Why I Write

This post is a bit different from my usual ones. The wonderful Chuck Wendig set a challenge on his terribleminds.com blogsite for a 1,000-word piece entitled 'Why I Write.' (Full challenge details here.) Normally I post these on my Prawn Crackers Blog, but since this one isn't a short story I decided to post it here instead.
I'm well aware of the risk that I may come across as a pompous ass with this post. If that's the case.... here's my 'Sorry Face' in advance. My intentions were (and are) good, I promise. 

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I learned from an early age that bad stuff happens in life. Lots of it, frequently and with no apparent limits on a person’s designated quota.

I learned that the Universal Karma System employed by life was pretty screwed up too. That no, being a generally good person and trying to Do the Right Thing didn't grant you automatic immunity from any crap flung by the Angry Monkey of Fate, in the same way that being a monumental asshat didn't cause crap to rain down from the heavens on said asshat in a constant shitstorm until they mended their ways. Life’s default setting when it came to crap-flinging was Bloody Unfair. And nothing could or would change that system, so best suck it up and deal with it while you’re still a kid, so you've got plenty of practice under your belt by the time you finally bungee-jump-with-a-blindfold-on into adulthood.

Imaginary life doesn't work like that.

Pick up any storybook and the life inside it is neat. Ordered. Controlled, from start to finish, by the author. In a good story everything works the way it’s supposed to, following the plan until it ties up into an ending that makes sense and feels right. The good people might get some Angry-Monkey-crap over them for a while, but in the end it’ll all be washed away, while the asshat drowns in the shitstorm of his own making. Balance is restored, karma dispensed, hugs all round. The way real life should work, but all too often doesn't.

For an insecure kid living in polite chaos as a failure-in-training, falling brain-first into an imaginary world where the rules were fair, consistent and easy to understand was the perfect escape.

Sometimes the imaginary worlds I visited were created by other writers, sometimes they were mine. In either case, I would spend hours in my room becoming explorer, anthropologist and detective all in one as I walked the same path and chewed the fat with the heroes in story-worlds. Like me, they were flawed and suffered for their screw-ups, but I always felt that, if I could hang out with them for a while, maybe some of the strengths and special talents that helped them win through in the end might eventually rub off on me.

But more than that, those imaginary worlds changed the way I looked at my own, real world. Sometimes this was because they were so different – but more often because of the subtle ways they were the same. The imaginary worlds often had the same problems, injustices and cruelties as the real one – but unlike the real world, they weren't smothered by a chorus of indifference. The story didn't just crash and burn against the wall of “well that’s just life isn't it? Life sucks and it’s pointless being a crybaby about it, so let’s all think about puppies instead.”

The characters in story-worlds could – and did - talk about that stuff. They were proactive, pointing to the shit that was wrong with a big neon arrow and saying “this needs fixing, and we’re gonna need help with it so come on, get on board!” And those who did were immediately members of Team Good, while those who didn't had, by their very inaction, signed up to Team Evil and the inevitable shitstorm-retribution finale.  The good people of imaginary worlds want them to be better, fairer places - for everyone, not just the career-driven, or the religiously pious, or the financially astute, or the ones with beautiful faces and ‘perfect’ bodies…

Of course, if they tried that malarkey in the real world they’d get squashed pretty damn quick; there are enough non-imaginary people on this blue and green ball of rock who like the status quo just as it is, thank you very much. Those people don’t like being made to feel it’s wrong that there are people starving in third-world countries while their leaders expand their rocket-launcher collection, because putting that right would mean having to pay more for their exotic grocery items. They don’t want to hear scientists shouting at them on telly that the ice-caps are melting thanks to global warming, because that messes with their dream of owning a gas-guzzling people-tank. And they hate being told that belittling someone just because they’re somehow ‘different’ from the idealised, cookie-cutter norm is unfair, because – well jeez, how are they supposed to feel good about themselves if they've got no-one to feel superior to?

