Choice

I'm approaching an opportunity that has set my mind thinking (amongst many other things) about belief, coercion, free will and how these philosophical ideas collide with education and (after) careers.

I know! It's pretentious but I can't control how I absorb some experiences. Let's set up a hypothetical scenario to ease things:

You are presented with an opportunity to pursue a career you've always wanted. You will (once passing a series of 'tests' which are within your capabilities) have the chance to take responsibility over your life's path.

Absorb this scenario! Close your eyes and imagine it is happening. All the obstacles that stopped you from doing this before are removed. Money? Taken care of. Time? It will be made available. Confidence? Fill yourself with confidence and belief.

You don't doubt that you can accomplish much and more here... but much and more in which direction?

Maybe some readers have always known what they would do if this happened to them. Perhaps they've always known or always dreamed so strongly that they've made it happen already. For them the scenario is redundant.

Let's pretend, though, that you (like me and many others) have not previously believed strongly enough in something to make it happen.

What do you do? The only real challenge set before you is choice. Of all those ideas you've brewed in daily dissatisfaction, of all the plans you've laid using your ample gifts, which do you begin with? If you make this first choice an excellent one, you'll be in a position to realise your entire reservoir of ideas.

But you've to choose one, now, or lose yourself in an ocean of possibilities. You'll end up back where you are now...

The first choice is becoming more and more important in your mind. You clam up. You don't think there's anything you can do, yet. You need more time to decide. Faced with this kind of choice it's probably common to freeze.  A large choice set can put a person off choosing at all.

Time to put my dusty University rhetoric aside: This hypothetical exercise is a something I'm facing now.

I'll be honest; I'm excited and I'm prepared for hard work - but nothing good comes easy. Gaming has taught me well!

I'll be more honest; I did freeze for a time, then went through an internal adjustment period.

Now I'm wondering why. I'm also wondering why I didn't know take this opportunity before? It's been there for some time. What's more, I've known it's been there for some time. I've even been led right up to the "door" before.

I found an answer for that easily enough: It has taken me a period of time (and help from others) to begin to think that this door was for ME.

More questions now - What blinkered me? Why did I not believe this door was for me?

I've believed that I should be happy with my lot. More than this, I've believed that I deserved it. Where did this belief come from?

Back to University training once more (it's crucial to realise how much we approach problems based on what we've been told/how we've been trained when younger): I've distanced myself from the questions posed by these thoughts and I can see an answer which may prove to be correct: coercion.

I've been coerced. I involuntarily think and act (or more accurately: don't act) in a certain way. I've existed for a long time by making small choices in life: not big choices.

I can see where other people and other social systems reinforced this false belief in me when young. I can see where I've reinforced it myself.

It's something I'll think more about, on and off, as I try to handle multiple projects and my daily work as the year rolls on. I might even blog about it again, if I find time (and overcome that other belief: "No one reads your blog!"

For now I'm putting the belief aside and I hope that, unfettered in this way, I'll one day be in a position to help others free themselves of such limitations.

A poem! A wedding!

A pal marries himself off tomorrow and I'm working on a ridiculous card/gift. No real value but my care and time. 


To plot the story of this gift I needed some rough paper and so I picked up this notebook and browsed the jottings inside. 

I found an old poem in this old notebook. It looks like I was practising and decided a recent tattoo was inspiration:


Imprint the body granting rare insight,
the soul - an artist - paints a fleshy plight.
A cycle like a life that death retorts,
Inscribes it's mark on body; my report.


The back of this notebook contains a ripped, glossed and folded magazine page from a French airport magazine. It shows one of my favourite photographs in the world Le Stryge by Charles Nègre: 

Combined all these clues somehow make me feel that life is not to be controlled. The most one can do is preserve what one enjoys and pursue what one loves.

Also one should create as many sentences with indefinite, formal pronouns as one can. It will make one sound more important than one is.

I don't feel hopeless or in any way negative after this brief mental journey. In fact I feel refreshed and at peace. Like a big fat Buddha.

On with life and the recollection of clues we leave scattered in our wake!

Fan Fiction

I confess I've always steered clear of fan fiction.

In my defence, a lot of what is classified as 'fan fiction' is something I always believed a writer should steer clear of for several reasons. I've never fully analysed these reasons before. Today I thought I'd do so:

First reason: Fan fiction is the haunt of those who would take a fictional world and make it a place only for sex, more sex, vampires, even more sex and then, probably, ninjas (to have sex with the vampires).

In truth, all worlds must contain sex and (probably) athletic, sneaky groups not far removed from ninjas* but you don't have to write about these things only.

It's also true that I can't be 100% sure that all fan fiction contains any of this trinity but I feel that public perception of the genre is coloured in such a way that the sex, ninjas and vampires are definitely overrepresented.

In any case, while there are innumerable sticky, sneaky, blood sucking entries into the 'fan fiction' pantheon, these do not symbolise what fan fiction is about.

In other words - when you explore this as a reason - an excuse - for not contributing, you see that it is invalid. Even though some authors may use the written world and the fiction of others to create soft[hard]core porn, it does not mean your contribution needs to follow this path.

Second reason: Fan fiction is an area where a young writer can learn the basics of story without sitting up in the night staring at his or her monitor and thinking 'what should my world be?'

Let writer's block, the fear of failure and the work required in constructing your very own fiction be the worry of a mature author. Fan fiction is where a young artist breaks out the crayons and colours outside the lines so that he can experience for himself why the lines are there at all.

However, I have to stop myself (again) from using a preconception as a valid excuse: Even though a huge amount of fan fiction is from young people who are just beginning to explore their writing talent (or lack of talent - if that's something you can explore**), this world is not for the youthful only.

Third reason: Fan fiction is looked down on by those who consider themselves 'serious' writers in part because of the two reasons (and other similar reasons) above.

Again, I'm finding arguments for why this isn't a reason at all.

Science fiction and fantasy were looked down upon, frowned upon (I'm not fooling anyone - they still are) by those who considered themselves 'srs wrtrs'. Yet look at some of the amazing work that's come from those genres.

Fan fiction has been around for a long, long time. Arguably longer than the scifi and fantasy genres. Carroll, Austen (!) and Tolkien all had their share of fans who used their worlds to create their own fiction.

