Writer's Angst (formerly Writer's Block)

Just because I haven't posted anything in a while, and it might help me get things in order.

I am very good at beginning stories.  Not so good at finishing them.  Usually I get about halfway through, then realize that a new plot development changes the way everything was from the beginning.  At this point, I can either a)  Keep writing and go back and fix it later, or b) start all over again. 

There is also what I term the Brick Wall, though the more conventional imagery is Writer's Block:  The story is going along just fine, until all of a sudden everything just stops.  The story is not over, and nothing is resolved, but you are just about to enter the third act, into the deeper machinations and eventual resolutions of things you haven't thought out clearly yet, but assumed you would cross that bridge when you came to it, and...wham.  No bridge, but a brick wall.

The sum of my major works to date, all ending in brick walls:

1)  (Untitled*) - probably my oldest story, which has existed in my head in some form or another since I was thirteenish.  Of course, what I have now hardly bears any resemblence to what I had then.  There are wizards, and one of the major character is an assassin, and that's about it.  This story is like a canvas that has been painted over and repainted so many times, it cannot help but be distorted by the colors and textures of what it once was.  I am considering peeling it all of, tossing it aside, and starting fresh.  Only I've tried that, and somehow, the story always comes back to me.  Maybe this time for real.  Until the next grand variation pops into my head, and I think, Maybe this time it will work.

2)  "Glass and Bone" - a sort of steampunky thing that may or may not also have magic in-universe.  That may or may not be in the same universe as story 1.  A man tries to bring his dead ex-lover back to life.  And succeeds, for the most part.  Only she never loved him as much as he loved her, and had honestly moved on before she died.  And then there's some sort of retribution for breaking the laws of nature, or magic, or both, but as soon as the woman appeared...wham.  Brick wall.

3) (Untitled) - A xenofic about griffins.  Who are in the Frankfurt Zoo.  And are sentient.  And of course, at some point someone realizes they are sentient, but then we hit the brick wall.  I haven't the faintest idea how to bring this about, or what to do about it afterwards, or if I should just leave it where it is and make it a tragedy.

4)  (Untitled) - I haven't even started a draft of this one, it's just a loosely connected set of ideas about psychic detectives, who do not solve supernatural mysteries but instead go to great length to conceal their powers and just use them to have an edge in solving normal mysteries.  Until something different happens, like a sudden slew of murders among espers, and probably some sort of conspiracy...because I haven't started writing it, there are still more doors than walls.

 
*Yes, most of these are untitled.  I'm worse with titles than I am with endings.

On Sickness and On Health

Call me crazy, but when one has the leisure to do nothing, plenty of soup, tea, and instant noodles, and internet or television access, being sick can actually be a rather pleasant experience.  Soothing, in fact.  If you are pushing yourself beyond your limits, sooner or later your body will step in and say:  Enough is enough.  You need to take a break.  And it will impose idleness on you through a complete lack of will to do anything productive.

I find it quite unfair that in our society, taking a day off because of stress is frowned upon, unless there is a tangible emergency or if one is physically ill.  After all, if one can be physically ill for a few days, but get better after lots of rest and fluids, why can't one be mentally ill for a few days and take a few days off to get over that?  I suppose it comes down to American (or perhaps not exclusively American) cynicism - if you claim to be depressed, you mght be faking, but if you claim to have a cold, I can see the snot coming out of your nose.  Also, it's contagious, and you are not wanted in your workplace or school.

Honestly, if not for the fact that I was sick, spending a day eating instant noodles and watching old cartoons would make me bored out of my mind.  I would also feel guilty about doing that instead of something productive like reading the book for my class, or writing one of the papers, or planning what I'm going to do next semester/the rest of my life.

When you come right down to it, sickness is justified misery, and I find the worst part of misery is the guilt.  People in my situations simply are not allowed to be miserable.

On a last note, being sick makes you appreciate being healthy and being able to function.  This earthly flesh is in fact a delicate instrument, and one needs to take care of it.  It could so easily go wrong.  But it hasn't.  This is probably the easiest problem to solve in anyone's life.  You know what to do, and it works every time. 

Appreciate the simple problems in life.

Was ist Literatur?

What is Literature?

What kind of stupid question is that? 

This is why I do not like literature classes.  I do like reading, and analyzing, and asking questions about texts.  The problem is that sometimes people get a bit carried away with regards to asking questions.  You are only supposed to ask them when you actually want an answer - and when you have something to gain from the answer.

Literature is just a word; and like every word, it has several meanings and shades of meaning.  For instance, it is often thought of as 1) what pretentious old academics call their favorite books (or the books they want you to think are their favorites), but anyone who works with it in depth usually takes the broader definition of 2) any and all written art.  A colloquial meaning, and the technical meaning.  No need for a philosopher; this is a job for a linguist.

I do not care if "a book is the ax for the frozen sea inside us" (Kafka).  I do not care if the goal of art is "to capture this world in such a way as to show how it is, but as though it had its source in human freedom" (Sartre).  All I know is that I need books the way I need food, and that if I don't write, I will die.  And that is enough of an answer for me.

