It's not quite the thick coating we see in Northern Indiana, but for Redmond, this is a decent amount of snow.It’s snowy out, the sort of snow I grew up with in Northern Indiana. A clumpy snow, a little wet, so it clings to branches in inch thick lines, making some more snow than branch. Last night I watched it drifting past the light in the parking lot, which illuminated a sphere of falling snow, like an open-air snow globe, the good kind without sparkles or glitter, just evocative white bits that make us think of quiet nights, growing quieter as the snow muffles sound.
Sometimes writers need to stop and look and figure out what makes a scene real, what distinguishes it from one of the many movie backdrops in our heads, so that when we recreate it or take a piece from it or somehow incorporate it into a piece of writing, we can convey that quality. Karen Joy Fowler mentioned that often the most unique detail of a landscape is one of the most transitory: a busker, the shape of a cloud, the noise of the rock concert next door. Right now it’s snow for me. So, I ask you – what’s the most evocative detail of your current landscape?
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Nattering Social Justice Cook: Prepare to Ride, My People
To those who have said “wait and see” about the results of the election, I have seen enough events and phenomena to feel that I am sufficiently prepared to venture an opinion on the results of the election. Here are some, listed in random order:
I need to stop because the more I look, the more the hits keep on coming. What a bizarre time to live in.
So. For those of you who either didn’t vote for Trump or did and now are all “I’ve made a huge mistake“, aka the sane and/or informed ones, yeah, buckle up because it’s going to be a rocky ride. At best, a lot of wealthy people are going to skim money from our government while changing laws so they can exploit us even more while at the same time, hatred and intolerance are normalized and neo-Nazis are allowed to try to silence dissent. At worst our rights are stripped away and things go up in flames.
In my opinion. You may disagree, and that’s fine. This is what I think and what’s driving my actions over the next four years. I am going to speak up and object and point things out. I am going to support institutions that help the groups like the homeless, LGBT youth, and others whose voting rights have been stolen and whose already too-scant and under threat resources are being methodically stripped away.
I am going to continue to insist that honesty, tolerance, and a responsibility for one’s own words are part of our proud American heritage, the thing that has often led us along the path where, although there have been plenty of mistakes, there have been actions that advanced the human race, that battled the forces of ignorance and intolerance, and that served as a model for the world. That “liberty and justice for all” are not hollow words, but a lamp lifted to inspire us and light our way in that direction.
I will continue to love in the face of hate, to do what Jesus meant when he said hate the sin while loving the sinner. I will continue to teach, formally and by setting an example of what a leader, a woman, a good human being should do, acknowledging my own imperfections so I can address them and keep growing and getting better at this human existence thing. If I see a fellow being in need, I will act, even if it means moving outside my usual paths.
I will not despair or give way to apathy. And as part of that, I will celebrate the good, point out the wonderful, witness the absurd, the amazing, and even the wryly amusing. I will let my sense of humor buoy me, and I will continue to consider the alt-pantless, sorry, alt-right, petty, pathetic, and laughable. They know that they are. Writing in 1944 about anti-semitism in his essay Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate, Sartre stated things with a prescience that makes his words apply to their theater of outraged outrageousness, in which they prance around with the self-importance of bright preteens who have just discovered death metal and nihilism.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely aware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.
I will not be intimidated or disconcerted. Feel free to laugh at my naiveté, my over-earnestness, and idealism. I’m going to dance right past you, m-fers, and you will never know what hit you.
Language matters. Truth matters. Even in the face of this sort of thing:
The world is broken. Love isn’t enough to fix it. It will take time and effort and blood and sweat and tears. It will stretch some of us almost to the breaking point and others past it. We must help each other in the struggle, must be patient and kind, and above all hopeful. We must speak out even when we are frightened or sad or weary to the bone.
The millennials, may the universe bless them, are inheriting a shitty world. Those of us from older generations must teach and support and help where we can, realizing that what we do now affects the rest of their lives. We cannot let things slide into any of the nightmarish worlds we see depicted in so much science fiction, but if we do not act, they will. I will not sugarcoat things; it may be too late. But living as though it is not is the only way we’re going to survive.
Act now. Even if it’s just saying hello or smiling at someone that you wouldn’t normally. Start putting some good energy out in the universe to counteract the fog of hate. You’ll be surprised by how much better it makes you feel. Don’t pay attention to the trolls; they’re trying to keep you busy so you won’t act, to discourage you into slumping back onto the couch before you can even take a step out the door.
Useful Gifts for Writers: The 10% Solution by Ken Rand
This is the most useful book on writing I have ever found, and it’s the only one I will actually buy to give to people. I ended up writing the introduction to the 10th anniversary edition, because I know the publisher and, well, I’ll let that introduction tell its own story. The “Patrick” referred to in it is Patrick Swenson, the publisher who owns Fairwood Press.
For the past few years, I have been covertly getting people to go up to Patrick at conventions and ask when the electronic edition of this book would appear. Why? It might be that I have a prankish mind that was devoted to making him believe there was a vast groundswell awaiting this book. But actually, that’s the truth, because I’ve been pushing this book for years, less for prankish reasons than because I think it’s so useful for new writers.
The 10% Solution is not a cure to all your writing woes. It’s not a tool that helps with everything. But it is a great little book that will make you a better writer if you use it at the right stage in the process. The time to employ it is in that last pass before you send the story out into the world. I think of it as a lint-brush, something that tidies things up and makes sure every sentence that you’re sending out into the world to represent you is doing so beautifully, showing off that you can construct clear and error-free sentences that do exactly what you want them to be doing.
I don’t remember the circumstances when I first ran across The 10% Solution, but I do know that since then I have given out multiple copies and recommended it to literally hundreds of people. Why? Because it works and effectively shows you how to polish a piece of work in a way that shows you are at the professional level. For not just fiction but nonfiction.
Yes, it’s a pain in the butt. Yes, the first time you apply it to a manuscript it will be a huge pain in the rear end that may well lead you to curse aloud, calling down vile imprecations on my head. Yup and yup. I’ve been there too. But it’s worth it. After you’ve done it a few times, your unconscious mind gets tired of that labor and begins making changes before you write, tightening up and clarifying your prose in a way that will make it better.
Don’t believe me? Don’t try to apply it to a book then, but test it out with a short story or essay. Do give it a full chance, not skipping any steps, doing the actual “now I am searching on ly, now I am searching on of” steps. And keep a copy of the original, then look at them side by side. If your original prose is so golden that this didn’t substantially improve it, well then, perhaps this is not the book for you. But for the rest of us, it’s an awesome one.
Thank you, Patrick, for finally listening to all those people I kept sending up to you. I swear you won’t regret it. I know I won’t.
To those who have said “wait and see” about the results of the election, I have seen enough events and phenomena to feel that I am sufficiently prepared to venture an opinion on the results of the election. Here are some, listed in random order:
This is the most useful book on writing I have ever found, and it’s the only one I will actually buy to give to people. I ended up writing the introduction to the 10th anniversary edition, because I know the publisher and, well, I’ll let that introduction tell its own story. The “Patrick” referred to in it is Patrick Swenson, the publisher who owns Fairwood Press.
One Response
A songbird and a bluejay conducting a contest outside my window. 😀
Ah, such snow. I guess we had ours three-ish weeks ago. Yesterday I laid out sunbathing. Go figure.
Best!