When the Skull Speaks

More than a year after the original contest, Fully Booked has finally announced the release of its Graphic Fiction Awards compilation. This anthology is set to feature the winners of the competition, from both the prose and comics categories.

I'm honestly not very excited about picking up the book, because I've already read and reviewed each of the finalist entries for prose fiction. At the moment, I don't feel the need to pick these up again at what's likely to be an overinflated price tag, just because I want the volume on my bookshelf. The way I see it, I've read these works already, I've made my feelings known, and I've moved on to other upcoming pieces.

All things said, however, I am curious about one thing.

Somewhere in the middle of my reviews and many others' analyses, it was found that one of the entries -- "A Song for Vargas" -- had lifted some of its lines from the The Last Unicorn, a Rankin-Bass movie based on a novel by Peter S. Beagle. These were some classic lines, no doubt, for them to stick to peoples' heads; They involved a talking skull and its desire for an empty bottle of wine, noting to a startled audience that it remembered the now-nonexistent liquor inside.

In The Last Unicorn, the talking skull serves as the informant for a distinct plot point. In "A Song for Vargas", the talking skull is held as one of the secrets of a mysterious captain. It is precisely this difference that prevents me from automatically assuming that this is a case of plagiarism. Instead, I find myself suspecting that the lines in question just stuck to the author's mind and emerged at some unlikely moment.

In any event, the lines are there, and the uncanny relationship between the short story and the movie is too prominent to be ignored. Anybody who's seen the movie will almost certainly recognize those lines, and I find myself wondering as to what their reactions will be like.

I'm not certain if "A Song for Vargas" will be included in the compilation. Fully Booked's announcement enumerates five of the finalists (including "Atha" and "A Strange Map of Time"), but doesn't mention "A Song for Vargas" in any way. Did they remove it from the running? Did they edit it for better public consumption? Or do they plan to release it as it was submitted, with the dubious lines intact?

Not that I'm trying to disparage anyone in any way, but I fear for the compilation if the latter case is true. This book is supposed to represent the winners of a high-profile writing contest sponsored by Neil Gaiman himself. How is an audience supposed to feel if one of the stories inside showcases a set of lines that were "borrowed" (deliberately or unconsciously) from an existing work?

I'm still not planning to pick up the book. But you can bet that I'll be sneaking a look at some of the copies, if only to see how Fully Booked decided to handle the matter. In the meantime, though, I'll be hoping that somebody doesn't do something that might turn out to be a huge mistake.

Fiction: Tech Support

(A note from the author:)

Twenty-two hours after I originally posted this short story, I received a request to have it optioned for publication. Given this arrangement, I feel that it would be disadvantageous to the publisher if this work was still available online. I have therefore removed it from availability.

I take this moment to apologize to anyone who expected something to read here, and I fully intend to make up for it with further works. In the meantime, I thank everyone who managed to catch the story during its brief stint online.

Regards,
Sean

Despondence

This weekend came and went in a blur, a corrugated sheet of gray speckled with rust from the recent rains. On Saturday I sat down and wrote a monthly disclaimer in a bid to lift my troubled spirits... but then I read it again, and I saw exactly how far I had regressed.

I spent Sunday in a daze, as though I wanted to drink myself under the table, imbibe vast quantities of non-prescription drugs, and jump off the edge of a building all at the same time. It was my diet that ultimately saved me -- I haven't had a dose of Mountain Dew for months now, and I'll be damned if I go to that great editorial desk in the sky without having soused myself silly.

It is at points like these that I have to distract myself. I had a lot of alternatives for this in the past -- sometimes I could play a few games of Magic and concentrate on game strategy rather than the events of a turbulent life, or sometimes I could busy myself with running a tournament and shut all other concerns from my mind. Sometimes I could even read -- yes, reading helps -- but after a while it becomes just like that medicine you've been taking since you were a child: Cheap, overused, and completely ineffective.

I am now left with two options. The first is work, and I suppose that it's inevitable. Work tends to drain all personal thoughts from my head; My nine-to-five hours on weekdays are a constant struggle between making my customers happy and getting my colleagues satisfied. Work leaves me with little regard for my own well-being, so short of being discovered dead at my own desk, it probably counts as a definite distraction.

The other option involves writing. No, posts like this don't count; I refer to short fiction, the demon that sits continually on my right shoulder. There are suddenly so many deadlines and so little time -- Dean Alfar's deadline is on September 15, Fully Booked's contest runs until October 31, and Philippine Genre Stories has a Christmas special in the works. You'd think that, with so many months to have filtered plotlines and written drafts, I'd already have something in mind for any of these contests. You'd be wrong, much to your chagrin and much to my desperation.

And now I'm even afraid to sleep. My dreams have colored themselves the same shade of rust-spotted gray.

When life brings you low, it doesn't just bring you down low; It kicks you to the curb and stands there, watching your blood run cold into the gutters. Sometimes it laughs.

Somewhere in the rain, the crows are watching. They're waiting for an old storyteller to pound the pavement and give up.

Somewhere in the crowd, that same old storyteller looks up and feels the rainwater running down the sides of his face.

Disclaimer: September 2007

Sean I be.
Sean I be.
I am just me,
Yes, Sean I be.

I write my posts
Both here and there
I write my posts
Most everywhere

I'd say I write them
In a box
Or say I write them
With a fox
But I don't write them
On a boat
And I don't write them
With a goat
No, I am not
No Doctor Seuss
I'm just a Sean
And that's obtuse.

But I did write these,
Sean I be.
I wrote these posts,
As you can see.

Not all the stuff here
Is of mine
But I say where these came from
All the time.

I hope that no one
Takes this stuff.
I spent time on it,
Work enough.
I wouldn't like it,
Sean I be
If someone takes it.
They're not me.

I did not write them
In the rain
I did not write them
On a train
I did not write them
On a house
I did not write them
With a mouse.
But I still wrote them,
As you see.
And I should claim them,
Sean I be.

If you want something,
Let me say
That you should make it
Your own way.
Don't put your name
On someone's stuff.
They worked hard for it,
Worked enough.
Don't say you wrote it,
That's too much.
You know you did not
Do as such.

And maybe someday
You will see
You'll write much more
Than even me.
You'll write much better
Poetry
Perhaps more skilled than
Sean I be.

So Sean I be,
Yes, Sean I be.
I wrote these words.
Yes, Sean I be.

Warmest Regards

It's hard for me to write letters.

Writing a letter is a lot different from writing a blog post, much less writing a short story. It's more... personal, for one. When you hunker down to scribble something on that clear sheet of paper, you have to realize that you won't be talking to an audience anymore. You'll be speaking to one other person from the wellspring of your heart and mind, and that's a strangely terrifying prospect.

I'm not a personable person as much as I am an audience person. I find it far easier to talk to audiences because they tend to think in certain directions: Every member of a crowd will have a higher tendency to act and think like the rest of the crowd does. (If you don't believe me, try asking a question during an open forum sometime -- doesn't it feel easier to walk up to the microphone if at least one other person has done so?)

In contrast, I find one-on-one exchanges to be far more difficult. There's no general mentality to read in these, no quick references that can be used to your advantage. Compounding the issue is the fact that I wouldn't even want to look for such things in a personal exchange -- that's why it's personal, after all. You don't treat a close friend as though he or she were just another part of the crowd.

Sadly, that's usually how I end up addressing matters. So far I've been accused of being distant, unrelatable, and difficult to know... and this is probably why. It's an odd twist, but then again, there are plenty of odd things in my life.

So I can't write very good letters. In the past, people have somehow managed to put up with my halfhearted attempts at personality, or with more than a few tries at creative literature as poor substitutes. I'm grateful for those who have somehow managed to recognize this disability of mine, although knowing that you can't do something and not being able to do it at all are two completely different... things.

So if that recent letter that I wrote to you sounds suspiciously like a corporate memo, or if I sent over a full-blown tapestry of a message complete with its own Greek chorus, then you must accept my apologies here. I can't help it right now, and it'll obviously take a lot of practice for me to get where I want.

At least I know that I'm trying. That notion at least gives me some comfort, despite hours of staring at a clear sheet of paper with absolutely no idea what to say.

The Maids are Watching Wrestlemania Again

My family is upper-middle-class in a lot of ways. For one, we earn enough money to pay the bills and leave something in the bank every month. We have access to constant technology upgrades, yet still remain thrifty enough to make our appliances last longer than their warranty periods. We all go to work and/or school regularly, we see movies at least twice a month, and we maintain the average 2.3 cars in a single garage. (One car works only about three-tenths of the time, so the use of the decimal point isn't too far-fetched.)

