Maundy

When I got off work yesterday, I was looking forward to a four-day weekend. I was literally itching for four days of non-stop rest, four days of relaxation, four days where I wouldn't have to use one hundred and thirty percent of my brain for the most mundane tasks.

The fact that I wasn't going out of town for the holidays made my prospects look a lot better. I mean, I wasn't looking at concerns about the traffic, and I didn't have to worry about planning and executing a vacation itinerary. In short, things were looking up.

Then Thursday hit, and the fact dawned on me: I'm bored.

I've been stuck in front of the computer for virtually the entire afternoon now, running my sorceress character through Diablo II for the third straight time, wondering if this is all there is. Part of me wants to write something, but I'd like to spend some time plotting out an idea first. Part of me wants to head back to the office and finish a few incomplete pieces of work, but the rational side of my head just smacks me on the upside every time I think that.

The TV is on right beside me, but besides a single episode of CSI, I've seen nothing but news programs on. At this point, I'm not sure how receptive I am to certain bits of news: I don't care about how the alleged underground struggle against the Philippine president is faring over the Easter weekend, and I can't even muster up enough curiosity to ask why both Bin Laden and the Danish government are getting their robes up in a bunch over some cartoons.

Darn it, I'm bored. I should have gotten out of town when I had the chance, stress or no stress.

Admittedly, I'll get my chance in early May, shortly after my birthday. I have some old college friends who are finally getting married after a ten-year-long relationship, and I'm not about to miss this momentous Event of the Decade. But that's still a month from now, and in the meantime, I'm still bored.

Maybe I'll just head out and see if any places are open today. It's only Thursday, after all, and I figure that there have to be at least a few hangout spots available for people to walk around and think for a bit. It's better than sitting in front of the computer, at least.

Ah, well... might as well dress up. Dame Elemen can wait for a bit...

Made You Look

Having spent the last couple of days looking over various blogs and websites for anything interesting that I missed, I've come to a single conclusion: We apparently can't help but look at the controversial stuff.

This is natural, I suppose. If an item is offensive, vituperative, or just downright inane, then it automatically piques our curiosity. It compels us to look, to watch the drama unfold, and to pull other people into the audience. Even if we're not the type to do so, such spectacles usually prompt us to write about them in some way... which consequently gets our readers clicking on links or retyping addresses in an effort to see what it was that got our proverbial goats.

I find this to be both strange and normal at the same time. There are more than a few intelligent posts out there, and yet I find few references to them when compared to the plain crowd-drawers and the worthless spectacles. We should be reading more of the former and less of the latter, in my humble opinion.

We have a bad habit of standing and gawking at things, of promoting passive activism from the comfort of our armchairs, of writing insults from the safety of anonymous usernames. We seem to make sure that there's a healthy distance between us and the short-term flavor-of-the-month for some reason. Maybe it's because we're too shy or too cowardly to do anything substantial about it. Maybe it's because we don't want to invest any direct involvement into something that wasn't ours to begin with. Maybe it's because we're desperate for entertainment, and there's nothing better to watch on TV at the moment.

Gawking is a terrible habit. I feel that we should just plain stop this -- either we take a more direct hand in these matters, or we duck out of the way completely. Any of these two actions seems like a far better option.

So there's a member of the moneyed class inciting a blog-fueled smear campaign against a former boyfriend. So what? Will leaving comments on this person's blog provide any progress on the situation? Hell, no. If we truly hold an interest in the matter, then we should be doing something more constructive -- like physically contacting both parties to bring about a proper resolution. And if we can't? Then, well... we should just stop reading the stupid blog, stop milling around in confusion, and get out of the damn way.

So there's a magazine writer who put up a potentially offensive article aimed at the people who wronged her in the past. So what? Will writing strongly-worded reactions or sending her vile counter-insults improve the situation in any way? Hell, no. If we really want to resolve the issue once and for all, then we should be meeting with this person and her editors in a proper forum. And if we can't? Then we should just ignore her and get on with our own lives.

So there's some guy who walks out of a courtroom, puts up a website, and tries to start a revolution on his own. So there's some guy who kidnaps a busload of kids from his own daycare center. So there's some putz who constantly uses his website to insult the best movies you ever watched. So what?

These are the ones who want your attention. These are the people who try to get a rise out of you, the bullies who take your lunchbox and then ask you what you're going to do about it. They want you to howl, stamp your feet and scream bloody murder. They want you to play their game. They make you think you can win if you play by their rules.

And the trouble is, it's all too easy for us to fall into such traps.

Better not to play. Better to steel your jaw and just walk away. Unless you have some direct stake in the game, unless you can walk in and enforce your own terms, unless you can make some solid mark that won't just bounce off the other guy's teeth... better to hold back and refuse to get roped in.

Our attention span should not be commanded around like a man playing fetch with his dog. Personal interest should be freely given and never compelled. It should be carefully considered and never instigated. Anyone who attempts to do the latter merely tries to play us for fools, more often than not.

Hiatus? What Hiatus?

Despite my workload at the moment, I haven't quite stopped writing posts yet. In fact, as you have probably seen from my last few articles, I've been logging in late at night just to get some writing done.

The reason behind my recent "hiatus" is actually a lot more circumstantial: It's March. What that means is that my college-level sister, who's a sophomore in a Communications course, suddenly has a ton of papers and other group projects to complete. In this day and age, her generation of students don't merely gather in somebody's house just to coordinate research and construct their final reports. Instead, they do their own digging through home computers and personal Internet connections, and take time out for discussion through tools like Yahoo! Messenger.

On my sister's end, she's been doing this every night now. Usually she manages to last from about 10:00pm (around the same time I get home from work) to 3:00am (around the time I usually nod off). This is far longer than I used to stay up for my college projects -- either we had worse technology back then, or I was a better student than I thought -- but the result is the same: I don't get to use the Internet in the meantime.

And that's why you probably haven't seen me online for a while.

It's the weekend, though, which means that she might not touch the computer for a while. This should give me a few gaps where I can put up some interesting posts... but I shouldn't count on that. She's remarkably studious for a twenty-year-old.

Crime Stories

Okay, okay... one post tonight. But only because I'm having trouble finding a plot for a crime story.

Yes, crime stories are a part of speculative fiction. You can think of this as a mix of subcategories: Mystery is probably the most well-known of these, whereas genres such as the Whodunit and the Noir have each had their day in the sun. Historically, crime stories have been mostly marginalized and accused of having no redeemable artistic value. That gives them a background that is similar to the fantasy and science fiction that we know and love, and is probably why these genres all get lumped together when it comes to "speculative fiction."

Nevertheless, I'm still having trouble finding a plot for a crime story. Just because one can deal with magic and robots on a regular basis doesn't mean that he can take the sight of a bullet-ridden body in the dead of night.

Seriously, however... I think that my mode of thought is off whack right now. Crime stories need a certain mentality to understand them and outline the resulting plots. Given that my method of plotting stories lies somewhere along the lines of "Ooooh, oooh, what if you had a call center run by vampires?", you can probably see my problem there.

I also have a habit of injecting a lot of needless detail into my work. I've always figured that it helps the atmosphere, but with crime stories it's another issue altogether. The genre always seems to be a lot more complex than it looks at first glance -- packing a lot of detail into its stories therefore isn't as effective as choosing your elements carefully. Mind you, I suspect that I see a lot of mystery novelists on the bookshelves simply because it's difficult to concentrate all their thoughts into a mere two thousand words.

There's also the issue of what crime to choose. I figure that such things as murder, robbery and fraud are old standbys... but they might be too overused for me. If I've seen a scheme executed on TV in some form, then I figure that it's been long done... and unfortunately, I've seen too many episodes of CSI. Or NCIS. Or Law and Order. Or Matlock, of all things.

Of course, the easiest way out would be to simply mix crime fiction with the more fantastic genres... but it's the easiest way out for a reason: it's too easy. Besides, the editors probably wouldn't fly with my adulterating their beloved crime genre with my constantly-flitting ideas.

Then there's always the possibility of sitting back and letting the perfect crime come to me. I don't mean that I'd like to get mugged in the middle of the night sometime, of course. I mean that, at some point in time, the perfect crime encased in the perfect intractable situation with the perfect cast of characters will come to me. Maybe it'll happen before the deadline, or maybe it'll come a little too late. Whatever the case, I'll be thinking about it a little more.

That's it for tonight. I'll go and have a few nightmares to cheer me up.

Flavor Text

The little whiteboard above my office desk used to have the following quotation written on it:

"Everything the wise woman learned,
She wrote in a book.
And when the pages were black with ink,
She took white ink, and began again."