It’s all about the self-interest, you see. In today’s world we’re all taught to look after number one first – “everything someone else gets might mean less for me…” So ironically, the more we see and learn about people suffering in every corner of the globe, the less we empathise with them. Instead, we fear. Fear that, but for random luck and geography, that could’ve been us. What if we ended up in their situation? No, mustn’t think that. Stick our fingers in our ears, la la la…

And that’s where the imaginary worlds from stories come in. The people who’ll shut their ears to reasoned debate and impassioned pleas will dive into story worlds without fear or hostility, because they always know where the exit is should the going get tough. It’s a safe space – for them and that world’s creator - to exchange messages that get drowned out by the Darwinian white noise of the real world. Messages that just might get through, hidden like the jam in the tasty doughnut…

That’s why I write. 

The words of insignificant little me won't change the world, but they’re my way of adding my tiny ant-squeak to the chorus of other tiny writer-ants, pointing out what’s wrong and how maybe we should try and fix that. I can whisper in the ears of others who are afraid they’re a failure and say “no you’re not. You’re okay, and it’s okay to be you.”

Because everyone needs an imaginary friend sometimes.  Even writers. Hell, especially writers.

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2014: Year Of The Getting Stuff Done

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this post is is going to completely contradict my previous post (The Following are Not New Year's Resolutions.)

I've strived and contrived to come up with a way in which it doesn't - and in my head I came quite close to achieving that. In fact, I could actually say I was successful - if I add the words 'sort of' into the sentence. You see, while I still cling to my heebee-jeebee reversal-of-fortune theory regarding my own track record with New Year's Resolutions, there's another part of me that feels I need to show some sort of commitment to sorting out my shizzle for Life After 2013.

Chuck Wendig created an excellent list of 'writing resolutions for 2014 and beyond' in his terribleminds blog, which I have printed out and put somewhere I can easily read it and feel suitably ass-kicked whenever I am in need (but discreet enough so that my seven-year-old son won't read it - sorry Chuck, but I can't deal with 'those kinds of questions' and feel motivated to write.) This is one way round my dilemma; he wrote the resolutions and I am just agreeing wholeheartedly and shamelessly following them, so it's not the same as me making them... that cancels out the voodoo, doesn't it? Anyway, whether I liked it or not, the arbitrary switch-flip from 2013 to 2014 did make me take a long hard look at myself and decide I needed licking into shape - at the very least in a writerly sense.

When you're raising a kid and running a home there's always stuff to do, of course, so when I finally get my precious hours of 'free' time I need to make the most of them. And when those hours are just two I need to work smarter within that time. Which means NO DISTRACTIONS.

This is particularly hard when those free time hours end up coinciding with my son being home from school and playing Minecraft on Daddy's computer. My computer, where I do my writing, is less than five feet away - and seven-year-old boys do not play computer games quietly. They shout and cheer, and point their fingers at the screen in a gun-shape and go "pewpewpewpewpewwww!!" at the top of their lungs, and bounce up and down making 'swoosh' noises and screaming about 'the Force' being with them as your screen wobbles precariously on your desk. (They also randomly yell "Aw yeeaaah, Dude!" and other meaningless statements in ComputerGeekese, a language which has been specially designed to annoy the hell out of anyone over the age of thirty unless they're still a virgin and living in their mum's house in the basement bedroom.)

In those circumstances, concentrating on anything is pretty much impossible. Moving one of us to another room isn't an option; there just isn't the space in our house, and besides, he sometimes likes to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube. As anyone who has ever seen The Internet before knows, not even the strictest of Parental Control functions can stop a small child seeing something 'unsuitable' on YouTube - and while I don't go as far as sitting beside him and watching his every move, I prefer to keep at least half an eye and ear open while he's surfing the web. Which means the only solution is to make sure my free hours fall outside of the time my son's going to play computer games. And that means planning all of my life better, not just my writing time.

So I need to revise my original writing contract somewhat; I've learned it's not enough to simply say 'I will write for two hours a day...' I need to make sure they're the best two hours I'm likely to get. Which means doing all my other stuff in a different order to make that happen; organising my housework and childcaring shizzle as well as my writing shizzle. Bleaugh, if they're not the words of a disorganised woman I don't know what are. I will never be the Perfect Housewife; I struggle to hit 'adequate' most of the time. I'm told that's a Writer Thing - I hope that's true, because god knows I need some sort of excuse.

Anyway, I've decided 2014 is the Year of The Getting Stuff Done. No piddling about; walk the walk and keep my eye on the prize on the horizon (rather than just the horizon, which is probably where I've been going wrong in the past. Nice to know it's there and all that - but it's even better to have an actual reason to be heading for it other than 'it'll be great when I get there.')

