NaNoWriMoFriNum2

In an unprecedented move, I took the day off from writing yesterday. Boy, did that feel nice. :)

On Monday and Tuesday I missed my word count by about a 1000 words each day and the writing felt like it was the thing I would chose to be doing with my time if strep throat wasn't available.

Today, some 5000+ words behind, I got back to it. Writing was fun again and everything flowed. Not counting taking the day off yesterday, I made a sizable dent into the 2000 word debit. The best part is that on the 1st I started writing at midnight, took a nap and then got back to it at 6 a.m. so that I would hopefully get one session ahead so that I could take a day off and still meet my self-imposed 100k word goal. I had planned on that day being Thanksgiving, and I still do - I just have to have a few more days like today and I'll have an extra day again.

At the end of the twelfth day, I should be at the 40,000 word mark, and I'm just shy of 39,000 words. Not too bad, even if I do say so myself.

NaNo NaNo

I've been slacking in the blog department the last couple of days. I actually wrote one on Monday and didn't like how it turned out, so I deleted it. I haven't updated my wordcount on the NaNo site either, but for a different reason. Every time I have visited in the last couple of days, the site has been slow to load, so I get impatient and move on to another site. (I'll update today, I promise.)

We're a third of the way through the process of this month-long write-a-thon. But am I a third of the way through the novel I'm writing? If my calculations are correct, and of course you will never know if they are unless I tell you at some point, I'm about half to two thirds of the way through the first third of the story. At 35k words, that means the final result will be around 200k words. That seems about the standard fair these days.

I don't hate the story yet. I did go through a day and a half of thinking that my writing wasn't worth the effort, a little lapse in self-esteem. I'm wont to have those now and again regardless of whether or not I'm in the middle of a writing project, so I didn't let it touch the story. I just kept telling myself, "I might suck, but that doesn't mean these characters suck." Well, a couple of them do, but they're supposed to be kinda sucky. :)

My story has three main characters that are alternating telling the story (which at this point is still disparate as they haven't met each other yet). I think the final story will make sense in this format and it allows me much greater control over the pacing of the story. But, I've been thinking that it might make more sense to write all of the chapters from one main characters perspective and then move on to the next and then the last. This is one time that having an outline to work from is to my benefit, as I know where I want to go with each character. I just think that it might be easier to stay in the character's mindset if I'm writing from the perspective of one character day after day instead of every other or every fourth day.

the background of this story lays out a 'world' in which Chinese, Indian and Brazilian culture has surpassed American and Western European as the standard. But it is also a post-national 'world' where the real political power rests with "multistellar" corporations - who maintain there own police forces, militaries, hospitals, etc. Because I have chosen to write a science fiction novel far enough in the future where not only has society greatly changed, but technology as well, I'm inventing a lot of new things, mostly gizmos that will be obvious rip-offs of todays technology. This all means lots of new words - words borrowed from the three cultures mentioned above, borrowed from science, and a whole bunch made up by me. Thank goodness I'm maintaining a glossary as I go.

Finicky Friday

It's the first Friday of NaNoWriMo, and I had set myself a really ambitious goal of 20,000 words by the end of the day, which I met instead at 11 this morning. Yay me! But, today brought the first trouble in writing paradise, something inevitably happens to me, by usually not until much later in the project. I wrote approximately 3500 words today in a chapter without getting to the first point in the outline for the chapter. That doesn't mean that I shouldn't have been writing about what I was writing about, just that I finished my writing for the day and didn't even move a single point in my outline.

speaking of outlines, I didn't end up with the detailed, first draft quality outline I was going to try and do based on the book I read and reviewed, "First Draft in 30 Days" by Karen S. Wiesner. I'm still glad I read the book, but her workflow is different from mine. I initially spent a week trying to follow her plan and cram my style into it, but I just ended up getting stress headaches. I don't write to bet headaches, I write to avoid them. Or something like that. :) The one issue I have with Ms. Wiesner's plan is that she allots very little time to research, and as a writer attempting a science fiction novel that is based in real science, well, let's just say I had a whole hell of a lot of research to do before I wrote the first word of an outline because I had to know ifsome of my proposals were even remotely feasible. And since starting the actual writing, I have had to add in two additional research sessions. I think that perhaps if I were to write fiction of the sort that Ms. Wiesner wrote or mysteries as she also writes, I could have made her system work.

Maybe I'll put in some more writing tonight - if not to finish the chapter, then to at least amend my outline. :)

NaNo update for 11/4

First things first, if for some reason you've never read the blog of my dear friend Kristy Billuni, stop reading this, follow the link to The Sexy Grammarian and read some entries. :D

The fourth day of writing is pretty much done and I'm write on target - five chapters and 16k words done. I don't hate the story, and in fact am really looking forward to how some of it is going to continue to unfold in a way I hadn't planned in my outline. So far I think I've managed to capture all the new names I've added and put them on my master character list with a little blurb explaining how they are, the same for new places and group entities.

