I Really Don't Feel Like It

Really didn't want to write tonight.

I just didn't, still don't really, feel like I have much to say. Some days are like that. Some days, it's not that you feel too tired, too overworked, too whatever. Some days, you just don't feel like anything. Some days, there's just nothing on your mind worth sharing.

And yet, those are the days that I feel it's absolutely the most important to make the effort to stick with the schedule, to focus on the goal of Write Every Day. Because it's not the bad days that break routines. It's days like this one. Days where you don't have any real good excuse other than "I don't feel like it." Because it's easy to say "I don't feel like it" every day, and that's how you fall into the Nirvana Fallacy that I wrote about a while back; where you get into the habit of waiting for that "perfect day" to dedicate to writing. You know the day I'm talking about, even if you're not a writer. That magical day "some day in the future," where you'll feel like doing all the things you keep putting off. You'll balance the check book, clean out the closet, get started on that novel you've been telling people about since you were sixteen. Just need to have that perfect day. Then everything will be great.

That day never comes. Ever.

Oh, sure, there might be a day here and there where you feel really inspired. Days where the motivation is kicking and you get a lot of things done. I know there were days where the feeling that "I really should write" led me to sit down at the computer, bang out a thousand words, declare myself satisfied with my effort... and then allow myself to lapse for another four weeks.

You can't live your life waiting for that perfect day, where you'll have the time, energy and initiative to do everything you know you need to do.

That's a powerful life lesson, I think, one that extends far beyond writing. So many excuses start with "as soon as." As a world class procrastinator, I know all too well the allure of "as soon as." I'll get started on my book again as soon as class is over, so I'll have more time. I'll start writing as soon as class begins, because class always makes me think about writing and that gets me to do it. I'll start as soon as I feel better. As soon as I have a day off. As soon as I'm done playing video games.

And on, and on, into infinity.

That's why I can't allow myself to slack off on these days where I don't feel like it, when there's a million other things I'd rather be doing. Because there won't be many of those days where I "do" like it, unless I make them. Most of the time, when I sit down to write, I'm wanting to do other stuff, and it's not until the page gets going and the voices come alive in my mind that the work becomes a joy (and sometimes, not even then.)

What can I say? Writing is hard.

That doesn't change the fact that I love it, or the fact that every day I can mark off as a success in the goal of "Write Every Day" means that I feel that much better about myself and my life. And to top it all off, eventually, I'll have a book to show for it! Score! As well as a consistently updated blog, which is something I've always dreamed of having, and so rarely managed to actually achieve.

Now, if I could only find the same motivation to attend class every day as I seem to have found for both blogging and my novel. Then I'd be all set.

Maybe I need to tell myself that tomorrow is Day One of "Go To Class Every Day." See how many days I can go without skipping, oversleeping or missing a class.

Actually, that's a pretty good idea. I think I'll do that. Starting now.

Guilty Pleasure

I spent the day reading.

It really wasn't my intention, since I had things to do today; really needed to get my car down to the mechanic so he can hopefully fix the whole "my car doesn't start when it's cold, or when it rains, or when it doesn't feel like it" problem. And I've been having this really annoying pain in my jaw, which my ever-so-helpful brother insists means I need a root canal, so there was that whole "make an appointment with the dentist" thing. There was the class thing, which I didn't do because of the car thing, and the fact that I just... couldn't find the motivation to make myself go. That's a horrible reason for missing a class, but it's the truth, and frankly, if you feel the need to lie to your blog, well, I'm not judging you, I'm just saying... maybe you have issues, dude.

So I pretty much frittered away my time reading books.

I say frittered, because they weren't particularly important books.Omen and Abyss, by Christie Golden and Troy Denning, respectively. I say they're not important books, and that's because they're both Star Wars novels, which has for a long time now been a guilty pleasure of mine. Some of it (a lot of it, actually) has to do with the fact that, especially in my teenage years, Star Wars novels were basically all that I read for a while. You might say it had an impact on me, especially when The Last One Standing remains my favorite short story to this very day, or at least, it's the one I can quote almost line by line. And yeah, it's a Star Wars story, about perennial bad ass Boba Fett (at least as far as the EU material is concerned.)

As a little side note, I've read some of Christie Golden's work before, from the WarCraft universe, and I think that she really should write a book in an original setting. The first half of Arthas, where she's allowed to tell her own story instead of just following the preordained canon, was quite good, and I really liked her new character Vestara in the Omen novel.