And of course any hints and advice from those who been there, done that and possibly got the t-shirt stuffed in a wardrobe somewhere would be greatly appreciated ;)

The Following Are NOT New Years' Resolutions...

Yep, now that Christmas is over it's that other Time Of The Year again.

You know the one; that one where you make yourself all kinds of crazy promises which you then spend the rest of the year breaking and making yourself feel like crap. I'm talking, of course, about the New Year, and our species' somewhat masochistic response of making New Year's Resolutions to mark the occasion.

It's a not even a particularly logical thing to do when you really analyse it. I mean, I know our calendar says that, on January the 1st, everything that's gone before in the last 365 days officially 'ends' and a brand new set of 365 days 'starts'... but does planet earth feel that way too? I doubt it. It's just us, the little evolved-monkey-people, deciding that's the way everything works. It could all just be a good excuse to get drunk and behave like idiots all at the same time and for the same reason, of course. Nothing wrong with that; why not, life is for living so bring it on and all that. But that obviously wasn't good enough for some hand-wringing do-gooder somewhere. No, they had to inject some worthy into the mild debauchery and thus the concept of New Year's Resolutions was born; set yourself all sorts of high-minded, self-improvement-y goals for the rest of the year while you're too deliriously wazzered to even slur the words to 'Auld Lang Syne' properly. Yeah - perfect time to think about how to sort your life out and become a better person, that is. Genius move.

If you detect the bitter tang of cynicism in those words, I'm not going to deny it. This is because every time I've ever made a New Year's resolution on or around the actual New Year's Day, I have not only spectacularly failed to keep it but actually achieved the direct and dismally opposite result to what I had resolved to do. The year I resolved to stop agonising about my less-than-sylphlike body and finally learn to 'love myself' for who I was? Yeah, well that was the same year I went on to become anorexic, so that went well... (don't panic, that was a loonnnnng time ago now.) But, in the interests of balance, when I resolved to lose all my post-baby weight some years later I actually put on another two stone instead, so at least it worked both ways, eh?

(I have since got back to a healthy weight, in case you're wondering. Not my ideal weight, obviously, since Media-Land is constantly telling me that if I have any sense I should be craving a size-zero body, and all the time I'm just an ordinary, under-confident female devoid of movie-star cheekbones who am I to argue with their 'wisdom'? But I'm digressing - where was I? Oh yeah...)

All of which has shown me that New Year is not the optimum time to make big changes to my world. I think when you take a Big Event and try to attach Self-Improvement Goals to it, there's a tendency to shoot for the moon rather than take more manageable baby steps to the same desired result. For example, at any other time of the year you can say "I'm going to stop buying chocolate biscuits and walk down to the supermarket instead of taking the bus" and do that with very little fuss or tears.

But at New Year - fueled by alcohol and communal belief in the 'oh-my-god-that-completely-arbitrary-switch-is-gonna-flip-any-second-now' - those simple statements somehow morph into "I'm going to get into a pair of size ten jeans by next December!" Because next December's ages away from now, isn't it? Heck, you've given yourself a whole year to achieve that goal, so it's not unrealistic at all...

Except it is, because it focuses on the desired result rather than the process needed to achieve the goal. There's no plan there - it's all about the reward. And that's the kind of thinking you often get into when you're:

a) Feeling like the world (and, in some subtle way, you) is a little bit crap at the moment - i.e. in the winter if you're north of the Equator, when it's cold and dark for a long time every day.
b) Feeling like 'time is running out' or 'life is passing you by' - i.e. at that solely-human-decided moment when the timer dings and the whole universe starts all over again, for another 'year.'
c) Aware that squillions of other people (most of the ones in your immediate vicinity and indeed a sizeable proportion of your hemisphere) are feeling exactly the same way as you are, right now, for the same reasons. Oh, the camaraderie - we must all be in this together!

And so I have not made any New Year's Resolutions and do not intend to do so. That's not to say I don't have any goals to aim for; I've certainly got those, but they are the same as they were last year, and remain ongoing from the non-New-Year-moment I first made them. I shall continue working on The Renegades and not give up on it, I shall remain committed to the conditions of the Writing Contract I first drew up for myself over a year-and-a-half ago, and I shall continue to think of myself as 'a writer' even though I may not have reached the status of say, Stephen King or Chuck Wendig or any other 'properly famous' writers yet. Yeah, they're just baby steps towards big dreams. But I can do them.

