Tired

• of people who should know better, since writing is what they do, than to contribute to the easy pegging of names/words to people, whether the issues are racism, religiously inspired dumbassery, feminism, and all other sorts of morality based judgments. We've got enough crap like that going on TV and the blogosphere as it is.
• of people who should know better twice-over, since writing Sfaich is what they do, than to contribute to reigning and ever-growing dumbassery that everything can be reduced to one simple word, one single issue. If world-making is already such a daunting task, why not learn from the experience and deduce that the real world is an even more daunting place to describe accurately?
• of people who should know better thrice-over, since they have hands-on experience on dealing with readers who may or may not give the whole extent of their lifework but a casual glance before making an easy single-word judgment based on a paragraph or even one book out of many. If you're not prepared to read up on the complicated field of ethics, don't make simple judgments based on an article or two, and especially don't parrot others who were obviously just as lazy.

Or, to quote my man Marcus:

Word after word, every one by itself, must the things that are spoken be conceived and understood; and so the things that are done, purpose after purpose, every one by itself likewise. And as in matter of purposes and actions, we must presently see what is the proper use and relation of every one; so of words must we be as ready, to consider of every one what is the true meaning, and signification of it according to truth and nature, however it be taken in common use
~Meditations, Book VII.4

Jitterbugs

There's still some fallout drifting past from someone's misinterpreted brainfart, like snow or dandruff. Little things bug me in what people say in their fierce condemnation of said brainfart, because while most comments or open letters about said brainfart are quite thoughtful, some of those thoughtful people proceed to run into the same fail. Not race fail. Not religion fail. Word fail. Thought fail. In a discussion about morals and ethics, I consider that pretty bad shit, digiblips.

This afternoon, a bug bit me when Shaun Duke/SMD over at his blog, World In a Satin Bag, added some more beating of the dead horse by beating someone else beating a dead horse. But then I figured, hey, enough dead horses already, and who's going to eat all that?

Yet I couldn't refrain from skimming the reactions, where another huge bug but me while I read Dave Baxter's comment:

I still disagree with you, SMD, that Moon displayed politics worthy of a boycott (though they were faulty, I still fail to perceive the majority of stances you claimed she'd supported with that controversial post), but yeah, this guy's "If you boycott, then we'll boycott you" is the beginning of a Middle East style never-ending sense of victimization on all sides.
"Middle East style never-ending sense of victimization on all sides"? Does the Middle East have sole right, or enough right to make it a style, to "never-ending sense of victimization on all sides"? Why could he not have made that statement without adding "Middle East style"? Or supplant it with, oh, myriad of choices here.... Belgian style (Flemish-Walloon)? Irish style (Protestant-Catholic)? Eastern Europe style (Balkans, anyone?). Central African (ehm, go ahead, close your eyes and put your finger on a map of the area; I'm sure there's a story that makes it a perfect fit)... How about Cold War style?
Considering the context I think "Middle East style" is a really really really bad choice of words to voice your thoughts. And fuzzy: what Middle East we talking about? Israel/Palestine? Bahrain? Egypt? Iraq?

Then, closer to home: in the cached and saved and widely spread around comment section of Elizabeth Moon's post, a bug bit me in the ass when I read Rhipowered's comment:

The line-up confuses me. What do France, Belgium and Switzerland have in common, and, by omission, have not in common with the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, UK...?
Seeing how later on France's burqa ban is mentioned, I'm left to assume it's about veils and burqas. But even then I don't see the logic of the line-up. The discussion on a burqa ban has been raging in the Netherlands since late 2005. As far as I can see, the Swiss are also "just talking" about the issue. What about Denmark? They have partial bans in place...

