Death by a Thousand Epiphanies (on Macguffins)

While watching the dreadful movie Push with Paola this weekend I asked her, about midway through, "Do we really need to know what's in The Case?"

She said, "For the purposes of this movie, yes."

Which in my mind is an instant fail.

The existence of The Case should be enough. If you have to stop and explain to people what is going on and why something is important then it means the supporting elements surrounding the central theme aren't doing enough on their own to convey this message.

As a viewer/reader, I only need to know The Case is important, the protagonist and/or antagonist desire it enough that they're willing to make each others lives hell in order to get it. Or some variant of such. Pick your trope.

Getting inside the case presents the problem of building up to a gigantic anti-climatic moment. Once the stakes are raised too high, opening The Case may at best please some of the audience but you ain't gonna get them all, especially me. If a tangible, physical value is attached to the items within then the questions start: "You're kidding me! I don't know if I would've done all of that for that."

The Case represents our deepest hopes and dreams, a solution to the meaningless drudgery of our everyday situation, an escape from the normal, a new beginning. The Case, in order for it to be important to everyone needs to be all things to all people. The Case is only a means to an end, not the end itself. It is how we get the ball rolling, how we nudge the protagonist forward to make sacrifices and to change. Make your story good enough and nobody will care what's inside that case.

More on Epiphanies later.

Breaks are for the Broken

Beginnings are easy, endings are hard, middles are tedious.

This is all you need to know about writing a novel. Those darn middles are where good ideas go to wallow and become mediocre.

WALLOW.

If you add an s to that it becomes swallow, which could either be a graceful bird or action that one does when confronted with explaining what their idea is about (or when consuming a beverage(s) that makes you forgot about said idea).

I don't feel like anything I've ever worked on is so irrevocably broken that a healthy dose of editing couldn't fix. Even my first novel attempt, that I cringed at the idea of rereading for 13 whole years isn't that bad in retrospect. I would never do anything with it but it sure is nice to look at that thick sheaf of words and say "Holy crap, I wrote this and it doesn't make me want to puke."

That doesn't do anything for finishing though. In fact, a lot of what I read about the art of writing novels suggests that it's a bad idea to go back and reread, period. In the first draft portion, the writer should be focused with burping words onto the page, not even pausing to correct obvious grammatical and spelling mistakes. The first draft is for the writer to tell the story to themselves. Then go back and write the darn thing, already.

This is all conjecture of course. Lawrence Block says no one can really tell you how to write a novel, no one except you of course and you only learn by completing one.

So where does that leave me? 33,000ish words in but I need to take a break. I have a short story idea that won't go away and it must be indulged. It's about... well go read that older post if you don't know because it's always about love. I think this should take about a week or two to hash out, probably leave it in draft form and hop back onto the horse. Besides, I don't feel so bad when hearing about first time novelists that took more than 3 years to get it done.

In the meantime, finally got around to reading Scarlett Thomas. Loving the End of Mr. Y, the whole thought experiment thing is kind of cool. Gave me all kind of ideas.

I have a thought experiment involving money. Give me some. Now.

Discuss.

Context

If you meet someone, for the first time in life, as in never spoke a word to this person before and the second sentence that comes out of their mouth is: So, what have you been up to?

Is there a proper non-sarcastic way to answer that other than a shoulder shrug?

Discuss.

The Thing About Apples or Two Ideas Collide

My blog dashboard is about as cluttered as my desk. There are 20-30, 200 word starts that have fizzled out in mid sentence. How's that for inspiration? The problem for me is that I don't want to fact check or put up something erroneous when I'm in the middle of making a grandiose assumption about human nature. This is why I prefer to write fiction cause I can just make the shit up as long as it's logical within the rules of my universe.

Those of y'all that manage to stay on top of your blogs should know that I envy you. There's some good content floating around on these interwebs, a lot of it free, a lot of it very entertaining, so I advise you, dear reader, to take a look at some of the links over thattaway ------->

...after I lull you to sleep with my diatribe. Or before. Either way. I'm easy like that.

There are few things I enjoy on this earth more than a crisp Granny Smith apple. It's a lunchtime ritual for me that always starts with peeling the origin sticker off, taking the first bite then deciding if it's worth it or not to continue. I did say crisp, see. I know a lot of tricks to determine an apples worthiness beforehand but you can never rule anything out until the actual taste test. Until your teeth break the skin it's just a guessing game.

The thing about apples is that a lot of stuff goes on under that skin, one of which is pesticides. I'm too lazy to source the article but apples are one of the worst offenders when it comes to retaining pesticides. Not that this is the apple's fault. It just the nature of their design. Unless you're fully kitted out with the latest testing gear, the average consumer doesn't stand a chance of knowing what they're putting into their body.

So what does one do? If you're concerned about turning your body into a toxic waste receptacle you can go organic, which is what I did. Organic apples don't keep as well though, go figure. When nature has its way and they're allowed to degrade as they should, it leads to a shorter shelf life. This is fine, it just means that the end user needs to be a little more selective and not ignore the little voice warning you that a ball of mulch lurks underneath that green skin.

On Monday, I sat down to lunch and peeled the origin sticker off, shocked to see that it said "New Zealand/Organic." Maybe I wouldn't have been shocked if I didn't live just on the other side of Stevens Pass from the Apple Capital of the World.