In spite of all my soul searching, I still feel it's not legitimate. Why is this so?

Well I have my own theories on that but I don't feel they're so important now.

I do feel that fan fiction is a stepping stone to greater things, a way of busting your chops before you begin the work proper of fabricating your own worlds. There is a lot of crude and poor work that may cloud your own contribution and it's not a very rewarding area to write.

BUT it is a challenge on multiple levels and I like challenges.

How do you make something unique with so many fanfic writers churning out masses of content?
How do you create without the free reign of your own world?
How do you create within the bounds of a pre-existing world with rules, history and characters set down as 'canon'?
How do you make any of the effort required to work around the myriad restrictions worthwhile?

Well I've spotted a 'fan fiction' contest with real rewards, with judges, with competition from very able authors. Everything that will make that little pupil who seeks stars and recognition squeal with delight (an aspect of my personality I will one day crush).

It's set within a gaming universe - probably the most awkward universe to create within (in my own opinion).

And I've come up with a plan... a means of pushing at that which hems writers in when they approach fan fiction in this world. In other words I'm making it even harder for myself.

So I'm going to do it. I'm going to try fan fiction. I may or may not let folks know how this goes. Perhaps it will be my dirty little secret.

One that nearly all writers share.

After all what is regular, run of the mill, my-dog-died-and-I-learned-about-life-when-I-dealt-with-this fiction other than 'fan fiction' based on the world we live in?

* I've left vampires out deliberately. Not all worlds need vampires. Very few, if any, worlds need vampires - in fact I can't emphasise this enough: No more vampire literature! Anywhere. Ever. Unless it's stunningly new or from a crazy perspective.
**... I now remember some things that I've read, some things that I've written, and can answer: yes it is something you can explore

...but I thought you could internet?

I'm working on a tumblr blog and it's making me feel like a child.

I blame the caffeine free nature of my body and the late hour.

The Thirst

"Why can't I drink from the bath?" Jake whispered into the night. Frustration and tiredness forced a few tears from his eyes.

He knew he shouldn't drink from the bathroom, his mum had been very clear about that,"You can't drink from the bath or sink upstairs Jake, there's chemicals in that water. It makes you mad," she had said, "They'll take you away."

Jake didn't want to be taken away but he didn't want to go downstairs either, "I should just go to sleep again," he thought. He closed his eyes. The thirst scratched up his throat and sat in his mouth like a curse. Sleep would not cover him. He opened his eyes.

It was very dark. A flickering street light stencilled leafy shadows on the bedroom wall. His room, the entire house, was a dark forest.

Jake knew that older, braver people filled this time with life but to him it was dead time. His sister Penny would be awake in her room at her computer. She wouldn't help him. She would shout again if he asked for help.

Jake sat up, shaking, and dismounted the bed. He breathed like a diver about to plum the deeps and exited his room.

He tried being quiet but his little lungs tore the still air around him into sheets and sucked them in with a rasp. Nothing could possibly be louder than the panting and pulsing of his inner tubes. He knew that his movements were known. Like a small fish darting between reeds in a pond, his movements stirred up the beast.

At the top of the stairs, staring down into the dark, He tried to still his panic. In the end the thirst nudged him on again, like a badly chosen friend, "Go downstairs. We must drink."

Every step contained a creak and every creak lived a nomadic life on the steps. The chords of the stairs would always confound him. They'd dart under his feet just as he put his weight down in a previous safe spot.

He reached the bottom of the stairs with a fanfare of creaks and echoing breaths. The hall and kitchen floors were tiled. Slippery under his socks but silent.

Jake moved to the sink and grabbed the nearest glass and held it, vibrating, under the flow of water he twisted from the tap.

The beast stalked him from the moment he set foot in the kitchen. Creeping round wall and over ceiling, it waited for him to turn his back on the sink.

Jake took in a shuddering breath, gathered all the courage of his seven years and spun. He pelted across the kitchen floor as the beast lashed a spiney limb toward him. A near miss.

He ran into the hall, shadows of leaves whipping at his face. He turned his head to avoid their sting and lost his footing. He splayed his arms ahead as he tumbled but in that slow moment before he hit the floor he thought of the water, how he couldn't lose it. Not now. Not after all this.

He clutched the glass to his chest and fell with his other arm across his face.

The crash woke his mother. Moments later, her scream catapulted his father from his last deep sleep. Penny, headphones blaring, was dragged into the car with her dad in the wake of the ambulance. She stared wide eyed at the blood on the way out.

As Jake lay beside his weeping mother, he strained to hear the paramedics telling him to hold on. The beast had cut deep and they were pressing on his chest so hard it hurt.

One by one they shut the lights off in the back of the ambulance. Everything stopped. Staring at his mum frozen beside him, Jake tried to reach out to pat her hand, to tell her he was sure everything was going to be okay. Everyone was awake now. Everyone would help him.

He couldn't move. He shut his eyes and let sleep come.

He wasn't thirsty, not any more.

The Message

The day was cold, windy, dry and dull. The beach was a mile long and deserted. The tide was halfway out. The sand revealed under the ocean’s withdrawing blanket was compact and wet. It rippled before him to the receding surf. Shallow pools of orphaned sea water reflected the pitiful light of day.

A chill wind howled inland, sweeping any loose sand towards the dark blotch on the pale, silver shore.

He knelt, shielded from the pins and needles of wind-slung sand by the high collar on his long over coat, and stared intently at the ocean. He rested his right elbow on his raised, right knee. His right hand contained a sheet of paper flapping in the wind with the tails of his coat.

The fingers and nails of his left hand squeezed and dug into a cork.

An opaque, long necked wine bottle lay embedded in the sand to his left. It was dark brown, alternately scratched by sand and smoothed by sea. The label was long gone, removed by the soaking waters. The rim of the open bottle neck was a perfect ring of hollow darkness.

The man looked down at sheet of paper he’d extracted from the bottle and read it once more.

He raised his gaze to the horizon and scanned. There was no island in sight. The sea was choppy. He knew this stretch of sea. He knew her currents and moods. He knew the lay of the land. He knew the scattering of islands along the coast.