True, the Belgian law concerning face-obscuring wear, still in the making I think due to the whole having no real government and overall there being more of a political jihad between Flemish and Walloon for over quite some months now, has in the media always been called the burqa law (and boy do I love the media!). I trust the senate to make sure there's no slanted letter or word in the law's make-up that could make it even in the most LSD infected interpretation a law against burqas.
The law is in fact the federalisation of what local law has been saying from olden times: your face must be recognisable in public. This ties in into Belgium's concept of privacy and public security, which might be difficult to understand in a country that goes apeshit each time something along the lines of an ID card is mentioned. See, in Belgium, the street is considered a public arena. As a citizen I have rights and plights in that arena. One of the plights is: I have to have my ID on me at all times. This is the means by which I can prove to the cops that I have rights as a citizen. I do not have the right to be drunk in public. I do not have the right to run around naked in public. Not sure about fornication in public, but in any case, the rule of thumb is: don't do things in public you don't want your mommy to find out, right? If your neighbour sees you humping someone who is not your wife in public, you cannot sue him for invasion of privacy, all right? I do not have the right to ask a fellow citizen for his ID, that's privacy at work, and if you catch me standing on a box to try to peek in through your window to see what you doing with that woman who is not your wife, you can sue me for invasion of privacy even if I'm standing in the street. However, I do have the right to be able to identify any and all people hanging around in the public arena. That is my security against burglars, rapists, and all sorts of people that hide their face in order to do wrong.
Sadly this upsets a handful of people that have no evil in mind. Some are burqa-wearing Muslimas (I've seen estimations of 30 to 100, this on 10 million Belgians), who will probably be confined to the house if and when the law becomes active. It will probably upset a biker or two who in his haste to buy cigarettes or sumfin' might catch a cop in a bad mood. That is the price they will pay to keep our public arena safe and equal. They might be asked for ID. They might be asked to explain themselves or get a fine. Just like drunks might. Or not. And yes, the public has to keep a really close eye on the workings of the federal police, because yes, there are sadly far too many incidents that smack of racism.

So, all this considered, I'd like to invite rhipowered to do his own homework: I'm sure in the UK that all people are equal, are treated equal, that classes are in more than just name a thing of the past, and everybody lives the happy and carefree life of equal citizens: not afraid from fellow citizens and not afraid from government or its servants.

And then I'll raise you a veil-wearing MP. Where's yours?

Digiworld abuzz and other thoughts

Oh no! It's the end of an era, like a death of the party, the community is dying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What's all this talk about death of an era? Don't you silly digiblips know that if you hang around long enough in cyberspace everything comes back, even when it's supposed to be dead?

First I believed this was because in this new millennium even retro is retro-recycled. We do retro so well we're remaking shit before it's made!

Then I thought, maybe it's because the community keeps bits alive like zombie raising necromancers.

But now I understand: cyberspace's got a hell of an echo.

NB: I'm sorta reacting to this and this and this and this ...

Interjection of random silliness: whenever I click through to Larry's blog I think of Gonads & Strife. And  my mind associates this with the death of an era, and somehow quite fittingly, the fall of two towers. Maybe one day, I'll talk about that. Gonads & Strife forever, man.

Anyways, there's been some hissyfitting over some dude (no offense) writing an article on fantasy and postmodernism, with all sorts of people (also no offense) commenting whilst trying to be so much wiser than the previous blogue(r) about the value of the article and postmodernism.

Seriously? Are you kidding me? Here I thought we were safely moving away from that old dead horse and entering the newer, though obviously not quite so imaginative, era of post-postmodernism. But maybe this *is* post-postmodernism at work: everybody's so stuck in/on postmodernism that the only way forward is to keep reinventing what it means to be postmodern. Ad infinitum. Fire up that retro-recycler dudes.

The way I see it, six decades and counting is a whole lot of time to react to modernism. The only place where postmodernism isn't dead is in philosophy, any kind of taste in philosophy. All the rest is resisting and rehashing what came before, which is a natural mechanism in any kind of movement, in any kind of creative act, whether it is in body and mind postmodern or not. Just like modernism reacted to what came before. I, for one, am done flogging a dead horse over and over again. Let's just skip the whole P-mod and move on.

So anyways. Here I am thinking about that Bruce Sterling quote on cyberspace cuz it came up in a convo with the hubby yesterday ("Cyberspace is the 'place' where a telephone conversation appears to occur. Not inside your actual phone, the plastic device on your desk. Not inside the other person's phone, in some other city. The place between the phones.").

