The Mad Desperate Ones

There are many types of artists--when I say that I don't mean painters and sculptors etc.; I mean their motivation to create art--there are many types of artists, all equal in worth, and by far the best type of artist is the mad, desperate artist who is motivated not by passion or interest or acclaim but by an all-consuming, unyielding need to create art. I myself am such an artist, and damn proud of it. We rare and tormented few are lucky enough to have tapped directly into Where Art Comes From and now it fills us and the pressure builds until we are compelled by forces beyond our control to perpetrate violent and beautiful works of art.

"You should blog about that," Mrs. Benson tells me.

The problem is that I'm not a professional mad desperate artist who has the financial backing to perpetrate art full time. I am a very-nearly-professional author who is also a guy with the same tangled mess of conflicting responsibilities that everyone else has. How am I supposed to write my novel when I spend all of my available time and energy doing everything but writing?

"You should blog about that," Mrs. Benson tells me. She says that a lot. Whenever I go off on some hot-tempered rant or get onto a particularly funny line of thinking, or when I make some vague philosophical observation, or when I bitch about my Dad's idiot dogs, she tells me to blog about it.

She's right, of course. I need to feed this starving blog, and I need to exercise my writing, and of course all of you must be missing my charming contribution to your lives. All three of you. But writing is hard, man! People don't really know how much physical energy goes into creating art. I'm not talking about the 2.7 calories per hour I burn slouching over a keyboard and wiggling my fingers; this is emotional energy. It leaves you tired. Even writing this blog takes some, because even though I'm just vomiting words I'm editing as I go and exploring then discarding entire trains of thought and criticizing myself the whole time. This is just a blog entry. I'm aware that nobody has high expectations for it. Maybe this gives you some idea of how draining it is for me to flail and thrash away at my novel, which must be perfect.

Maybe you think I'm just pissing and moaning.

It gnaws at me, it itches in my mind until I figure out exactly how I want to express an idea. I inhabit my characters to learn who they are and to see the story from their perspective. I listen to conversations between characters while I do the dishes, while I shower, as I lie in bed. There are times when it would be nice to turn it off, but I can't. The stories are always there, pleading and prying and bellowing, begging to be told, and as I muddle ever forward I am gradually finding the time and, most importantly, the energy to let them out. This novel will be written. It's going to hurt, but I feel pretty positive.

There, I blogged about it.

Back on The Horse!

So after a year's hiatus, here I am again. I hope I haven't lost many of you. I assure you that I had the utmost of legitimate excuses.

So now I'm getting my shit back together and I've started writing again. I've sworn off television and using the internet (save for news, weather, research, and of course blog updates) and I am spending all of the time that I have been spending doing those things writing instead. I started today, and it was surprisingly easy. Suspiciously easy. It was like the story was waiting for me to come back. Based on recenet dabbling I expected more of a struggle, but almost as soon as I sat down my fingers were typing. I was at it for hours.

'What was he working on?' is the question I hope you are asking.

It's a novel. 

I'm trying out for the big leagues.

There will also be more blog posts, even if they are generated 

The right to what now?

There is a particularly aggravating television commercial currently airing in heavy rotation in which the statement that "you"--i.e., the consumer--"have a right to" the service advertised. This smacks to me of the ignorance, arrogance, and indulgence that characterize the United States throughout the rest of the world. Have we as a society come so low that we no longer recognize the difference between rights and privilege?

Rights are guarantees of personal liberty provided to a person by the nation of their birth. In the USA, we have ten of them, as decreed by a document appropriately called the Bill of Rights. I could go on Wikipedia right now and come back being all professorial, but the truth is that I can't name all ten of my rights. I know that I have the right to speak freely, the right to bear arms, the right to worship (or not) who, what, where, and when I choose, and the right to a fair trial if I am accused of violating the laws of my state and nation. I'm pretty sure that those are the first four, and I think that the fifth has to do with freedom of the press. Beyond that my knowledge is hazy. I wonder how many of my fellow citizens could even get that far?

What I do know is that nowhere in the Bill of Rights is there mention of such things as hair shampoo, wireless communications, drugs to boost my sexual performance, or the latest hit movies on pay-per-view. Those things are privileges available to me as I can afford. Even the basic amenities of comfort--food, shelter, hot and cold running water--are privileges.