We also watch TV, for that matter. In fact, what amazes me is not merely the fact that we watch TV -- it's the fact that we somehow manage to share what few television sets we have in the house.

I suspect that my general resistance to TV has something to do with it. My inability to keep to a regular viewing schedule effectively takes me out of the household's unified schedule. While everybody catches their favorite programs, I usually stick to the PC and end up watching whatever everybody else watches.

My mother, for instance, is a news junkie. That is to say, she tunes in to CNN and all the other news channels on a very regular basis -- say, three or four times a day. The beauty of her arrangement is that she can literally catch her media interests any time; Even if she only has five minutes to catch whatever's on the tube, there's always a readable sidebar running along the bottom of the screen.

My sister, on the other hand, is a sports watcher who thrives on both professional and college basketball games. The seasonal nature of these programs, however, means that we're usually forced to make room for her only at certain times of the year. Otherwise she mostly does her homework and watches what we watch.

CSI, however, is a notable exception. My siblings consider the show to be one of the cornerstones of their existence. While I do admire the form and style of the show, I don't think that I would contemplate suicide if it ever got canceled, and I must therefore be less of a fan than they are.

Apart from the aforementioned forensic investigation hour, my brother also pinpoints specific shows for his personal attention. That is to say, he watches a lot of cartoons, divided evenly between episodes of Justice League Unlimited, and series of the pure animé persuasion. We actually share similar tastes when it comes to our programming; I just mind missing my shows a lot less than he does.

This leaves two members of the household help who've each been with us for at least twenty years, and they get the bulk of the TV time. While they do consume good helpings of the local variety shows and reruns of Pinoy Big Brother, most of their fare consists of knock-down, drag-out WWF Wrestlemania. They can outline a laundry list of favorite wrestlers from the mid-90s onwards, and they knew about Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit long before their tragedies hit the headlines. I suppose I should be counting our blessings, though -- at least they haven't started openly discussing flying scissor-locks, cannonball death jumps, and signature moves. Yet.

Why do I suddenly raise my family's strange viewing habits, you ask? Well... let me put it this way: In every middle-class family, somebody's got to pay the cable bills. Exactly how that duty fell to the person who watches the least TV is something for the books.

But hey, it could be worse. I mean, I could be driving three-tenths of a car.

Malu

For the past couple of weeks, the Malu Fernandez issue has made headlines in the local blogosphere. What happened was that Fernandez, a travel and lifestyle writer, wrote up a summary of her recent travels to Boracay, Greece and Dubai in People Asia magazine. The article, however, turned out to contain some... interesting... statements about Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), which caused an uproar in the local blogging community.

It's difficult for me to summarize the entire situation right now, so I'll refer you to Anton de Leon for the whole morbid timeline. Anton's site also does us the benefit of providing scans of Fernandez's published article.


"Seething With Anger": The offending passages

"Let's Grab Her and Bang Her Head": Blogger reaction comes to light

"Malu Fernandez on Everyone's Mind": High-profile reactions

"Malu Fernandez, Let Me Show You How Many...": The initiative

"Malu Fernandez Finally Resigns": Surrender and apology


While part of me is glad that everything reached a fitting conclusion, part of me remains appalled at the developments.

I engaged in a little blogging activism back in 2005, when an incredibly offensive IT "beauty contest" started making the rounds of the business community. After the initial shock and reaction, I was surprised to learn that the organizers were willing to sit down and discuss the offending circumstances with us. I actually went to their conference, sat among other bloggers to debate both sides of the issue, and came away thankful for the opportunity we had all been given. I liked to think that the organizers knew exactly what they had done wrong, and that they learned a valuable lesson from the experience.

Two weeks later, the organizers canceled the contest completely. It was not because they were convinced by sound logical arguments, though. It was because they began receiving grave threats from any number of anonymous sources. Someone went as far as to say that he was going to throw acid on the contestants.

I read their official press statement and couldn't believe the words that were right in front of me. I had pressed for civilized discussion, after all. I had tried to show them exactly why they were doing this wrong, and I had tried to drill the lesson into their heads: It wasn't enough for them to know what audience reaction was -- it was important for them to know why their terms were offensive, and to prevent themselves from doing anything like that again.

Now they learned nothing. Now they only knew that they couldn't hold such a contest because people would hurt them for it.

This is intimidation, plain and simple. This is not a "blogstorm", or a "cyber-counterculture movement", or whatever crap you choose to call it.

This is mob rule.

Read Malu Fernandez's apology again. Here -- I'll reproduce it for you from Anton's site if you don't remember where to find it:

"I am humbled by the vehement and heated response provoked by my article entitled 'From Boracay to Greece!' which came out in the June 2007 issue of People Asia. To say that this article was not meant to malign, hurt or express prejudice against the OFWs now sounds hollow after reading through all the blogs from Filipinos all over the world. I am deeply apologetic for my insensitivity and the offensive manner in which this article was written, I hear you all and I am properly rebuked. It was truly not my intention to malign hurt or express prejudice against OFWs.

As the recent recipient and target of death threats, hate blogs, and deeply personal insults, I now truly understand the insidiousness of discrimination and prejudice disguised as humor. Our society is bound together by human chains of kindness and decency. I have failed to observe this and I am now reaping the consequences of my actions. It is my fervent hope that the lessons that Ive learned are not lost on all those who through anonymous blogs, engaged in bigotry, discrimination, and hatred (against overweight individuals , for example).

I take full responsibility for my actions and my friends and family have nothing to do with this. To date I have submitted my resignation letters to both the Manila Standard and People Asia, on that note may this matter be laid to rest. "

Did Malu Fernandez learn anything from the experience? Maybe. For all we know, she'll never write another statement of "acerbic wit" again.

What disturbs me is that she learned it from looking at us.

Malu Fernandez never got a rational discussion of why her article was wrong. We never sat down and talked with her. Instead, we pelted her with whatever scraps of mud and excrement we could find. We called her terrible names and made horrible parodies of her work. We jeered, and grinned, and dared her from our own little recesses of anonymity.

Malu Fernandez didn't apologize because we taught her to become a more sensitive person. Malu Fernandez apologized because she saw a disturbing reflection of herself in our words and actions. Malu Fernandez apologized because she did not want to sink to our level.

I don't care if you're merely comfortable with the results. Contrary to what you might think, results are not everything.

We intimidated her with insults, with threats, and with violence when we could have invoked a perfectly rational response. Maybe we were just angry. Maybe we were working under duress. Maybe we just became completely hostile at the mere thought of her words.

Whatever the case, Malu Fernandez saw exactly what we were: a mob that was intimidating her into submission. Maybe she just wanted no part of our epithet-spewing mess. Or maybe she only apologized because we had threatened to do terrible things to her family.

We may be happy with what happened, ladies and gentlemen. But I've also seen how we were able to make this come about. I've seen the threats, and the humiliation, and the rows upon rows of horrible little words.

I now ask how high the cost was, and what kind of people we've become. I don't like any of the answers.

Tell me that this was not worth it.

Please.



.

Short Cuts

There's something to be said about short posts. Sometimes, when you don't feel like slogging through a hundred words just to hear one argument or another, a short read looks a lot more attractive than some stodgy long essay.

The situation isn't the same from a writer's point of view, though. I suspect that a lot of us just sit down and let the words flow out of our heads, piling onto the computer screen in row after row of text. In short, I don't think that most of us are conscious about the length of our writings -- and by the time we wrap up a piece and see that it has gone far longer than we intended, our first instinct definitely does not involve cutting it down in size.

Sometimes it's a thinly-veiled method to mask our own insecurities. Not all of us find it easy to make a good point from the very beginning, so we end up spouting any number of random arguments until we do hit the right nerve. Empathic authors somehow manage to do this while sounding completely organized and believable. Other authors might end up offending people with some of their scattershot offerings.

I'm not sure when I stopped writing brief excerpts and starting writing the truly long stuff. It could be that I wanted to squeeze as many points into my work as possible -- this, in fact, would have resulted in some really thick paragraph blocks if it weren't for my penchant for standalone text fragments.

Or, if I were to take the reason given above -- I'm probably more insecure than I look.

Now there's a comforting thought.

Sugar, Sugar

She stared at the box.

Every day she had to go through this. It was ridiculous. It wasn't even as if Higgs & Meakins did good chocolates. They were just butter and sugar and--

She scrabbled amongst the sad little scraps of brown paper inside the box and pulled out a chocolate. No-one could be expected not to have just one chocolate, after all.

She put it in her mouth.