And I'm thinking of how people are always so surprised when people die in train stations or other busy transit nodes without anybody noticing; it doesn't surprise me, train stations are perfect for spies to meet, thieves to earn their living, terrorists to plant bombs: not because there are too many people packed upon each other for any one to notice something strange, but because there are too many people on automatic pilot zooming through this non-place, this haven of anonymity.

And then I'm thinking maybe it's not so much the anonymity, but the fact that a train station has to the people in the daily commute transit as much no real physical existence as cyberspace. It's that place where mind does one thing, while meat somewhere else does something else. That place where strangers meet, spend daily hours together for months on end, and then suddenly the "community" falls apart as all participants walk away, as if they were living in some collective hallucination. Very faerie adventure like. It's a weird fractured and fractalised reality. X-nay on the P-mod, 'kay?

 

And whereas in faerie-tales there would be a source, or a lady of the lake, or a burning bush marking the border of the here and the other place, there's no tollbooth except for the simple everyday items, like a keyboard or a ticket dispenser. Not sure if things would be different if there were things like ladies of the chips and stuff. Like nine sisters.

And this makes me want to watch Avalon again for the nth time, but I loaned out the DVD and I can't recall to whom. Ain't the real physical world a bitch like that?

YAOK or NOYAOK?

Stephen Deas is looking for YA readers and will throw free copies at them (not literally; the exact reasons and manners can be read on his blog) in a search for the essence of YA.

While I have yet to read the Thief-taker's Apprentice (damned maxed out credit card!), I think Deas makes an excellent point about how subjective the picking of a hero is, and that our childhood heroes are often completely different from those we pick as adults. All you have to do to confirm this is reread a couple of your favourite childhood novels, and you'll easily find that your beloved hero turns out to be a naive git, and that the boring guy is a far more intriguing character.

Only yesterday, whilst conversing with the hubby on *issues* (or -isms as they are or are not present in books or movies; this mainly prompted by our processing of Newton's City of Ruins), we came upon the subject when he reminisced on having heard about heroes and examples in popular culture from his 18y+ students. A bunch of worldly-wise, free and outspoken young women amongst them nominated Druuna as their female heroin and champion. Seriously, if you have no idea who Druuna is, click on the link and you'll see how this is a quite baffling choice for emancipated women to make. NB: I am not judging the choice here, only illuminating that it really is not as easy as it seems.

So I think Deas is engaging in an interesting experiment here. I know I've always been confused by the many ways you can define a genre, and in the end it *is* marketing that decides (as Adam Christopher wonders in his comment), for the same reason that readers of Dark Romance are considered (by marketing dudes) to feel more at ease standing close to the Thrillers and SF&F section than the mainstream Romance.

I'm one of those crazy kids who was reading adult fiction of all genres by the time I was 13, and most of the YA novels I continued to read were either emotionally quite hefty and thought provoking, or SF&F, where the only difference with the adult stuff was the difference in language. And as it happens, one of the definitions of YA zones in on the language used (as in the actual grammar and words) and whether it is on a YA level, which is already pretty vague if we're trying to define a box, if you ask me. Yet, it's the only definition I've found that holds up cross-genre (fiction, thriller, SF/F,...).

I regularly check reviews or comments about YA books, since I'm not averse to reading a YA book once in a while. But I often wonder why adults find a story more easily not-YA-okay (NOYAOK) when it's SF&F YA (based on the -isms or violence or dark and disturbing stuff the story deals with). As if SF&F for teens must always deal with cute ETs and nice unicorns, while mainstream YA fiction can go further without its YA-okayness being questioned.
Well, unless you're asking your Catholic schoolteacher if you can read Aidan Chambers' Now I Know for your book report. Ah, if only she had known that I was also reading  and working through Dante's Divina Comedia, verse by verse, as my serious lecture that year. Ah, good times, good times...

