Headlock

If anyone asks, never once did I mention fear in this post. I'm doing my best Jedi gestures here and telling you I feel none and you never heard a whisper about it. We were getting into a discussion about first impressions and I wasn't confessing that maybe somewhere deep down where self-preservation resides a part of me is getting ready for a round of ground-and-pound.

I was asked if, after so many months in the making, it feels anticlimactic having Alex Rising out (release date pending). What? Are you kidding me?! My story is coming out!!! And then it crept up on me, the inner oppressor did. The unreasonable voice of reason reminding me to enjoy the high because I would need the memory of it when hit with the lows. Someone will like my little ditty, someone will categorically hate it, and that's all there is to it.

Bruises fade, you get used to the hammering, but the brain is a tricky organ, not as easily bended to the will as the body is. It's built to contradict us at every turn so we wouldn't get too complacent. It's a paradox that we need to be plagued with questions, doubts and fears to grow when they can also do much damage if let run the show. 

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but first it only hurts. And annoys, and makes you feel stupid and small. Come on, it does. If you're human, it does, but since you're also smarter and greater in spirit and courage than you give yourself credit for you understand that, as someone said that Cindy Lauper once said that Chaka Khan once said, you'll get over it.

So what's the problem? I fear being misunderstood, of what I write being misconstrued and turned into something it isn't, of first impressions being everlasting ones. A good opinion once lost may be lost forever. A good impression may translate into expectations I might not fulfill or even want to trying to do something different next time.

It's stupid, I know, at least related to fiction, since I might not even want to explain where some idea or inspiration came from, what possessed me, and above all because I embrace the notion that when a story is out, it does no longer belong to the one who wrote it but those who need it (as Il Postino's poem-snatching postman put in), and it's theirs to enjoy and interpret as they please. 

Pride and Prejudice was initially titled First Impressions. Neither Wickham nor Darcy was who Elizabeth thought they were, but she had to get past those first impressions to get to the truth. It could have just as well been titled Second Chances. Not everybody gets one. Maybe that is at the root of the problem. Maybe that is the fear. 

I'm getting way ahead of myself, I know, but one thinks about things. One sometimes thinks too much about things, especially those one has no control over, e.g. postini filching my story and having their way with it. I promise to try to let go gracefully and not turn it into a wrestling or pissing match no matter what they end up saying. It will soon be theirs, and I'll live, why wouldn't I, my story will finally be out!
 

The great pretenders

So what do you say to this year's Oscar nominees? I say yes yes yes to Christoph Waltz, he owned every scene, and Avatar's Best Original Screenplay snub. I say nein nein nein to the consistently amazing Samantha Morton being overlooked in the Best Supporting Actress category and Avatar running abreast Hurt Locker for nine awards. Avatar may be an imposing movie, it's just not an exceptionally good one.

Great diversity in the Best Picture category, even if they only had one slot for a film where sports tackles racism. But Up is up there, and when was the last time an animated film qualified? (Goes check... In 1991. Beauty and the Beast.) Up in the Air made it, living proof romance (in American cinema) isn't (brain) dead. Precious, Inglorious Basterds, District 9...

Awkward transition, okay, nonexistent...

After reading a short story of mine, a friend asked: "Who are you in this story?" She wanted to know which one of the characters was based on me. She knows me well enough to try to search for me in my stories, to hear my voice, not only my writing voice or that of my characters. I'd also managed to create enough distance between these voices and personalities that in the end she wasn't sure what and who she heard. So she asked, and I answered: I'm none of them, for sure. I'm all of them, surely.

Like actors call upon everything they've ever had the pleasure or misfortune of learning about the human condition, and study the rest, so do writers dig up every joy, pain and sorrow they've lived through and imagine what they have not had the delight or horror of experiencing firsthand. It's the same with translators. We're not quite as mad as we seem, only impersonating, but since the best of us are doing such an outstanding job creating a multitude of fully developed selves, no wonder some people get confused about fact and fiction, author/actor and their art. 

The most talented of these mimes step not only into someone else's shoes but someone else's skin, and when they get into character we don't see role playing, we don't think "role"; we recognize life. Depicting monstrosities without passing judgment requires a great deal of empathy. You have to be able to digest much. Everything, actually. Not blindly idolizing people, for all their heroism, takes a hefty dose of cool detachment. You have to doubt what you're sure of, at least every now and then. 

All of the above entail imagination, being blessed (or cursed?) with a vivid mind. What is bigotry, what is hatred, but fear of the unknown and a severe lack of imagination? You can't portray, at least not convincingly, what you won't understand.