Damndamndamndamn! It was nougat inside! Her one chocolate today and it was damn artificial damn pink-and-white damn sickly damn stupid nougat!

Well, no-one could be expected to believe that counted. She was entitled to another.

- Terry Pratchett, The Thief of Time

No, my liver problems haven't gone away yet. In fact, I've been running under a new restriction for the past couple of months or so -- I'm supposed to drastically cut down on my sugar intake. This entire recommendation came about because my doctor noted that I had a fatty liver... which meant that, under the right circumstances, all I had to do was to lose some weight.

"So you have to cut down on your sugars," he told me. "Try to avoid most cakes and pastries. Continue avoiding carbonated drinks unless they're diet or sugar-free. Minimize contact with coffee, candy, or chocolate."

"No problem about that last part, doc," I told him. And it was true... there are plenty of candy and/or chocolate people in the world, but I'm neither. I will sing the praises of sugar about as easily as other people will... but my involvement usually only goes as far as carbonated drinks and tiramisu. After that, I don't know.

A few people do scratch their heads and wonder what I was like when I was a kid. The answer is simple: I was pretty much the same as I am now, with the same dislike for sugary confectionery. I did get a piece of candy stuck up my nose once (long story), but I assure you that it did not affect my psychology in any way.

This is not to say that I don't eat candy at all. I can consume the stuff as much as other people can... I just don't do it beyond a certain limit: say, about one piece at a time. How people can finish entire lollipops in one sitting or keep entire rolls of Life-Savers in their purses still astounds me. I mean, don't you get sick of this stuff?

The whole matter could also be related to the fact that diabetes runs in my family. But I didn't know this way, way back when I was a kid... and in any case, I'm currently not in danger of developing the condition. My lifestyle simply doesn't center around sugar all that much, short of the massive doses of Mountain Dew.

Then again, I suppose that it's a matter of "to each his own". If you're the type who eats a lot of candy, then I won't fault you for it. I'll probably write an entire piece of fiction about you someday, but I won't fault you for it.

And in any case, my disdain for the sweet stuff usually leaves a lot more candy on the dish in the middle of the living room. More for you, I suppose. Take it with my compliments.

26 Miles on a Single Disc

For some strange reason, I've been hearing quite a few suggestions for a DVD marathon over the past couple of weeks. With all the talk about stringing a bunch of movies together for a day of popcorn and wide-screen TVs, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to run into a serious get-together one of these days.

One of the interesting things that have come up is the possibility of holding a "focused" DVD marathon -- that is, watching a bunch of movies that all have a single thing in common. Marcelle seems to love the idea of a Frat Pack marathon, for example: That means that everything we watch should involve some combination of Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Steve Carell and their fellows.

While I'm generally okay with the idea of a Frat Pack marathon (in fact, I'm looking forward to Ferrell's and Carell's stuff), it does strike me as a little monotonous. A bunch of Frat Pack movies will almost definitely be equivalent to a handful of comedies, and I usually like a little variety to my marathons. I don't want to start laughing at the first movie, only to be totally sick of their brand of humor at the end of the day.

In the end, this got me thinking about other possible ideas for DVD marathons. I mean, there are about a million possible focal points out there; Which of these go across different genres and touch various ends of the spectrum? I want to experience some combination of comedy, drama, action and whatever else when it comes to my movies... if I can somehow find a category where all of these can fit in, then so much the better.

As a result, I came up with a few ideas. You're welcome to suggest anything else that's good with the criteria, by the way -- I'm just considering the following topics below.

*

Short-of-Best-Picture winners: Sometimes the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sure can pick 'em... and sometimes they can't. There are a few movies on my "must-watch" and "must-watch-again" lists that were nominated for Best Picture yet fell short of the mark for whatever reason. Although dramas are usually singled out for the Best Picture statuette, the nomination finalists are far broader in terms of genre: There are light comedies (The Full Monty, As Good as It Gets), a few mob movies (Goodfellas), action flicks (The Fugitive), animations (Babe), and even a Baz Luhrmann musical (Moulin Rouge!). That would make quite a program, in my opinion.

My contribution: Dog Day Afternoon. This 1975 nominee stars a young Al Pacino in what was supposed to be a quick bank robbery; Instead, everything goes terribly, hideously wrong, and we're there to watch every second of it.

*

Martial Arts demonstrations: I grew up watching the chop-socky, and I get pretty jaded with a lot of the mundane modern-day stuff. So whenever the martial arts even so much as appear in a movie, I feel that the picture must be interesting enough for me to even consider it redeemable. With that said, I would be glad to see stuff like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Matrix, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and Shaolin Soccer on a marathon playlist. Even dogs like Kung Pao: Enter the Fist might be worth watching, if only because they're such curiosities.

My contribution: Kung Fu Hustle. It's not your typical martial arts comedy, because it takes everything that's absurd about the genre and somehow attempts to play it straight. That, and the humor is remarkably insightful.

*

Tom Hanks movies: The thing about Tom Hanks is that he started off as an actor working in comedies, then somehow moved into doing dramatic roles. What makes his career interesting is that a lot of his movies actually turned out well... which means that a Tom Hanks marathon would probably hit a certain level of quality. You could run award-winners like Philadelphia, or 80's comedies like Big. You can even run into romance (Sleepless in Seattle) or animation (Toy Story). As long as you don't get tired of hearing his voice all the time, I suppose that this would do fine.

My contribution: Punchline. This forgotten movie has Tom Hanks as an unknown comedian, mentoring Sally Field on the skills of the stand-up act. But when everything comes down to a single contest for discovery and stardom, their line between friendship and individual achievement gets placed into question.

*

This doesn't cover everything that's floating in my head right now... but it's a good reference.

Of course, I'm open to other ideas or feedback. If you want to suggest something, or figure that my taste in movies somehow appalls you, feel free to sound off. You know my wants here -- I'm looking for a focus that can cover multiple genres, or at least a few interesting pictures that won't necessarily blur together after eight hours.

Heck, you're free to suggest anything, just as long as it won't obligate me to track you down for a marathon or two. :)

Wanted: Proofreader

Yes, I'm looking for a proofreader right now.

No, it's not for me. I like to think that I can proofread my own stuff, which makes it all the more painful whenever somebody finds the inevitable grammatical error in one of my writings. Nevertheless, the need is not mine. Rather, it's for an acquaintance who's putting out his first book.

Yeah, that's right. You get to be part of an author's first foray into the world of self-publishing. If this book makes the bestseller list or wins a national award, then your name goes down in history as the grammatical expert who made this work fit for publication.

Or maybe not. You'll just be proofreading it, after all.

But you will relish the feeling of a job well done, and you'll still feel proud of yourself when you realize that the book that you helped out has made the shelves. Perhaps you'll even get a copy.

Whatever the case, I'm looking for a proofreader right now -- not to mention, wondering where all the good proofreaders have gone. Let's be honest here: Just because you're good at writing doesn't mean that you'll be good at editing. I'm not looking for somebody who's merely had exposure to the writing world... I'm looking for somebody who has had actual experience piecing together the nuances of the English language. If the names "Strunk" and "White" aren't familiar to you in some way, then you're probably not who I'm looking for.

Your job will require you to look over a little less than 200 pages' worth of work. That's not as long as some of the thick-headed novels out there, and it's obviously not going to be an elephant on your back.

There won't be much pay involved. Aw, come on... you knew that I was going to say this at some point. This shouldn't stop you from making a deal with the client at all: Maybe you can get a share of the royalties. Maybe you can trade services at some time in the future. Maybe you can just waive the fee completely, knowing that at least your hours will be appreciated. Whatever the case, you can just name your terms.

If you're interested in taking this on, then feel free to contact me. You can leave a comment down here if you like. You'll most likely speak to me via e-mail, though, and that's why you should send any messages to saito_ichikawa at yahoo dot com.

I'm just the middleman here, so I'll probably only check up on your background and portfolio, introduce you to the client, and then step off to the side. From there, the quality of your work should be entirely your responsibility.

There you have it, then -- I've given you the scenario, and I've given you the setup. I'll just be waiting in the back corner if you find yourself willing to play.

A Time to Proselytize

One of my cousins once found herself receiving religious text messages from a family friend at a regular rate. The messages came about once a day, and they started out as simple quotes taken from the Bible. Later, these messages slowly graduated to religious insights gleaned from extra-biblical references. And after that, the sender began placing sermons from one reverend or another, interpreting various biblical passages each day.

From my cousin's point of view, she was originally quite neutral to these messages. Then, as the passages started adding up and interrupting her normal workday, she began to hate them. By the time she finally confronted the caller and ordered him to stop, she despised them so much that civility was no longer an option.