From the note's contents he could reckon where this message had come from. If he put his mind to it. Anyone local could.

The man rolled the note up and placed it inside the bottle with care. He stopped the opening with the cork and tore the bottle from the sand.

He stood up and transferred the bottle to the right pocket of his long coat. This done he raised his gaze to stare at the sea again. His hand rested outside his pocket, shielding the bottle within.

For a long time he stood there with little movement. The elements whipped his clothes and hair around him. His eyes studied the horizon.

He nodded.

With two steps back he spun towards land and began retracing his wind scuffed tracks back up the grass-locked face of the dunes that lead down to the beach.

He walked with the ease of a young man though his hair was grey at the temples. He walked up the track splitting the dunes, lined with long grasses, bushes and the rustle of small animals.

He walked up past where the track gave way to a small path that was marked by slats of wood half buried in the sandy soil.

He followed the path as it climbed higher until it terminated at a fence.

He vaulted the fence and surged up a steep 3 meter incline through a row of old oak trees. He crossed the dark tarmac of a small road.

There was a lay-by on the other side of the road, one of many on this coastal route. He’d left his car here. He fished his keys out of his trouser pocket with his left hand. His right hand patted his right coat pocket while he opened the driver’s door.

He took off his coat, wrapped the fabric around the bottle within and tossed it lightly into the back seats. Wrapped around the bottle the coat clunked as it hit a large, irregular bundle covered by a rug on the back seat.

The impact of the bottle stirred the bundle's contents. The folds of the rug pulsated and stretched over the movements beneath. There was a groggy groaning sound.

He hopped into the driver’s seat. He shut the door and patted the folders that lived on the passenger seat.

He looked into the driver's mirror, at the now quiescent mound. He took stock.

Callum found a stretch of the coastline to walk along two, maybe three mornings each week. He liked to walk and think. He walked regardless of work or other commitments.

He pursed his lips as he considered the back seat. He chewed his lip.

This walk was one of his favourites. He’d walked along the beach two mornings ago past the spot where he’d seen the bottle with the note inside. There had been no bottle or note two days ago.

He put the key in the ignition and turned it. The car awoke, classical music started playing from the car’s stereo. He locked the steering wheel to the right, checked his mirror’s, indicated to let the empty road know his intentions and pulled out of the lay-by. The car looped out into the road 180 degrees. He drove back the way he’d came.

He needed to drive to the village. He needed to speak to Jim. The damn fool.

Jim had put the man on the island - as they’d planned. Seems he'd put him on the island but somehow left him with the means to send a message to the outside world.

Wine? Jim was losing his edge or wasn't being totally honest with Callum.

Luckily Callum had been the one to find the message first. His plans for the woman in the back seat would have to wait.

For the first time in his career Callum took a vehicle above the speed limit.

Twit Integration

I added a twitter feed gadget. It felt good.

I spend a lot of time on Twitter. It has shit and it has giggles. It has news and it has fun. It's nice.

A tweet is so free. You don't feel obliged to entertain. Just spout nonsense, reply to friends, vie for celebrity RTs with chums.

And there it is there on the right of the blog. Like some futuristic monster emerging from a misty wood at dawn. In a valley. Outside a cave dwelling. A cave dwelling dwell'd in by a tribe of primitive humanoids. Bone gnawing savages. They're astounded by the green and white sleekness hopping towards them in the dewy air.

It extends an appendage made of tweets. Nonsensical words. Grasping.

They beat it down with clubs and urinate on its chassis.

The rust will set in soon and the child-savages can play peek a boo with the holes time leaves in the corpse.

It's a big joke

Did you ever stop to think about it? Not even once? Well I did. I thought and thought. I thought myself out of existence. I wrote a poem about it, I'll include that at the bottom.

You see I don't think the tools provided will help.

Let me start from the beginning instead of mid-stream: I'm talking about flying safety routines.

You know you get on the plane and they go through the 'safety presentation' and ask you to pay attention.

Frequent fliers become numb to this puppet show, this corporate joke. Look here. Pay close attention.

YOUR PLANE IS GOING TO CRASH. OMG.

This is the scenario you can AVOID with the helpful safety talk. Clutch your tools closely MacGyver you'll need them in the afterlife:

Tool the first: WHISTLE

Blow loudly as your plane hits the dry, cruel earth. If there exists other life in this universe, pray they never discover that we as a species, at any point, advocated the use of plastic flourescing wind instruments in any kind of emergency at thousands of feet in the air.

Some clever clogs will no doubt say "It's for when you're at sea. To attract attention," and to you, Mr or Mrs clever clogs I say that I hope whistles have the same effect on sharks as they do on dogs.

Tool the second! LIFE JACKET

Most of the surface of the earth is covered with water. At first glance, a life jacket seems quite sensible. Here's the rub: the 'life' in the phrase 'Life Jacket' informs you that you will be given a lease of life in an environment (water) where an air filled coat will prolong your existence.

What good is a jacket filled with air when you are surrounded by air. Cubic fucktons of it. Going down, all the way down. To the sea. If you're lucky. The sea where these are designed to work. Not in the air. Or strapped into a metal death box. These aren't impact life jackets. They're not 50 feet of bouncing insulation and absorbance. It's flourescent, like the whistle. Should you remain in one piece at the end, this glow in the dark quality will make it easier for the bean counters to assess the overall impact of the crash.

When you're on a boat you have the same (probably better) life jacket. Why do these airborne equivalents not have WINGS? Hm? That would surely be more useful would it not?

The final tool for survival! OXYGEN

See that pirate there? If he weren't a drawing, he'd be breathing air, which contains oxygen. We all need oxygen. Even his little drawn parrot. The artist who drew it needed oxygen too. He probably, though, wasn't drawing this in a plane at a great altitude descending quickly. He probably wasn't on fire. He probably wasn't praying that the oxygen that let him continue drawing his image of a jaunty pirate will be the key instrument that will save his life.

I can't argue that oxygen isn't awesome. I'm taking big, galloping lungfuls of it right now. I must however question the decision makers at 'Plane Safety HQ'. The chaps who decided on 'Jacket, Whistle and Oxygen' as if they were given a brief for 'Things needed to walk your dog safely'.

I question their motives.