Rights are given. Privileges must be earned. I feel it important that somebody stand up and point out the distinction. We should all know our rights, lest we forget how privileged we are.

Boys Is Easier

After a brief hiatus, during which I have arrived at and (thus far) successfully navigated several significant turning points in my life, I triumphantly return! To my millions of loyal readers I offer apology for my absence. Forgiveness is assumed.

___


"A boy, zat's good!" the frenchman exclaimed, and behind his silver moustache his face creased in a broad grin. "You'll be happy. Boys is easier."

"Really?" I asked, though I didn't doubt him.

"Ha! Over a girl, I would take to raise four boys at once! Boys is easier. You can trust me; I had one of each."

Maybe it was the tense preference, maybe just a strange undertone in his cheerful sandy voice, but somehow I knew there was more, and the storyteller in me wanted details. I couldn't help myself.

"Had?" I asked him.

"My daughter is dead two years ago; a car accident."

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said, and I was, but consoling those who have lost beloved pets on a weekly basis has turned delivery of that line into a well-honed performance for me. "That's terrible," I added, hoping to add a little substance.

He shrugged. "It is what it is. She grew up to be a happy woman. I still have my son. I love them both as much as ever. But when she was zeventeen, ha! Did we fight? You wouldn't believe! No, boys is easier. You'll be happy."

Two Eulogies

On September 15th, 2012, a man named Darrel Damer died.

Darrel has been my maternal randmother's 'gentleman companion' for the last decade. My grandfather died in 1996; Darrel's wife passed on around the same time. When Grandmother and Darrel met, each found in the other the joy and comfort that they had prepared themselves to live without for the rest of their lives.

Darrel was a great man. He was the proud patriarch of a large family, a kind and compassionate person who treated me like a grown grandson. The story of his life is amazing in full, a saga fortunately recorded in a private autobiography.

In WWII he was a naval gunner who rode aboard the Liberty Ships of the Atlantic convoys; he had three of them torpedoed out from under him. During one attack, he stayed at his cannon and continued to defend the ship even as it sank, giving the crew and the other gunners time to evacuate. As the water came up around his ankles, he scored a crippling blow on the U-boat that had attacked his ship. The submarine turned and fled for home while Darrel took off his shoes and calmly swam toward the lifeboats.

After the war, Darrel returned home to Virginia and began work as a steamfitter, a trade that he plied for several decades. He had little formal education, but he was a highly intelligent man and he sought knowledge wherever it could be found. During the time that I knew him, he borrowed many books from me, devouring subjects ranging from pre-Christian theology to theoretical physics with a zeal that eclipsed even my own. I always looked forward to the intellectual discussions that filled our visits.

On September 21st, 2012, Roy Jack, my wife's maternal grandfather, died very unexpectedly, probably from a heart attack.

He too was a great man, a model of wisdom and humility, the anchor of his family. Roy and his wife Rachel raised three children while running their own business, which is no mean feat. They started with a carpet and upholstery cleaning service, later branching out into interior decorating and opening a very successful home decor outlet.

I met Roy in 2001, and we got along right from the start. He had the best handshake of any man I've ever known. Like me, Roy was a man who loved to build and fix things, and he was possessed of a keen insight into the way the world worked, from something as small as an electric motor in a child's toy to things as large and abstract as international politics. He and I often sat in his living room at family gatherings, quietly discussing whatever took our fancy while watching his brood of grandchildren at play. The things I learned from him will stay with me for the rest of my days.

Both of these men made this world a better place, and it is poorer for their passing. They will be missed.

Doing My Homework

Part of learning to be a successful writer is studying the art of storytelling. One must learn to understand the fundamental elements of a story--the gross components--but also the tiny details, down to every weld and rivet.

There are myriad sources of education from which a dedicated writer may draw. I have gotten into the habit of reverse-engineering books and movies (I call it 'deconstructing' stories) to identify the various tools and techniques the storytellers have used and the clever, innovative methods of their employment. Establishment, for instance, is a vital part of any story; in order to understand events that transpire over the course of the story, the audience must be given key pieces of information. The trick is to hide your establishment the way a stage magician hides the rabbit. You can't just tell somebody "pay attention to this, it will be important later." Sometimes all it takes is a word or two, the literary equivalent of a seemingly insignificant detail appearing in the corner of the screen for a couple of seconds near the beginning of a movie. Sometimes it's a line of dialog; in essence, one character telling another what the writer wants to tell the reader. There exist countless other tricks, some of which I know and use, some I'm still mastering, and others that I may never discover.