In his You Tell Me, Nathan Bransford asks: 
What is it about writing that makes people put on the blinders and fail to recognize their limitations and makes the talented unable to recognize their own goodness?

After 195 comments we had in the answers:

1)    lots and lots of: writing is subjective and personal, tastes differ. It's really no different than any other art (painting, music,...). Then add: but what's good enough to get published might not be so subjective, but then as hanna@14th-10:38AM pointed out and Dave@A Writer's Look@14th-10:43am expanded, you also have to take into account that bad writing gets published and sometimes sells way better than good writing, and that Nathan gets cranky when you push that stream of thought to its limits (only $$$ matters to the market). Anonymous Bill@14th-12:29pm sidesteps this nicely, and concludes that what's important to the discussion is not that bad writing gets published, but *why*: "These are the surface characteristics, not the true nuances that make for lasting success. And recognizing the less recognizeable, IMHO, is the key to differentiating the amateur of transient brilliance from the lasting professional talent."
2)    Mentions of the Dunning-Kruger effect abound, which IMO sort of comes down to "we're basically unknowable about the things we don't know so we don't know but naming it Dunning-Kruger makes it sound posh".
3)    Jaime@14th-10:52am encapsulates what others said before: it's language, everybody uses language, so it can not be difficult. Add trent@14th-10:37am's that writing doesn't need a great deal of capital before you can start. Add to this it's a learning process (you can always learn more and better language), everybody "thinks" s/he's a good writer until they try. Also, not everybody is taught what good writing/literature is, which sort of ignores the whole point of the subjectivity of "good writing" in #1 (. Though I agree that benchmarking is an important part of the learning process.
4)    Some of the fingers pointing at subjectivity do not limit it to "good" or "bad" writing, but how basically you can compare titles. An apple is not a pear, though both fruits, right? And yet our so low-cost writerly tools (trent, above) only help to create deception; as Kerry Gans@14th-1:43pm puts it: "Maybe because my typed Word document looks the same as everyone else's typed Word document [...]you can see that you can't jump as high as the NBA guys [...] But my words typed on a page look pretty much the same as JK Rowlings'".
5)    Also, abundant variation of the theme "there's always idiots". Our egos get in the way of clear thinking. Or more softly put: everybody likes their baby, even if it's a misshapen heap of flesh without a brain. Writing creates a high, and you need your distance to be a good judge. Nancy@14th-7:02pm phrases it nicely with "Most writers don't realize they have substituted quality for euphoria in the act of creation. It takes years of practice and learning to discern the difference. What we see as a talented writer is one who constantly goes through this process of discernment, and probably has a worn out delete key." We delude ourselves links nicely with:
6)    Imagination (Travis Erwin@14th-1:36pm). To write we tap into our imagination, and it's a land where we're kings and live in huge sprawling palaces with 100 bathrooms with golden taps and not once in that bit of fantasy we stop and think about who the hell is going to keep all those bathrooms clean. As C.J.Atsvinh@14th-1:46am puts it: "when we dream, man do we dream big." From this naturally follows what Ghost Girl@14th-10:46am says: "it's kind of like hearing our own voice; it sounds completely different outside of our own head." And James@14th-12:12pm links it closer to language: "People imagine writing is especially easy because it is the only art form that is expressed in our minds - or seems that way. This creates the illusion that we have created what we are reading", and Brant@14th-1:52pm continues in that line: "That process translates into me having a qualitatively different experience when reading my own work than someone else will. For everyone else, the text has to stand on its own merits." Ink@14th-3:20pm elaborates the idea that words are at the heart of a work's subjectivity: "part of every text comes from the reader, from how they translate these symbols into a vision they see and hear and feel [...] for the writer, we already have the vision in our head. We have it there as we write, or even before we write. "