Although I'm a Star Wars geek (and really, many other flavors of Geek, but I do have that purple lightsaber on display in my living room, so, you know) there's something about the Star Wars books that have always just been a source of consternation for me. I suppose it's because I can see them for what they are, and cringe appropriately at all the flaws that I would have cheerfully ignored at 13. For one thing, the galaxy, despite having a name and backstory for every single alien that appears in every single movie, is really quite small, focusing on a handful of individuals over pretty much every moment of their entire lives. The setting is larger than Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and so on, or at least, it could and should be.

Second, when you're working with such iconic characters, you get the feeling that the author isn't really free to use his or her own voice to tell the story, because we all know who Luke Skywalker is from the movies, and the comics, and the mountain of books that came before the one you're reading now. This is one of the main problems I have with "shared universe" fiction, or at least, a problem I have with characters written by more than one author. There's no chance to really feel that personal, intimate connection between author and character. You might "get" Luke Skywalker, you might understand who he is, what he sounds like, what he'd do in the scenario that you've presented to him. But you don't own him. You don't get to be him when you're writing him. You're just borrowing him.

All of those things, as well as several others, such as the fact that no serious, literate individual would admit to reading Star Wars books, and you have to wonder, why do I keep reading? And not just reading... but devouring. I remember reading through all nine books of the Legacy of the Force series in about two days. I started Omen last night, finished it this morning, promptly went into Abyss and finished that, too. There's just something about these books that draws me in and makes me want to stay there for a while. I get lost in the universe, the galaxy far, far away, for a while, and maybe it reminds me of simpler times, when I was a kid sitting on my bed, rereading my Han Solo novel for the zillionth time? Maybe it reminds me of how much the movies captivated me when I was younger?

Maybe it's because the novels don't have to be all that good, because they're trying to be something else: pure escapism, which isn't a bad thing. When I get into these books, I lose myself in them, to such an extent that when I get interrupted, I feel like I've been dragged back out into the real world. I remember driving down to the mechanic feeling disoriented and out of sorts, wishing I could just get back into my book as soon as possible. Not because I had to know how it ends, not because it was the most amazing thing I'd ever read, but simply because I liked being in that place.

I'm not sure, but I think that's a pretty cool thing for a book to do.

And so I'll continue with my guilty pleasure, even as my literary training tells me all the reasons I should be ashamed of myself and forces me to focus on all the flaws that have no place in my brain alongside the "great literary works." I'll continue, because more and more, I find myself not caring about certain things. I don't care any more about all those great literary works that I absolutely must read, or else be branded an ignorant troglodyte. I can't tell you how many classics I find boring, how many fail to captivate me, and yet I'm expected to regard them as holy relics, why? Because they're literature?

I say no. I can understand, in an academic sense, why the Mona Lisa is an amazing artistic accomplishment. I understand why Mozart is considered a master composer, why his symphonies are so highly respected. But that doesn't change the fact that my favorite piece of "art" is the poster I have of a dragon on my wall, and my favorite song wasn't written by Mozart, but by a guy singing about zombies, and why, although I get why I should love literature, the truth is, I really, really just like reading stories.

I like stories that make me happy, or make me sad, or make me anxious. I like stories that I can escape in, for a while, stories that make me turn the pages as quickly as I can get through them. I like stories and characters and adventures and yes, even silly, awesome things like lightsabers. I don't care that it's not academically impressive. I don't care that it's not cool.

It's what I like to read and I'm fucking sick of the fact that so many individuals in my academic world look down so disdainfully on the stories that enjoy. I'm sick of the fact that all we talk about in my class about novels is fucking bullshit about how "the novel represents the destruction of society and the freedom of the mind from an oppressive world." That doesn't mean jack shit to me. You know why I like novels? Why I like reading at all?

Because I love stories.

Because telling stories is what I do.

I don't care about anything else. I don't care about the beauty on the page, I don't care about the important contribution that this book or that book made to the world, I don't care. It's all just so much bullshit, so much posturing, so much an attempt to prove that storytelling doesn't matter unless it's literature. 

But you know what? At the end of the day, in the final analysis, no matter how much you want to draw a distinction between literature and "genre trash," no matter how much you want to disparage popular fiction and bemoan for the glory days of "real writing," the truth is that all these ideas about what novels are, what literature is and what the rest of writing isn't don't fucking matter. Because, in the end, you know what?

We're all just doing a more sophisticated version of what our ancestors did thousands of years ago: making paintings on cave walls and telling each other tales by firelight.