The quotation also happens to be on the signature line of my primary e-mail address. In fact, it's been that way for the last ten years.

I get a lot of surprised looks when I reveal where the quote is from. No, it's not a tidbit of wisdom from a famous historical figure. No, it's not some obscure koan from an unknown branch of Zen Buddhism. It's actually a piece of flavor text from an old Magic card.

From there, I just give a wry smile and point out that it's possible to get great quotations from the strangest places. And that's part of the point, really.

I'm not sure why I scribble these things on the whiteboard above my desk. Maybe I want to find some use for dry markers in an age where all my business communication is done through satellite phones and e-mail. Maybe I'm subconsciously looking for inspiration in the crevices of memory. Maybe I just get a kick out of watching people crane their necks to see what I'm about to write next.

If there's a surprise benefit in these quotations, however, it's the fact that they reveal exactly who the gamers, the movie bums, and the literati are in my office. A man who sees the quote above and marvels at its enlightened meaning obviously didn't have much in the way of tabletop hobbies. A man who sees the quote above and chuckles at the childhood memory probably has first-hand experience of where it came from.

And on my end, it forces me to think a bit... to grasp at what I remember of a gaming life and wonder exactly when I get to start up again.

Presently, the quote on my whiteboard now reads as follows:

"When ten thousand men clash with arms and fire,
It is always a single man's actions that make the difference."

This, of course, is not from any distinguished military tactician's texts; nor is it from a Chinese treatise on war and bravery. It's another piece of flavor text, this time from a Legend of the Five Rings card, and it amuses me greatly.

Disclaimer: March 2008

Okay, pencils out. With over forty disclaimer articles on this site, we're all bound to have learned a thing or two. Just in case, however, the questions below are your standard multiple-choice thingies. Mark your answers on a piece of paper and skip to the bottom of the page to assess your score.

1. What is Plagiarism?
a. The process of copying another person's work and claiming/implying the result as original.
b. A major obstacle to the growth and legitimacy to the creative industry.
c. A brand of Spam.

2. I don't plagiarize other peoples' works because:
a. Stealing stuff that belongs to others is the wrong thing to do.
b. It impedes my own growth as a writer and a conceptualist.
c. I'm too busy copying and rewriting them for my own use.

3. Who wrote the stuff on this blog?
a. Sean.
b. Sean.
c. Barney, the Purple Dinosaur.

4. Why does Sean acknowledge other writers here?
a. Because Sean feels that they should be recognized for their own works.
b. Because Sean does not intend to pass off their works as his own.
c. Because this is an important part of Sean's plan to become supreme ruler of the universe.

5. Can other writers ask Sean for acknowledgement of their works if they appear on this blog?
a. Yes, if they feel that they legitimately own these works.
b. Yes, if they feel that Sean has not provided proper use or reference to these works.
c. I pity da fool who don't ask for dis acknowleg'ment!

6. What should you do if you want to use a work or an excerpt from this blog?
a. Place a comment under the entry you would like to use, and link to it.
b. Send Sean a formal request via e-mail.
c. Slip Sean five bucks.

7. Why does Sean try to control the use of his works by other people?
a. To prevent others from gaining a profit on works that they do not own.
b. To prevent others from interpreting his work out of its original context.
c. Didn't you read? It's all part of Sean's plan to become supreme ruler of the universe!

8. What should you expect from Sean if you ask permission to use his work?
a. A quick response and no requirements outside of reference or linkage to this site.
b. A civil discussion and possible opportunity for future transactions.
c. Three French hens, two turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

9. What should you expect from Sean if you don't ask permission to use his work?
a. Immediate attention from multiple sources, and possible legal investigation.
b. A short, tersely-worded letter to your blog, e-mail address, and/or immediate superior.
c. Two goons visiting your house to rearrange your furniture. "Next time, it'll be your face."

10. What's that thing at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar?
a. A Creative Commons License, which allows for free use of Internet resources under the correct circumstances.
b. A set of regulations for the free and proper use of Sean's works, including this blog.
c. I pity da fool who don't look at da right-hand sidebar!


Pencils down, everyone. Give yourself one point for each "C" that you have in your answers:

0 points: Congratulations. You understand what the plagiaristic threat means... or at least, you've read the Disclaimers on this blog.

1 to 4 points: How's it going, Beavis?

5 to 8 points: Exactly how you've managed to survive without some irate writer stoving your face in, I have no idea.

9 to 10 points: Dude, you are seriously in need of an Ethics class. Hell, you are seriously in need to spend six to eight years in one. With monkeys.

The Treatise To Test Top Thoughts

I'm preparing my reviews for Philippine Genre Stories' Christmas Issue right now. I'm aware that I'm already three months late for this, but everybody probably knows about my present concerns at work. Ironically, I picked up my copy of the issue to read over the long December weekends, only to find that the little digest would sit unopened inside my laptop bag while I mollified German, Italian and Japanese clients over the state of their servers.

It turns out that a few people have been doing their own assessments in the past couple of months. I refer specifically to Electrick Twilight Boogaloo and the Bibliophile Stalker, both of whom saw fit to post their lists of outstanding Philippine Speculative Fiction that came into publication last 2007. I'll admit that I'd like to see other peoples' lists as well, but I'm looking at some obvious limitations there: Dean Alfar and Kenneth Yu, for example, organize their own anthologies, so their favorites are already up on the shelves for us to read. Moreover, Banzai Cat feels that he hasn't read a lot of the local works from last year, so a list from him might not make for a very accurate impression. And of course, a lot of other people have their own jobs and deadlines to worry about, so I'll just have to be satisfied with what I can read right now.

As for a list of my own, I'll have to beg the same excuse as the aforementioned grimalkin: I don't think that I've read much of the local speculation fiction from last year. Sure, I've gone through all the PGS issues so far... but I've only gone through a few of the stories from Dean's third anthology, I haven't picked up a single copy of Story Philippines, and I have yet to check out other outlets for these short stories. I don't know how many pieces I would have to read before I can conceive of a "top ten" among them, but forty seems like a nice round number. Or fifty, if you want to stretch it a bit.

I did see a few familiar titles among the two existing lists, however, and I'd like to go over those. It seems that there are places where I will most definitely agree with the list-makers, and places where I'm likely to raise an eyebrow in curiosity. That's not to say that I'm contesting their opinions -- they're welcome to their own thoughts, after all -- but I'd like to have a look at them nevertheless.

Electrick Twilight Boogaloo's list
(Titles in bold are those that I've read.)
-----
1. Dreaming Valhalla (Douglas Candano, Story Philippines)
2. The Saint of Elsewhere (Chiles Samaniego, PGS volume 2)
3. The Flicker (Ian Casocot, PSF volume 3)
4. Excerpt from a Letter by a Social Realist Aswang (Kristin Mandigma, Clarkesworld Magazine Oct07)
5. Brigada (Joseph Nacino, PSF volume 3)
6. Tell it to the Sky (Luis Katigbak, Rogue Magazine Dec07-Jan08)
7. The Ascension of our Lady-Boy (Mia Tijam, PSF volume 3)
8. Reclamation (Angelo Lacuesta, PSF volume 3)
9. MaMachine (Dean Alfar, The Kite of Stars)
10. Homer's Child (Paolo Chikiamco, PGS volume 3)
HM: Carmen and Josephine (Elyss Punsalan, PSF volume 3)
HM: The Scent of Spice (Crystal Gail Shangkuan Koo, PGS volume 2)
HM: Noche Buena (Andrew Drilon, PGS Christmas 2007)
HM: The Music Child (Alfred Yuson, PSF volume 3)

While I did like "The Saint of Elsewhere", my problem is that I find it difficult to pinpoint exactly why I liked it. I don't know if it felt symbolic, or if its plotline was revolutionary, or if I could personally relate to it. In any sporting event where you'd have ten judges holding up a bunch of scorecards, this would be a technicality. For me, though, it's a huge technicality -- I have to know why I liked a piece, in addition to feeling that I liked it.

"Brigada" was very interesting. I felt that it fleshed out a pseudo-post-apocalyptic Philippines very well, and it was very easy to understand, for a world that the author had to create from scratch. It had the remarkable aspect of focusing all attention on the main character by leaving a very high body count among the supporting cast.

"Homer's Child" was quite good. It's one of the few stories that gives me hope for the mystery genre around here, despite a flaw in the attention it devotes to needless detail. I could be biased here, though, seeing my personal affinity for stuffed toys.

I felt that the primary strength of "The Scent of Spice" involved the intertwining between two different stories, giving us the impression that each was based on the other and somehow creating a larger, cohesive work in the process.