IMO, it's not simply that words can and will be interpreted by the reader even when the author has great skill or craft or talent or luck in guiding the reader's eye and mind (go too far on that post-modern path and you'll soon be proclaiming the author dead, and trust me: not where you want to end up as writer). That everyone carries their own experiences in words with them is only part of the problem.
But words are the tools of our mind, not simply of our imagination or memory. We think in words to define our reality, it gives form to the formless reflections of light that fall into our eyes. And while through imagination we create a new reality with words (as writers and readers we experience how that works), we often fail to see that even the real reality in which we sit behind the computer writing is in a way a construct of our brain (but let's not go off into the deep-end of solipsism). We easily get fooled by our own high because what we write at that moment simply *is* sublime. By feeling/thinking it, we make it so, to us at least. And without drifting off into solipsism: who is to say it isn't?
And that's why it's always such a good advice to put something in a box or drawer for a while when you think you've finished. Not simply because somewhat later the high will have worn off, or we'll have learned new tricks, can sift out errors we've newly learned to identify, but also because our words themselves, the meanings and associations and experiences behind them, have changed. When you look at your creation again after a long time of doing something else completely, it will be with almost literally new eyes.
And then, of course, the trick is to keep that distance, not get sucked in by your own imagination or high again, so that you may actually see things for what they are...

To blog or not to blog

Somewhere in May, when I followed an SFtidbit link to the Blog of the Fallen (in response to amongst others Nextread's post on the death of SF), I jotted down some remarks on blogging and debate and so on, but apparently never came to actually posting. Which makes the futility of pondering and formulating questions and responses over here rather than over there less of a futility. Ha.

So, more as an exercise of thought than anything else: to blog or not blog? what is blogging?

Quote from the blog self:

And I'm left thinking, "What the hell is being argued now?  That one can hold an opinion unsupported by evidence and that one shouldn't be called out on it?"

Of course!  99% of your daily opinions are unsupported by evidence, or at least evidence that works outside of your skull/body.

Everyone has the right to hold opinions [...]

This might be reading between the lines, but in your starting statement seems to be hiding some value judgement about people who cannot support their opinions by evidence: in your world, they don't exist.

But at the same point, having an opinion, strong or weak or indifferent, does not give that opinion holder shelter from others' skepticism.

Of course not, but then, naming it skepticism doesn't mean that it is anything else than just another opinion.

Sometimes, the blogger has to provide evidence that s/he is well-grounded in what s/he is trying to argue or else just be silent for a spell and try to listen to the points another is making.

Well, that's sort of saying that you have to listen to all a Jehovah witness has to say when he comes ringing your doorbell. I believe it is no different than in the real world: as a commenter you also have to know your blogger. If you go to a house party of a colleague, of whom you know he doesn't talk shop outside of the office, then everyday etiquette is: you don't talk shop. A Jehovah witness sure knows that since it is your door, you can do as you please with it.

And: I'm not sure opinions need to be validated by evidence. Good old inductive argumentation requires some factual statement, true, but let's not pretend a factual statement is anything like solid proof. In debate, your listener may always dismiss your factual statement.
But then, apart from watching too much Holy Grail in childhood, I had favourite jokes like:
   - What's the difference between a blackbird?
   - Between a black bird and what?
   - What's the difference between a blackbird?
   - Errr, I dunno?
   - His legs are of the same length. Especially the left one.

Or as rahkan said in the comments:

It kind of depends on what kind of conversation you're trying to have. And who you want to have it with. Everyone on the internet is not necessarily trying to talk to everyone else.

Then Martin said:

Gav, I don't know why on Earth you would think that you have to just take or leave opinions. That isn't how newspapers work and it certainly isn't how blogs work (it also completely goes against your conclusion that blogging is about expressing an opinion). Why would you have comments enabled if this was true? As for the idea that an opinion's authority is based on your view of the commentator, do you really not think the opinion itself plays a part?

I like the analogy of a newspaper's opinion piece and blogging (with comments off). You could write to the newspaper with your counter-arguments if you don't agree, but writing a thoughtful, well-argued response is just as much work and just as time consuming as doing it online. Most people don't: hence opinions are there to take or leave. Besides, in the world as it is today, you'd go crazy (and certainly would not get much written that should get written as a would-be* author ) trying to come up with counter-arguments for every opinion you don't agree to. So, while the writer of an opinion piece could see getting counter-arguments in response as the prime intent of voicing said opinion, s/he will only get a select few of counter-arguments: those people that can actually be bothered.