Scheisse! - Ich bin eine Ausländerin.

It is difficult to be a foreigner.  If I have gained one useful thing from this whole experience, I will at least have a better understanding of non-native English speakers in America.

I am one of those people for whom looking stupid is one of the worst fates in the world.  I am terribly self-conscious about my speaking when I am around real Germans.  I know I screw up just about every ending, and that my vocabulary is not that great, and don't get me started on my accent.  However, I take offense when people assume that because I am from America, I am at a certain level of German.  That is to say, not able to pass the DSH 2 exam that allows me to study like a regular student at a German university.  Which I have.  Yes, I'm bragging; I think I deserve it.

I can write very well in German.  I also read German books.  The problem is, that doesn't show when you talk.  People only judge your language proficiency by speech.  Worse, mental capacity is often judged based on oratorial proficiency.  So for instance, if you attempt to make a joke/pun/play on words/clever converstaion piece that worked last week, you might end up with a German kindly explaining a grammar rule to you. 

I do not need the Germans to explain their language to me, considering that I am the one who has made a study of the grammar and rules and probably know the mechanics better than most native speakers.  I need experience.  I need to decipher the Hessian accent, and function in the back-and-forth of normal conversation.  I need to get the courage to make mistakes in front of native speakers, and the reassurance that at least I am understood.  If I need something explained, I will ask - and please explain in German.  Do not immediately grope after the English translation.  I am not some kind of linguistic invalid that needs to be coddled.

The point is:  When confronted by a non-native speaker of your native language, handle yourself thus:
1)  Ignore mistakes, unless you really cannot understand.
2)  If I ask you what you mean, repeat what you said just a little bit slower and clearer.  There are some things the classroom does not prepare one for.  Like regional accents and normal conversation.
3)  If I want a word clarified, look for synonyms or explanations in your language.  Don't fall back on translation.
4)  Assume that I know all the grammar theory already.
5)  Tell me I speak well, or have a good accent, or something.  Even if it's a lie.  I like the reassurance.  And I'm not going to believe you, even if you are telling the truth, so you may as well lie.
6)  Do not patronize.  I can think, you know.  In fact, many people consider me smart.  If you get over the fact that I am a non-native speaker and actually got to know me, you would find out that I have a whole lifetime of experiences, some of which might even be interesting.  A foreigner is not a tabula rasa.
7)  And remember:  My English is better than yours.

Because I am handling a language that is not native to me, I lack the shading and inflection that comes naturally to you. That does not mean I lack emotion or opinion.  Because I have a hard time expressing myself, that does not mean that there is nothing going on inside me.  Seriously people - don't judge.  This is a case of putting yourself in someone else's shoes.  Personally, I think everyone needs to experience being a stupid foreigner (being a tourist doesn't count; you're already stupid) at least once in their life.

Love

Everything there is to say about love has already been said.  However, I have not said everything I have to say.

Love is that feeling you get when someone looks at you, merely looks at you and recognizes you, and you feel like you're going to throw up or burst into tears or simply explode, because how dare they give you the hope of an actual relationship.  How dare you actually even think of one.  You would be lucky enough to become mere passing acquaintances - any deeper of a relationship, and you would likely discover that this person is not nearly so wonderful as you imagine them to be, or worse, they would discover that you are nothing special after all.

Some people believe that we are all half-people searching for our other half so that we can become whole.  I don't buy that.  The place in my heart that hurts is not a lack, not a hole, not some kind of void that needs to be filled.  It is a promise, no, less than a promise.  It is a potential.  A possibility.  That even though I am a whole person now, I might still be able to join with another person and make my life even more wonderful than it is now.  I don't need another person in order to live a happy and fulfilling life. 

That doesn't mean it never hurts.  Considering I equate love with nausea, it most definitely hurts.  And I'm sick of this awkward dance of trying to spend more time with a person while not letting them know what effect their presence has on you.  I'm apparently good at hiding my feelings.  It makes me wonder:  It seems like we're never on the receiving end.  But what if we are and we just don't know?  And how would you react if you found out someone you hardly knew felt nauseous around you?

Sometimes I wish that we were birds who had an inborn mating dance.  It would be so much simpler instead of trying to comply to unspoken rules learned from the media and the behavior of acquaintances.  For instance, it is not socially acceptable to ask someone the second time you meet them:  "Are you gay?  I think I might have a crush on you, but I'd like to be certain first.  And if you want to be just friends, that's fine too, mostly I'd just like to know."  Or:  "You're really pretty.  And I'd probably be killed in your country for saying that."  Or:  "I know you're gay and single, and I don't know much else about you, but let's go out and see what happens, because you look like you might be interesting."

Oh yes, I have extra risk when professing my love.  If you are straight, you have a 90% the other person will at least consider going out with you.  If you aren't, there's also a good chance that your object of affection will be squicked out at worst, accepting but emotionally unable to reciprocate at best.  Plus you have to go through the extra step of finding out if a person might potentially not be straight, instead of simply being able to see a gender.