As for "Noche Buena", I won't give away my review just yet. I did like it very much, though, and I think it should place better than an Honorable Mention. But I haven't read the other works, so don't take my word for this just yet.


The Bibliophile Stalker's list
(Titles in bold are those that I've read.)
-----
1. Beacon (Nikki Alfar, PGS volume 2)
2. Logovore (Joseph Nacino, Fully Booked 2nd Graphic/Fiction Awards)
3. The Death and Rebirth of Nathaniel Alan Sempio (Alexander Marcos Osias, PSF volume 3)
4. Frozen Delight (Marguerite Alcazaren de Leon, PSF volume 3)
5. The Datu's Daughters (Raymond G. Falgui, PSF volume 3)

Charles puts together a list that is entirely different from the previous one. In a way, this is both a blessing and a curse. For one, it indicates the presence of different schools of thought on the quality of Philippines Speculative Fiction. On the other hand, it also implies that there were no truly good stories that can be elicited from a consensus of readers.

With apologies to Nikki Alfar, I must say that "Beacon" never really did it for me. I didn't feel as though it renewed the fantasy genre (which I think that a good creationist universe should be able to do), and I didn't see anything really interesting with the general plot. I still think that "Beacon" actually runs on its style and characterization technique... both of which were truly original, but not altogether story-defining in my book.

"Frozen Delight" raised both of my eyebrows, and it kept doing so until the very end. I felt that it was new, that it was refreshing, and that it deserves its place on the list. It was cute, funny and eventually quite morbid at the same time, and that's no mean feat.


While I'm not about to make a list of my own, I do have some pieces that I'd like to see in one: "Beneath the Acacia" (Celestine Marie G. Trinidad, PGS volume 2) still gets my vote as the best melding of mystery and traditional folktale to come around in a long time. "Muse" (John Philip Corpuz, PGS volume 3) marked its author as somebody for me to watch. "The Magic Christmas Box" (MRR Arcega, PGS Christmas 2007) is likely to see some very good feedback from me in a later post. And if you can find it, "When They Think They Can Fly" (Petra Magno, Heights volume 55 issue 1) has a setting that is executed in the most subtle way that I've ever seen.

But of course, everything here has been my personal opinion. You're entitled to yours as much as I am to mine. And as long as we all have our own stories that we like, then everyone benefits.

"Phase Three: Profit!"

I am reminded of a saying that describes two types of people in every situation: Those who rise to defend their beliefs, and those who remain by the sidelines. In these times of political uncertainty, I can take a lesson from this saying and bring up the two different kinds of people here: Those who want change and are willing to take to the streets for it, and those who cannot reconcile the idea of change for the lack of alternatives.

It seems that the twin concepts of life and meaning are fickle, however, and in a single e-mail to one of my mailing lists, my eyes were opened to the presence of a third member of the grand audience. Witness, if you will, the excerpt that amused me earlier this evening:

DEADLY THREADS - POLITICALLY INCORRECT T-SHIRTS

Wear your indignation at our ugly ugly excuse for a government by sporting one of these smashing, original t-shirts for only 350 pesos each.

Yes, that's right: You will have people who stand at the forefront of the crowd, screaming their names at the riot police. You will have people who mill around the back, wondering exactly how much longer they have to stay. But both of them pale in comparison to the third aspect: People who will somehow turn a profit out of the whole thing.

I don't mean to insult these people. In fact, the idea amuses me greatly -- the gap between rich and poor may be getting wider, our government officials may all be falling into corruption, the president herself might be involved in a conspiracy to hold power for as long as she can -- but all that will never suppress our ability to find opportunity wherever it can be found. Think of them in any way that you want, I suppose -- they can either be solidly entrepreneurial or remarkably crass to you -- but they're certain to make good money either way.

You're welcome to pass by their site and have a look, of course -- it's at http://deadlythreads.multiply.com. In the interest of timing (which is everything in a country where political issues and scandals come and go in the blink of an eye), if you place an order before the 20th, then they'll actually make sure that you receive your shirt before the 25th. You're going to want to wear it to the rally that will inevitably occur on that date, after all.

No, I'm not connected with them. They just happened to be the high point of a day when I really needed something to make me laugh, and I might as well give them a bit of attention in return. The shirts that you order will most likely lose their relevance in time, and your grandkids will probably give you some strange looks when they dig them up twenty years from now... but at least they'll know that when the chips were down and tensions ran high, we still knew how to do business. That, I think, will still get a laugh out of me no matter what happens. :)

The Title Paradox

Some people have written about the process of creating titles already, so I won't tread old ground too much. That, and it's late at night from where I'm sitting, which means that I'd just like to pose this line of thought before I go to bed.

Assuming that you've written something at least once in your life, I figure that you normally assign titles to your works. You could have gotten creative a few times, or you could have just picked the first phrase that came to mind -- either way, you must have chosen titles for any of your works at some point, even if they were sometimes as cheesy as labeling something "Untitled."

I won't ask where these titles come from. More than a few people have written about this precise topic already, and I suppose that we all know that titles are a pseudo-intuitive exercise. We know that titles will come from words or phrases that strike us about the content of a piece -- they may be taken directly from the work itself, or they might be a peripheral observation that has something to do with the content at hand. Whatever the case, these titles are chosen to entice readers, drop subtle hints about the nature of a story or an essay, or merely serve as a placeholder for when everything has to be collated. In short, we know where titles come from.

What I ask, then, is when do they come about? And, for that matter, when do we actually put them in place? I mean, assuming that a title will come in a flash of inspiration (or a knock on the head, take your pick), they can strike at any time. One can have a title in mind even before one begins writing a story, or it might suddenly appear right in the middle of one's writing process, or one could very well end up struggling to find said title even after the story is finished.

Back when I was in high school, I assumed that the best method involved looking over your work once you were finished, and choosing your title only at that point. I mean, this method would basically ensure that you would know your entire work from beginning to end, and thus you would be in a perfect position to choose a title to encompass everything that had been written.

After a while, though, I realized that this wasn't necessarily the case: Sometimes I was already getting hit by a few good titles in the middle of my writing. In fact, as I went on, I found it more and more difficult to come up with a title only after I had finished my work. I can see a definite catch with this method, of course -- finalizing your title might result in your stratifying the remaining parts of your work just for the purpose of fitting it -- but I've had a lot of good titles come up in this way.

Then there are the times when I literally start off with a title and move from there. There's actually a term for this -- "top-down design", I think -- but the logic behind it is a little unstable. Starting with a title to begin with implies that you'll be able to write at least a thousand words about it, and that it'll all somehow make sense when you're done. I find this to be the equivalent of gambling: you make a bet, you roll the dice, and you pray that the sevens come up. I'm not sure if this really works on a regular basis, but I know that I've been able to do it before.

What I'm really wondering here, mind you, is if there's a solid and appreciable method out there for coming up with good titles. My base logic dictates that we really need to finish writing something before we can find the best title for our needs... but this clearly isn't the case all the time, and I'm pretty sure that we've been able to find some really good titles even without the ability to scrutinize a complete piece.

This bears further observation from my part. Or it could just be the product of a fevered mind, running on very little sleep.

And if you're wondering... I came up with the title for this post about halfway through the second paragraph. It's quite a strange thought.

Fifty More Things About Sean (Only Twenty of Which Are Absolutely True)

No, that sense of déja vu that you're feeling is not an error in the Matrix. It does not indicate that something has changed.

This is an obvious sequel to the original list of Fifty Things About Sean (Only Twenty of Which Are True). It's not a meme (although you can try it for yourself), and it's not here for any particular purpose. I just happen to be bored at the moment.