At that point, the caller professed naiveté: He said he was unaware that these messages were bothering her, apologized, and promised that he would stop sending her his daily missives. Now, you may assume that this discouraged him from doing the same to anyone else. You'd be wrong, though: It turns out that, to this date, he still sends these same messages to his circle of phone contacts. Regularly, too -- about once a day.

This is not an argument against the enthusiastic religious, mind you. I suppose that people have a right to be religious. You can believe in whatever you want, whether it's a higher deity or a level of enlightened mastery or a black sock puppet that sounds like it's talking to you. You can even dedicate any amount of your life and time to any of these core faiths, black sock puppet notwithstanding.

No, I won't argue against the religious here. What I will argue against, however, is the psychology of unwanted messaging.

I have no idea what compels people to stick random messages in our faces and immediately expect that we read and enjoy them. You find these people everywhere, I think: They're the anonymous businessmen whose spam mail clogs your inbox, they're the sales agents who try to give you fliers at the entrances to malls, and they're the electioneers who leave campaign materials in your mail slot. They're the convention gamer who wants to tell you all about his Level 21 Orc Paladin, the screenwriter who constantly hounds you about his derivative manuscript, the self-declared critic who tears down your favorite stuff simply because he likes getting a rise out of people.

And what appalls me is that -- like the proselytizing young evangelist I mentioned above -- these people think that they are entirely justified in doing what they do.

I suspect that salesmanship has something to do with their motivations. We use conviction a lot: We use it to push forward our ideas, we use it to dispense advice, and we use it to consider alternatives. We can also apply our own convictions towards other people, however; This is why we have such things as "points of view".

What crosses the line into pure, unabashed irritation, however, is that point where we begin to focus more on the salesmanship and less on the empathy. We don't think of how people will realistically react anymore; We simply assume that they'll like whatever garbage we spoon down their throats, and send them whole reams of the stuff. I'm aware that human behavior can all too easily be taken to the extreme; This happens to be one of those episodes.

And if anything, what makes this so difficult to swallow is the fact that it's so hard to stop. My cousin took a few months to come to her senses and confront her unwanted correspondent; When I asked what took her so long, she said that she simply didn't know what to say.

I think that this is a common dilemma. I mean, assuming that you're still thoughtful about other people in some way, you'd hesitate before you tell off any unwanted solicitors. Why? Because you'd be afraid of hurting their feelings, of course. They may be on the verge of offending you, but you still wouldn't want to offend them. Not unless you feel you have no other choice.

So you put on a brave face, and wait for that straw to break the camel's back. It's not much of a solution, but the elimination of all civility does make it easier to cut things off with the person. Hopefully you won't have lost too much of your humanity to commit homicide right then and there.

Offending the person, after all, would result in quite a rough time. You could be called irreverent or blasphemous just for interrupting a caller's religious tirades. Or you could be accused of elitism just for saying that you find absolutely nothing of value in Level 21 Orc Paladins.

For that matter, this doesn't even take into account the possibility of the person completely ignoring your pleas. Complain to a spammer, for example, and you'll probably just get more spam in response. And those self-professed critics will most likely just turn up their noses and insist that they have better audiences than you.

That "homicide" option just looks so attractive sometimes.

When it comes to unwanted solicitations, the fault really doesn't lie with us -- it lies in the people who send them with little or no consideration whatsoever. Despite this, it's we who have to suffer for it and agonize over the possible consequences. Sometimes it's just difficult to be civil, that's all.

And then that's when the notion turns back on us and asks: "What if we're the unwanted senders? What if we're the ones who are trying to foist the unsolicited stuff on people?"

After all -- before you point out the speck in another person's eye, you've first got to remove the stick from yours. Just because other people can be irritating to you doesn't mean that you're not irritating to other people.

You could be doing some real nasty stuff, I mean. You could be pushing your works too hard. You could be doing some unbearably shameless self-promotion. You could be trumpeting your own strengths without regard to how much of a buffoon you look like.

Or you could be ranting about unwanted messages, when it turns out that you could be writing a few, yourself.

Just a thought.

...

I'm shutting up now.

Sleepspeak

Tired. Can't sleep.

Strange thing. Noticed once, very recently, that when brain shuts down I start writing like this. Not quite Yoda-speak, not quite gibberish. Strange, how modifiers suddenly disappear and you get distilled essence. Don't know where it comes from. Maybe fingers too tired to type; Maybe mind just takes over.

Sense in him much fear. Fear lead to anger, anger lead to hate, hate lead to suffering. Heh.

Probably cannot keep up this writing when lucid. Feels like thoughts passing from brain directly to paper. In real life, would have to add lots of frills. Would add more articles like "I" or "the". Would put much more adverbs. Writing looks different when you don't consider words.

Head buzzing. Have headache again, I think. Don't know if from before dozing off, or because of waking up in middle of night. Maybe both. Might even be sound of mind working overtime. Like infernal combustion engine.

Also have urge to check e-mail. More from force of habit than anything else. Check e-mail every time computer is on. Could be compulsive now.

Awake for maybe thirty minutes. Strange. Have not yet lapsed into normal-speak. Should be name for this kind of speaking. Sleepspeak, you think? Sounds good.

Once heard that some people keep notepad and paper beside beds. That way, if idea comes in middle of night, they wake up half-lucid and scribble it down. Have not heard of any great work of art that comes from this, but don't knock it. If style works for them, then fine.

Probably not work for me. Might wake up tomorrow morning and not remember writing this, might wake up and not care at all. Just write, that's all. Don't care when you write, you just write.

Wonder what editor would think. Editor would probably have heart attack. This not easiest thing to proofread. Not even sure if I can read it.

Winding down now. Back to sleep soon. Headache getting worse, like cranium stuffed with minty-fresh cotton balls. Who knows -- might have better things to write about tomorrow. If work don't kill them first. If not too busy to put them down.

Otherwise, only alternative to wait for them and dream. And maybe one day, will sleepwalk to computer and put them down in state of half-drowse. Just like this.

The Banner Says It All

Going over my sidebar earlier today, I realized that the little PinoyTopBlogs counter was suddenly active again. It's probably because it's still early in the month and the other blogs' fanbases haven't quite shown up yet... but at least I know that, for one brief moment on a Monday evening, this blog was in the top 200 of Abe Olandres's computer-generated list.

I also found that I had made a banner for this blog sometime in the distant past, and I had forgotten all about it:




There you have it, folks -- more evidence that I exist in a state of perpetual drunkenness.

Somehow, it makes me wonder what other weird taglines I can come up with.

*Opens Photoshop*

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Disclaimer: August 2007

[Scene III. The blogosphere. The lengthofwords web site.]

Enter Sean, holding a human skull.

Sean. Woe strikes as a shadow, for no man
May master grief without its hand upon his soul.
All men know darkness, yet darkness knows
That only man may hold aloft the torch of fear.

Enter a Visitor.

Vis. Good sir, have you not emerged from this vile depression?

Sean. Wise men counsel patience. I, though little more than a fool,
Seek the ancients' example, and see that mortal men listen.

Vis. Be well then, and see that illness does no more to foolish minds.

Exit Visitor.

Sean. Would that I know what manner of mind would fall
Beneath the mad blows of weakness! [Raises skull]
Does not every man seek to make his mark in a temporal world
And leave death's bed with some trace of passing
That all would know his steps, his breath, his words?
Lies are told by baser men, who shake and shiver and steal
And blow away when Aeolus's winds take land and all.
Does not a man have heart? Does not a man have mind?
Should he know none of fear and stealth that felled far lesser men?
I labored over my words; It is my right to keep them from criminal ways
Yet not shelter them from the eyes of the righteous.
[Lowers skull.] I am no rogue. I make my own words.
Those words I take from others I make due acknowledgement
Lest their spirits hound me in my weakness.
I welcome them to my home. I say to them, pray
If I transgress upon their noble efforts, then let me be damned
And let me remove the words to burn upon the ashes of my folly.

Vis. [Offstage] What of the weaker ones? Do you deny them passage?

Sean. I deny nothing.
But they must know that elder patience still has its threshold
And words, though paltry, are still of value and owned.
Does man not have a mind? Does man not have a soul? [Clutches skull.]
Does ethics trade with morals in ducats and gold?
I open my words to those who would ask for them.
They must resolve weakness with promises of fair use;
Such bravery banishes demons of context to the nethers.
But those who take without question, those who steal without song,
Those who would harm my words by hair or breadth
Deserve nothing but denial. There are enemies around us
Who cloy their promises with empty rights and sundered laws.
It pays to know what lies in their hearts.