In the event of the depressurisation of a plane before a crash, pumping the punters full of the breath of life so they can fully experience their splattering reunion with the earth is cruel.

In the event of the plane losing it's wings and catching fire, nosediving in a catastrophic fireball of a descent, pumping the cabin and passengers full of oh so flammable oxygen just seems a bit like overkill does it not?


In any case, this was my morning reflection on plane safety. Not that I'm afraid of flying, nor do I worry about turbulence every time it jiggles my air-ride.

It's more that, if I ever were to suspect a plane I was in was about to do the unthinkable and happy slap me into the hills I'd simply smile, drink in one last look at life and laugh. Relax. It's just probability. Had to happen to a small selection of you.

Around me People panicking. Oxygen filled lungs hyperventilating. Confused holidaymakers struggling with 'life' jackets, strapped into their right angled coffins. And whistles. I think the whistles would amuse me most. I might even try my lips on one. Blow softly at first. Perhaps I could hold a tune?

I could whistle Party Rock Anthem whilst the death carriage thunders towards the ground.

It would be a pretty accurate portrayal of human folly in the end!


The Poem (written during a safety presentation on a Ryan Air flight):
Falling from the sky
In a metal bird,
I will land safely,
With my whistle,
Oxygen and
Life Jacket.

Knuts to you

Foreword: I, like any sane person, am against animal cruelty. I just wish folks would think more about what 'cruelty' constitutes. 


So there's a bear, he's born in captivity and raised by hand. He's called Knut and he died 3 days or so ago of brain damage they say. 


The lesson, children, is this: Animals shouldn't be kept in zoos. 


I've not got the background to make a call on this. Each side presents an argument. Some points make sense, some don't. 


Personally I like seeing animals. I'm sure most people do. Fascinating. They impress, they entertain, they intimidate, all in a safe environment. Most often they will be seen in the zoo. 


Is it wrong to imprison others for our own amusement? Yes. When you put it that way - zoos as prisons - it's wrong. But what is a prison to an animal? That I could not tell you.


I'll dance over to a BBC article with a few choice phrases: 


"...an animal rights campaigner was calling for him to be put down rather than brought up by humans."


That seems a little harsh? Or is it just me? 


Maybe that animal rights campaigner is now thinking, "See! This animal died 26 years premature, of brain damage and the animal was rejected by the mother at birth.... She smelled the brain damage. I was right to say he should have been snuffed out."


He's probably not thinking that because that's ridiculous. At the very least it's impossible for him to prove. 


Even so there's that primeval appeal, that little voice inside, near those parts within that seem to know things we can't prove with reason or logic, a little voice that says "animals know better, know more than we do". 


The birds fleeing before a storm, the dogs barking as a ghost enters your house and steals your stuff. Now a Polar Bear, rejecting a retarded cub. Nature knows best.


But the debate is more about nurture than it is about nature:


"...a zoo is an artificial, "controlled environment"."


Who is to say that the 'natural environment' for an animal doesn't impose harsher controls than those artificial prohibitions imposed by man? What if a Polar Bear got trapped on a floating ice sheet and managed to hesitate there long enough to become too weak to swim and starved?


"...little point in keeping large powerful animals in captivity. Not only do they lead "unfulfilled lives", but bears bred in zoos cannot be reintroduced to the wild as they lose the skills necessary to survive."


I have to agree that an animal, once imprisoned in a zoo can rarely return to the wild amongst the vicious and hardy kin it has been raised and mollycoddled away from. But what is a 'fulfilled' animal?

"... it would have been better for Knut not to have existed at all than live such a miserable life." 

Who can rightly say what makes an animal miserable? What makes you miserable? 


Pain, pain is universal too - were a Zoo to subject animals to pain that'd be wrong. That's easy to accept - all animals feel pain to varying degrees (if I was in a fight with a lion and survived I'd probably make more of a big deal out of it than another, defeated lion).


Lack of freedom? What is freedom of travel to a creature that does not choose to run the length of the icecap, the savannah, the jungle to stay fit, but that must travel the distances to hunt, so that it may eat, and therefore survive.


Lack of choice? What is choice to a creature that has been raised by an environment harsher than a zoo (whether or not it's 'idyllic' in the human imaginings). You don't choose your dinner. You don't choose your home. You don't choose much. 


Lack of a natural environment? Why must an animal live in a wild wind-swept and beautiful ravine or a dark, moonlit grove, or a scorched desert filled with empty aching stillness? Because we impose that lovely image on them. That's where you belong polar bear. Don't come into the city and eat out of our bins badger! D: It's not as romantic.


I fear that an animal appreciates only the essentials. They don't have fancy wild wallpapers for their windows desktops. They don't admire views. They don't respect the world they come from because they appreciate the gifts it gives them. They don't want to help recycle. They don't want to do anything those crazy things they do, they have to do them. 


We're applying the half understood, media mangled message of the new age, brow beating zeitgeist to these beasts. 


Animals live in the now, with a devotion that lets them get to the heart of the present time. That and they have better physical senses than us. Maybe putting them in a zoo interrupts that devotion to the now, to survival. 


Maybe the genes cry out louder and longer if your head isn't filled with calculus, philosophy, food hygiene or sports trivia.


Animals want to survive - I think that's a good bottom line. So Mr. Animal right's activist (if you even exist. You may be a conjured soul in the name of 'BBC Journalism'), I would have to disagree that an animal would be better off dead than in a zoo. That just doesn't make sense. 

I have an idea

So I have an idea. I think I said. An idea for a novel. It has legs and arms and maybe, even a face. A face, perhaps, that no one can ever love, but a face nonetheless.


There's a lot of work involved in getting this idea to a stage where it can be called a story.

That work is, at the moment, problematic.

As soon as I hit on this idea I thought I'd want nothing more than to inflate the shapeless outline I'd come up with and see it bobbing before me as a finished (I'll finish the metaphor) balloon.

Part of me wants that. Wants it a lot. Another part keeps thinking irreverent, unrelated and ridiculous thoughts - and this should be a pretty serious book. A thriller of sorts.

The solution, it turns out, is simple!

I sit my brain down and try to set some boundaries:

Alright brain, multiple projects. How do ya like that? You be funny in some other writing and I can be serious business in this novel thing. Eh? Eh?