Having or not having some valid base for the words you utter, adhering to some form or another, using whatever channel you want: even if your words have as much power as you can muster (arguments, factual statements, proof, whatever), they will never have the absolute power of coercing a response. You cannot make the deaf hear.

All in all, the conversation in the comments of said post only illustrated to me that I really and truly don't buy the illusion of blogging.

What illusion?

Well, the old adage on opinions and assholes holds, and the illusion of blogging is that a blog is a platform for debate. It's not. It's a soapbox, only good for giving your opinion, with that change that you can make sure nobody can come and throw rotten tomatoes because they didn't like your opinion or the way you voiced it.

Giving an opinion and having discussion going on in the comments is not a debate: you are not on equal footing. Twitter is perhaps a better platform for real debate, except that it's an even shorter form so there's even less space for thought and tact.

What's more, the question: do you twitter?, makes me want to shout: No! I'm not a frigging bird!

Plus: God forbid that I'll have something else/new to take my mind of the things I should be doing.

Plusplus: Switching from one Twitteroo to another and trying to filter out the idiots that swish past strafing off a few words on another topic you're not interested in (sort of like trying to have a discussions in a noisy bar or dancing club) is making me cross-eyed. But perhaps there's some integrated Twitter reader I haven't found yet that makes this easier? If not, someone should go and invent it NOW!

But wait. Hold on. What am I asking?

• a public platform
• input should allow a decent length for thoughtful responses
• integrated, so as a public, whether you want to join in or not, you can at least follow the debate without getting a headache

Does this sound familiar to you? IRC anyone?

Blogs are a soapbox, made to shout out your opinion, not made for real debate. So, debating on debate etiquette or nature in blogs is *head explodes*

Since the blogger can adjust for mood whether s/he will allow a response, you as a commenter are subordinate: the whole format of blogging dictates that you are not equal to the blogger.

As a commenter you have as much power as when you'd ring somebody's doorbell to inform them they have a very nice garden. The garden's owner may strike up a conversation on azaleas with you, they may just nod and make the finger at temple for crazy motion once they've closed the door, or they may worry about safety and call the police. So, if you as commenter really want to use blogs for debate: know your blogger.

Nothing in the nature of a blog holds the promise that you could actually come to a real debate. And no factual statement ('but most blogs allow comments to have a debate') can change this: it's not because you or any number of people use a spoon as shovel that a spoon was not originally made for eating soup.

It seems to me that with every progression of technology, the basic characteristics that work best for a technology are abandoned for looks and comfort.

I'm not conservative, or somehow scared/confused/bedazzled by world-changing technology. My first computer was a ZX80 and I was something like 8 years old. Since then I've witnessed lots of changes, in technology and in the meatball response to that technology. Some are good, some are bad, most of them are here nor there. But like I said in a previous post on the value of innovations, whether ethical or social or financial: are innovations really world changing if they cannot do your laundry and ironing?


* haha: at my first attempt I wrote "wood-be". Damned Flemglish. Need more coffee!

Writer's block

First of all, let's be clear: I don't have it.
Or let's be even clearer: I'm not currently experiencing it.

But I have been thinking about it lately, mostly because some article or blog where it's mentioned. And while there is no real consensus on what writer's block is, I find the term used inappropriately all too often. My writer's block is years old, but it's only the last two or three years that I'm able to really think the process through, confident I won't get sucked back in. I've come to terms with the beast.

See, at least in my humble opinion (which of course could just be colored too strongly by the severe nature of said block), writer's block is not "some blockage" of muse or linguistic capacities. Nothing like a bout of constipation that can be solved with fiber or medication. Not every symptom points to the same condition, not every headache indicates a brain tumor.