One of the hard lessons for me personally has been the art of brevity. Stories have to move fast. Since I have a visual imagination, my tendency is to throw in every single detail I see in my mind; if I'm writing a chase scene, I want to describe every bump in the road, every shift of the gears, every swerve and dodge, when what is important is to give the reader the thrill of speed, the urgency of the situation, and the frenetic, chaotic pace. Instead of describing a character getting whiplash in a terrifying collision, it's much, much better to give the reader whiplash.

A surprising source of education, probably ranked third in my book behind reading great fiction and reading _about_ great fiction, is the supplementary material included on DVDs. A filmmaker is limited by the same constraints as a writer, in that only so much information can be crammed onto the screen before a movie becomes too long or too complicated. In watching the deleted scenes, I can gain insight by discerning why they were deleted and how the story was changed by their exclusion. Listening to the commentary tracks often yields little nuggets of priceless education--for instance, hearing a director describe the decision-making process that led the flawless execution of a scene can inform my examination of a scene in my own story, or listening to an actor explain the steps they took to create a character in their mind may give me a new way to create my own characters.

One of the most difficult challenges in the world of fiction, in any medium, is the accurate dramatization of a true story. Done well, a novel or movie based on real events is a historical document in its own right, despite the odd bit of license taken to craft an engaging story. Once again, because the subject is something that really happened, the temptation to include every tiny detail is hard to resist, but sorting out what actually needs to be there is the real trick. As an example, I'll use the movie _Apollo 13_, since that is what I have playing in the background as I write this post. (For those who plan to put this lesson into practice, it's hard to go wrong with any historical drama spearheaded by Tom Hanks and/or Steven Spielberg, but there are many other great examples)

In the supplementary material included with the film, there is a short documentary in which it is mentioned that actors Tom Hanks and Kathleen Quinlan spent three days in the home of the people they subsequently portrayed, Apollo 13 Spacecraft Commander Jim Lovell and his wife Marilyn. With all of the historical detais recreated for the film, from the sets, props, and vehicles, down to the actors' hairstyles and the cut of their costumes, it would be easy to believe that the actors and their real-life counterparts could have spent three days discussing this myriad of visual elements. I can picture Hanks watching the way Lovell moves, the way he carries himself, his gestures and his unconscious mannerisms--which I'm sure he did, to some extent--but that's not actually what's important to the story. What is important, and what the actors spent those three days studying, is the emotional qualities of their subjects. The emotions felt by Jim and Marilyn Lovell, and all of the other people portrayed in the film, during the seven days of the Apollo 13 crisis over forty years ago, are the same emotions they feel reminiscing about it today. Director Ron Howard was likewise faced with capturing and evoking the emotional state of the astronauts, their families, and the entire country in that time. Everything else in the story--the color of the computers in the flight center, the position of every switch and dial in the spacecraft, the length of the men's sideburns and the volume of the women's hairstyles--revolves around those emotions.

What does this tell us as writers? It tells us that what our characters look like is not as important as what they feel. I've actually stopped giving all but the barest physical description of my characters, because I've discovered that conveying their thoughts and emotions accurately will give my reader everything they need to create their own picture of the character. Unless hair color is somehow intrinsic to the plot, I don't mention it. In my mind, the protagonist may be blonde, but the reader could just as well imagine them as brunette. What matters is that the reader has a solid visualization of the character, not what the character actually looks like. There are characters in my stories whom I picture as black or asian, but I didn't include that detail because it didn't matter. For all I know, a black person might read that story and imagine the character as white. It doesn't really matter if the reader imagines exactly what I envision (in fact, it may be better that they don't). Just get the feel of things right, and all those little details will create themselves.

So the message of this post is this: do your homework. Read books. Watch movies. Read books about books and watch movies about movies. When you find something you like, watch or read it again. If a writer or filmmaker pulls off a neat trick, pick it apart and figure out how they did it.

And, once you think you're pretty good at that, read _The Manual of Detection_ by Jedediah Berry. It's a great story, but it's also a magic trick in novel form. I've read it at least six times, and I still can't find the rabbit.