It's easy, really: I have a list of fifty self-referential claims below, only twenty of which are indubitably, undeniably true. It's up to you to figure out which is which, and I'm not about to confirm anything as a result of this post. That's left for you to freely speculate on, and perhaps you'll lose some precious sleep in the process. :)


FIFTY MORE THINGS ABOUT SEAN
(only twenty of which are absolutely true)

1. Once acted as a potted plant in a class presentation.
2. Once addressed a crowd of 200 for a seminar.
3. Once ate two pounds of cheese in one sitting.
4. Once attached refrigerator magnets to somebody else's CPU casing.
5. Once believed that the world would end on December 31, 1999.
6. Once blew up a microwave oven by placing a packet of soap inside.
7. Once brought the proverbial knife to a gunfight.
8. Once built an origami figure that could support five pounds of weight.
9. Once burned a hole into a laboratory table with sulfuric acid.
10. Once collected comic books.
11. Once constructed a working battery-operated motor.
12. Once cut himself with a pair of ice skates.
13. Once danced a can-can with six or seven other guys.
14. Once did lead vocals for a startup musical group.
15. Once dressed up as Godzilla for a childrens' party.
16. Once drew a political cartoon that was eventually published.
17. Once fell asleep in a Ferrari. (No, it wasn't mine.)
18. Once filled an entire attaché case with salted popcorn.
19. Once fixed a computer by hitting it (with a good hard smack).
20. Once got a piece of candy stuck up his nose.
21. Once had an eye operation to correct blurred vision.
22. Once "improved" a jigsaw puzzle by cutting up the pieces.
23. Once jumped off the third floor of a building.
24. Once killed a goldfish by pouring talcum powder into the fishbowl.
25. Once made a shot from the half-court line in basketball.
26. Once maintained a collection of G.I. Joe action figures.
27. Once offered witness testimony for a convicted criminal.
28. Once owned a Trapper Keeper.
29. Once performed a voice-over for a commercial.
30. Once ran with scissors.
31. Once recited background speech for a music video.
32. Once said, "I'm just a lazy peon in the Warcraft of life."
33. Once scraped an entire layer of teflon off the frying pan.
34. Once scripted a twenty-four-page comic book.
35. Once shaved his armpit hairs.
36. Once shot an imaginary arrow from an imaginary bow.
37. Once sold life insurance.
38. Once spoke with a stutter.
39. Once stole a license plate for a scavenger hunt.
40. Once stripped on stage.
41. Once submitted an English essay for Filipino class (and got an "A").
42. Once superglued his hand to his face.
43. Once swallowed a paperclip.
44. Once took six hyperactive dogs for a walk, all at the same time.
45. Once traded an entire collection of stickers for a single playing card.
46. Once tried out for a TV game show.
47. Once used a priceless diamond antique as a paperweight.
48. Once won a years' supply of Ovaltine.
49. Once worked for three hours on a single math problem.
50. Once wrote erotica.

...

7 Personal Rules for Fantasy Writing

I think that I've been delving into the high fantasy genre for almost as long as I've been writing.

For the uninformed, "high fantasy" involves your basic, medieval, knights-and-wizards-type of setting. These are the kind of stories where people like Conan, Legolas and King Arthur hang out, a sort of alternate Middle Ages where Renaissance Faire garb would probably be the norm. (This lies in contrast with "low fantasy", which twists the modern world as per Harry Potter, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and the Highlander movies.)

Sixteen years after I first started out, my memories of my first works are more than a little hazy. The first "serious" short story that I ever wrote was actually set against a biblical background, and placed a slight spin on a quasi-religious event. From there, I went into science fiction because it seemed as though nobody was writing it at the time. I remember actually avoiding fantasy for the first couple of years or so because I felt that it needed a lot of work in order to pull off: Setting counts for a lot, after all, and it's the sort of thing that takes time to craft.

I think that the one primary inspiration, the one thing that motivated me to write fantasy was David and Leigh Eddings' Belgariad series. I had read a couple of other fantasy novels before, yes, but the Belgariad gave me the idea that there was more to the genre than merely putting together a universe and creating some characters to play around in it. In a sense, I hit upon the truth that makes most fantasy works palatable: In order to immerse yourself in them, you have to be able to empathize with them.

One decade, three fictional universes and more than a few attempts later, I have more than a few guidelines to work with. At this point, I'm proud to say that I can probably spin off a short piece of the high fantasy genre without first having to spend ages working on a setting and a history. That's not to say that I've stopped toying with universes of my own creation -- as evidenced by the number of "Antaria" links on the sidebar -- but I feel that I can work on both long- and short-term fantasy work as of the moment.

I try to follow a strict set of rules for high fantasy in this regard. These, I think, are "rules" in the sense that I try to break them as seldom as possible -- I feel that they're too critical to what I feel is the underlying logic and structure to a plausible work. As a result, I try to stick to these rules whenever I put the physics of a fantasy setting together, and I inevitably look for these personal standards when judging a work of the genre. In a sense, this is why I feel that high fantasy is so difficult to get right: I have all these unwritten requirements in my head that give me something to look for whenever I read somebody's work.

I suppose at least now I'll be writing them down for once. I'm aware, of course, that any of these rules can change with a simple paradigm shift. More likely than that, however, I'll probably end up adding more to this list over time.

1. Cut down on the details.
High fantasy requires a lot of details. These stories usually involve completely imagined settings, after all, and most of them are spun from nothing but empty air itself. Beyond that, you have to get the physics, history, and sociology right... and considering that you'll have a lot of gaps left over after you're done, you're going to have to explain those away, too.

As a result, it's extremely tempting to overburden a reader with these details: I mean, you spent months figuring out the politics and economy of that nice kingdom you put together, so why let it go to waste? You created an entire history, description and set of drawings for that suit of armor your protagonist wears, so how could you tell the story without describing it?

The catch is that all of these details ultimately amount to highbrow "fluff". It's all interesting when taken in a scholarly context, I'm sure, but you're not aiming for that here -- you want to tell a story. Unless something is absolutely critical to the story -- or unless something helps contribute to atmosphere or characterization -- I try to leave it out. I mean, I ramble on for long enough periods of time, and I'd rather not run the risk of boring readers further.

2. It may be a different setting, but it's the same humanity.
Humans are humans wherever they may exist, I suppose. Most high fantasy involves humans in some way, presumably because it's easiest for us to foresee and narrate their actions. I believe, however, that this also gives an opportunity to make the work speak to the reader and get him to put himself in the characters' shoes.

Empathy is the key word here, I think. When presented with a story that takes place in an unfamiliar setting with unfamiliar events, I believe that a reader will immediately try to latch on to its most familiar aspects. With most high fantasy, I think that this involves character empathy more than anything else: They may be looking at a completely different universe, but they'll still expect the human characters to walk, talk and act as humans would normally do. A reader may not know how it feels to, say, hold a two-handed broadsword, cast a spell, or fight a shambling throng of undead... but they'll understand situations where a character makes a promise, talks to a superior, or comes to the aid of friends.

3. The nonhumans must have a purpose.
One of my greatest pet peeves involves the use of nonhuman races in a human capacity. I mean, I don't see the point of having elves, dwarves, and orcs walk around in the same universe as a human contingent, especially when they're characterized according to existing aspects of humanity. Why have a graceful, fragile, long-eared elf when you can just as easily have a human character with those precise qualities? Why have a short, tough, bushy-beared dwarf when you can just as easily use a human counterpart? The whole thing just confuses me.

While I'm willing to accept the presence of sentient nonhuman races in high fantasy, I feel that there should really be some purpose to their presence there (apart from acting as set dressing). Tolkien, for example, used an alliance between humans, elves and dwarves to emphasize a united stand among completely different cultures. I'd like to see a little more thought go into the use of such races in fantasy literature, other than the "they just happen to be there" argument.

4. Use magic.
If there's anything that makes fantasy "fantasy" for me, it's the use of magic. Magic is the duct tape of literary concepts: You can mold it to whatever definition you choose for your setting, and you can use it to plug any gaps that you might find. You can leave it as part of the background so that you can focus on other concepts (as Tolkien did), or you can give it some significant screen time (Jordan's The Wheel of Time series comes to mind). Without the use of magic, a high fantasy universe runs the risk of being relegated to a purely medieval setting.

That's not to say that you literally need magic to write a plausible fantasy story, of course. (George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones series practically doesn't use the stuff, as far as I know.) But I find it difficult to pass off high fantasy as "high fantasy" without it -- it's the sort of thing that I simply don't find in any other genre.

5. Some technologies are indispensable.
One of the things I realized a long time ago was that, while fantasy literature might usually reflect a medieval setting, it simply does not provide an accurate picture of what medieval times were really like. Inns were not built like hotels with taverns to match. Dungeons with hidden treasure most certainly did not litter the countryside. Female adventurers did not go around wearing skimpy costumes that supposedly passed for "armor".

What I mean to say here is that I find it difficult to consider a plausible high fantasy setting without working some modern innovations into the picture. I'm not saying, of course, that people should try to work cars and trucks and vacuum cleaners into their feudal kingdoms. What I'm saying, however, is that we can sneak in a few contemporary concepts and technologies without breaking our stuff in two.

I know that scissors have to exist in any proper fantasy universe, for instance. I mean, without scissors, you wouldn't have proper clothes and costumes for the characters to wear. You wouldn't have proper hairstyles. Heck, you wouldn't have such things as ribbons or tassels or bows. I can make arguments for a few other things: Dental floss (otherwise your characters wouldn't have all their teeth), disposable paper or parchment (for all those books and scrolls), and gunpowder (because even if you don't have guns, you're likely to have explosives in some form).