Vis. [Offstage] And of their minds?

Sean. [Opens skull, to reveal nothing inside.] What mind?
For any man who would steal such words
Must not have mind nor words of his own.
If not now, then never. Woe follows the man who cannot
Make his mark upon a world that detests him.
The world makes its mark on him, and is lost.

Exeunt.

.

Now... What Was I Saying?

Three-and-a-half minutes ago, I felt like writing something. Now, three-and-a-half minutes later, I can't remember what it was that I wanted to write about.

This isn't writer's block, mind you. I don't believe in writer's block. Saying that you can't think of anything to write is like saying that you're completely unable to observe everything that's happening around you and strain it all into a good story. Being able to think of a compelling topics and then completely forget them a few minutes before you even commit a single word to paper, however, is something else entirely.

I used to write this off as an unfortunate fact of life -- a normal event in the life cycle of an idea. I mean, if you somehow manage to forget something, then it's not necessarily your fault. Maybe the idea was simply not interesting enough to stick to your head. And if it's not interesting enough to stick to your head, what more can it possibly do when it gets placed in front of a reading audience?

Now I feel like a man who thinks he's lost his eyeglasses when they're actually perched on his head: Old, absent-minded, and possibly getting more decrepit with each day. Ironically, my usual cure for this condition involves writing... and I can't write if I keep forgetting what things I'm supposed to write about. It's one of those cyclus viciosa-thingamajiggies... whatever you call it.

Again, this is not writer's block. I'm perfectly capable of thinking up a bunch of interesting plots... it's remembering them that's the problem.

It could be that I simply have a whole bunch of stuff on my mind right now. When this happens, it becomes difficult for the new ideas to come in -- all the other thoughts in my head probably get together for a consensus meeting, and then promptly kick the interloper out. Again, it's possible that an idea just needs to be impressive enough in order to mix with the crowd.

It's almost like an exclusive club that way. And it would certainly explain my headaches, too.

Who knows, really? Maybe that one good idea that I'm waiting for is going to come along any second now. Hopefully I won't forget it like all the others that have blown away like leaves on a strong breeze.

Read the Stupid Post

Let's suppose that you write a particularly informative blog post one day. I say "informative", because your intent is to present a personal analysis of a certain object or issue. You try not to advocate one viewpoint over any others, and you don't necessarily advertise yourself as an expert on the subject. You do, however, try to collect your thoughts and carefully organize them in an essay-type format. You want to speak to an audience, after all, and you want the topic to get the treatment it deserves.

Now let's suppose that you get one very angry reaction to your post. It rants and it rails against certain key items found in your essay, even going as far as to accuse you of bias, and claim that you have not given equal attention to all sides of the story. This scenario is, of course, not too unrealistic -- we stand the chance of offending people, no matter how well we make our preparations and how open we are in our style of writing.

Now let's add one last wrinkle to this: Let's suppose that that one very angry reaction turns out to be a complete misunderstanding. Let's say that whoever wrote it appears to have missed the point of what you were trying to say. Moreover, let's say that your rancorous writer accuses you of some offense that doesn't exist in your essay to begin with.

In an era where blog posts are disposable affairs and people are far more likely to skim through your words instead of reading them carefully, this is a very real scenario. What do you do in this case, ladies and gentlemen? What do you do?

I find that the knee-jerk reaction involves apologizing to the person and rephrasing at least part of your passages. This assumes that the blame falls on the author -- that is, if the essay had been phrased better, then perhaps this very angry person wouldn't have misinterpreted the piece and consequently wouldn't have written his very angry comments. In my humble opinion, however, this also assumes that the individual user is infallible: If he sees so much as a speck of dust on that marble statue in the corner, then it must obviously be the sculptor's fault.

Most writers will therefore toe the line here, and will gently point out the person's misunderstanding as well as clarify their position on the subject. This acknowledges that the fault can go either way: Maybe the writer was vague at certain points in the text, and maybe the reader just wasn't clear on the same areas. This is negotiation, plain and simple -- "I'll admit that I could have phrased this better if you'll admit that your understanding may have been flawed." It does the benefit of assuming that we're all reasonable people at heart.

There are times, however, when a writer can do nothing but scratch his head and wonder just how a certain piece could have been misinterpreted. You know how it goes: Sometimes a reader simply muddles "yes" with "no", "good" with "bad", and "left" with "right". Or sometimes a reader just latches on to some preconceived notion floating around his head and somehow refuses to let go in the face of a completely foreign topic. Or sometimes a reader ignores you completely. Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.

Some writers ignore these people completely. If they didn't read the work properly in the first place, then they're not likely to listen to any follow-ups. Other writers lambast these readers, pointing out why their reactions are wrong (in no uncertain terms this time). Whatever the case, pure ignorance like this always gets a response from an extreme end of the spectrum. Sometimes, I suppose, you can't do anything apart from simply assuming that not everyone in your audience is as perceptive as you thought.

On the other hand, we usually go with the middle-ground option precisely because not everybody may be as perceptive as we think... not even us. We know that we're not always correct, just as we know that the reader is not always correct -- and we therefore allow for both possibilities.

That doesn't mean, though, that we can't derive a certain satisfaction from bawling out a person who doesn't bother reading anything before posting his comments. But of course, we're too reasonable to do things like that.

Er... right?

Elves and Dwarves and Orcs, Oh My

Mention a "fantasy" genre to anyone and you'll inevitably conjure up a few stereotypical images. Among them: warriors, wizards, knights, clerics, half-naked barbarians, thieves, sorcerers, half-naked women, pointy-eared elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, enchanted swords, shields, armor, magic, queens, kings, gods, temples, undead, runes, staves, wands, and ye olde Englysh-speak.

That list, in retrospect, does not cover just "a few" stereotypical concepts. In fact, that's a full-blown set of immediate assumptions right there. This is probably what comes to most people's minds when they consider the fantasy genre, and I think that it's a very unhealthy development. Fantasy fiction -- at least, in theory -- is supposed to let us explore new universes and alternative worlds. When a genre constantly gets you multiple versions of the same basic concept, however, then you have to admit that there's something wrong.

Personally, I blame Dungeons & Dragons for this development. Don't get me wrong about the game -- I think that it promotes storytelling skills and makes for good creative exercise. But now that the original generation of D&D players has grown up and started putting together their own fantasy universes, everything seems to be a constant rehash of the same old things.

This is probably why most fantasy fiction doesn't seem to impress me nowadays. This is probably also why your D&D character profile doesn't impress me, either.

I like to see some innovation in the fantasy fiction I read -- something beyond the usual staples, mind you; Something that tells me that the author put more than the usual effort into building his or her universe. The fantasy genre doesn't necessarily have to be pigeonholed into worlds full of the same racial populations and physical forces. The genre is supposed to stretch our imagination to begin with, not encourage us to use the same things over and over again.

I'm aware that it's not easy to think outside the box. But the problem is that we've penned ourselves inside the box for quite some time now. Most of us have been writing fantasy like this for so long that it's difficult for us to conceptualize the genre in any other way.

Whatever the case, I want to stop thinking of fantasy as the domain of elves, knights, wizards and whatnot. There's got to be other universes to explore here. There's got to be more to the fantasy genre beyond what everybody and their mother is writing nowadays.

The Unlikely Corpse

Having taken a close look at some pieces of detective fiction, the Noir writing style, and various episodes of CSI, I have arrived at three initial conclusions. The first is that Mysteries usually challenge the reader to solve them. The second is that atmosphere seems to have become more important for Mysteries in recent years.

The third, and probably the most remarkable, is that a Mystery seems to become far more interesting when it deals with a very unlikely crime or a very intractable situation.

The latter idea does not come as a surprise. Suppose that you're a witness at two different crime scenes: Victim A lies dead in the middle of a wooden floor with a bullet in his chest, while Victim B lies dead in the bathtub, wearing a skintight black leather suit with pink polka dots and clutching a rubber chicken in his left hand. Which of the two cases would immediately pique your curiosity?

This, I think, is why shows like CSI get some very good ratings. We don't watch these shows because we're interested in Grissom's entomology skills, or Caine's intensity, or Taylor's love life. We watch these shows because some writer decides to present us with a very improbable situation at the start, then goes through the motion of telling us exactly what happened.

What happened? is one of those questions that will concern us the most, regardless of who we are, or what we have to do with the situation in the first place. We are compelled to get an answer and resolve our curiosity. Failing that, we can do nothing but gawk at the crime scene, in the hope that somebody's nice enough to explain things to us.

