the more they get mentally "paid" for a job well done; people learn quickly what earns them the most attention, and they'll do more of it. It's addicting, man, both for the reader and the contributor! Stop being addicting!
As for the Nevergudy Nuff? Well...I've spoken my bit about him, and we're not on speaking terms anymore.
So turn it off! Navigate away from Facebook. Turn off the TV. Mute the internal critic. Tune out everything but your children, spouse and pets - and even then, if you can schedule some away time, great. If you're tired, go read a book. That'll refresh your need to write.
Even "healthy" and "productive" distractions - also known as "research" - can derail you. Whenever possible, save your research for after. Run toward the 50k mark, then spend the rest of November researching. Build in placeholders, and you can come back to it later.
Try taking your writing to some place that has no WiFi, and leave your internet rocket stick at home. The temptation to surf will still be there, but without the means, you can't be distracted for long.
But if let the voluntary distractions win, you'll lose the marathon.
On the other hand, if you do master Step 2, it's all downhill from there.
Step 3 is deceptively simple too. Write "stuff." I didn't say "write your story perfectly". This is a marathon. This is about speed and volume, not quality. Even when you take your time writing, you're bound to delete and rework stuff. Why should it be any different during NaNo?
Don't stop writing. Sometimes, you have to walk through the cow poop to get to the next pasture, y'know?
Remember: whatever you've written, you can fix it; whatever plot hole
you've sunk, you can fill it later. Yes, it may be hard to fix later, but committed
artists do not flinch from hard work; they flourish from it. There's no deadline for submission, only for hitting 50k words; there's no marks for spelling or grammar, and no one needs to read your book on December 1st. So
whatever the problem is, write around it, darn you, but keep writing!
If you push through, you may end up crafting a gem of dialogue, or the perfect plot twist - and let me tell you, those aha! moments are what gives the writer that creative high you hear so much about. It's the unscripted brilliance that makes NaNo worth the effort.
If you're derailed, don't look to other people's blogs for advice or inspiration; and don't say "I'll just play this game while I think about the plot" because you won't. Let your easy-to-please imaginary reader be your inspiration. Let them ask breathlessly, "And then what happens?" If necessary, BS your way through the hard parts of the story until you're back on solid ground.
If you can get through Steps 1 - 3, barring major catastrophes (like an invasion by rabid yetis, or an attack of killer tomatoes), then Step 4 is assured.
Now stop reading my blog and go write something. Inspiration is drumming its fingers on your desk, waiting for you to return.
You've done this so often that you should know by now what to expect when you're moving from one residence to the other. Apparently, you don't learn by rote (though you'd think, since this is move #28, you'd get the hang of this by now), so a checklist it is.
1) Insist on 60 days before moving out. Take thirty days to cry and to look for a good place to move in. Insist that you move in not at the earliest opportunity, but at the end of that 60 day period. Twenty-four days between "oh, I have to move out now" and "oh, I've moved in now" is insane, don't do it, you will hurt yourself. Twit.
2) During the first 45 days before moving, hit the gym like crazy. It should be a good 1-2 hour intense workout 3-4 days a week, with a 60/40 split favouring weights over cardio, and no less than 20 minutes of full body stretching. Focus especially on building up your lower back muscles. Remember, you're not there to lose weight or to buff up; but trust me, if your body is already accustomed to the hard labour, it'll make your life a lot easier when ready to move.
3) Eliminate crap like an angry editor. If I can take a 6400 word story and chop it down to 5100 (including address, phone number, email address and word count), then surely I can eliminate at least 45% of all boxes prior to moving. If it's dusty, you don't need it. If it's moldy, get rid of it. If it's grown legs and fangs and calls you by name (and it never did before), burn it and bury the ashes at the crossroads.
4 a) Buy/steal/borrow/reuse a crap load of boxes. This is another reason why it's good to book 60 days. At the end of the first month, a bunch of people will have moved as well. Haunt dumpsters and find the best, most serviceable boxes you can. This saves you elbowing the good looking guy in the eye when he reaches for the same empty boxes you do.