If you are planning to make resolutions yourself, I am cheering for you right now - no really, I am. Goals are good; if you don't fire off them arrows you are nothing but a person standing around with a twangy stick and some pointy sticks. However, you also can't call yourself an archer until you've spent some time practising with those twangy and pointy sticks. Keep it real and I reckon you'll be okay.

Hey 2013, You're Nearly Over

So.... 2013 then. Only a month of it left to go (and that'll go in a blur of Christmas-shopping-why-haven't-we-done-any-yet-we've-still-got-to-buy-the-food-and-who's-going-to-whose-house-for-what-day-anyway-aaarrggh!!) So I figured I may as well look back on it now, while I've still got enough brain left that hasn't morphed into Christmas Pudding.

In terms of life, 2013's been a bit of a roller coaster for me and mine. On the upside, husband got a new job with way better prospects than his old one - woohoo financial stability, we can finally see you out there on the horizon! The musical version of 'Cinderella' that Steven Rodgers and I co-wrote is undergoing a revival (you can hear samples of the all-new versions of some of the songs here) and it's all looking very exciting indeed. And I finished Draft One of The Renegades - hooray! Now knee-deep in Draft Two - something I believe I may have mentioned... oooh, maybe once or twice in this blog...

I have discovered some great writing blogs this year; my Top Three are as follows:

1 - Chuck Wendig's terribleminds.com - he's irreverent, he's straight-talking and he's daaaaammn funny. He also has the heart of a warm, cuddly teddy bear, although he does not want you to know that, so pretend I didn't tell you. And he also gives the best writing advice there is, telling it exactly how it is - the fluffy kittens and nursery puddings of fake platitudes will not be found here. You are permitted to give this site a miss if you are of maiden aunt disposition (i.e. swearing and non-polite conversation makes you come over all peculiar) but other than that you must check it out. You'll be so glad you did.

2 - Patrick Ross' The Artist's Road site - Inspirational, encouraging and with a wonderful 'community feel' (Patrick responds personally to almost all comments, and the atmosphere on the message board is like that of a discussion among like-minded friends.) The place to go for great conversation about creativity - and for feeling good about being a writer. And lord knows, us writers need that a lot of the time!

3 - Nathan Bransford's Blog - he's not been quite so prolific of late, but that's probably because he's just published his new book and is no doubt caught up in the whirlwind of marketing that - congrats, Nathan! Another goldmine of writing advice and insider information about the world of publishing (he's an ex-literary agent and now works for the Freelancers Union. Whilst also writing his own books - yeah, I do feel totally lazy next to him!) Upbeat, funny and insightful, his site is well worth a look.

Of course, the thing about roller coasters is that it has downs as well as ups. And the very big 'down' this year was the death of my father-in-law in August (which I talked about here.) Although he was already in hospital this time last year following a heart attack, this will be our first Christmas truly without him; particularly hard since he was always 'Mister Christmas,' throwing himself into the decorations and yuletide spirit with the enthusiasm of a child. We will raise a glass or two to him as we miss him desperately.

But for now, it's all about frantically getting ready for the Big Crimbo. Have you; done all your Christmas shopping, bought all your Christmas food, made all your arrangements with friends and family and (if you fit the criteria) got through the final weeks of your kid's school making random pre-Christmas end-of-term 'requests' for help/costumes/assorted 'stuff' for fundraising and parties at massively short notice? (In my case, 'No, no, almost and I should be so lucky,' if I'm honest.) Or are you one of the Other Half of People, who leave all that organizing stuff to their partner/parents/children and basically just show up for the big day with this warm, fuzzy feeling that everything will probably be just fine? (If you are I will try to suppress the urge to squash a mince pie in your face...)

Whichever it is, it's counting down. My kid knows how many 'sleeps' it is until Christmas Day - I don't and have no wish to, even though I know I probably should. (Roy Wizzard, you're a bloody fool - let's see if you still 'Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day' when you've got to organize the thing!)

But other than that - yaay, woohoo, Christmas, bring it on!