I'm still waiting for the first snag, I know it's coming - it always comes. The snag is that point where the outline doesn't seem to make sense, and you can't string one word after another to save your life. The story just sits there, the cursor blinking, as a mild panic takes over your brain. hopefully the first snag won't stop me for long - this year I'm ready for it. Our local library sells magazines donated to it for a dime apiece. That right there should be enough, but I've actually bought about a dozen magazines, ones that I know contain some amazing pictures, and I suspect some equally amazing articles, that as are yet untouched by me, waiting for that moment when I need to get out of my head space for a little bit. The "Dirty Dozen" is composed of five National Geographics, three Scientific Americas, two Smithsonians, and one each Popular Science and Popular Mechanics.

The only setback I've had so far, and it's not really that, just a time-suck as I had to stop what I was doing to get some more research done, came when I invented some new forensic sciences techniques and had to hastily check to see if the foundations were sound. I think you know you have perhaps watched too many episodes of CSI when you start throwing around terms like "Alleles" and "Heteroplasmy". I am writing a science fiction after all, and I"ve fot to get the science right if I want to give the fiction a chance. :)

Day 2

The second day of Novermber is a much better barometer than the first for measuring how your NaNoWriMo experience is going to shape up. Each day is better than the previous up until about the fifth, and then you know that you can make or that you won't. But, the second day is still a pretty good measure. And it tells me that I'm going to have a good month.

I've been thinking a lot about necessary conditions for writing a book, hopefully a good book. I think first and foremost, you have to fall in love with your main character(s). You might hate some or maybe even all the things they do, but you have to love them. If the author can't love them, then how can the reader be expected to care about them? It is obvious why you (the writer) would love a hero or an anti-hero, but why you need to love the villains is not as obvious. Doesn't it make sense that the worse things the villain does, the more diabolical and dastardly she is, the more you would hate her? No, because you don't want to write about things you hate. I know that I don't. But, if I make the villain someone I can love, but hate all of their acts, well, that is someone I can write about. I'm not just playing a semantic game here, though I do like semantic games, especially multi-player semantic games. Loving a villain is taking the time to make them a full character, not a one-dimensional version of a character. Also, I think in many ways, evil acts seem even more evil when they are committed by someone I can identify with, because I can imagine that they could choose not to do evil.

[I'm using good and evil as illustrative terms, and not necessarily as to mean the extremes that are implied - more like good is anything more good than neutral, and evil is anything more evil than neutral.]

I was talking to someone who I almost got to participate in NaNoWriMo this year and she commented that she writes at least several thousand words a day in comments on forums. Wow! I probably write 500 to a 1000 words a day in forums, and I find it to be such a slow process because in my case it's dialogical. But, I got to thinking about forums and blogs and if I could harness the energy that I put into those things and stick it in a novel... I'm not really going anywhere else with this idea. I just think it would be cool if I could do this. :)

Okay, back to the novel. I want to do at least another couple of hundred words before I update my daily word count.

Happy Freakin' November!

To say that November is my favorite month of the year would be an understatement. I love walking in the morning when the air turns crisp and the leaves turn color. Who doesn't love Thanksgiving? Mostly, I love November because it's the "No" in NaNoWriMo. :D

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where writers all over the world set out to write 50,000 words in 30 days. This is no small task, let me tell you from personal experience. Writing 1667 words per day for a whole month can be one of the hardest things you ever do in your life. I should know, I'm doing this for the seventh time.

It's never to late to start if you've ever wanted to write a book, but have just been waiting for the right motivation. Visit the NaNoWriMo site, sign-up and check out the many wonderful resources and forums for inspiration and commiseration. There are forums for pretty much every part of the U.S. and many locations around the globe as well.

This year, because I'm extra crazy, I'm trying to do double the damage and write 100,000 words during the month of November, which breaks down to 3,333 words per day, which with the way I write is a commitment of two and a half to three hours on a good day and maybe four or five hours on a slow day. In an effort to get ahead of the game, I now have a tradition of staying up late and starting writing at a couple minutes past midnight on the first of November. It's a tradition only two years old, but one I like. I don't "pull an all-nighter", I just try to get in a good hour or two to kick things off and set the tone. This year went quite well until the computer mysteriously crashed at 2:22 - can that time be a coincidence? Fortunately between my obsessive saving and OpenOffice.org's automatic back-up I only lost about a hundred words, which I replace with 3oo before going to bed. So, take that Microsoft.