Essentially, this post boils down to:  Why are there so many interesting straight girls?  Why is it so hard to tell straight girls from gay ones?  Why does society and the media try to tell you that a lover is a necessity in life?  Why do I want to be in love?  And why does being in love have to be so uncomfortable?

Right now I have the excuse that I'm only here temporarily to keep myself from investing my emotions too deeply, but once I get home it will be only my fear holding me back.

In Memoriam: Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones:  1934-2011

Funny how Death always comes in waves. 

This one, at least, I was expecting.  She had cancer for a few years, and knowing I was in the midst of a deathwave, I already somewhat expected it to happen about now.  That doesn't make it any easier.  I have read quite literally every one of her books (except maybe one or two obscure ones)

If Jacques was my gateway to fantasy, Jones was my addiction.  She taught me how magic works, and how cats talk, and about parallel dimensions, and how to blend science fiction and fantasy until one isn't sure what the difference is any more.  And more than any of that, her characters are more like people than any other writer I know of can manage.  The children are children and are sometimes selfish, the adults are sometimes helpful, sometimes well-meaning but useless, sometimes merely useless.  Yet you still have to love all of them. 

Sarah Monette (another one of my literary heros) says it best here.

In my own writing, I would have to say that Jones is my top influence.  I want to build a world that is whimsical yet plausible, with large parts unexplained but that somehow makes sense.  Nor are any but the most plot relevant aspects of magic ever explained - after all, it's freaking MAGIC. 

Howl's Moving Castle made her if not popular, at least somewhat known in mainstream.  I have to point out that I was a fan long before that.  And then, the way Harry Potter took my private love of fantasy and made it mainstream, the movie made Howl's Castle known to more than a select few.  It feels something like a betrayal when that happens.  You were once mine, and now I must share you.  Even though a private love is lonely.  I once fell in love based solely on an association with a book, but that is a topic for another time.

Diana Wynne Jones wrote in a way that I will never be able to, and I'm okay with that.  That does not mean I am going to give up writing.  It just means that I am going to try harder than ever to write MY book.  And it will be for Jones, and Jacques, and Lloyd Alexander, and every single author whose books I have read, the good and the bad, and every single person who has ever given me a story.  But Jones will not be able to read it.  She won't even know that I loved her so much, or that she had more than passing resemblence to an English teacher of mine.

So what is the moral of this story?  Meet your heros before they die?  A generation of greats must pass to make room for new ones?  In the face of death, carry on so that the lost ones did not live/die in vain?  I don't know.  All I know is that I love her books and I could not stop writing if I tried.

"Frostfire" - by Kai Meyer, Chapter 2 (Part 2/4)

            The path ahead of her seemed nearly endless and was furnished with only two lonely commodes.  All the drawers were glued shut.  The only door in the entire corridor led to the Czar’s Suite.  There was a spittoon – even that had a gold rim – but that was a miserable hiding place.

            Mouse was sweating, and not just from running.  Bit by bit, the situation was becoming serious.  The Roundsman had been trying to convict her for a long time.  He would drag her through the corridor by the scruff of her neck and present her triumphantly to the Concierge in the lobby.  “Here, a thief!  The Girl-Boy!” and then, yes then, she would be thrown out of the hotel, out into the cold of the Russian winter night.  Without a space she could crawl under.  Without a single copeck to buy a piece of bread or a hot tea.  To say nothing of the others who would finish her off outside.

            Mouse had to act.  Right now.  For a moment she played the the thought of swallowing the brooch.  But the thing was bigger than her thumb and had a stick pin attached.  Not a good idea.

            She had left a third of the corridor behind her when the shadow of the Roundsman loomed over the last bend.  The entrance to the Czar’s Suite, exactly in the middle of the floor, was a grandiose portal, with ornate columns on both sides and the relief of a roaring bear above the door.

            In front of it stood two pairs of shoes.

            Up to this point, Mouse had not gone on her daily collection tour.  Her cart which she pushed through the halls with the shoes of the guests – often a hundred pairs or more per night – stood on the floor below.

            Mouse had been responsible for the shoes of the guests for many years.  She was well-versed in the shapes, sizes, types of leather.  But in her entire life, she had never seen such curious specimens.

            The one pair was two costly lady’s shoes, worked with much filigree, with high heels, and made out of a material that looked like crystal.

            In harsh contrast to them stood another pair.  Two old leather shoes, flat and unadorned like those worn by the street boys who begged for leftovers at the kitchen entrance.  The strange thing about them was their condition – they looked as though an animal had chewed on them, after they had lain about a year in wind and weather in the forest.

            Mouse had no more time to wonder about them.  Following a sudden inspiration, she stuffed the brooch in one of the two ragged leather shoes – something warned her to leave the crystal pair alone – before she turned to face her pursuer. The Roundsman was not yet in eyeshot.  For a moment she had gooseflesh, and in that moment, it occurred to her for the first time how unusually cold it was here.  As though behind the door lay not a heated suite, but the snow-covered boulevard with its dancing whirlwinds of ice crystals.

            She jumped up and ran on, leaving suite, shoes, and brooch behind her.  She reached the next corner, wanted to breathe out a sigh of relief –

            And ran straight into the arms of the Roundsman.