4 b) Wine bottle boxes are awesome for all the particulars in your kitchen. Small boxes are best for books; see if you can score photocopy paper boxes from offices - those are built for heavy but small loads, and they come built in with handles. Big boxes should only ever be used for the flotsam and jetsam that you weren't able to eliminate in Step 3).
4 c) Two weeks in advance, box everything until the only way you can go to bed is by throwing the mattress on top of a stack of boxes, and then sleeping on the floor in a nest of blankets and scattered throw pillows.
5) Continue showering. Find a way. Trust me, you'll feel like a new person after you've showered, no matter how tired you were. And keep brushing your teeth, too, 'cause when you're baring your teeth and hissing little curse words, you want your pearly whites to leave a nice first impression on the new neighbours. Do not misplace your essentials. Or your keys.
6 a) If you're moving in town with a single vehicle, you're going to scratch the heck out of it. You may even break things. Beware of parking standards in unfamiliar underground parking garages; they bite.
6 b) Fill the tank. The more crap you throw in the vehicle, and the more you drive around in town, the faster you're going to burn through the fuel. Budget accordingly.
6 c) Bend and STRETCH and bend and STRETCH. Lift with the knees - curse if you have to - but you're gonna kill your back if you don't. (Remember that long, horrible night when Mady and Mike were laughing about your orang-utan walk?)
6 d) If you're renting a truck and moving outside of your city, budget for twice as much fuel as they tell you you're going to need.
6 f) If Step 6e is n/a, sell everything except for your lucky underwear, toothbrush and pillow; then move. Budget accordingly.
6) Clean everything before moving in.
7) Clean everything after moving out.
8) You're going to eat a lot more than usual. Prepare 50% more good food in advance (especially protein, some salty foods, and a lot of fluids); or, budget for a lot more junk food. Fortunately, you're in a position to burn all the calories, so enjoy!
9) Plan to assemble the big stuff first, especially storage units. This allows you to plot out the room before it's cluttered, and it'll give you a place to put the boxes as you bring them in. P.S. Yeah, you might be able to do it alone, but you're going to put yourself into absurd contortions and you're at risk of breaking something expensive. Beg / plead / borrow help. If you can't, ensure you've done a lot of stretching during step 2. You're going to need to be limber.
10) You are not above bribery. Budget accordingly.
11) Don't sit down and blog during moving day. You won't ever be able to get back up again.
12) Think about the future. Don't dwell on the past. You'll lose momentum if you stop and remember the why's, who's and when's of the acquisition of all your sentimental junk-crap, and sadness makes you physically weak. If you can't be happy, try growling. The more bear-like you feel, the stronger you'll be!
13) Plan to move 1-2 days before you're actually required to get out. This gives you a buffer of time for when you realize how much stuff you didn't pack / eliminate / burn and bury at the crossroads.
14) Friends who help are awesome. Feed them generously.
15 - and most importantly) When you're all packed, psyched, pumped and ready to go, hire professional movers and let them do all the work for you.
June 25, 2009. Headline: Michael Jackson is dead! Farrah Fawcett is dead! Source: Twitter, Facebook, dead celebrity websites.
March 11, 2011. Headline: earthquake rocks Japan. Tsunami lifts civilization off its foundations and sweeps it away, effortlessly. Twitter. Facebook. YouTube.
May 2, 2011. Headline: Osama bin Laden shot dead by U.S. Troops. Source: Twitter. Facebook.
September 11, 2001. Headline: WTC rocked, destroyed, by terrorist, killing hundreds, changing the world. Source: radio, television media outlets, word of mouth.
In 10 short years, media has metamorphosed entirely from a strictly corporation-run system of networks of print, radio and television media, to this: 100% privatized media content.
Granted, you still have to pay big corporations in order to broadcast your opinions; and in some countries, your own publicized opinion, even on Facebook, can get you imprisoned, or even killed.
The point is, whether we realize it, believe it or do something about it, anyone with access to the internet can change the news.