With several hours more of writing planned for after dinner, I am sitting at the 5,484 mark as of htis posting. Viva le NaNo!

I Read Banned Books

It's Banned Book week through the 2nd of October. I am a little late in posting this, but I have been busy reading a book and creating the added materials it offered in a convenient (for me) electronic format. So deal with it.

Every year, the American Library Association (ALA) sponsors Banned Book Week, where library patrons are encouraged to read one of the many, many books challenged in libraries around the country. Specifically, the ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom puts this together. How awesome is it that they have an Office of Intellectual Freedom?
Lots of other organizations have gotten on board with Banned Book Week, and the names won't surprise you - the American Booksellers Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Association of American Publishers, and National Association of College Stores. These are just the organizations that are officially sponsors of Banned Book Week on a national level. It is also endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

I live in a small town in Oregon, with a population between four and five thousand. The demographics skew older, as yours truly withstanding, Coquille is primarily a retirement community. Our local library has a large print section bigger than what I'm used to in Multnomah and Hennepin County libraries, but that seems reasonable, and I read a lot more because of it. (My peepers, they ain't what they used to be.) But, if you think that the size of the town and the age the library caters to would make Banned Book Week minor, or non-existant, you are very wrong.
I personally have felt that the community is fairly conservative - there are far more "Dudley" lawn-signs than "Kitzhaber" ones, and if at least two of your five cars aren't pick-ups, it better be because they are all fully restored classics. (Classic cars are a big deal on the Sourthern Oregon Coast.) Now, I'm willing to grant that library patrons are not a representational sub-grouping of the larger community, but how far off could it be? I hear politics talked about a lot by the octogenarian crowd, to which I've learned three things - Palin in 2012, don't touch our Social Security, and who would ban a book? Two out of three ain't bad.
The library started off the week with 100 "I read banned books" pins. When I finally grabbed mine yesterday, there were only seven left in the bowl. Plus, while I was at the desk working with a librarian to find me a banned book that was in large print, the lady behind confessed that she had just come in to pick-up a DVD she had on hold, but could she put a hold on one of the books that was suggested to me. That rocked. Good job Elizabeth, our enthusiastic and persuasive librarian.

This year I'm going to read two banned books. Well, I guess I should say two more banned books, as I just found out that the Harry Potter series had been challenged and banned in some places; which I guess doesn't surprise me since I knew that some religious groups were against the first book and also the films. The same goes for the "His Dark Materials" series, I'm guessing for the same reason as the Harry Potter books. I also read "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns", which I knew were banned in Afghanistan, but in the U.S.? And as soon as I can find a large print copy of "The Satanic Verses", I will reread that, not counting it towards my banned book quota. I'm picking two banned books to read because the ALA maintains a "classics" list and a "contemporary" list. I think one of each is appropriate, and the only other self-imposed stipulation is that they choices be something I haven't read before. For my classics choice, I've chosen Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness". I had a copy of this once, but never read it. Well, starting this evening I will be rectifying that, as I put "Contact" by Carl Sagan on hold for a couple of days. For my contemporary choice, I haven't decided yet, but it won't be one of the "Twilight" books. Interestingly, the top 10 challenged books for the last decade contain three classics ("To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Catcher in the Rye" and "The Color Purple") so I will eliminate them from my contemporary choices, not to mention I've already the first two, and there is no large print version of the third (but I've requested the library buy one). Without having seen the whole list with hundreds of choices, I'm leaning toward "The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things" or "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" but I don't know if they have these in large print (the library does have them though).

ALA's lists of challenged books~
Classics
PDFs of the last couple of year's lists

Review: First Draft in 30 Days by Karen S. Wiesner

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is just around the corner. only 32 more days to prepare. This will stab number seven at NaNoWriMo for me and I've met the 50 thousand word goal on four of my previous six attempts. But, I've been very unhappy with the end product for various reasons, some applicable to one attempt but not another, some for all attempts. The one over-riding problem with my NaNoWriMo attempts is that I meet the word number goal but the story isn't finished. Last year I came very close, as I did the year before, and in both cases jotted quick notes for scenes and chapters to be finished in December. Another issue that exists for each attempt in greater or lesser degrees is a lack of coherence of plot goals. This is directly related to how much time and effort I put into preparing before November 1st.

This year, I started preparation for NaNoWriMo on September 1st. I began by examining my top five story ideas and deciding upon what I thought was the strongest and most interesting to me, for I believe that will inevitably make it more interesting to my readers. Then I began a 3 week or so research period, based on the vague impressions of what I wanted this story to be about. Research guided character development, and character development guided research and just the last couple of days I've found myself looking at some very specific topics, like diachronic linguistics and effects of zero or low gravity on plant growth. My characters have names and goals and a bit of background. I'm ready to start outlining my story. Since I have past experience to help me judge whether I'm the kind of writer who works better from an outline or just keeping it all in his head and "exploring" as he goes, I know that a mix of the two, about 80%/20% is ideal.