This, I think, is the primary factor in an interesting Mystery. Good Mystery fiction has to get the reader asking questions about the story: What happened? Who did it? Who's involved? Why did it take place? And for goodness' sakes, what does the rubber chicken have to do with all this?

Mysteries are an exercise in the intractable situation and the logical conclusion. They allow us to follow the clues and attempt to unravel everything ourselves; We may or may not be able to do this depending on how well the story is written, but we do end up greatly empathizing with the dapper sleuth, the dilettante scholar, or the hard-boiled detective who is tasked to tie up all the loose ends.

I find this to be a great hook, mind you. It's hard enough to grab a reader's attention with an ordinary story, but present him with an unexpected murder in a seemingly impossible situation and he'll inevitably wonder just how the whole thing took place. And when he finally relishes the last words and closes the book on the Mystery, he's going to feel very satisfied at having sated his own personal curiosity. This, despite the fact that he had absolutely nothing to do with the crime or its proponents beyond turning the pages.

It's funny, somehow. Reading a Mystery is therefore something like staring at the scene of an accident, or rushing outside to watch the fire engines go by. We can't help ourselves -- we just have to know what happened. Yes, we know perfectly well what the sirens mean; But we still have to know what the sirens mean.

I'll try to adopt this approach the next time I head in this direction. At best, I could write a rip-roaring exposition of some twisted conspiratorial scenario. At worst, I suppose that I would have written a very odd crime scene for the books.

Whatever the case, I figure that the compulsion is there. People are just curious, I think. We just really want to know what happened, how events came to such a conclusion, and who was unlucky enough to go down for the count. It's human nature, yes. And it's a mystery.

Down in the Depths

I'm depressed right now.

It's not business-related or work-related at all. It's more personal than anything else, and it's not the sort of thing that you place on your blog. I'll just leave it at that.

You won't be seeing much in the way of personal posts here for a while. Normally I would have something up here about an event that happened on my way home, or something about my constant problems with modern technology, or something about games that few people on earth could possibly understand. As it is, I'm not in the mood to talk about anything funny, or anything technical, or anything fun. I'm just depressed, that's all.

I still write whenever I'm depressed. It helps somehow, especially when you're writing fiction. That way, you get to release all those little doubts floating around your head and lay everything down on a single metaphorical scrap of paper. It doesn't fully banish those demons -- I mean, nothing can and nothing will -- but at least it makes the memory a little easier to bear.

So you'll probably see a lot more literary stuff here in the near future. I'll still try to make my self-imposed deadlines, and I'll still answer peoples' comments as much as I can... but my mind will be a lot less scattered over the next few weeks at least. It's not that I don't feel like writing; It's more of the fact that this is one of the few ways I have to bounce back.

I'm depressed right now. You don't ask why, and I don't tell.

I apologize.

Talecrafting: Hurricane Force (Part 2 of 3)

The first installment of this experiment in literary construction is here.

So I've gone through the cards. I've gone through my initial thoughts. I've missed the original deadline. What next?

Based on my first few tries at Talecraft, I figure that the best way to start brainstorming is to take the cards in singles or combinations, and then try to build a possible plot from there. Once I have something put together on the backs of three or four cards, then I can usually work the others into the picture. For every plotline that manages to meld all of the given elements together, I can set it aside for possible future work.

In this instance, I know that I need to work with the Science Fiction genre, so I'll be approaching each of the keywords below from a background of machines, technology and morbid philosophical questions. I suppose that it's also possible for me to conceptualize the base story first and add the sci-fi later, but I'd like to make sure that I start integrating the genre requirement from the very beginning.

Tomb // Escape - This was the most obvious "plot-driver" that I could see: Protagonist seeks to escape from a tomb of some sort, antagonist attempts to stop him, wacky hijinks ensue, roll credits. Adding to the feasibility of this idea was the fact that tombs are natural places to escape from; They can be portrayed as dark and foreboding places of doom, or as prisons that conceal or restrict the characters from the outside world. The fact that something's got to be buried in the place gives the story some good motivation -- it wouldn't be a tomb unless it was deliberately withholding something from the light of day.

From a sci-fi perspective, we wouldn't even be limited to using some sort of mausoleum or burial chamber. We could use, say, a scrapyard of some sort (where old machines go to die), a smelting plant (same thing), a vacuum-sealed chamber (for the preservation of relics), even a funeral craft floating through the depths of space (like some future Viking-type ritual).

This raises more than a few ideas. What is the protagonist running away from, for instance -- the ghosts of the tomb's dwellers? A bunch of ancient machines who have become sentient? Perhaps the protagonist is the tomb's inhabitant himself, seeking to escape a clerical error that literally "buried" him alive.

The problem with this scenario is that the other keywords make for such an odd fit. I find it difficult to work a Dandy archetype into the mix, much less a Haunted Hero (whose story seems to go in a completely different direction than this one). I am particularly stymied by the inclusion of a Grandfather Clock among the keywords -- how would this go into an "escape from tomb" situation? For that matter, how could it possibly go into a story of the Science Fiction genre?

Finally, a tomb-escape combination just strikes me as a little obvious. If I had only five minutes to put the story together, then I'd definitely approach it from this angle... but I've got a lot more time on my hands than that. It makes for a good default plotline, but let me first see what else I can think of...

Grandfather Clock // Science Fiction - These are probably the two cards that have the worst synergy with each other. A grandfather clock usually belongs in a far more traditional setting; It implies a sort of rustic wealth, or a Victorian-style grace, or a gothic background. As a result, this granddad of formal timepieces would look completely out of place in a setting of polished metal and tangled wires.

What that means, however, is that you could hypothetically build an entire story around the two of them. I mean, what would a grandfather clock be doing in a Science Fiction setting? Perhaps it's an antique that somehow got stored in a hermetically-sealed mausoleum. Perhaps it's been modified to run on atomic time -- an analog face with a modified cesium isotope underneath. Perhaps it's a relic of the past, built to house a terrible secret for the people of tomorrow.

So now the question is... how do you tie this into a tomb? The first thing that comes to mind is that the grandfather clock has a specific purpose for being placed there (no matter how out-of-place it might be). What purpose is that?

Now I consider that maybe it's a guardian of some sort... something to guard a sealed tomb against fortune-seekers and treasure-hunters. Maybe it's not a grandfather clock at all... perhaps it's really a mechanical shapeshifter that merely prefers the form of its master's favorite antique...

You don't want to know what it does to intruders, I suppose; An encounter between this shapeshifter and a couple of unwelcome visitors would tie into the "escape" theme nicely. And your two characters would have to be a Dandy (i.e. a reckless person with rich tastes), and a Haunted Hero (who's perpetually suspicious at moldering old tombs).

That leaves three keywords: A Diamond (which implies why people would raid the tomb in the first place), Blindness (which could be expressed as darkness, or even a simple "I can't see!" exclamation), and Blood (which would come in significant quantities for such a plotline).

The result: A possible Science Fiction Thriller involving two explorers/tomb raiders who run afoul of a technologically advanced shapeshifter. If this sounds as though it's little more than a bad slasher story, then you're right -- it is. It needs a lot more work -- maybe a few twists in the telling, maybe a constant underlying theme, maybe an utter miracle -- before it becomes palatable.

The Dandy // The Haunted Hero - The last possible plot reference that I can try out here involves an interplay between the two character types. So far, I've assumed that the Dandy and the Haunted Hero would be working together for the duration of the story. I haven't yet considered a scenario where they would be protagonist and antagonist.

So... let's assume that there's some form of animosity between the two characters. This could mean anything, I think -- a competition, a rivalry, a sense of murderous hostility. I think that it would be best to introduce a third keyword at this point, just to get a better idea of what their conflict would be about.

I'll use "Blood" as a figurative possibility here: The characters are professional hitmen whose rivalry goes beyond that of friendly competition. In fact, let's assume that they absolutely can't stand each other, and that each of them is just waiting for the opportunity to blow the other one away. This doesn't just introduce the physical element of blood into the story; It can also be taken as a metaphorical representation, i.e. "bad blood".

Heck, let's take it a step further -- the two characters are brothers who have been molded by circumstance. One gorges himself on the fineries of life and delights in tormenting his sibling; The other lives in constant depression, regretting the day he sold his morals for the promise of money.

And because I like turning things on their ear, I'll adjust the premise a little bit: The two characters aren't brothers; They're sisters in the final moments of their mutual hatred. By the end of the story, only one of them will survive.

The catch with this setup is that all the other keywords will inevitably have to come in as background dressing; It's the rivalry and the action that draws the attention of the readers, after all. If we could make the base story crunchy enough, though, then I suppose that this superficial use of the other keywords might be justified.