Brain says nothing. I sit him down to work at a blank page. He does nothing.

As soon as I decided this course of action all comic thinking dries up.

I inadvertently cured the incompatibility between my mood and what I want to write for the next year or so.

A lesson learned! My mind is contrary and I have no direct influence over whither or hither it may dance.

I can, though, build a maze around it so that I guide it's flow in the direction, roughly, of my end goal.

So, with mindset adjusted, I sat to write last night.

I got 500 words done. Don't laugh!

It's not at all connected with the plan I had outlined. It was part inspired by a music video I enjoyed just before I wrote it (which got me thinking on the curse of true originality again).

In spite of that I liked it. Not in a technical way. I hate everything about the language, setting, structure and technique. I thought it was something I'd want to read. A story I want to know more of.

Someone is in trouble and I want to do some digging and find out why.

Happy Trails

So like a woman wandering down a branching trail in a chocolate forest I keep getting distracted from my goal.

I've this great idea for a book - that's cool right?

Yeah but there's this other idea - oh and that idea I had a long time ago that seems that it may work.

Then there's the part fantasy/part reality series of short stories that I thought weren't connected but now, after a spell away, I double take and I can see how a tweak here, a tweak there would give me a bunch of interesting characters that are not as dissimilar as I first thought.

I mean it's fiction, it's fantasy. As long as my internal world has integrity there's no reason why these worlds can't be separate bio-domes* in different areas!

Settle down brain ffs...

* None of those stories take place in a bio-dome it was metaphorical but... wouldn't a bio-dome or series of bio-domes make a great setting for a story. What about a robot programmed to maintain a series of domes on the darkside of the moon for human occupants who never arrive. And then the robot is actually - no wait, that's a bit too much like Wall-E. So either I have too many ideas at once or I find that my great idea is the least original thing EVER. I swear if I ever get a book finished it'll turn out to be identical to something published by a Lithuanian author as yet untranslated to other languages. 

Japan

I don't think more than a handful of people will read this but still...

Not much work done (bar the day job in automaton fashion) with the news from Japan. Shocking stuff. I read that volcanic activity in the south is now added to the litany of woes.

In the modern age we can grasp the concept of cause and effect - we see that there is no vengeful deity behind tectonic movement.

If this were several hundred years ago it would be a disaster that would stay in the collective race consciousness in the form of folklore, legend.

If this were several hundred years ago it could inspire - through fear - a rethink about the morality of the country so punished by the Gods that hold sway in that region of the world. For surely no other explanation would make sense.

Perhaps they'd document it. Certainly they would. Facts would seem outlandish, fiction would creep in to support the telling. Perhaps it'd be subsumed into a larger religion. A lesson from a fearsome spiritual lord.

It's the closest in my short life I've come to comprehending how disaster inspired tales endure the longest. Whatever calamity that likely inspired enduring myths like Atlantis or parts of the bible, must have been on a similar scale.

A beginning is a delicate time

Busy week. I've not done as much work on my new project as I could have. I'm not sure how much I should do at this point.

See I think a kernel of my being, a shameful little twig branching off from the trunk of my soul, is downright lazy. Like a diva I have an internal desire for at least one day or evening or weekend where I am required  to do nothing. So what I've to do is trick my subconscious into that space where writing is relaxing.

This isn't too hard and I've made inroads this week. The fact that I squeezed in some writing work even when I've had a lot to do bodes well.

As for the project itself, it has legs. I've approached it with a slightly more organised mind than I usually do when writing (normal technique = picture anything and write about it. Let imagination run wild). I still want to apply that normal technique as I think if I deny how my mind works or views things I'll be denying my 'style' if you can call it that.

The organisation involved a bit of a think about the overarching story: the characters who'd be involved; their journey; the settings; some scenes I'd like; things to avoid; things to embrace. I came up with a lot of background and I want more before I begin proper.

I've jotted down some possible openings, as with many things I find the beginning a delicate matter. Something hard to start satisfactorily.

This is one of those boring 'diary' type posts to keep myself on track.

I'm off on a yacht trip with some friends. It's the closest a working-class type like me can get to the big life and it's enjoyable but today it will be something I'll soak up so I can relive it again on paper as someone else, in different circumstances, as the foundation for an interesting scene.

One last interesting point: My desire to play the more time intensive games I like to dabble in (mainly Warcraft) has disappeared into a void with the birth of this new idea, this proper attack at writing a book.

I may analyse that during the week.

Following an invisible path

Often if you want to better understand something that you cannot study firsthand, you can monitor the changes that this something makes in the environment around it.

Think of the wind through the trees, across a wind vane or above the long grass of a field. Think of a fish just under the surface of the water. Think of the spirals of the stars as they're guided by gravity.

When I started this blog I had no idea what I wanted to use it for, it's purpose - if it even had a use or a purpose. A lot of blogs don't.

I'm not a lot of bloggers though. I'm different from the mass of people around me. Arrogant (and often incorrect) as that statement can be when presented in a poor fashion, I'd be foolish not to notice that it might apply to me if I analyze the choices I've made in life so far.

Besides, while I may be different from one mass I am sure to belong to another mass of people - I'm not a special snowflake but I'd like to know which cloud I should fall from.

This blog seems to be pointing in a vague sort of way, towards that metaphorical cloud. Maybe it just coincides with a new found enthusiasm for a goal I once had but gave up (as it wasn't an acceptable career choice in the circumstances I found myself in).

In any case, I'm writing a lot more. I've also got this idea that may be the first long work I create. I think I'll focus on this. I'll go through the trials and tribulations that come with being a writer and, when I remember, I'll document them here.

Snippets of story will find themselves here; Conflicts between this new project (which fills me with a passion my daily work can't hope to) and my current lifestyle/job will be documented; Doubts, self abuse and a feeling of inadequacy will be recorded. When I remember.

It seems like a lot of extra writing to go through when taking on a project that involves LOTS of writing, but I hope it'll be worth it. I can't risk NOT writing here given that the weave and warp of my mind seem more clear when I re-read my entries.

I think I'd be a fool to abandon this blog to pursue this new project. Doubly so given that this new project has a lot to do with the clarity that I think I've attained from writing the entries I've posted so far.