I learned how to write an outline in High School. Then, I learned a better way to do it in college. I also learned to take good notes in college and in my junior year a study method that when combined with my outlining and note-taking skills, allows me to write fairly decent outlines. Honestly, the best outlining and note-taking skills I learned were do Forensics and Debate, so thanks Robert, Mike, Erik, Amanda, Wes and Rob; especially the first two.

Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo wrote a book that I mean to read every year, called "No Plot, No Problem", that is both about the NaNoWriMo experience and how to fix up stories that are, shall we say, lacking in some areas. This was going to be the year that I read it, I was so on top of the game, but it was not to be. I was thwarted by some jerk that stole the library's copy. They have plans to buy another copy to replace it, but they have higher priorities at the moment, like staying open. This latest recession has not done wonders for the Coos County Libraries' budget.

Undaunted, I went to book number two, which had not been stolen, but I'm still reading it, so you'll hear about it later. Book number three on my list is the actual topic of this review, "First Draft in 30 Days" by Karen S. Wiesner. Knowing nothing about the book except the summary on Amazon - conveniently linked to directly in the library's card catalog - I expected a book much in the same vein as Chris Baty's book. What a surprise upon reading Ms. Wiesner's book to find it was nothing at all like I was expecting, and a pleasant surprise at that.

I've been reading and writing long enough to realize that there is no "formula" for how to make a bad story into a good story. Heaven forbid that there is ever anything like this. What I thought I was going to be reading would be an upbeat attempt to guide a budding writer into creating a plot from an idea and following a complete story arc - in a month. It's not really what I need, and it's not what Wiesner had to offer.

The "first draft" referred to in the title of the book is not what I think of as a draft at all, but is instead a very thorough formatted outline, that while being created ends up generating a lot of documents to support the story. Wiesner's book turned out to be about workflow and creating a set of habits that will allow a writer to get from an idea in her head to a book in a very short amount of time. The length of time came as a bit of surprise to me, until I realize that this book is not really intended for the faint of heart, or hobbyist writer, but for a full-time would-be author that is willing to spend four or five hours minimum every day on the writing process, with no weekends off.

Ms. Wiesner is a published author, though I've never read any of her books. But, the fact that she is an author is important in how she wrote this book. This was not an intellectual proposal for how someone should write a book, based upon potentially outlandish notions of the importance, and thus how long should be spent, various parts of the story. It's written matter-of-factly, with a "this is what I do" attitude, that upon completion of the book makes it seem completely reasonable and more importantly something I am capable of doing. Well, I'll tell you on Halloween how that panned out.

Each of the chapters of the book is straight-forward and a bit formulaic, but I think that is a boon in this type of book. We're given an introductory thought, an outline of the goal for specific days in the process, and then explanations of each part with examples from famous modern fiction, almost none of it her books, though apparently she has written quite a few. I take this for modesty as much as for the fact that this process is not terribly hard to reverse engineer for already written books, that were not only good enough to be published, but good enough to be famous - I may not have read half of them, but I had heard of all them.

Wiesner start you off knowing that there are six parts to her program, which break down into: sketch out characters, setting and plot; research; evolve your story (she provides worksheets); write a formatted outline; evaluate your formatted outline; and revise your formatted outline. She breaks down what the writer should be doing on each day and why they are doing it then, and in most cases why there is the particular amount of time devoted to a step. It all sounds very rational and dare I say, "doable".

I'm particularly interested in a step she calls "Tagging and Tracing" (late in the 30 days), that has you following every plot and subplot thread through your entire outline to help you evaluate if it is strong enough and if the pacing is correct.

The second half of the book is largely devoted to her worksheets and an example of an actual formatted outline. She does include chapters for how to use this process on an already existing draft, which I skipped but will read if this works for me. After all, I do have four first drafts that are in need of some help, well three first drafts and one "first and nine-tenths" draft. There is also a chapter about using her principles to guide your career, which I skipped. I really don't need to worry about selling my manuscript at this point. That will come later, and when I'm ready, I will read her advice.

I quite liked how straight-forward and unmystical her writing was. I felt "First Draft in 30 Days" was one writer talking to another, albeit an experienced, successful writer talking to someone yet to attain those goals.

It's funny how sometimes in life you end up getting exactly what you need by accident. Just as I am getting ready to write a comprehensive outline for a writing project, I read a book that tells me how to do this. But, if the outline is my first draft, I guess when December rolls around, or maybe January, I can say that I definitely have at least one book that has a completed second draft.