We don't have to go into the details of why the stuff exists, to be honest. I think that we can -- and should -- suspend belief for these small things just so that our worlds can work the way we want them to. I don't think that the readers will mind, just as long as everything makes a sort of sense.

6. Equalize the genders.
Granted, the concept of gender equivalence obviously isn't limited to the high fantasy genre. I think, however, that the genre finds great benefit in using gender equivalence, perhaps more than anything else out there. When a high fantasy story turns an existing convention on its ear -- say, a female warrior as a main character -- then we're far more willing to accept it as part of the imaginary setting than we are, say, a female CEO of a major software corporation. Or, if you will, a male editor-in-chief for Cosmopolitan magazine.

The opportunity to perform a good bit of role-switching, I think, is too good to be ignored. It can result in some unprecedented casts of characters, or some situations that have never been seen before. I feel that stories that revolve around stereotypical archetypes (male barbarians, female sorceresses, and so forth) are missing out on a lot, as a result. There's some real potential here to shake things up and explore uncharted territory in terms of character interaction.

7. The stories should work by themselves.
Finally, I'll admit that it's not easy to cut a work of high fantasy down to size. Considering that you've created an entire universe and its corresponding population to play around with, it's easy to plot out some grand epic and start scribbling it down.

While you can probably accomplish such a task (and novelize it, to boot), I feel that it's not a very attractive way of going about things. First, you have an enormous task ahead of you -- it's like working on your first book and deciding right off the bat that you're going to put together two thousand pages of text. Second, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to finish it -- and if you suddenly lose interest three months and three hundred pages later, you've effectively wasted an entire setting. Third, the readers are almost certain to find that later installments of the story will make no sense unless they've read through several previous installments.

The only solution I can think of at this point would be to make sure that the individual stories can stand on their own. If you can finish a novel in one go, then that's all the more better for you. Otherwise, I think that we're better off serving our stories in bite-size pieces. Knowing that any story can conceivably be read independently of the others doesn't just take away a restriction on the part of the readers -- it also gives new readers an avenue to jump in.

Beyond these rules, however, I must consider that these are personal standards more than anything else. They're guidelines, and innovation often means scrutinizing these same guidelines for new and interesting ways to break them.

I might follow these items to the letter right now, but for all I know, I might be spending my next seven years figuring out how to make their exact converses work for me. After all, any genre is in a constant state of evolution. That the fantasy category happens to reward anything that is newer and more different than any previous works is an even better prospect for the rest of us.

This Post Has Cake In It

Yes, Valentines' Day is coming up next week. As nice as I imagine it might be for couples around the world, that still doesn't change the fact that it's a corporate-manufactured holiday designed to sell overpriced flowers, hawk overly expensive chocolates and, in certain cases, force a general overbooking of local hotel rooms. In addition, it's an agonizing holiday for single people all over the world, which means that while dozens of men and women out there are enjoying the fruits of massive spending, an equal number of people are organizing "singles-only" tours where they can go out, drink themselves silly, and then go to bed feeling sorry for themselves.

Being one of those creative bakeshops that is nonetheless willing to take advantage of the unfortunate masses, my family bakeshop offers a special something or Valentines' day every year. This year, it happens to be a small circle of pastries meant to be given as a gift to peoples' loved ones. Or failing that, you could always eat them yourself. They might not ease the pain of utter loneliness or the shattered consequences of a bad breakup... but hey, you'll at least have something to chew on? Right? Er... right?

Seeing that I am a single man who has unfortunately fallen in love with these pastries (this is an appropriate figure of speech, yes), I planned to pick up a few of them as giveaways this Thursday. The only question involved who was supposed to receive them. Giving one of them away to everybody in my office (a crowd of more than thirty people) would be a trifle expensive; Counting out a small number of recipients would leave me open to post-Valentines' demands ("What do you mean, you didn't get me one?"), and considering that these wouldn't be available after Thursday, I definitely have some thinking to do right now.

Complicating the matter is that I have at least two choices on the table right now. The first one is a solid-looking candy-shell heart, which looks like the samples below:


Yes, they're nice. We offered the same thing on Valentines' Day last year, and they were so popular that we decided to give them a second go.

The large candy hearts are actually hollow -- they're essentially a sugar- and gum-type candy shell that, although non-chewable, are perfectly capable of melting in your mouth for a while. The insides are filled with miscellaneous hard candies, which means that even if you have to break your heart (so to speak), you'll still find it a sweet enough prospect in the end.

What I particularly like about these is that their shelf life is a lot longer than the other "pastries" I encounter. The hearts are likely to last for at least a week before they start getting stale, and even then the candies inside will still be edible -- you'd just need the simple expedient of a jackhammer to get them out. Still, they're pretty good for people who want to display them a bit before breaking them up.

The second choice I have is the cake whose picture you see at the start of this post. I have another picture here, in case you'd like to have a look:


These cakes are actually a little small -- about the size of one's fist -- but they're made of lemon chiffon covered in strawberry fondant icing (I think), so I imagine that they taste fine. They're not bad for occasions where you expect the recipient to eat them immediately after the gift-giving. In short, they'd be perfect for the perpetually-hungry co-workers in my office. They're cheaper, too.

Of course, being a single man, I'd normally be nursing the (alleged) pain and loneliness of my situation by chewing on these myself. It's too bad that I don't have the sweet tooth that forces me to take advantage of the family bakeshop. As a result, well, I'll have to see whether or not I'd like to give these out.

And, just in case I turn out to be too busy this Valentines' Day... I wish you all a nice holiday, whether you have someone to spend it with, or not. Chin up, and don't eat too much of the sweet stuff for your own good. You'll want to look good for next Valentines', after all.



* No, I haven't suddenly sold out and gone commercial on you. But I am bragging that I have access to almost limitless amounts of this stuff for a good price. That's got to count for something.

Within the Next Five Minutes

Someone decided to point out that a good number of my posts from last month involved descriptions of my love-hate relationship with work. In short -- I spent a good chunk of the last thirty days being a whiny little person.

As a result, I made a little resolution with the coming of the first days of February: For at least this month, I'll hold a moratorium on any mentions of my day job. That means that I'll force myself to find more interesting fare for people to read about, and you won't get to listen to me whine for at least a good ten posts.

When I realized this resolution, though, it brought my mind back to the fact that I never did post my resolutions for the New Year. For that matter, I think I wrote them all down somewhere and then promptly forgot about where they were... which means that I've obviously gotten a head start on what most people do about their resolutions. Nevertheless, this post could serve as a nice substitute.

So what I'll do right now is organize my goals for the next few spans of time. Make of them what you will, but beyond my preventing myself from constantly complaining about my day job, these are as close to resolutions as we'll probably see:

Within the next five minutes: Organize thoughts properly. Finish answering e-mail.

Within the next thirty minutes: Finish writing this post.

Within the next one hour: Get some leisure time in, for once. Continue reading that novel on Alexander the Great that you keep putting off.

Within the next twenty-four hours: Get some sleep. Finish the week's work in such a way as to not worry about it over the weekend. Scribble down notes for a short story.

Within the next week: Pick up a good book for one's collection. Get some more sleep. Organize an initial list of venues for story submissions and start planning things out. Reserve plane tickets and a hotel room for that trip to Bacolod City that you're planning for later this year.

Within the next month: Write at least one short story for the blog. Get some more sleep. Stop spending so much money on trying to forget about work. Play a few more board games. Get together with friends more often.

Within the next six months: Get more involved with the family. Set aside some vacation time (most likely for Bacolod City). Talk to the Philippine Copyright Office regarding standards and practices. Submit something to the Palanca Awards.

Within the next year: Write more stuff. Submit more stuff. Attend at least one workshop or discussion-type group on modern literature. Get my name in at least two books somewhere. Organize life properly -- tell myself exactly what I want out of it.

Well... I never said it would be easy.

Disclaimer: February 2008

I sense much fear in you.

...

Remember... fear is the path to the dark side.

Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? A flaw more and more common among writers. Too sure of themselves they are. Even the older, more experienced ones.

A writer's strength flows from the Source. But beware of the dark side. Ambition, desire, jealousy; the dark side are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will.

Property of Sean are all things here. Created, website was, by his own two hands. Dreamt, maintained, held. All original. All things written here, written by Sean. His writer's strength flows from the Source.

Still acknowledged here are those things not written by Sean. Names they have, links if possible. If use by Sean offends writers, then writers may contact Sean. Remove works, perhaps. Save works, perhaps. A mysterious thing for all, the Source is.