We can complain about big Right Wing media corporations and laugh (or cry) about their flagrant disregard for facts or open dialogue. We can complain about how "the media" vilifies good people, or floods us with inanities about celebrity weight gain or loss (including baby bumps, food bumps, silicon bumps, affairs and divorces). Or, as Jon Stewart does so well...we could lambaste Glenn Beck.
But what baffles me is that few seem to realize just how much power we have in our hands, and how much responsibility.
1. Power. We can broadcast our own beliefs faster than ever, more visually than ever.
We can propagate our political beliefs and rally support for our cause through online petitions. We can join chat groups where people share our beliefs; we can comment on nearly any news or pseudo-news online journal and "share" (read "beat each other about the head with") our opinions without ever having to justify ourselves with facts. I don't have to post any links. Go anywhere. Read any article. Watch any link in YouTube. You'll see what I mean.
I did. Someone on Facebook posted pictures. I checked it out. She's right - there are the pictures, there are private news outlets telling us about it. Not a word in the "recognized" media outlets. Do a search using the following words: News Wall Street Occupied. Take a look at the site addresses and see if you can spot any major national news outlet that's joining in on the fray.
Michael Moore knows. He's there. I have no doubt he'll make a rousing comment about how "the media" is conspicuous by its absence.
Look at the power we have. Someone I have never met on Facebook posted a series of pictures and mentioned that mainstream media wasn't covering it. I say, "Friend, we are mainstream media; the message has gotten out."
And we don't even need to write anything.
We can spread paranoia.
Or we can challenge each other's beliefs.
We can uplift.
courtesy: YOMIURI SHIMBUN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
We can remember.
Courtesy Great Buildings . com
We can always remember.
2. Reach. More than ever, we can reach out to the entire world, simply by leaving a message on some obscure site like this one. Don't believe me? I have a regular reader in Germany that I've never met; just this week, I've had visitors from the UK, Australia, France, China, Russia and Latvia. I mean, how'd they even find me? The point is, there is now a connection made between me, here in my basement apartment in Montreal, and someone out there, on the far side of the planet.
I wish it went both ways. I wish I could see more of what's really happening in China - I mean really. How do people live? I don't want to know just what their state-run media says is happening in China; I want to know what's happening in the lives of a healthy cross-section of China.
Done secretly and done well, we can know.
The question is, does anyone want to try and find out? Or are we satisfied with what drivel we get every day?
3. The News is Free.
There used to be a time when the public upheld a belief in journalistic ethics; a promise by major media corporations to seek the facts and publish the truth no one wanted to hear. Papers were accountable to a publisher and editor; publishers and editors were/are accountable to their stockholders, their advertisers and their readers.
That promise no longer applies. The news is free - the news is no longer accountable to an editor or a publisher; anyone - whether they've been there or not - can write an article and call it "The News." So long as we don't commit libel against anyone, our freedom of expression is protected (in North America, especially) by law. We may get comments and insults from the readers, but they're pretty powerless in forcing us to change the content of our online publication. We are accountable to no one.
And the news is free in terms of cost. I'm paying for my internet; you're probably paying for yours. But you are not paying to read what I'm telling you now. I make no profit, doing what I do right now.
On the flip side, major media outlets are chained to monetary gain. The bigger the headline and the louder the fearmonger, the more money large media corporations earn. News sells. But it doesn't have to. Not anymore.
4. We are the readership.
Which are you more aware of? That on Wednesday, September 21, 2011, Facebook made a major change to its news feed layout, and that so many people complained that it hit the news? Or that September 21 was supposed to be the re-scheduled rapture? Or did you know that, on the day most of us were complaining about Facebook feeds, two US hikers were released on bail after a two-year ordeal in Iran, after having been falsely accused of spying in 2009?
Your answer entirely depends on what your interests are. Sounds stupidly simple, I know, but follow my argument for a moment.
There are two principle forces in the free marketplace: supply and demand.
The media supplies us all the drek we may complain about - the tabloids, the rumours, the fearmongering, the political machinations, the blind eyes and the one-sided arguments.
But we demand it. The more we demand, the more media will supply.