Rainy days are here again...

It's only the start of September, but we're getting what seems to me like Autumn rains. Perhaps it is because school is back in, or the days are getting noticeably shorter, but it seems that Summer has said adieu.

Everybody I talk to is unhappy about the rain, but I always look forward to it. But, this year it felt like Summer never came - we only had 3 days where the temps got into the 80s. And they weren't even consecutive days, though two were in the same week.

One of aunt and uncle's cats died this morning. I didn't know it well, but I'm still bummed about it. I'm also glad it passed away, however, since it seemed to be in a great deal of discomfort. They're not sure how old it was, but they think at least 17. His brother died this Spring not too long after I had been down here. At the time I thought it would have been the other way around.

They still have one cat left, and she's relatively young, only 5 or 6.

Hmmm, grey thoughts on a grey day.

The First Hard Decision Made...

It's only the 8th of September, and I've already picked out the idea I'm going with in this years NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This is either going to be the best attempt yet, or I will burn out before November even gets here. :)

I had 5 good ideas to choose from this time around, but there was only one that I wanted to write out or die trying. Interestingly enough, that is not the one I chose. I had done a little bit of research (at least) on all of the ideas and the one I really want to write about isn't a story at this time, it's a world that I've created. That tends to be the way that I write the vast majority of my fiction - I create a world or environment which completely and totally intrigues and in some cases captivates me. Story be damned. Okay, not really, but I often feel like I'm forcing it. And if there is one thing that a writer should know, it's that if something is obvious to you, it will likely be obvious to the reader.

Eliminating ideas without any story sparks took out three of my ideas for NaNoWriMo. Of the two that remained, one was a sci-fi setting (lots of world building, but weak story) and a fantasy story that would be equal parts historical fantasy and humorous (hopefully) commentary on popular culture - very little world building on this one, mostly story and character development ideas. You would think that I would choose the latter. But, of course, I chose the former. Why? The more I think about the fantasy, the more I think about it in terms of a movie. So, I'm not disposing of the idea, I'm saving it for next April and "Script Frenzy" - NaNoWriMo, only it's in April and you write a screenplay.

Now, I'm down to just one idea that had a weak story idea and it was only Saturday the 4th. The library was closed for the big Labor Day weekend, so I couldn't do any more research on my setting, instead I actually worked on themes and trying to strengthen the story idea. By last night, the old story, which was vaguely about vampires in outer space is a sub-plot at best, and the main storyline is about consumerism and class warfare.

I'm looking forward to starting the outline on this idea this afternoon and adding some characters. One part of writing fiction that I thoroughly enjoy is coming up with names for characters. I spend a lot of time making sure the names are either generic or specific enough depending on the use, that they don't match up with anyone I know and that they are not the same name as a similar character in another story or movie. I try to give fun names to fun characters, serious names to serious characters, etc. etc. I look at what other authors have done for motivation, both on what I can try and what I should avoid. I really enjoy the names that Salmon Rushdie gives his characters for example, and I really dislike the way the vast majority of pop fantasy novels name theirs - usually a mix of Tolkein, alternate spellings for normal names with a bunch of punctuation, especially apostrophes, thrown in.

Time to quit writing about working on this, and start working on it. I can't wait until I get some kind of title so I can stop referring to it, both in this blog and in my head, as "this" and "it". :)

Happy MoBeMoBeNaNoWriMo!

There are only 60 days until my favorite month of the year. I look forward to each November with a masochistic eagerness that surprises me. It's not like I don't write the rest of the year (not that you would know by looking at this pathetically infrequently updated blog)

November gives me 30 days of turning off the inner editor and just writing. Of course, starting about 12:01 am on December first, I wish that I would have let the editor at least peek in once and a while.

Thus far, I've managed to win the best of seven series with four "novels" coming out of seven attempts. It seems that I can only recall two of the failed attempts, however. That third one must have really been a stinker. Considering that I keep all of my attempts, I should be able to find it, but I see nothing in the correct folder... Could it be that I've only attempted NaNoWriMo 6 times, but its so much work as to seem like 7? Well, I'll be damned! I just went to the NaNo site, and I've only done this for six years. But, last year I wrote 97k words, so it's almost like two years in one. :) 4 out of 6 is a lot better than 4 out of 7, so I'll take those stats. And if I can make it 5 out of 7, I'll even have a passing grade.

In past years, I've started looking for ideas beginning around this time, but not this year. All summer I've been collecting things that are interesting enough to write a book on. I've got five good ideas with at least a half-page description of my story idea, and in 4 of the 5 cases, a lot of bookmarked web pages for research.