The Internet Will Destroy All Humans!

Way up here in the mountains, our options for internet access are somewhat limited. High-speed cable internet is available in some parts of the Valley, and when the country's leading provider of same finally strings it out to our location, we will happily take them up on the fantastic money-saving thrice-weekly offer we've been receiving via the Postal Service for the last four years. Last week, a DHL express envelope arrived with my name on it; I got all excited and ripped it open, anticipating an acceptance notice from a literary journal informing me that one of my stories had been selected for publication, but, no, it was another exclusive offer for high-speed cable internet. This sort of thing frequently provokes outbursts of homicidal rage and usually results in spousal mandate that I put down the sword, drink some water, and apologize to the mailman. I have delivered numerous wrathful tirades to innocent and undeserving call-center workers demanding that their employer immediately cease the senseless slaughter of thousands of trees for the sole purpose of offering me a highly desirable service which it lacks the logistical infrastructure to provide, but still the onslaught continues. With the benefit of foresight, we could have saved quite a bit of money by when we moved here by purchasing an empty piece of land, putting up a mailbox, and living in a military surplus GP-medium tent until we accumulated enough raw material to build a three-bedroom home with billiards room and attached garage. Nevertheless, I will be waiting at the window with phone in hand, ready to sign up the very instant the installation crew runs the line past my house. 

Until salvation arrives, however, we are saddled with sattelite internet, which is overpriced, unreliable, governed by draconian and often inscrutable regulations, and monopolized by a single company which doesn't really care if its customers are happy or not, just as long as they pay their exorbitant fees every month. At the time I am writing this, our sattelite dish has been out of commission for just over a week; surprisingly, everyone is still alive. It has been very difficult for my wife, in her role as All-Powerful High Potentate of the family business, to do any banking or place orders with suppliers. Even worse than that, however, is having been out of contact with the majority of the people with whom we regularly interact for a disturbingly long period of time. I have had no communication with my submission service, long-distance friends, writing trustees, and various conversant publishers. I am plagued with visions of being passed up for publication because I didn't respond to an email in time. My mother called to make sure we were alright because she'd been texting me for two days without reply. My wife and I have both experienced a novel variant of cabin fever without the ability to instantly acquire random information on whatever topic our whim dictates.

All of this makes me feel rather spoiled. I think about the prehistoric hunter-gatherer who was basically screwed if his stone axe shattered and no replacement was available. I think about the Somali fisherman whose family goes hungry when his boat is under repair. I think about the World War Two cryptographers who cracked the German ENIGMA code with less computing power than can be found within a 20-foot radius of where I'm sitting. I think about a time long, long ago when there was no Internet, and yet somehow the world managed to stave off the Apocalypse every day, and I realize that I am a very spoiled person. Being the rugged survivalist types that we and most other Mainers are, Mrs. Benson and I are perfectly capable of surviving for days without electricity, but here we are going stir-crazy without access to hourly-incremental weather forecasts, pictures of my aunt with her new haircut, and the name of that actor who's in that movie we want to see and who was also in that other movie with Willem Dafoe.

For decades, science fiction writers have prophecized a dystopian future in which mankind's dominion of the Earth is eclipsed by highly advanced computers, but occurs to me that this troubling scenario may have become reality. True, there are no cold, logical AIs pragmatically declaring that the human race has become obsolete; there is no autonomous military defense network wiping us out with the very weapons from which it was designed to protect us; there are no predatory, self-replicating robots subjugating the entire species and using us for slave labor or turning us into living batteries. There is only an undirected, pervasive, omnipresent digital communication network which has, in the span of a single generation, become so vital that society can no longer function without it. What would happen to us if the Internet suddenly disappeared? Would the global economy still possess the ability to function the way it did twenty years ago, or would the world be instantly and irrevocably plunged into fiscal anarchy? Would there be an epidemic of mass suicide when millions people who had grown accustomed to receiving regular updates concerning the mundane and utterly uninteresting activies of distant acquaintances realized the horrible truth that each one of us is, in the metaphysical sense, absolutely alone in the Universe? Would I finally overcome my violent allergy to emoticons? Until the guy comes to fix our dish, these and many other very important questions must go unanswered.