But fallen, the shroud of the dark side has. You must unlearn what you have learned. Copy others' works to pass as your own, you should not. Steal others' works, you should not. Misquote for selfish purpose, you should not. Words are free for all, and must be shared. Must not be taken.

Control... you must learn control. Take things from this website, but ask before you use it. Rule of honor, that is. Ask before using, or use and then ask. Lenient, Sean is. Compensation, he usually asks not.

No. Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.

You do not believe it. That is why you fail.

Steal things from this website, careful you do not. Too far Sean's eyes see. Catch you, he will. The way of the Source, revenge is not... but demands, the law must have. Justice there must be. Chase you to the ends of the universe, he shall... for Sean's ally is the law of copyright, and a powerful ally it is.

License of Creative Commons lies below and to the right. Read it, you must. Know it, you must. Live it, you must.

No more training do you require, I hope. Already know you, that which you need.

May the Source be with you.

I Should Have Kept My Mouth Shut

Sometime during dinner tonight, I made the mistake of saying, "My company's having an open house sometime next month."

My brother raised an eyebrow. "Open house?"

"Yeah. We get to bring guests in, and show them what we have in the office, where we go for work, and what it is that we do all day. Like I said, it's an open house."

"As in, we get to see your office?"

I suddenly got very uncomfortable. "Uh... yeah."

"We have to tell you beforehand?" my mother asked.

"Yes," I said. "That's why I'm telling you this right now."

"For the registration," she said.

"Yes... if you want to drop by, then I have to submit your names to the organizers. There'll probably be temporary IDs involved."

My brother laughed. "What if we're from a competitor?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, what if we were from a competitor or something? Would your company still let us inside?"

"Well... I'm pretty sure that you'd be under my supervision. And I wouldn't let you see anything important."

"That wouldn't be worthwhile."

I drummed my fingers for a bit. "I never said it would be worthwhile."

"How are you supposed to work, then?" my mother asked. "I mean, if you're going to watch us for the whole time that we're there..."

"I think I can handle it," I told her.

"Oh. Will you be selling us some of your products?"

"Huh?"

"When your father was still working with his bank, whenever he would have an open house, there would always be this room where some people sold us perfume and other things for discounted prices."

"What did that have to do with his bank?"

My mother shrugged. "I don't know. But we did buy a few things. That's why I thought that you would have a room where we could buy your products at discount."

"I'm in the information technology department. That's a far cry from the factory, you know."

"Yes, but they can sell you some of their products at lower prices, right? I mean, you work for them."

"Yes, but that doesn't automatically mean that I can take the stuff home whenever I wanted!"

"I didn't say that. Doesn't the company give you any of this?"

"Sometimes. Not all the time. Sometimes we have sales for the employees."

"You should tell us about those. You should also ask them for more things to bring home."

This time I was the one who raised an eyebrow. "I can't do that! I haven't even been in the company for a year!"

"Yes, but you're doing something important, right?"

"I, ah... well... I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Er... okay, that's it. Forget that I said anything."

"We'd love to come to the open house," my brother added.

"Er, ah... they haven't given a date for it yet. Yeah, that's it... they haven't scheduled a date yet. I guess I'll have to wait for a while before I tell you when we can register. Ahah hah."

"You just said that it was next month."

"I lied," I said, getting up to go to the bathroom. "Now shut up."

And that's where I stayed for the next ten minutes.

When I got back, they were talking about a few relatives who were flying in the next morning. I sat down, I picked at the food, and I didn't say anything for the rest of the meal.

Some dinner topics, after all, should be kept under wraps.

500

Over three years ago, I wrote the following things down for my first post on this blog:

Still learning how to work this thing.

Every now and then a single image flashes before my eyes, and that's of those days in the late 80s when I was working out how to operate the VCR.

Everything's obviously different this time around. There's not even a "Play" button in sight.

Four hundred and ninety-nine posts later, I'm still learning how to work this thing.

Yes, you counted that right. This is the 500th post I've written and published for this blog. I've come a very, very long way since that first post.

For most writers, this would be a perfect time for a retrospective. Unfortunately, I don't share their beliefs in this regard. Why should we restrict our momentous retrospectives to the posts with the big round numbers, anyway? I mean, what's the basic difference between a 500th post, and, say, a 483rd? They both mean the same thing -- that I obviously don't have any better things to do apart from work and write -- and I see no reason why Number 500 always gets to have the retrospective while Number 483 gets left out in the cold.

This is why I put up my retrospectives in the strangest places. This is also why this 500th post will get royally shafted by me tonight. This subtle rejection will ultimately develop into a form of mental trauma for this poor article; after which it will spend the next decade in a useless, drunken stupor; until it finally comes to its senses, blames me for all its troubles, and comes hunting for me with a high-powered rifle. Or not.

The truth is that I'm too lazy to do a retrospective tonight. This is the 500th post for this blog, which means that there are 499 articles before it that I now have to root through for the sake of looking at my past development. Apart from those, I also have a grand total of forty-two articles that I started writing, yet never brought to light for one reason or another. About a third of that number involves fiction in some way.

I'd like to do a total count of the comments on this blog, mind you... too bad I can't find a feature or a hack that lets me do so. As best as I can tell, I get about twenty-five comments a month. Over forty or so months, that puts it at a thousand comments. Half of those are probably mine, seeing that I try to answer everybody who drops by... so in a sense, there are 500 separate individual comments from external visitors floating around at the moment. Cute coincidence.

And then I'd also like to do a word-for-word analysis of every single post I've ever published, simply because I'm curious as to how many times I use the word "the" on this site. Then again, the word "the" shouldn't be put on a pedestal that way... I'd like to know exactly how many words I've ever written for every blasted article that appears here.

The way post number 500 should see it, my non-inclusion of a retrospective here saves me the time and trouble of doing some actual work at this time of night.

As it stands, I don't think that much has changed since I wrote my first post. Oh, I've gotten a few years older, I've written a few good yarns, and I've gotten into a more dedicated job... but I still whack my head on the keyboard trying to come up with good stories; I still hold a passion for board games, probability theory, and stuffed toys; and I still have a tendency to write about absolutely nothing at all.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. You and I both know that five hundred posts aren't likely to change that.

Here's to another five hundred posts for this blog. Maybe we'll still be around in three or four more years, if we're lucky enough to stay on topic.

Pass me that bottle of champagne, would you?

Dangerous Times

A small area near my house was cordoned off with police tape by the time I got home, and I wondered what had gone down.

"Some guy got shot near our place early this evening," my brother told me.

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yeah. He was in a car. Some guys on a motorcycle rode up next to him after he had just come out of the bank. Shouted for his money, and then shot him."

"How did you find out?"

"Mom texted me. The guy was fifty years old or something. She thinks he died."

As it turned out, the victim was in critical condition at the nearest hospital. He had apparently withdrawn a significant amount of funds from the bank (somewhere in the area of six digits), which gave the assailants plenty of motive to chase him down. The robbers most likely held no remorse at all for the shooting -- the victim's family was in the same car as him, with his four-year-old granddaughter among them. At least, that's as far as I know right now.

One of the first things that I did when I went online was check the newspapers for more details. The victim's name sounded oddly familiar for some reason, so I ran a small background check using the local search engines. This, combined with my mother's powers of recall, gave rise to the notion that he was an old acquaintance of my late father. We had consulted him on a purchase of building material some twenty years ago.

It's funny, how some coincidences play out. But then, considering the circumstances, it doesn't really strike me as funny right now.

We live in interesting times. Sadly, there's a fine line between "interesting" and "dangerous" nowadays.

This Post Says Nothing at All

If there's anything that I've realized tonight, It's pretty hard to write when you've just come home from a day's work.

That's not because I'm tired, mind you. For the record, I am tired -- I spent the whole day checking and rechecking a bunch of contracts, and on top of that, one of my servers decided to roll over and play dead three straight times in the last twenty-four hours. (The German executives who owned the data inside were not very amused.) But I was able to drag myself in front of the computer to wrap something up for a freelance assignment, and if I can do that, then I can certainly log into this website and write something.

Besides, I've already been writing for a while now. One of the things that you do once you've been writing for a few years involves being able to force yourself to write. There's no guarantee that you'll be able to magically come up with a good plot, of course, but it does encourage you to get off your duff and make some healthy use of your time.

No, I'm not finding it difficult to write because I'm tired. Heck, I'm writing now despite the fact that I'm a bit weary of the day's developments.