Inspired by an old post by Juliette Wade on writer's block, I'd like to list what I (once again: humble opinion) see as fakes, adding to her (paraphrased) three:

1) no time to write (equals frustration and leads to eating too fast, not enough munching, bad for the innards). I'd like to addendumate Ms. Wade's list here with: too stressed to write. Whatever the reason for your stress (work, deadline, bad hair day) make time to eat. The stress itself is already enough, err, stress, on your system; you don't want to add flatulence, constipation, hiccups, acid burn,... to the list of stress-causers. Stress can snowball like that.
2) no energy to write (if you come home each night from work , too starved to reach the fridge, you seriously need to think about snacks. snacks can save your day. keep snacks in the office, the car, your purse, pocket,... eat a tidbit while you can, and it will tie you over)
3) no story to write (if you feel bored eating, ask yourself why, and differentiate your diet. there's no rule that says you have to eat potatoes every day, you know). Again I addendumate: nothing GOOD to write (water is healthy, even if fish fuck in it. salad can be yummy, even if you're not a cow. and everybody needs fiber. Sometimes you just need to get through the boring stuff to get to the chocolate mousse.)
4) page fright
That moment where you stare into the blank page and the blank page stares into you. I've had it happen, and I doubt I'm the only one on the planet, but I wouldn't call that writer's block. More a sign that my mind isn't finished with fiddling with the scene, plot, words, whatever. Or that it hasn't grabbed the story by the tail firmly enough to commit it to canvas.
I leave the blank page be, go and do something else. The words will come eventually, no surgery needed.
5) other anxieties
This covers all sorts of things, that usually lead to much procrastination. Feeling anal about wordcount? Are your infodumps to big? Does that skirt make your ass look fat? Do you have a milk mustache, spinach stuck between your teeth or did the wine color your teeth and tongue?
Take a deep breath and a step back. There's no kick like putting a fear to rest, especially when you've wallowed in them for quite some time and then find yourself able to fix them in a snap. Go ahead, allow yourself to wallow. Count those words and count them again, and fear each time there too many/not enough of them. Pull your hair, sob and moan. Then get yourself a mirror and a toothbrush, and fix it.

All in all, above problems concern time, willpower or ego, and given experience any writer will learn how to deal with those hiccups. I know I did, and I'm not even published yet. And it's a continuous process; I'm developing new hiccups regularly. But stress and anxiety management problems are just that: hiccups and farts. Hot air. It blows over.

Now, to me, writer's block is something else. A serious condition, and while its origin may be in- or external, it comes down all the same to a serious existential nervous breakdown. It's not that the ideas or words stop coming, but that, for the love of God, you can't think of a reason to put them down. If you start questioning words and their meaning, you're in as much trouble as a writer, as a priest who starts doubting the existence of God.

One moment you'll be so utterly depressed by the thought of writing anything (yes, even nonsensical crap, or your shopping list for crying out loud!) that all you can do is sit and stare at the wall. The next you'll turn into a lightning spitting ball of venom, shredding whatever you find in the drawer because it's all meaningless anyway. Luckily I found out that my impulse to hang on to old crap and spend afternoons huddling it with fierce nostalgia is unbeatable. If it hadn't been, I'd faced a tabula rasa from which I might not have recovered, because I needed that old crap to nurse myself back to health. After three years of block.

Take heed: deep down humans do whatever they do for one reason only, and that's to find reason in their existence. And it's not just "what you'd like to be when you grow up". Man cannot do something well if his heart isn't in it, and the heart only gets to go in, if he finds reason. Digging pits and filling them up the next day makes people go insane, unless somehow they can believe it is a good thing they are there every day, digging and filling. Watch them doing it for a year and then tell them it was for nothing, and be ready to either hand out lots of beer/chocolate or dodge the angry mob.

The trouble with this (my own) definition of writer's block is:
in all the experiences I've had in this life, it only equals quitting my nicotine habit. You can quit smoking, but the cigarette never leaves your system. Thirty years from now it will still be there, in my dreams, in every unguarded moment.

Now there's a scary thought.

If I power down my reader, where do the e-books go?