Based on my past experience, I have a decent idea of how I work, and without an outline is a sure recipe for disaster, so today I am officially starting the weeding process to get down to one idea, and I'm at least a full month ahead of schedule. I can measure out the pros and cons of each idea and still have a good six or seven weeks to construct an outline and start my research.

Research? You betcha. I don't just want to say, "Bob stepped through the arch." I want to know that the arch is the Roman cantilevered style, which is prevalent in this region of the country, and when it came into prevalence and why. If I write, "Suzi fires up the plasma torch." I need to know the theory behind it so I can explain why she wouldn't use a plasma torch to light her cigarette. I guess I don't really need to know all of this stuff, I can just make it up as I go, but that is so much harder to keep consistent, and more importantly to keep interesting. If I know how plasma torches work, at least a theory put forth, I can explain the intricacies of the device, who first came up with the idea, who first implemented the idea, etc. etc.

I'm going to come right out and say it - I am setting a personal goal of 100,000 words for the month of November. I reserve the right to lower this if I am to go somewhere for Thanksgiving, though. :) I mean, it is only fair.

My five ideas roughly break down into 3 sci-fi and 2 fantasy ideas. What no horror option this year? One of the sci-fi has horror elements, while another is near-future and very dark, while one of the fantasy ideas is intended to be a little on the humorous side and will make fun of the horror genre a bit, particularly vampires. :D

I like all five ideas, and have put a bit of time into flushing them out already, as what else am I going to do on my hour walk each morning and my two 15 minute walks in the afternoon, pay attention to traffic? P-shaw. ;)

Down for the count

I like to count. It soothes me and empowers me. I count steps when I walk. I count particular words when people walk. I count how many breaths I take in a given period.

Something I've done since my mid-20s is count when I'm angry. The idea came from the notion of counting to 10 before saying anything. I always count to my age. Growing out of the habit of counting to my age when I'm angry, has counting to my age when I'm waiting for a small amount of time. Web page taking a long time to load? I close my eyes and count. Just finished my morning constitutional and need to keep track of how long I'm doing each stretch? I count it down, well actually up.

When I'm counting to my age, I used to be superstitious that if I counted even one digit higher that the number would be the age I was going to be when I died. How the hell did that start? I don't know, but it resulted in my catching it a couple of digits past where I wanted to stop and continuing to count to at least 100.

I've always been a counter. When I was in high school, I would try and count to get to sleep, not always by ones. One fateful night, I found myself in the mid-20,000s and then had to stay awake counting just to see how high I could get.

At least I don't the key strokes it takes to write a blog entry. What's the point, since you can just click a button to see that information? There's no fun in that.

Losing Symbols

I just finished the latest book by Dan Brown last night, "The Lost Symbol". In this third instalment of his Robert Langdon series, Brown explored the mysteries of the Masonic Order, religion, and the notion of beauty.
With out going into details of the book and it's story, let me just say that if you liked the first two, you will like this one. The main difference is that he spends even more time talking about the religious aspect of symbols and the human condition than he does in the other books, if you can imagine that.
My only point about story specifics is that Brown makes the quasi-love-interest an attractive woman of the grand old age of 50. I don't' know how old of an actress they will get to play her in the Ron Howard adaptation, but I hope it's a woman close to that age. I say kudos to you, Mr. Brown. I have no difficulty imagining the heroine to be a half century old and beautiful. Thanks for giving this image to the popular culture.
I'm mostly concerned about this book as a philosophical text. I at first think of Albert Camus (see previous posts) and while the philosophy is not the same, wonder if Mr. Brown will ever write any non-fiction books that explore the religious and philosophical aspects of the Robert Langdon seriece. My thoughts also turn to Pullman and his "His Dark Materials" series as a better example of what Brown is doing.
It seems that there are many fine authors who are concerned with religion and philosophy, but not concerned as being labelled philosophers. I think this is sad in a way, not that they are unconcerned, but that modern Western culture is lacking in philosophers. Don't get me wrong, as a student of philosophy, I have read the work of many excellent philosophers who are alive and writing today, it's just that they are not known to mainstream culture. Religious leaders and quasi-religious leaders and political pundits are all known, and someitmes it's hard to tell which of the things I mentioned that they actually are, but our culture seems to be lacking popular thinkers that engage in the public discourse for the sake of furthering knowledge and not some personal agenda.
But, maybe it's all a matter of perspective. It may be that in a few years I will comem to realize that Brown, Pullman and others really are shaping the national discourse and that the philosophers of old go by a different name now. It may well be that modern media and the vast size of our society compared to the ancient or even more recent history means that the popular thinkers are not known to all because they have never been known to all. I think of an old addage "fools names and fools faces always appear in public places". I am after all, not looking for the fool, unless it is the fool that I need to see. :)
Perhaps this blog entry is the modern equivalent of a student sitting in a bath house asking questions of the philosopher who is their teacher in all respects. And while the answer may never come back to me from Brown himself, it is possible that others may give me answers or opinions or ask more questions, and in the end the same is achieved.