So I'm munching on my apple, feeling a bit like Paul McCartney might have the first time he laid eyes on his hybrid Lexus. Okay, not quite. I'm sure Sir Paul didn't feel even a minor twinge of guilt but I did. It got me to thinking about a speech I heard by Arundhati Roy about the EVVVVEEEELLLLSSSS of globalization. I'd recommend listening it to yourself (and her other stuff because she's a freaking genius) but I'll pharaphrase: Globalization has absolutely nothing to do with the consumer and everything to do with the profit.

Seriously, please explain to me how an apple that comes thousands of miles via container ship, offloaded at the port by union longshoreman, then delivered to a wholesaler by a truck be cheaper than one that's only a hundred miles away still on the dern tree?!

Well, I'll tell you how. The only way that apple could be cheaper would be to reduce the production costs, which means paying the workers less. Considering their competing against migrant farm workers in America, imagine how much less that means they're getting paid.

I can't stomach that, organic or no. I don't want to eat New Zealand apples when I could drive to Wenatchee and load up my car with crates of apples. I don't want apples from halfway across the world when they may as well be in my backyard already.

Is there a solution? I don't know. Maybe it's time to buck up and wander down a Farmer's Market to see what they're all about.

Paola vs. The Drunk Lesbians

No, that is actually the post title.

The last time I saw the Aggrolites, it was in Portland at Mt Tabor Legacy. My wife almost got into a fight with a drunk skinhead girl that wanted to wild dance all over the place. They didn't fight but she stood up to her and didn't back down before people intervened and things cooled off.

Tonight at the Crocodile, it eclipsed surreal. Two drunk girls elbowed their way to the front so they could make out and roll around the crowd. Seriously. I doubt they had any idea what band was playing. I'd go a step further and say they probably had no idea where they were.

Things settled down for a moment when they disappeared for three songs or so but then they popped up again tongues in each others' mouths, desperate to let everyone know that they were gay and here to stay. Or something. For the life of me, I have no idea what was going on. All I know is that they kept bumping me and getting all up in my minuscule dancing space. The place was packed, yo.

Paola offered to switch places with me but I wanted to grit it out. I'm tough, right? Wrong. The next thing I know, the woman I married pushed past me, patted one of the girls on the head like a doll and said "It's all right, it's all right." She shoved the girls away from us towards the middle of the crowd. One of them cried out "There's only so much you can do!" but resistance was futile. Within a song they'd vanished and I didn't see them again until the show was over.

It was awesome. Women started coming up to Paola and thanking her for getting rid of them and I'm just sitting there beaming thinking, "Yep, that's my wife!"

In other coolness, one of those women happened to be Lynval Golding's wife June. I can't even make this shit up.

The Idiot (Copied from elswhere)

Hello Blog,

I have nothing new to put into you other than this review of The Idiot. Why am I so remiss? well, let's say as a writer you only have a certain amount of words that are worth producing on a daily basis. Between real life, the internet, my epic masterpiece in lyrical prose (Man loses hat, man finds hat) that leaves a scant few for you blog. Sorry. This is the way the cookie crumbles.

Discuss.

Few writers can transpose humanity like Dostoevsky. I marvel about the man's ability which almost seems supernatural, to dissect the WHY in people. He understands it and is able to take those insights and transfer them to paper like no other.

The Idiot is his masterpiece in that regard. The plot, a mere shell used to draw the unusual characters into interaction, reveals that at the end it's all about the way people are. People are wont to feel a certain a way and many go out of their way to spout those feelings from a mountaintop but how we act is who we are. The Idiot conveys this with Dostoevsky's masterful use of prose and characterization.

An uncorruptable man serves no place in society other than a laughingstock... but is this the case? That is what The Idiot asks and the answer is best left to the individual reader.

Dostoevsky is never easy going for the timid. This novel will always have a special place in my heart even more so than the Brothers Karamazov because it's not an easy read. The questions asked probe humanity's core. The questions and content will make you uncomfortable but that is the nature of good art. It should never be easy.

If you want a cookie cutter plot with the answers thrown on top than this book is not for you.

This is why

Some guy said, "You can never go home."

I spent a week in Anchorage disproving that numb-skull but not without enduring a significant amount of "OH SNAP".

Let me tell you a little secret about people, lean in close cause I'mma whisper it in yo' earhole: If you are living your life trying to change other people than you are wasting your life.

Friend, i suspect that most of us come out of the womb fully formed, our likes and dislikes already pre-established, only dependent upon whether or not we experience them to cement our beliefs.

I find it comical to hear some folks express how worked up they get over a person doing a thing but if you ask them if they were ever to be influenced by a singular person they'd say no.

What this person is saying is that they possess a supernatural ability that allows their worldview to prevail at all times. Newsflash: FAIL.

People, seriously get over yourselves. The only thing that you have power of in this world is how you feel about you. Everything else is a coin flip. You can spend hours working on how you want to be presented to others but if one person perceives you differently than how you've wanted, then you've wasted your time.

And if you are living your live trying to make other people see you a certain way then again, you are wasting your time. People will see you how they want to see you.

Happiness comes from within. Happiness is an approach to a situation that is entirely not dependent on how others approach the same situation. The only thing that ever matters is whether or not you can look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and be happy with your choices.

As sure as everything, when you are on your deathbed the only other person there with you will be you, not those other people that have judged you from afar.

Stop judging people, stop living for other people, live for yourself and judge yourself. Don't tie your happiness up into what other people want of you.

Or ignore all of this shit. Personally I don't give a fuck. I'm doing me, you do you. Just keep it off of me.