Beauty and the Boxer

I am, by any measuring system, a beginner in the writing craft.


At the same time, as I begin to lay the concrete foundations required to write  for a living around my cloudy desire to write for a living, I can't help but learn what I feel (even at this early stage) are important lessons.

Take that metaphor just now - concrete foundations around a cloudy desire -describing a combination of two mind sets. This hybrid process is something that pops up a lot.


For example, you're lying in bed and your mind has been running through ideas in it's cool down cycle for 30 minutes, maybe an hour. Just before the conjurer throws his cape over your consciousness and you lose yourself in the night of sleep your brain goes off like a gun dropped from the hand of a shaking old War Veteran defending his farm from coyotes.

It's an idea and your sleepy brain tells you is, 'the best thing you'll ever write'.

So you scramble for paper and a writing implement, scrawl a message that you'll understand in the morning, return to bed and let the conjurer work his magic.


You wake up with no memory of this until you roll over to face a wall covered in what appears to be lipstick. The message you've left for yourself reads: 'Two men are like hair in a beard. One longer than other. The razor misses one. You know what to do'... *


Thanks brain.



This is only a seed. One that will grow into a wild, unruled and bushy plant. A plant blossoming flowers shaped like politicians and weighed down with smelly, shoe-shaped fruit.

This plant will speak to you and try to convince you that it's important, that it's the best plant in the world and does not need to change at all, ever, ever.



This plant is lying to you.


This plant needs taken to the logic garden in your brain. There a small gardener who tolerates no small talk or distractions will prune the everloving shit out of it until, often, nothing but a few leaves remain.

He will come to you, shake his head and say, 'Try again,' before going back to his flower beds.

Bastard.

There's a hand off, a relay race exchange, between the two hemispheres of your soft coconut dome that enables good writing to exist.

Good ideas are always good in your head. Getting other people to experience that goodness requires simple, hard work.

Here the beautiful soft and inexperienced face of 'good idea' meets the hard, knuckle trodden fist of the prize fighter who hammers out the flaws in your work.

Better writers have written better summaries of this dichotomy. Writing it for myself I can appreciate just how truthful these summaries are.


The old cliché about everyone having a story to tell is right but I think it's missing a clause:

Everyone has a story inside them / which needs to be told by a writer



*This is a message I left myself... as far as I can tell. Whichever part of my brain is dominant at that time of night in that state of sleepiness can't write well.

Cathartic Onanism

I tried to get a few recent inspirations down on paper last night. I felt productive.

I made a great show of setting up a 'useful writing space' and then began tapping keys at random vomiting out the random thoughts splurging into my brain-pan.

It was cathartic onanism. Shameful yet it felt good. This is not how good writing is born.

I was a tourist in the land of make believe and it showed.

I must work on something internally until it's ready to come out like a mock documentary, like a history of events unfolded/unfolding inside my cranium.

I'll report rather than make up. 

That's probably best.

Happy Monday! :(

Relax dude, we'll do it tomorrow.

The psyche of a modern man can play tricks on the mind it inhabits.

Specifically the varying forces within a youngish man like myself can exert great control in subtle, some might say devious, ways.

To fully understand where I'm coming from, let's take a look inside my head.



It's very much like the inside of an elaborate, royal tent. The kind I imagine I've seen in Lawrence of Arabia. Though I've not seen that film.

Outside we can hear sand grating against stone; the wind pulses the walls of the tent inwards like waves viewed from a cliff top.

The tent is brightly lit and decorated in two corners, dimly lit and spartan in the other two.

Various characters are in turns frolicking and becoming immobile. Only one can occupy the centre of the tent at a time.

Here's that every-boyish, fun loving mischief maker: The Gamer. He spouts the usual tropes or conventional statements. He whispers to himself that he calls them 'memes' and giggles.

He recites his lines as if he's in a school play and he feels it more important to impress his friends and/or that girl that's caught his eye. I sit down with the various aspects that make up my soul and we pay close attention to this fool's performance:

"Relax dude, it's still 'early'. We're usually in bed an hour from now. Time enough for one last instance/multiplayer map";

"If we weren't gaming we'd just be spending all our time watching DVDs or TV or something";

"Dude! It's a work night so of course we simply CAN'T do [Chore X] tonight - We have to relaaaax. I'll let you do them at the weekend, when we've more time..."

Yes this sinister character, portraying himself in innocence and light is adept at manipulating the host's actions. More so than the other denizens of your inner world. The audience nod along with me.

Let's brush him aside for a second and try to listen to these other fragmented voices, howling from the murky corners of this vast, vast tent or sitting beside me amiably talking to themselves, or me. I can't tell. These guys and gals haven't had an audience for some time and it looks like they are bursting to share their views!

First up we have Career Guilt. A green, Chartreuse addicted bile spewer, he's been drunk and discontent ever since I received bad advice from that hack of a career adviser in school. He pulls himself up from a heap in one of the dark corners:

"Yep. That adviser knew nothing. The 90's were a changeable time, why didn't the school system take that into account? Is that justification though? Others in your position, same school, neighbourhood, age and so on came out just fine! Perhaps it's because you're a slacker. We, all of us in here, have known it for a long time. You've had some interesting adventures but why don't you APPLY yourself!?"

An uncomfortable question we all agree. However if we as a collective don't know how to apply ourselves career-wise and are not built to consider life with a mortgage, multiple bank accounts and consumer accoutrements as a real 'life' then what qualifications does this single figment of our imagination have? Less than us.

Put him back in the corner! We all jeer.

Next we have that harpy - Social shame. She rises from the darkest corner in a cascade of sand, like an insectoid dune creature ready to trap the unwary.

"Don't you call me a harpy you lazy, unhygienic, non-commital geek! I've a good mind to remind you that all your friends and most of your previous relationships tolerated your ridiculous and childish habit like a family puts up with a slightly retarded relation. That dark secret that everyone knows is wrong but no one dares say for fear of hurting someone's feelings." 

Quick squash her back into the sand!

To be fair we haven't listened to her in quite some time, the old ways are changing and any stigma attached to our gaming juvenile years has long been washed away like the remains of an exploded cetacean on a calm, sunny beach.