Simply put: if we stopped buying it, they would stop supplying it. If we stopped watching it, advertisers would lose their power over our spending money, and the advertisers will invest in something else.
No one liked the Edsel. So Ford stopped making them. No one makes a product for long that no one's going to buy because it's expensive, and anything that does not generate a profit is counter to the ideals of capitalism.
Some people like Glenn Beck. It doesn't matter who, or why, or what their level of education is, or what colour is their skin, or how thick is their wallet. It doesn't matter. The point is, there are enough people interested in Far Right media to represent a large base of consumers - not extremists, not bigots, not ultra-conservative Christians - consumers. People
who are exposed often enough to advertisements that go out and buy the products that
sponsor the show.
Networks don't care what you believe; they care about what you buy. If you're buying, you must want more of it. If ratings are up, advertisers are happy and networks are happy. If ratings went down, then advertisers would back away, and networks will try something else.
We are the readership. We are the viewership. If it wasn't for us, the media that we love and hate today would go away, because the media is us.
We can control the media.
Because we are the media.
5. We, as readers, have a greater responsibility than ever. Independent online journalists, be they professional, amateur or otherwise, are not held accountable to anyone. So long as they aren't criminal in nature, and so long as they pay their website fees, anyone can post anything that they want. Writers do not share the same responsibilities as readers. And they never have.
Savvy indy journalists can make any website look like a genuine media outlet. Take that link I'd posted earlier, the one about the occupation of Wall Street. Digital Journal has advertising on it, it has a great, professional-looking layout, it has sections like any other news website - it's great!
How do you know anything in that website is genuine? How can you tell if someone just made it all up?
I'm not saying it's fake; I'm challenging your perception of what you see online.
Since the advent of yellow journalism in the late 1800s, the line between fact and profitable opinion has blurred. Now that anyone with a good eye for programming and webdesign can pose as a major media outlet, we are forced into doubt. We must be doubtful. We should always have been doubtful, because smart people test everything.
And now we see willful blindness on the part of the major media outlets. Something's happening in Wall Street. We know the Dow took another hit this week, and major news networks are covering that...so why not step outside and comment on the people who have been protesting? Where's the media presence that we actually pay for? Do they have something to hide? Is there something they don't want us to know?
If Big News Inc. did say something, would it be a comment on social disruption, or social revolution? Or would they simply walk up to the protesters and report back on what the protesters have to say? Will they give us opinion or fact? My money is on opinion, because true journalism isn't sensational enough to sell.
Major news outlets, independent news outlets - whatever it is, take nothing for face value, and always assume there's more to the story than what is presented.
Check for references and quotations; see if you can substantiate what is being said by cross-referencing against another source.
When watching news footage, doubt anything that has been cut off mid-sentence. There's a big difference between "I believe cutting taxes for corporations is good - " and "I believe cutting taxes for corporations is good only for 1% of the population." Believe nothing that is taken out of context. Suffer through long quotations, if that's what it takes to get the full truth.
Check bylines. There are still reputable news outlets out there. When reading any newspaper, you may find that a lot of the news comes from Reuters. Be careful here: a lot of the credit will go back to Reuters, but if you read the original article and compare it against what has been "edited" in your newspaper, you'll be amazed at how subtle - and how powerful - those edits can be.
Seek a balanced argument. Good journalism encourages you to come up with your own opinions, instead of feeding you what they think you want to hear.
Conclusion. I can't tell you to boycott networks or the products that sponsor them. I believe in freedom of expression - even when I fiercely disagree with what's being said. I would rather disassemble your argument with logic and proof than drown you out with my own ignorance and censorship. Besides, the more I say "Don't listen to that guy, he's a bigot!" the more you're going to be tempted to go see what was so shocking.
And I can't change the world. If I make a significant and lasting impact on only two people in this world, I'll be over the moon.
But I can encourage you to make use of what you have at hand: a remote control, the internet, and an unrelenting desire to seek the truth.
Now, I could go on forever about media, its impact on our lives, and our lives in the media. But I don't have to. Marshall McLuhan said it for us thirty years before the commercialization of the internet.