Not-so-guilty pleasures

I guess adults don't talk much about putting a movie on and interacting with it, or if they do it's about them ovserving children. I'm happy to say that I recently put on a favorite musical of mine and sang along with every song and even pranced about as if I were a deformed manikin in an earthquake.
The caveat is that I did this while the family was away for the weekend. I waited for that opportunity partly out of a bit of embarrassmentr, hence the title of this entry, but partly out of a sense of the sacred.
The embarrassing side comes out of my immediate companions, the people I live with, not understanding. I'm a very musical person and I love to sing. I do my best to sing well, but if I can't make the notes, I generally don't worry about it as my audience is myself. I am very self-conscious of my singing, however, as I've been told at key points through out my life by people that are important to me that I don't have a very good singing voice. Yeah, that hurt just a little. But, on the other hand, my brother and his family, who I ws staying with at the time couldn't carry a tune to save their life.
When I think about it deeper as I am wont to do lately, that is think about things deeper, I realize that there is a certain stigma in mainstream America that is absolutely ridiculous; the only men who can enjoy musicals are gay men. What a crock of shit. I think the only men who like musicals are the men who like musicals. If some of those men are gay, or Republican, or thespians, then so be it. But, me thinks the lady doth protest too much. Perhaps. One of the first weekends I was living with my brother and his family and we watched a movie together, my nephew, a 13 year old who is basically a good kid, made an off-hand comment about the "homos". The movie was stopped and his dad told him he was not to talk like that, his step-mom told him she had lots of gay friends and he asked, "what did I say that was wrong?" His dad told him to stop it and then started the movie up again. I was flabbergasted, particularly because my nephew was mad at me about this and I didn't even get to say a thing, though I certainly would have had a dialogue with him about the term he used and the context which he used it being a term of derision and hate. I was mostly just shocked that my brother and his wife were so ready for this event to occur. I can safely say after having lived with them for 10 months that they were ready not because they were morally offended, but because it was one of those terms that was to be used only at home when only was present, and family doesn't include uncles. A monsth or so before I move out, I finally found out why, that my brother and his wife suspect that her brother, also named Erik (though I'm with a 'c') may be gay because he doesn't tell them about his girlfriends and he's an artist. I guess that means they think I"m gay as well, even though they know I've been married.
The other reason taht I wanted to experience my musical the way that I did is a notion of the sacred. The musical is a mainstream, cheeze-fest "Moulin Rouge" by Baz Luhrmann. But I love it. I think Ewen McGregor is so handsome and Nicole Kidman so beautiful in this romp. The supporting cast are also quicky as to remain memorable long after the credits role.
The theme of this movie is that love conquers all, with a secondary theme of loving and losing is better than never loving at all. I don't really think of myself as a romantic, but perhaps I'm an intellectual romantic, though my wife will probably agree on the first and disagree on the second point. But, that is the problem in a nutshell. I'm going through a divorce right now, that while amicable is long and rawn out because she is in charge of the paperwork and waited to file the final papers until a week and a half before the deadline, though she had months and months to do it. I of course could not file them, because I don't want to be divorced from her. I haven't lived with her in about ten and a half months now and it will be another two and a half before the divorce is final.
Singing along with Ewen and Nicole is great therapy I suppose. For two solid hours I sang my heart out about love, all the while knowing that it didn't apply to my own life, at least not in teh literal reading of the songs. There were lots of joy and lots of tears. I think you can understand why I would want to experience this by myself, or at the very least not in front of my brother and his family.

Sepreme Court Follies

Oh Supreme Court, what have you done?

I can just see it now, "Ladies and gentlemen, we now bring you the Frito Lay State of the Union address by the National Rifle Association's President Sarah Palin. The Fox Vice President, Tim Pawlenti, the Sierra Club Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the eBay Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, are seated directly behind her."

Isn't it funny (in the way that makes you want to pull your hair out and scream) how Conservative jurists are so opposed to "activists judges", yet have no problem pushing a party agenda that has little to do with stare descisis?

Camus is Absurd

I see that many of you are unhappy with my portrayal of Camus as an existentialist, especially in the same sentence as calling Sartre an existentialist. Both men were friends for many years and developed their theories not in a vacuum, but by bouncing them off the other. At some point the two had a falling out over some trivial matter which eventually ended their little get-togethers and their friendship. The two liked to talk about how they were no longer friends with the other and how completely different their views were. At was at this point in his life that Camus denounced the idea that he was an existentialist, instead calling himself an absurdist, stating that all of his works had been illustrating the absurd nature of existence, *cough* existentialism *cough*.