I address my motley crew:

"Is there any character in this misshapen tent-skull of mine that's got something better to say than Gamer Psyche?"

A small and wiry man materialises before me, descending a rope attached to, well nothing. He's bearded to the knees and wears only a loincloth. He taps me on the knee where I sit:

"Excuse me. Hello? Hi. Glad I got your attention. You ignore me quite a lot. You see those others, they're not like me. They're caricatured. They don't run alongside your world views. They're not meant to be taken seriously. They're easily defeated. Gamer Psyche," and here he points to the accused who has the good grace to at least pretend to look innocent in between fits of giggling, "he keeps them around for moments just like this - moments when you doubt the amount of game time you squeeze into a week. They solidify his position, rather than weaken it. 

I'm not like that. I'm you. I'm those ideas you have before you go to sleep that you really should pen down but you think 'Oh I'll recall in the morning'. I'm that feeling in your left lung, that light elation, that swells when you see something or feel something that you can't immediately qualify with just words. 

Others have called me your 'artistic side' but that doesn't do me justice. Beg your pardon if that seems a little arrogant but I'm not thinking about myself, more 'us'. 

You see you have things to say. Specifically to write. Much of society has been tailored to reducing my input to your person. So it is with any other version of me within any other person out there. 

I don't want you to stop playing games. We both know that they inspire you on many levels, like books, films, music. 

I do however want you to promise yourself you'll remember that this is consuming. Even the finest thing, consumed every day, won't sustain you as a person. You have to create! 

Your blog is a start, not as a path to anything better but as a habit to build on. A foundation for some proper creations. 

I hope you found that reasonable and not in any way accusatory. I'll be off now. I have some interesting trains of thought to conduct."

Well shit.


There's not much I can say after that. I get up and I leave the tent. I feel quite refreshed and once I cross the last dune and come to full consciousness again I immediately fill a blog page with what I've seen.


He did after all have a point.

I blame the bank alt

So, I play World of Warcraft. I recently decided to make a bit of in-game cash. The easiest time to make money, or lose it, is in a time of great upheaval. In this way I timed my entry to the market well with the shattering patch and the release of Cataclysm starting off some crazy, hazy weeks of auction fun and games.

For a period I became a changed man. I got my full 'team' of profession monkeys to level 80 in time for the changes. I researched and read tidbits of information here and there online. I put some principles into practice.

Foolishly, I got serious about in-game gold.

The goblin in me took over.

First he got the money, then he got the power, then he lost his sensibilities. My bank alt character swaggered like Montana himself.

He locked down guild bank permissions (in a friends only guild - they lol'ed). He flipped some bargains. He dressed above his level (24) and cracked trade chat one liners above his station.

He was a mastermind! Or so he thought.

Do you remember that scene in The Usual Suspects where Agent Kujan realises he's been fed the lines he wanted to hear just so he'd part with something he didn't even know was hugely important?

Bank alt does, and that's how he thought he made people feel after he pulled some of his 'smooth moves'.

When he told them he only had 7k gold for that BoE Epic they wanted to sell, he held his hands steady and his gaze open and trustworthy. Successful, he walked with a limp to the auction house and that limp simply *vanished* as he listed the BoE right back up there for 17k (and sold it).

His actions reeked of hubris. It wasn't long before he wascocky. He could turn anything purple into mountains of gold. He took a sensibly raised 60k and halved it. As he strutted his way to the Auctioneer, bags bustling with purple shirts, pantaloons and belt-thingys, the market turned.

Karma, like a huge whale rolling through the oceans, pulled him into it's wake. The karma-whale swallows purples like they were motes of air (in a market overrun with motes of air) in a shaft of sunlight.

The rest of my humble troupe of digital avatars have yet to recover from the bank alt's actions but they remember and together we hold strong against his will. Against his overbearing, maniacal vision of a future where he, and he only, sells items in the AH. To himself. Making endless profit.

Together we remember to spend money on things, equip the occasional BoE with a carefree laugh, chase puppies and never make 'the bottom line' the end goal of our gaming evening.

The greatest trick my bank alt ever pulled, was convincing the world that fun doesn't exist... and like that *poof* he's gone.

Derbarbar

Derbarbar is my new warrior in World of Warcraft. He's only little, level 8 so far. His future however, is painted large with fist-like brushes, blood as paint and the whole World of Warcraft as his canvas.

Let me tell you why Derbarbar excites me so.

I'm a serial alt creator. I have 2 85's (this will increase :S), 3 more at 80-81 ready to join the 85's, a 61 and a handful of 50 -> downward characters. Most of these are on one server to facilitate my gold gathering needs.

With this amount of 'experience' in game you'd think I had no interest in starting more characters, that the world around was dull and lifeless to me.

Well Blizzard, those wily foxes, anticipated this with Cata and rejigged the old world. So folks can play through with shining tears in their new character's eyes. They did a fine job I must say.

This wasn't enough for me however. I've still to try out the Worgen or Goblin starting zones (contrasting with the Draenei and Bloodelf and Deathknight starting areas of previous expansion - I was all over those) or new quests in the world because I had, until recently, yet to find the inspiration for a new character.

One night after work last week, I downloaded and watched Conan the Barbarian. A rush of memories came back to me. As his chronicler says in the intro: he wishes to tell you of a time of 'high adventure'.

And I remembered.

This type of adventure, for me, was what an MMO was all about. It's what fantasy games and novels are all about. I'll confess in the rush to 80 (five times) and 85 (twice so far) I've forgotten why I played games in the first place.

My new Orc Warrior, was dubbed 'Derbarbar' (official German translation - Conan Der Barbar) in honour. He is symbolic of the perennial soul of adventure sprouting to life inside me once more.

Upon login and logout he greets the guild with a roar and says farewell in a similar fashion. Like a Lion trying to ask directions.

He tears flowers from the soil and ore from the earth to trade with corrupt city officials for sharper weapons and heavier armour. He is incapable of creating, but adept in the art of destruction.

He does not loot for he has no time for the shiny accoutrements of life. He is a national noise... and he hates treasure.

He buys items from the auction house only to tear them from his mailbox and destroy them - such is his lust for destruction... and hatred for treasure that you cannot hit an enemy with.