Meaning And Intention

So there's something that's been on my mind for the past couple of days, as the result of two different conversations with two different people. In the first instance, I was talking about the characters in my book and realized that, taken in a certain context, my characters really represent a pretty powerful metaphor for the issues of one's sexual identity and whether gender is something defined by a person's body, or by the mental image one has for one's self.

In the other conversation, we were talking about Avatar, and whether it was "too preachy."

Now, my thoughts on the matter (I'm building to a larger point, don't worry) is that for a movie to be "preachy," the message has to be the point. There are undeniably movies that have a message, that tell a certain story because the creator wants the audience to understand and hopefully come to accept his or her personal view. The message is the focus, it's the entire purpose for the movie. The story is entirely a device for conveying that message.

On the other hand, you have movies in which the message is entirely incidental to the message that one takes away from the film. Avatar, in my opinion, is a good example of this. While it certainly has all the tropes in place about overthrowing the evil capitalistic machine that seeks to despoil the pristine natural world, I don't think James Cameron really wants us to walk out of his movie and run off to the rainforest to fight logging or whatever. All of the tropes invoked, despite perhaps conveying that particular message, were largely inconsequential; they happened only because that's the particular story Cameron wanted to tell.

One might say that a writer or director or creative person should be cognizant of the message that invariably appears in their works. If it wasn't Cameron's intention to portray modernity as an evil force in Avatar, he shouldn't have made them all seem like such bastards. He should have told a different story, or been more careful about the story he was telling.

I don't think that's fair, though. Speaking entirely from the perspective of a creative type, you tell the story that you want to tell. You tell the story that's on your mind, in your heart, the one you feel passionately about. You make the story that you want to make. So, my little novel about a fallen angel turns out to have some powerful metaphors about transgendered individuals and perceptions of sexual identity. Okay. Awesome. That doesn't mean that's why I wrote it, and that doesn't mean that's what I'm trying to tell people who will read my story. It's just something that happened as a result of the particular story I chose to tell.

The reality is that when you make something, be it a movie or a novel, as soon as you release it into the world, it's no longer yours. As soon as it enters the mind of your reader, or your audience, it becomes theirs to do with as they will (violations of copyright notwithstanding, of course). They can read into it how they wish, take away from it whatever they wish to take away from it. You can tell them they are wrong, that such a message was not your intent, and you might well be right... but that won't stop them. It shouldn't stop them, because all too often, the work in question is larger than the creator. The work will have layers that the creator never even dreamed existed, because in so many ways, the creator is little more than a conduit for the story itself, the means by which the story is brought into the world.

If a movie specifically tells me to run out and save all the trees, and the director made said movie with that specific goal in mind, okay, fine. That's the message. But if a director makes a movie about a beautiful natural world and an invading force, and the point of the story is to become engaged with the characters and the world he or she has created, then the message is largely inconsequential. My inadvertent metaphor about sexual identity does not mean I have personal opinions on the matter, or that I want my readers to embrace my opinions. It's just something that happened, it's a sort of baggage that carries along as a result of invoking storytelling tropes and using a shared language in which volumes of meaning are often embodied in something as small as a single word choice.

Thoughts On Day One

I'm going to go on record as saying that a good beer really can make or break the writing experience for me. I don't know how it works for you, but for me? Nothing beats having that bottle on the desk next to my monitor. I'm not sure if it's the ritual of it, or the fact that it's an image so deeply ingrained in the popular culture, or if I just really like beer, but it really helps.

No, really. When you get stuck on a scene, and you know you can nail it, if you can just get the words right, having that distraction really helps take my mind off the fact that, damn it, I'm stuck. Because realizing that you're stuck is the quickest way to get even more stuck... to get stucker... or whatever the fuck you call it.

If you're curious, tonight, I was drinking Drop Top Amber Ale. I'm told by people who know things about this sort of thing that this beer is brewed right here in Tucson. If it is, and you're in Tucson, you should look for some. If not, you have my condolences, as it's a very good beer.

I was at the supermarket today with my mom, doing some shopping as is the custom in such establishments. It's sort of become a ritual for us, to do our shopping together, because both of us absolutely hate shopping, me especially. So it's become equal parts act of necessity (everybody's gotta eat, after all) equal parts opportunity to spend some time together, since I find that it becomes all too easy to slip into my own little world if I don't work to remain connected to my family.

Anyway, the first time we did this little shopping trip together, I remember walking around in this, I don't know what you'd call it. This daze. This ennui. I didn't care about being there. I didn't have anything to say. I wasn't angry, wasn't sad, wasn't anything. My mom said she was worried about me, said I seemed like I was depressed. Said I should really go talk to a doctor, you know, just to get everything checked out. I can't say I disagree with her opinion, since I don't have anything against doctors even though I stubbornly refuse to visit them. Don't ask me why, I don't have a reason.