That's not to say that I have a shortage of ideas right now, either. I still have quite a few ideas floating around my head, if only because I'd like to come up with something that'll get published this year. I think about them every now and then, trying to mold them into the stories that they should become when they grow up... so I suppose it's fair enough to say that I'm not lacking for any ideas at the moment.

No, I think that the reason why I find it difficult to write at the moment is the fact that I've been thinking about work all day. As a result, it's hard for me to shift my thoughts at this time of night -- I inevitably find myself thinking about my plans for tomorrow, after all. Logic tells me that I should still write about what happens to be on my mind at the moment, but to be honest, I'd rather not barrage you with tales of my office life. I should have better things to post about.

I should try tinkering with a new approach here. Maybe a hard shift in thought -- some point in time where I stop thinking about work and start thinking about, say, purple unicorns -- might help. Or maybe I could simply find some way to relax without having to stare at a blinking screen for a while; that way, I'll be working from scratch when I finally power up the ol' monitor-and-keyboard.

And if all else fails, there's always the third option -- when you can't think of anything to write about, then you can write about the fact that you can't think of anything to write about.

Hey, it did work for this post. Look, ma, three hundred words! :)

Eulogy: Bobby Fischer

There are two schools of thought on the topic of greatness.

One school declares that, in order for one to be a great person, one has to accomplish something momentous, unprecedented, and otherwise distinct in the history of humankind. One has to perform some great feat, some act that typifies one bright shining moment in the fleeting lifespan of the human spirit. It doesn't even necessarily have to be impossible, heroic or even practical; more than a few humanitarian endeavors lie forgotten alongside the fame of outrageous stunts.

If you subscribe to this school of thought, then Bobby Fischer was a great chess player. Even if you somehow don't see him as the greatest of them all, you would be foolish to rank him as anything but among the best who ever moved a pawn across the black-and-white board.

Say what you will, but the man ate, slept, dreamed, read, wrote, and breathed chess. He knew the game right down to its core. He knew its subtleties, lived its openings, and experienced its endgames. Bobby Fischer was a passionate eccentric at heart, one who all but dedicated his life to the game and showed us where it could take him.

In an era and history that saw an almost completely Russian domination of the game, Fischer was an anomaly. He was a lone American champion, a superstar among the elders, an innovator who poked and prodded at the fabric of the tournament system and showed the judges his own particular brand of defiance. He would challenge people in his games, dragging them into the foremost reaches of unknown territory and forcing them to play with his own primal technique. He shattered the unspoken notion of chess as a "boring" game: To him, this was not something where you could memorize the moves or record the clicking of the pieces in the back of your head. No, when you played against Fischer, you either played chess... or you went down like a bag of bricks.

But there are two schools of thought on the topic of greatness, and I have only mentioned one so far.

This other school preaches a concept other than greatness. This second school preaches temperance. It is, after all, not enough to accomplish something great. Heck, anybody can accomplish something great as long as they can set their minds to it. It is the question of humanity that ultimately decides whether or not the action was worthwhile. What did you do it for? Who did you do it for? Why did you do it? And even more so than anything else -- did you remain a human being, knowledgeable and compassionate, afterwards?

If you subscribe to this school of thought, then Bobby Fischer was probably one of the worst individuals who ever played the game. Or if you refuse to go that far, he was one of the most abominably controversial.

He threw tantrums over the smallest details. He wrapped himself in an unsettling sense of paranoia and blamed everything around him for matters that only he could resolve. He demanded, he bickered, and he railed at the most inappropriate things. He was anti-Semitic despite being of Jewish descent; he was anti-American despite being American himself.

Despite his considerable talent, Bobby Fischer was world chess champion for only three years. But he did not lose his crown in a down-to-the-wire match against an honorable opponent; he resigned after the world chess federation refused to change the tournament rules according to his wishes. He was less a well-meaning ambassador of the sport, and more a cranky old miser with little patience to start with. There is an entire line of chess players who you probably wouldn't mind meeting, sharing a cup of tea, and talking shop with. Bobby Fischer belonged less on this list and more underneath the broken lightbulb at the back of the building.

He was controversial, and that was why people watched him. He was self-centered, and that was why people disliked him. He was both a genius and a crank at the same time, and whether or not the combination is a good quality happens to depend purely on what you think.

Bobby Fischer was either a great man, or a man who ended up wallowing in his own greatness. Exactly what that means is up to you; as I mentioned, there are two schools of thought on the matter.

The only certainty now, however, is that Bobby Fischer has passed on. In the end, he was neither a genius nor a crank; he was merely a chess player who made his last move and finally resigned from the game. In the end, he was an old man who left behind a legacy of skills and eccentricities, of wise moves and grievous errors, of the pitfalls of fame and the benefits of infamy.

Greatness, after all, is always a matter of black or white.

Firing On All Cylinders

"Burnout" is such a strong word. That's why I'm not going to use it.

For that matter, neither am I going to tell you how my week has gone so far. I'm not going to tell you about all the service issues that suddenly cropped out of nowhere to land on my desk. I'm not going to tell you about all the rinky-dink seminars being given by other departments in the same building at the same time (which nevertheless all come with a free lunch). I'm not going to tell you about the split-second projects that people suddenly decided to dump on my shoulders. I'm not going to tell you about the fact that I ran through about twenty meetings, got yelled at by fifteen different clients, answered about two hundred e-mail messages, and the fact that the week isn't over yet.

Heck, I'm not going to tell you about my splitting headache at the moment. I'm not going to tell you about the bags under my eyes, or the three-hour sleep sessions. I'm not going to tell you that I barely have time to do anything else, much less the stuff that I've been forced to put on hold for a while: Writing. Plotting. Going out. Playing around. Taking baths. Changing my underwear.

I'm not going to tell you that I feel tired right now. I'm not going to tell you that sometimes I fear falling asleep into my keyboard. I'm not going to tell you that sometimes I walk around the office floor with a plastic cup of water in my hand and wonder if I should dump it over my head.

I'm not going to tell you that my dreams have been strangely empty as of late, and I'm not going to tell you that I can't seem to remember which words rhyme with each other. I'm not going to tell you that I suddenly don't know what the capital of Iceland is, and I'm not going to tell you that I've forgotten what fettuccine carbonara tastes like. I'm not going to tell you that I haven't even so much as checked the newspaper in the last week, and I'm not going to tell you that I can't find my little cast of stuffed toys for some reason. (It's probably wash day or something.)

But I am going to tell you that I'm still up and about. You'll know that I'm starting to wind down when the smoke starts coming out of my ears, when my breath starts coming in ragged smoker-rasps, and when I start spouting inappropriate random words in five-second bursts.

When I do, the instructions are simple: Just lean me over my desk, look for the rotator keys in the three slots somewhere along the small of my back, and wind each of them up. One key controls my thoughts, one key controls my speech, and one key controls my actions. (I grant bonus points to anyone who somehow gets the literary reference.)

Did I say that "burnout" was such a strong word? I'll say it again, then: "Burnout" is such a strong word. It feels good to resist the temptation to use it, I suppose.

On the Workload

Yes, I know that my posting rate seems to be slowing down. It's one of the busy seasons over at work.

I don't have much time at the moment, but I'll take a few minutes to explain things for the benefit of those who haven't held onto a job before, or those who haven't been part of the workforce for a while. You see, there are certain times of year when the workload just suddenly piles up on your desk. And by "workload", I can mean any number of things: paperwork, project executions, late-night meetings, anything. At these times of year, the office tends to be in "hell week" mode -- everyone's busy trying to finish what they can before the end of the week rolls around.

Normally, these "overworked" weeks come at specific times of the year. The end of June and the end of December are particular favorites, as these dictate the presence of mid-year and end-of-year reviews. What that means, therefore, is that the project managers are inevitably rushing the last steps of their self-driven initiatives at these times. After all, the review periods that take place here are usually favorite deadlines.

The work also has a tendency to pile up shortly before extended holidays or vacation periods. Every time the people in the office realize that they won't be back at work for another week or so, it usually means that a mad scramble is likely to take place shortly before the holidays come on. The consequences can also be applied to any high-level manager who plans an extended vacation, because they almost always look to finish what's on their plate before they head off.

This time of year, however, is the post-vacation period... it's that time of year when half the office has just returned from a long break (in this case, the Christmas holidays), and as such, have about two weeks' worth of unanswered e-mails to slog through. I certainly have my own share of papers to read and check and edit, despite having stayed in the office throughout the long break. On top of that, I'm expected to give a hand to the tens of hundreds of people who are doing the same thing.

You can see why I haven't been getting much sleep lately, least of all finding the time to sit down and write blog posts.