The schism between Sartre and Camus came down to their view on solidarity in the human condition. Sartre thought it would lead to oppression and Camus thought that it would protect against oppression. Of course, both men were right. Their difference in thought on this topic came out of their life experiences and in many ways came down to the fact that Camus played football (soccer for all you Americans) and felt and enjoyed a real sense of camaraderie from it, while Sartre was the more intellectual type.These views would be manifested in both men's fight against the Nazis during World War II, and Camus' involvement with various Algerian causes.

When one reads the articles and statements by Camus and Sartre about their break-up, it is first evident that both men were intelligent and very articulate, perhaps too much so. This thought is closely followed by the idea that "the philosopher doth protest too much". I put forth that this whole falling out was really a very cleverly crafted public relations coup. How else could you get the press to talk about existentialism/absurdism/whateverism, even in France? Why you have a noted scholar and a Nobel Laureate have a falling out. Both men essentially hold press conferences to say they are no long agreeing with the other man.

I think that if Albert Camus had not died so tragically at such a young age, we would have continued to see this "discussion" between Sartre and he. I think it would very likely have become a modern-day Socratic dialogue.

Camus claimed that the nature of Absurdism was that it looked at and embraced the inherent paradox of existence, you know, like how you can become more of an existentialist by arguing that you are not one.

Jean-Paul Sartre, you old fart

When I first began to learn of existentialism, I was a boy still in high school. At that time I felt like I had a fairly good grasp of the concept based of the body of work that I had read, namely a play (No Exit) and a short novel (The Stranger). Something this school of thought really connected with my teen-aged angst. Suddenly life felt bleak.

I went off to college and read more, discovering the harsh works of Rand and Nietzsche. Oh my god! Thou art dead! That and if I'm not the one sticking it to people, they're going to stick it to me and rightly so.

After the university, I went back to the basis of the modern existential movement, Sartre and Camus. My universe, with it's dead god and horrible people changed once again. It wasn't until my late 20's that I could even begin to understand what these two men had been saying, and more importantly that they weren't saying the same things that Rand and Nietzsche were. God was not dead, god had never been. Or maybe god had been and still was, but was as separate from us as the cold blackness of the cosmos.
For the first time in my personal examination of existentialism, I was able to separate the religion form the philosophy. My bleak world view began to lighten up and even allow for true happiness. One might also argue that I was finally letting go of (some of) my teen-age angst. Far be it for me to reduce philosophy to neuro-psychology, but I will (should) admit that they both my exist without negating the other.
The revelation was that life had meaning after all. It had the meaning that not only I had assigned to it, but the meaning that my culture, both personal and at large, had assigned to it. Life has meaning because my mom cared enough about to raise me to an age where I could fend for myself. My mother could do this because other mothers and fathers and teachers and coal miners and bakers valued the life that was started with my birth and the birth of others in our culture.
Existentialism took on a whole new aspect, becoming a personal philosophy of inclusion. It was the ultimate tool of empowerment - society made it possible for me to get to a point where I could take it or leave it and believe as I may.
The problem with this empowerment brought me full circle back around to No Exit. I finally understood the play with a deeper meaning, not just that hell is other people, but hell is of my own creation because I am bothered by these other people. Hell is still hell, but the degree of suffering ultimately rests with me.

the new year

Happy 2010! Or, like, you know, whatever.

At least it's not 2009 anymore. I don't know about y'all, but that's a year I would like to put behind me. If I could perhaps experience a bit of the Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind...not to forget the people but to forget the year and what happened in it.

I'm sure I'm not the only one. Supposedly the recession is over, but unemployment is still way too high and not going down - you've got love the notion of a jobless recovery. Every time I hear "jobless recovery" I just think about how the corporations are recovering, but Joe America is still getting screwed.

How many wars are we still fighting? Two too many. And who knows what's going to happen in Iran or Yemen over the coming year. I'm glad that I don't have to make the decisions for the country, because I certainly can't think of a good way to extricate ourselves from these messes.

I don't take the terrorist threat lightly, though. I think it is likely a bigger deal now than it was in the last decade. If someone needs to look at a scan of me before I get on a plane, then I will gladly give up a little more privacy to keep from dying, or to keep others from dying in a terrorist plot, or prevent the U.S. from sending more of our soldiers someplace else where they may die.

I'm just kind of rambling my way back into the first post here in a while, but that's okay. Better to ramble than to do nothing. :) This isn't so bad after all (the act of blogging, that is, and not necessarily reading what I've blogged) and maybe I can get back into a regular rhythm at least for a little bit...