And yes, if you're wondering, this particular shopping trip took place before I'd rededicated myself to the personal goal of "Write Every Day."

So, tonight was our biweekly (wait, is biweekly every week, or twice a week? I can never remember) and while we're cruising the shelves, filling our respective carts, I asked my mom if I seemed better than the last time we were out. We'd talked a few times about how I'd been feeling, so she knows that I'd begun writing again. She said the change that writing has on my personality is amazing. I joked that I didn't know whether I should be grateful that I know how to manage my depression so effectively, or if I should be distressed that I depend on writing to maintain my mental health.

I still don't actually know which I should be.

If there's a point in this rambling little anecdote, it's that I like feeling this way. Even more than I like the feeling of writing, even more than I like seeing the story develop and the characters come to life, even more than I like the happy little fantasies about publishing and having people read my story, I like feeling good. I like feeling proud of myself, I like feeling positive. I like not being miserable.

I like being me. I like being the me that feels complete and fulfilled, the me that feels like he's doing what he should be doing with his life. That's a rare thing, I think, a comfortable assurance that some people may spend their entire lives looking for. I'm not saying that I've got it all figured out yet, or that this is the only thing I'm ever going to do, or the only thing that I was meant to do. I mean, for one thing, that makes it sound like I have a destiny, and I certainly don't believe in that.

And, Mom, I know that you read this from time to time, although it might be several days or weeks before you make it to this entry. When you do read it, I want you to remember what I told you tonight, about being my inspiration, not for my characters or for my story, but for inspiring me to make the commitment to Write Every Day. Like I told you before, you're the example I have for not stopping even though sometimes I really, really want to stop.

You're the one who keeps me from going back to Day One, and the posts in this blog are evidence of how much that means to me. And you know what? Even if I do falter, even if I do fail, even I do quit... you're also my inspiration for climbing back up and starting at Day One all over again.

The Mind Maelstrom

Some days, I forget that I have a blog.

Actually, that's not true. Certainly, there are days where I wish I didn't have a blog. Just like there are days where I wish I didn't want so badly to write and publish a novel. But those are just some days, and usually, they're rare days. Ironically enough, the secret to making myself feel better about those days is to write in my blog and work on my novel, because then these two things are no longer a source of anxiety and personal consternation, but become achievements that I can take pride in.

Speaking of pride (which is a Mortal Sin, or so I'm told), I'm proud of myself for not yet breaking my goal of "Write Every Day." It was particular difficult last night, when the D&D game didn't break until about 12:30 and I didn't even sit down to write until about 1 AM. The fact that I did it even though I was tired, even though I really, really, really didn't want to do it has done a lot for my personal morale. The fact that I didn't reach the thousand work mark, which is sort of my informal daily milestone, doesn't even bother me that much.

I didn't reach the 1k goal tonight, either, although I rationalized it by saying that 800 or so words is pretty close to a thousand, and I had to write a scene for my fiction class, and at least I put in a pretty solid effort, so my stupid fucking neurotic voice can just shut its stupid mouth and go back to the dark corner of my mind. Yeah, I should that part of... myself. Awesome.

I have a pretty back toothache that seems to be getting steadily worse. Going to be paying a visit to the dentist tomorrow, even though I really don't like dentists. I especially didn't like my last one, with his whole "fuck painkillers, you'll barely even feel the drill" mentality when it came to drilling cavities. Uh, no fucking thank you, doc, in my book, there's a pretty big difference between "hardly" and "not." For example, I'd much rather be "not dead" or "not in pain" than "barely dead" or "barely in pain."

Got a good recommendation for a new place, though, so tomorrow, we'll go see what's what. I'm certain that there will be bad news. Like, not just the usual "you have cavities" bad news, but something along the lines of "the entire inside of your upper jaw is rotting from the inside out and will have to be surgically removed. Don't worry, you'll barely even notice it's gone."

Damn it, there's that word again.

Is it a bad sign that I really wished I had a beer to enjoy while I was working on my novel tonight? At the time, I tried to rationalize that a drink would have giving me something to occupy my mind during the pauses while I'd think about what the next line should be. Now, though, I'm not so sure the desire is quite that innocent.

I suppose it's a good sign that I didn't just go straight for the bottle of Crown Royal, yeah? That'd be the sign of a truly hardened, horribly cliched alcoholic writer.

Damn it, now I'm thinking about that bottle of Crown.