He is played with the Conan the Barbarian track looping endlessly in the background, every shaking step with which he pulls the world behind him on the way to his goal is purposeful.

Animal-like he knows no self doubt, no pity, no remorse. Only the moment, only the kill.

His is a world of instant flavours, smells, sounds, sensations of touch and sight and these senses spend 90% of the time marinating in the blood of his enemies.

Personally I can't wait to P(ick) U(p) G(roup) a few instances and get accused of 'RP lol? WTF WARRIOR?!!' as I pull the whole of an instance, nude, with a mighty axe, my 'roar macro' answering them in kind.

A character is a life. They need a backstory. Whether you believe in the great lord 'RP' or not, I assure you that for the majority of players he will make a new character stand out, become something, nay someone you have to play now and then.

Enough 'now and then' playing will get you a new character at 60, and by then you're practically level capped already. It'd be rude not to get the next 25 levels.

Derbarbar will meet you there.

The Daily Grind: Even Astronauts Need Hobbies

Gerty: Hello, Sam.
Sam, is everything OK? 

Sam: Yeah!

Yeah, we had a fight.
Me and the other guy, the other...

He's very angry, you know?
You know what he did?
He flipped my entire model over!
You know how much work I put into that thing?

Gerty: 938 hours.

Sam: 938 hours. Yeah, exactly.
938 hours... really?

      <Moon>


Sometimes similarities between 'life' and 'mmo' are impressed upon me. More often I consider the differences.

Anyone can be a success in an mmo. It just requires time, a little common sense, and an immunity to numbing grinds, to time sinks.

You will make a success of yourself, however you measure it, in an online game. They're designed this way. That's why you keep coming back. The ultimate feel good society, everyone can sit on top. No one feels they're supporting the lifestyles of those above them.

The NPCs are the only true working classes. Dependent, like us, on acts of God to grant them immunity from the horrible realities of their daily lives.

This digital success, free to all (or at a reasonable pay-to-play price plan), is not achievement in 'the real world'. The real world is where we must succeed within the framework constructed for us. That much society is very clear on.

All gamers feel that lance, comprised of the condensed social judgements of non-gamers against gamers, pierce their heart. Maybe they've indulged in a marathon gaming session or opted to game instead of complete another essential task.

Shortly afterwards, that individual will feel like they've short changed themselves. They'll think, 'enough is enough'.

"Think of all the things I could be doing..." 

Few games document how much time you've spent 'within' them. Net. Total. Those that do let you see the guilty tips of sinful icebergs. They hint at hours, days, months wasted within false worlds.

"200 days played over all characters?! I could be an astronaut, a physicist, I could learn to play the Banjolaylay - hell ALL OF THOSE THINGS - in that amount of time!" 

Study the gamer now, as he meets this crisis of the soul. It's a re-emergence of the greatest gift to mankind - the curse that plagues us alone - 'hope'. Hope that with just enough hours, with time, anything is possible. Dreams will be realised. The game has shown him just how much 'idle' time he has at his disposal. Now he'll use this reservoir for (his own) good!

I don't share this hope. You might say I've always gamed so much because I don't value the lost time. I don't honestly believe  there's anything I or anyone else can do to truly change their lot in lives with that spare time alone. I'm not a hopeless pessimist but I put my faith in other things.

That spare time would be transferred. You'd either be drinking and socialising on additional occasions, watching TV or DVDs more or doing something else to let off steam more. Another 'hobby' (by which we mean a casual pursuit - nothing important, like say, a job) to while away the precious free hours you have between work shifts and regenerating sleep.

'But!' I hear you cry, 'I could use those copious hours to learn something. Something useful. Anything that benefits me beyond my computer screen'.

You could! But watch out - this 'useful activity that gives you a material benefit' could become a second job. Society will love you then.

Trying to find a new flowchart for this process we call 'living', trying to find an approach that puts you at the centre, is like struggling to stay afloat in the ocean.

You know there must be a better way if you just try; a different stroke; a way to hold yourself; better technique. Problem is you have to focus all your energy in just the next stroke that works because otherwise you'll go under.

There's no room for practice, for experimentation. Not when applied to a real and difficult situation:

'Mr. Einhorn, I was thinking, what if I worked on a horse instead of the chair today. I'd get more done and cut down on time looking around as I'd be so high I'd command a good viewpoint of the office. I'd be happier, I'd probably need less breaks and-', 'Shut up Avary! I need those reports by 2pm!!'

Even that example contains more excitement than usual.

What about testing and stretching the possibilities of life with a model? Yeah! Every animal does this. When a young animal practices or experiments it's called 'play'. If you read a book you're testing the veracity of the alternate reality, a model of ours, presented by the storyteller.

And here is where my faith lies. The power of story. 

Our ancestors fought, uphill, to land us in a world where there is such a thing as 'free time'. Stories were and still are the main filler in this free time.

Increasingly we experience daily stories through play. We play with more complex models and with ages that advance onward and onward. Ask any late 20's gentleman for his most amusing gaming story from the past week and he'll quickly oblige.

The world is your oyster but no one will tell you how to open it. Not directly.

And lo, circular in fashion, games return. Games as stories. Not just games but all art; all media; all methods by which we grind our free time into segments for easier consumption; all these tools that the powers that be permit for us to forget that we're mere pawns, point toward other, sneaky ways. Ways to open that oyster. Wisdom is passed on, hidden and immortal, in never-ending story form.

The philosophers; the writers; the film makers; the songwriters; the singers; our bards, are not removed from us. They are us. They encapsulate their truth in their works and some (the lesser) sell it to us, they mean no harm, they must fund their place in society just like us.

Some (the greater) give it away when they can. They have 'risen' and think nothing of giving their greatest discoveries away for free for sheer love for humanity. Sadly these are the people who meet with 'unfortunate accidents', who are 'discredited', who die before their time, impoverished and appreciated later.

Little lessons surround us in story form and sometimes it takes them a long time to sink in. When they do it's worth it. Enjoy whatever you do in the moment. Don't think about time as an investment. Experience stories, tall tales and adventure. Play and allow yourself to laugh a bit like you did once, before you got all srs bsns on us.