Using the Science Fiction genre gives us license to use things like high-powered firearms, cybernetic enhancements, and powers beyond mortal ken; I can imagine arm cannons, reinforced body armor, enhanced senses, and movement inhibitors. Heck, I can even imagine full-suit mecha, if it weren't for the fact that I don't want this to go as far as modern animé.

A diamond and a grandfather clock would probably come in as part of the little details: Maybe an opening scene where the sisters begin their last fateful night... an auction over a centuries-old antique? A confrontation in a rustic manor? A chance meeting in a warehouse full of random knicknacks?

Maybe our "Dandy"-type sister wears a diamond ring for show. It would fit the personality, I suppose. Maybe our "Haunted" sister seeks nothing more than to lie low and live a normal life; That might fill out the requirements for "Escape". Or better yet... maybe the former sister has been assigned to seek out and eliminate her hidden sibling, and the latter has no choice but to flee.

Then there's the Tomb (a final confrontation that takes place in the local cemetery), and Blindness (a critical plot point where the assailant's sensors are violently disabled, just to even the odds). Blood could be used as an everpresent theme at this point: Aside from the original premise of "bad blood", you have the premise of sister against sister (which implies "blood against blood", or "one's own blood").

This story sounds like it needs a lot of exposition, though... which implies that a short story isn't the best venue for it. If I do end up using it for a short story, it'll have to cover the end of their tragic relationship -- the last night of their existence, a time when only one of them walks away.

In the last installment of this post, I'll try writing out at least one of these potential plotlines. Because my only intent here is to go over my literary thinking process, I may or may not end up writing an entire story. I'll most likely bring up an outline, however, and perhaps try out a few sample passages.

Want to read on? The last installment will be up soon...

All I Really Need to Know I Learned From Magic

I'll continue my Talecrafting experiment in later posts, I suppose. I don't have that much time to write tonight, and I might as well get this out of my head first.

I started playing Magic: the Gathering back in 1996, stopped in 2000, rediscovered the game in 2003, and have been engaged in it both on and off ever since. I don't maintain any expensive decks for tournament play, and I don't meet up with a regular playgroup like the normal gaming crowd. I do, however, join new-release tournaments for the game's expansion sets. I'm even proud to say that I've amassed some respectable win-loss records in this way.

This morning I found myself playing in another of these new-release tournaments, the Tenth Edition game day. This is a new iteration of the game's basic set that gets released about every two years, and this reorganizes those cards that make up the backbone of serious tournament play. The cards in this set, moreover, are familiar to virtually any Magic player, no matter how long they've been engaged in the hobby.

The big news isn't that I posted a three-win, one-loss record for the day; It's that, somewhere in the middle of eleven tense games, I realized that I still remembered playing in the release tournament for the Fifth Edition set.

Fifth Edition.

Considering the two-year gaps between these sets, that means that I've developed my play style over ten years.

Ten years ago, I was one of those young college kids who barely knew what he was doing when it came to making random decks and playing strange opponents. Now I consistently do well in those few tournaments that I play in, and have developed an odd Zen-like attitude when playing people who have far more experience with modern Magic than I do.

There are more than a few people who will belittle the game for being an abject curiosity, a virtual money pit, and a complete waste of time. I know that I can hardly be called one of those people. Rather than learning absolutely nothing during my tenure in Magic, I ended up learning quite a few things. I ended up gaining more than a few insights that weren't merely limited to the game, but which I felt applied to life as a whole.

I share some of those realizations here right now. Some of these insights may be permanent and some may just be fleeting, but no matter which ones are which, I know that I still carry them around. It could be that I'll have a completely new set of realizations ten more years into the future (if the game lasts that long), but at least I'll have noted these ones right here.

Be courteous. When you enter a game with another person, you see each other as an opponent. One of you will have to win, and the other will have to lose. You will have to fight, you will have to argue, and you will have to contend with each other.

That, however, doesn't mean that you can't be civil.

The fact that you sit at the same table having made the same preparations for the same tournament implies that you are at around the same skill level. You are both craftsmen, you are both strategists, and you are both players. You each have strengths and weaknesses, and you both know that you don't play this game because you like winning all the time. You don't. You can't.

So you don't see it as a cutthroat competition where one person triumphs and the other person goes down. You see it as a game between two people who merely wish to test their skills. You talk, you laugh, and you compare notes. You're not monsters trying to destroy each other; You're just people playing a game.

Wait for the right moment. It's extremely tempting to burn through whatever advantage you have in terms of game position and resources. This, in gaming parlance, is known as "going for the quick win".

The problem is that "going for the quick win" isn't necessarily effective. You can pull it off, I suppose, but what does that mean in the long run? A win is still a win, no matter how long the game takes. You can rain blows upon your opponent for the first three minutes of the match, but it'll tire you out in the process... perhaps long enough for your opponent to seize the advantage, figure out that one weak spot, or hit you right where it hurts.

I find that patience is a virtue in most games. It is often far better to scout the field first and see what your opponent is up to, than to charge into the field at first light and get smashed in the face for all your troubles.

Focus. You don't come into a game and play a bunch of random cards from your hand. You look over your available resources and enter it with a specific plan in mind. It's much like any endeavor out there.

Once you're fully engaged in your plan, you keep your eye on the prize. Players who think at least a couple of moves ahead will inevitably be better and more consistent than players who are susceptible to knee-jerk reactions. Reactivity is overrated where proactivity tends to be more worthwhile.

Adjust. There is, however, something to be said for flexibility. You may approach things with a specific strategy in mind, but you must remember: No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.

The best plans, then, are those that allow for contingency. You may be prepared to do something when Event A happens, but you also have to consider what you should do if Event B happens instead. Or Event C. Or maybe some unholy combination of Events D, E, F, K, and X.

Everyone has their own vague plans, I suppose. The key lies in being able to work around them if necessary.

Hang on. So what do you do when you're on the verge of defeat? What happens when you find yourself in a situation when it's difficult for you to win? When you're likely to lose next turn? When that plan you've been working on has been shredded into absolute tatters and you're tempted to just throw in the towel?

Most players will just pack up their cards and start a new game. Some players, however, just stare at the board and throw in those few chips that they have left.

Why give up? I mean, if you're going to lose everything, then you might as well put everything into the pot. Would we prefer to just lose more slowly, I mean?

If you haven't lost yet, then you haven't lost yet. Let the chips fall where they lie; If you know that you're still in the game, then you must act that way.

Look for an opening. And sometimes you'll find these openings in the strangest of places. There are few situations that are completely airtight, or completely foolproof.

There's always a hole somewhere. It doesn't matter how bad your situation is; There's always a gap that you can find and exploit. If you're getting beaten down and all hope is dwindling fast, then one of these last openings may just be enough.

It's not merely sufficient to find one of these openings. You have to prepare yourself for them; You have to know that they exist, and you have to see them as they appear. And once you find that all-important opening that may just save your hide and salvage what looks like an untenable situation or an unwinnable game, you have to make it large enough to slip through.

Games are not just won by those who can execute the perfect plan. Games are also won by those who see the rare opportunity, and who seize it at the moment it comes around.

Talecrafting: A Gathering of Winds (Part 1 of 3)

Talecraft is a new product being sold in local hobby stores and conventions around here. It's purported to be a storytelling game of some sort, although the package contains little in the way of "game" and a lot more in the way of "literary exercise". It's built around a simple premise, really: You shuffle the Talecraft deck, draw a predetermined number of cards, and make up a story that contains each of the elements in your draw.

While I did pick up a copy of the game after my return from Warsaw, I have yet to consider this a favorite. It could be that I'm far too used to coming up with plausible stories on my own; As it stands, I consider Talecraft to be more a toy than any serious writing aid.

With that said, the contests are at least relatively interesting. Play the deck by yourself, and you'll get bored easily. Play the deck with about thirty other people who are doing the same thing with the same cards, and you'll be surprised at how the competition suddenly makes things worthwhile.

The current Talecraft contest (whose deadline is this weekend), for example, has the following elements that you must incorporate into a story:

Genre: Science Fiction
Character Archetypes: The Dandy, The Haunted Hero
Additional Keywords: Diamond, Grandfather Clock, Blindness, Blood, Tomb, Escape

If you think that getting all the details right for a single story is hard, just try collecting two random archetypes and six random keywords into a single random genre. You can see why this makes for an interesting literary exercise.

I'll admit that my schedule is full at the moment, so I'm certain that I can't spend much time preparing a submission for this contest. In addition, I have other, more immediate literary obligations to fulfill -- there's the textbook I'm writing, for one, and then there's Philippine Genre Stories' call for Christmas-themed stories as well as Dean Alfar's September deadline.