It doesn't mean that this'll last forever, though. Sooner or later -- maybe in a week, maybe in a month -- things will stabilize a bit and I'll be able to go back to my old arrangements.

Now I'll just have to find a way to survive...

Ode to a Mailing List

I first came upon the mailing list a few years ago. At that time, I was coming off two years of literary inactivity and two more years of careful probing into the local writing industry. I felt that I was on the cusp of what looked like a perfectly plausible writing career, and I decided to take steps towards that end. This list looked like the healthiest writing community of its sort on Yahoo! Groups, so it was the first one that got my subscription.

Now, you don't take signing up for a mailing list lightly. Any populous mailing list will result in a lot of messages in your inbox every day, so you usually have to brace yourself for the onslaught. You also have to have quite a few expectations of the list itself -- to me, this was a question of how many contacts I could make within the writing world; how many fellows I could meet and discuss the details of the art; and how many creative opportunities I could find nestled within the pages of their public fora.

One other expectation, however, was the fact that I had to leave the list someday. Considering the circumstances, now may be the right time.

It's not entirely the list's fault, of course. No, most of my complaints concern the stuff that I see in my inbox each day. I expected critiques, discourse and advice when I signed up; instead I constantly get unoriginal forwarded articles, "vanity" posts that serve as non-subtle links to somebody's blog, unwanted media advertisements, and solicitations for seminars that have barely anything to do with writing at all. I do get a few shreds of interesting discourse about once a month, but that's about it.

In short, it's probably high time for me to get on the horse and move on into the sunset. I know that there are other less populated, more developed forums out there. I don't want to continue subscribing to one that doesn't offer me any benefit at all.

Part of me feels like sounding off on the mailing list itself. Oh, you know how it'll probably go -- I write a really long letter mouthing off the list and all the people who turned it into the glorified walking archive of spam that it is, the denizens take the perceived insults personally and start calling me names, and others take my rants a little too close to heart and start a crusade to clean up the discussions. All in all, normal human behavior. But the more I think about it, the more I think that I shouldn't.

I mean, people have the right to post what they want. It's their piece of the Net, after all. As a member of a mailing list, you can use your time to either start some constructive discussion, or you can use your time to send bits of spam to everybody. Whatever the case, it's still your right to do whatever you want with your time -- and if the mailing list supports what you do, then I'm not going to complain about it just because I'm a member who happens to dislike it.

We can make any number of arguments over whether this opinion is right or not, I think. I imagine that some of us out there would rather take the high road in this case -- you know, dust off the tin star, mosey down Main Street, and clean up the town. If you have good reason to do that, then go right ahead by all means. But on my part, the welfare of one mailing list is farthest from my mind. I'm not interested in redeeming this one little thing when I have a lot of other little things sitting around waiting for my attention.

This logic shouldn't just apply to mailing lists. I mean, there's a whole Internet out there, and there's bound to be quite a few people, places and things that either offend you or insult your sensibilities. Depending on the situation, you could either give them a wide berth, or go in with guns blazing. Me, I'd usually rather leave them the wide berth. I usually don't have a reason to contest any claims, and there are plenty of other places that can hold my attention.

Sure, you can fight for what you think is right, but you still have to have a good reason to do so. You can't antagonize anybody just because. If I had a greater stake in the mailing list (as if, say, I was its owner or something), then I'd stick around, bring the people back in line, and try to run the spammers out of town. As it stands, I don't... and basically, I won't.

It's the same with the Net, really. If I hold differences against somebody's website, then I'm not about to suddenly strike up a campaign directed solely against that person. I find it far more logical (and practical) to ignore him. If I had a direct stake in the affair -- plagiaristic offenses and reputational damages come to mind -- then I might take some sort of action. But as long as I don't have a good reason to do anything drastic, then I won't. Any other person has about as much right to the Net as I do. Any other person has about as much right to their opinion as I do.

And that's why I'm just plain leaving. The spammers can have this mailing list, as far as I'm concerned. Throwing some heavy-handed complaint into the mix would just be placing some unwarranted emotional investment into something that's really not worth the trouble.

You might have a different opinion, of course. You might want to do something completely different in the same situation. Heck, you might actually take offense at this entry in this blog and decide to complain about it in a forum of your choosing. If that's the case, then whatever you do is your call. This is one of your rights, after all.

Just don't expect to complain for no good reason at all and expect people to take you seriously for it. There's a perfectly good stable of logic behind having at least one leg to stand on, and it most definitely involves the fact that you don't suddenly collapse on top of your own argument.

That's some fair advice up there. Take it or leave it as you may.

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four

When your company hosts three hundred employees in a single building, the corporate Christmas party tends to be a little impersonal. So the people in my division decided to host our own thirty-man affair, thus capping off our last working day before the long weekend. As we didn't have much of a budget left, we decided to go for a potluck gathering... each person was required to draw a random food type, and then provide a dish of that category for the party.

Along with three other people, I got unlucky and drew the "Vegetables" card, which meant that we had to find something organic that about thirty people would be willing to eat. Worse, our workload substantially increases just before the Christmas season, and in the weeks before the party, my compatriots had to beg off attendance due to one work-related reason or another.

In the end, my culinary-deprived skills and I decided to order a nice baked-potato dish from a company-approved caterer, to the tune of Php1,300.00 (USD 26.00). For a vegetable dish, it turned out to be pretty good (never mind that I already like potatoes to start with), the party ended up a modest success, and the end-of-year vacations went off without a hitch.

Fast-forward three weeks to this morning, where I was wondering if I could get my fellow group members to split for the price of the food. One thousand three hundred smackers is a lot for one person to take, even more so when you consider that four people were supposed to divide the costs to begin with. My first e-mail -- sent a few days before the party to let my co-workers know about the price -- had gone unanswered, however.

So this morning, the situation was clear: I had to find a way to negotiate the shares of my respective co-workers without giving the impression that I was a bitter, money-grubbing miser. Basically, I wanted to avoid an e-mail like this:

Hi, guys:

I want your P325.

Regards,
Sean

Eight-letter messages may satisfy the demands for corporate minimalism, but they also speak loud enough to get you beaten up.

On the other hand, I didn't want to be so subtle that they would again ignore me entirely. My own workload was seeing a post-New Year resurgence, and it was likely that if I didn't ask them for the money now, then I was never going to see a single red cent. That, and I like to think that I have a spine running along the length of my back.

Hi, guys. Er... ah... remember our Christmas party? That was a great night, wasn't it?

Oh, yeah... you weren't able to make it. Sorry.

Now, ah... remember how we were all supposed to provide a vegetable dish for the evening? Remember how I spent two straight days looking for an available caterer, and how they came through for us with those two platefuls of baked potatoes? I'd just like you to know that I, ah... paid for everything a bunch of weeks back, and, well... even though you weren't around, you were, ah... at least there in, er... spirit.

There was also the question of attitude. These were people who I was supposed to work with on a daily basis. I didn't want to show them that I was some loud, obnoxious fool who made unreasonable demands and always got what he wanted. (If I were, I'd probably be in upper management right now.)

Guys,

It's been three weeks since our Christmas party, and I am still out over a thousand pesos. You each owe me P325, and if you don't pay up, then I am going to start piling on the interest. If you somehow manage to ignore this message even after the many notices I've sent, then I will be forced to take drastic physical action (mostly involving the beer in your fridge).

I know you've got the money, so seal the funds in a clean white envelope and leave it under my locker by tomorrow morning. Do not screw with me, or I will turn green and start smashing everything in sight.

And then... I didn't want to get down on my knees and plead either.

Hi, guys:

Please please please PLEASE pay me the P325 you owe me from the Christmas party. I REALLY need the money now. Honest.

If you pay me before this weekend comes around, I will be your absolute bestest friend for life. I will serve you breakfast when you come in for the morning, and I will take all your calls for you late at night. I will shine your shoes, press your ties, and walk your dogs. I will clean your cabinets, wash your dishes, and write your reports... well, maybe not that last one.

Somewhere in the middle of my thoughts, before I even so much as sent anything, I noticed that I had received an e-mail from one of those group members. It was brief and to the point:

Hi, Sean:

How much do we owe you for the Christmas party?

"P325", I mentioned in my reply, and within the next couple of hours I had the money safely stowed away in my wallet. And no, I hardly had to type so much as a single actual word.

So all in all, it wasn't bad -- I wasted a few minutes this morning thinking about absolutely nothing at all, and I emerged plenty more well-funded for some reason. There's probably an underlying message to this strange sequence of events, something that would probably dictate the course of my life and convince me to make quite a few more serious decisions in the future.

Now, if I only knew what it was...

Disclaimer: January 2008