In this day and age, we all know what it means to have a hard drive go *fritzle* on you.
We are quite aware that when your camera gets stolen at the end of your trip in Venice, it is not the camera you miss.
We know that whatever you release on the net, might come back one day to haunt you, that unless all hard drives over the world go *fritzle* at the same time, chances(1) are your digital ejaculation lies dormant in some cache.

See, any *e* consists of current harnessed into patterns, digital blips in a computer somewhere out there.
*e*patterns are loss- and piracy-prone because of what they are; you cannot control both what they are and where they are. Let me be cutesy and call it ... uncertainty.

Reading about the Amazon vs. Macmillan slugfest on industry blogs, I find they focus strongly on the economics and legalities when discussing The Events That Shape The Future of Publishing, while neither is at the core of the issue. I think, for an industry specialized in dealing with words in any shape or form, they are strangely confused on definitions.

I'm not from the industry, but I do sort of try to keep up for reasons of hopefully becoming part of it one day. I also do not own an e-reader, nor have I bought an e-book. So, what follows could just be gibberish.
But I consider this a simple identity crisis, and as with any crisis, this one too shall pass. Usually some introspection and philosophy helps the process along, and I believe that must come before talking economics and legalities, or you end up with bad solutions that will haunt you forever by creating and endless string of insolvable problems.

To me, "publishing" means that I, as a consumer, can consume the published products. I own what I buy, and I can sell it to my neighbor or give it to charity if I want. As simple as that. I buy a bottle of lemonade, and neither the store (distributor) nor the producer (publisher) have the right to take the product back, whether I've already consumed it or not(2).
Of course, the industry will take my behavior into account when setting the price, but the industry also knows that my re-distributing the product is also a form of advertisement. When we're speaking *e*, there has to be a recovery procedure in place, as already existent in other *e* based industries (an option to buying a hard-copy (i.e. CD, not book) for a minimum of price increase, or having a second download chance, personalized *e*accounts that track my purchases,...)


But as I understand it, Amazon doesn't want to sell me e-books, do they? No, they want to sell me a service and pretend I've bought something. Alas (for them), as far as my trusted Oxford says:

to buy : obtain [= acquire : gain by and for oneself] in exchange for money etc.

Now, don't get me wrong: paying for a service only or not owning the e-book I want to read are not the issues. But I believe we already have a word for when someone has a catalog of books and you pay for the privilege to read them without owning them. And libraries don't let you buy, they let you loan.

I think all the players involved should declare whether they are publisher or distributor, online marketplace or library.

See, definitions will save the world!


(1) and do interpret this word as you always do, whatever your personal experience with Chance is. You feel lucky, punk?
(2) yeah yeah, unless the bottling line got infected with pieces of rat or the limes were poisoned. But even then, I may keep my bottled "rat's head on lemonade" if I want to, right?

shtuff

Rebuilt my website; hopefully I'll manage to keep it up to date this time. There's still lots of work to do, but it functions and, well, I must keep the procrastination in check., because I should direct some effort into finding a job.

Ha, you thought I was going to say writing, didn't you? Though I have been doing writer's stuff; it's not all been site site site. I've done the groundwork for agent-querying, but I need a break from the query and selections, let the illusions evaporate. Then reread, rework, and push the button. Also did a quick review of two WIPs.

But since I have been procrastinating with the site, I'll now have to fill in the break with job hunting, which is in a way not far away enough from prepping a query to constitute a *break*.

I need a break, seriously. My head is all jumbled with words/definitions, and it's making me nervous. Definitions, by definition, should be fixed, but I did a lot of query-prepping, attentively, and started to notice words being used differently while meaning the same the thing, so obviously the definitions are not as fixedly defined, and this is very confusing if the language isn't yours to begin with. I'm not even going to add in the connotation of a word.
So I can't stop thinking, with chills running down my spine, about how the definition of a word is just other words, and before I know it I'm gonna end up in that horrible abyss where words have no meaning at all and that's no place to be for someone who defines reality by stringing up words into sentences and paragraphs and whole chapters.
Been there, done that, need a break.

Or a job.