What I can do, however, is a bit of a walkthrough based on these Talecraft elements. I want to see what I can make of this random assortment, and possibly get a bit of introspection on just how I go about writing the stuff that I write.

If there's any place to start, then it'll definitely be in the cards:

Science Fiction - This genre and I have a love-hate relationship: I love it for its sheer possibilities, but I hate myself for exploring little in the way of its potential. I suspect that I just don't want to sell it short. It's bad enough that anyone can integrate machines, technical mumbo-jumbo and post-apocalyptic scenarios into a story and call it "sci-fi"; I'd rather try to avoid that same trap.

So what does "Science Fiction" mean for me? Strangely enough, humanoid robots are the first thing that come to mind. I'm also a huge fan of subtle technological advances -- minidiscs, Segways, cybernetic implants -- anything that might compromise a little of our humanity without being immediately obvious. Then there's the question of how technology interacts (and interferes) with our daily lives -- like talking houses, or self-aware machinery, or DNA alteration. In a sense, sci-fi can just as easily involve playing with peoples' comfort levels as it does involve showcasing unexpected technologies.

The Dandy - I abhor this character archetype, if only because it forces me to make the character "deeper" in some way. The Dandy is supposed to be driven by vanity and fashion-consciousness; I keep thinking that these characteristics alone don't provide enough motivation for a character to do the things he/she does. What I ultimately imagine is a male personality who merely dresses well, seeks to dress well, and is an absolute blank slate besides.

The Haunted Hero - This is better, at least. I find it easier to build up a character's personality based on his or her (imagined) past experiences. I like haunted characters in particular, because you can portray them as absolutely normal people for most of a story, spring some unexpected twist on the readers towards the end, and then perfectly explain the character's motivations through some obscure episode in their past. When done well, it leaves an impression that all the jagged little pieces somehow fit together in a way that the author fully intended from the start.

I'll point out, moreover, that just because the card mentions a haunted "hero" doesn't necessarily mean that the character should be the protagonist of the story...

Tomb - I feel that this is an overwhelmingly influential keyword. It's the only item in the set that describes a location; Knowing that, how can you not set the story inside a tomb?

To make matters worse, it's not as though you can easily use a tomb as a secondary location in a story. A tomb, I think, is more a dominant location -- you can write entire stories with this in the background, without having to ask for a change in scenery.

I think that I can twist this to suit my purposes, though. It doesn't necessarily have to be an Indiana-Jones-style tomb, after all. It could just as easily be a mausoleum. Or it could be a burial plot of some sort; Wouldn't that mean that you can leave a dead body practically anywhere and have it register as a "tomb" of some sort? I wonder.

Escape - This is another dominant element, by virtue of its being the only plot direction among the six keywords. I find it difficult to separate this from "tomb", to be honest: Put the two dominant keywords together, and you get a convenient "escape from tomb" plotline. I feel that it's obvious, I feel that it's easy, and I feel that it's also pretty overused.

No, I think that it might be best to separate this from "tomb" as much as possible. Maybe an escape into a tomb, for a good change of pace? Or maybe an escaping tomb (the image of a stone mausoleum getting up and walking away suddenly comes to mind).

For that matter, who's doing the escaping? Is it the Dandy who escapes from the Haunted Hero, or the Haunted Hero who escapes from the Dandy? Or maybe they're both escaping from something else, or something else is escaping from them.

Blindness - I can make this metaphorical, I suppose. It doesn't have to be literal blindness; it can simply describe somebody who fails to notice some obvious detail. The problem with this, however, is that it might not necessarily register as "blindness" to anyone who reads the story.

This, I suppose, is at least more flexible. I can take this in medias res (that is to say, I can make this a condition that exists even before the beginning of the story), or I can put this up as a plot development. I can't imagine a Dandy being blind, so the obvious choice for the condition would be the Haunted Hero. That's not to say that I can't suddenly strike the Dandy blind halfway through the course of the tale, though.

Blood - I use a lot of blood in my stories. It creates a consistent effect that can nevertheless be adjusted according to your own needs: It can leave an impression of fear, for example. Or cruelty. Or desperation. Heck, you can even throw all the symbolism out the window and just use it to give readers the impression that a character is gravely injured.

I can build a story around this element about as easily as I can with the other keywords, I think. But I feel that I'm far more comfortable using this than anything else in the selection. As such, I won't give this keyword much thought. I'll definitely find a way to work it into the story, regardless of what I end up writing.

Grandfather Clock - Ugh... how does this fit into the science-fiction genre? I don't want to end up using Victorian-era steampunk just to fit both pieces together into the same jigsaw puzzle. What that means, however, is that I'll have to find some way to stuff a 19th-century timepiece into a far more technical setting.

Maybe it's an antique that sits in the corner. Maybe it's a modified device that houses far more advanced workings inside. Maybe there's a future counterpart to this thing: a grandfather-clock android, perhaps?

Then there's also the matter of fitting this and the "tomb" into the same story. What's a grandfather clock doing inside a moldering old tomb, anyway? That might deserve a long, winding explanation all by itself...

Diamond - This isn't the most obvious of plot elements, but it's also rather flexible. Where there's diamonds, there's wealth -- and that's something that the Dandy would easily acknowledge, something that the Haunted Hero can brood about, and something that you can more plausibly find inside a tomb.

There's more to using diamonds, however. A wedding or an engagement angle might work here, for example; It wouldn't take much of a stretch to work a tomb into the equation, and it might provide the needed human element in a science-fiction story. The use of diamonds may imply some element of hardness or extreme pressure as well, or it could simply imply the profession of at least one of the characters. One odd thing that comes to mind is the possibility of using diamonds as fuel of some sort -- I'll have to thank Batman's rogues gallery for that idea.

In the next installment of this post, I'll tackle what's likely to be the next step in my thinking process -- the collation of all these elements into a single tentative plotline. Or maybe this might even involve a lot of tentative plotlines; In that case, you get to see me put all but one of them on the chopping block in my quest for a plausible story.

Want to read on? The next post can be found here.

Presumably So

The way I'm looking at it right now, plenty of human psychology is rooted in assumption.

No matter how often we repeat the possibility of putting ourselves in one another's shoes, we can't literally do such a thing. We can't automatically assume a person's entire repertoire of experiences, mannerisms and habits in a limited amount of time. For that matter, we simply can't do that, period. The most we can do is try to see where the other person is coming from, and try to formulate a sense of empathy with that person based on what we know.

In short, we have to make assumptions about people. We're practically forced to do that, if only because that happens to be one of the easiest ways we can get along.

When we make the right assumptions about a person, then we make the right assumptions about a person. They smile at us and mention how well we've seen the situation through; they warm up to us and place a little more trust in our personality.

But when we make the wrong assumptions about a person, then we do something incredibly horrible. We get accused of misinterpreting things, of not seeing the bigger picture, of running our mouths off and taking things to an illogical conclusion.

It's easy to presume things. It is not easy, however, to maintain consistency in one's presumptions. It's the difference between traversing a short footpath, and then deciding to walk that same path up the side of a mountain: The latter is infinitely -- and at times, fatally -- more difficult.

Ultimately, the problem with these premeditated notions is that we can't help but make them. This is, in a sense, how we associate with other human beings. This is how we live, work, love, and relate. This is how we can maintain good relations with people yet still get into arguments, how we can do so well at work yet still screw up every now and then.

In the end, it is not these assumptions that bring out our personal natures. Instead, we must assume that everyone makes these ill-timed assumptions; We must understand that we're perfectly capable of making the same mistakes ourselves. And when it all comes right down to it, we must forgive.

There is no way by which we can possibly know someone inside and out, right down to the tiniest of cells in their skin. The best that we can do is form a few uneducated conclusions, and hope that they don't offend or insult anyone. What brings us beyond the spectre of mere humanity is our ability to understand how people do this; What makes us more than vessels of illegitimate assumption is our ability to listen to people, and forgive them their sins of impression.

By this time, your eyes have probably glazed over, and you've probably even gone past the point where you regard me as some itinerant writer with a messed-up mind. That's fair enough, I say. I assume many things about the human condition, only some of which manage to make it to the stuff I write.

But I ask you this, then: What assumptions do you form from my words? Do I offend your delicate sensibilities, or do I raise your imaginary hackles? Do you judge this based on what you know of what I write, on who I am, or on what exposure you've had of me?

Why?

Why not?

Why, again?

We can assume all that we want, I suppose. But in the end, we must try to understand.

Disclaimer: July 2007