However you achieve an impassive approach to whatever you're impassioned about, you have to cover your tracks. Acting, writing, translating...you cannot be caught doing it. You can't let your technique show or what you tried to depict becomes an imitation of life or reads as Translationese making it that much harder for your audience to suspend disbelief. 

I have great respect and immense admiration for those who fool me into believing it is someone's life unfolding before my eyes or mind's eye as I read or watch, not merely a counterfeit one. That is no small talent, having such a powerful yet ethereal effect. It's a magnificent one.

Follow the White Rabbit

Snow depth: 28 inches
Eating: mandarins
Drinking: white tea
Watching: snow falling on spruces
Reading: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Writing: trying to sort out that space thingy with the dream sequences which, if killed, will lead to confusion, if left alone will lead to even more confusion, if killed altogether will result in some serious collateral damage
Feeling: a flu coming my way, ETA 24 hours

I know some sort of illness will lay the smackdown on me from that slight ache that has nothing to do with exercise, from that fatigue that has nothing to do with how I've slept. No fun at all, folks, but one of the most wonderful things that have happened in the past couple of years started out while sitting in bed feeling sick and tired of being sick and tired.

A scene started rolling in my head and I could see it quite clearly. Okay, I thought, what's this then? I dropped what I was doing on my laptop very ineffectively anyway, and pulled up a blank page. I hadn't done that in a while, a very long while, but I did it then with no other thought than wanting to know what happens next? Amazing things, as it turned out when I started listening and watching and recording what was going on in the life of someone I had never met, someone who hadn't even existed before I gave them life and they gave me the spark to write it down.

What I wrote that day is unstructured and unpolished but enthused to the max. I saved that piece. It reminds me of how I felt that day, sitting in bed typing away. I forgot everything. The flu, the fever, the time, eating, drinking those all-important fluids... Flow, being in the zone, was all I felt, although I didn't become conscious of it until much later, thinking back on how deliriously happy I'd been. And it was happiness I felt writing, pure and simple. I may have started out feeling like crap but ended up smiling ear to ear. 

Soon after that day the dreams started, and it didn't take me long to realize with monumental certainty I would regret it. If I didn't act on it, I would regret it. The pull was strong and a bit scary but the good kind of scary, like when you don't know where you'll end up, you only know you have to go before it's too late. 

Into that current I dove and I still don't know where I'll end up writing-wise but at least I have no regrets. Come what may, I won't one day be crying into a nice glass of Syrah thinking about the days when what I wanted flashed before me in bright neon lights and I just dug out the Pregos, crossed the street and walked away as if I hadn't noticed. 

You can't always get what you want, as the Rolling Stones sang, but if you try sometimes you get what you need, whatever it is that gives you the Cheshire grin. I never took a wrong turn following my instincts. How much intuition do you dare leave unexplored? 

Hear me now und believe me later*

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards, said Vernon Sanders Law.

I'm big on quotes. I'm big on thinkers and ideas new and old and even more ancient. They go to show that we do have to invent the wheel all over again, generation after generation. No war has ended all wars; history keeps repeating itself; the same questions will always be asked. (They also fill you with the inkling will anyone anywhere ever again have an original thought, idea or insight. Writers are known for giving it a shot.)

We may hear those distant voices and see those horrible examples from way back when, but we won't believe them until later, much later, sometimes too late. We are programmed to learn but to learn for ourselves. To ask the same questions, make the same mistakes, come on top of them or be swamped by them, bang our heads against the Great Wall of Personal Experience and keep pushing through. 

We may be equipped with the tools and instincts to handle all situations, but we need to be tossed into those worst-case scenarios to test and hone our skills; practice taking courage, making choices, standing up for ourselves, and, if we are very brave, others. That is the only way to determine if and what we have learned as and for ourselves.

Just a thought, my two cents, or is it one these days, and is it even an original one? Oh well. EC [Ellora's Cave] spells Edit Cave for me for the next couple of days. Here's hoping it's the last one. Here's hoping the story and I come out intact. I took the test first and I've been taking lessons ever since with the generous help of a patient professional. Thank you! I've learned, I've practiced, and I've put what I've learned into practice. Methinks; mehopes.

What else... If you haven't helped Haiti, please consider doing so. The infrastructure is in shambles but the people are still there, living on not much more than their faith. We can afford to give more than just spiritual sustenance. Unless you've developed teletransportable edible and potable prayers, it's not the thought that counts.

*SNL: Pumping Up with Hans & Franz

Grand theft author*

Of all the excuses made and explanations given for digital piracy, the one I find most baffling is "Any publicity is good publicity."

Bestselling authors and the big houses may sympathize with the wee ones, but perhaps don't feel the pain or the consequences. They don't need the added exposure, if you can even call it that in any positive meaning of the word, or they don't publish eBooks and it's all very interesting on an academic level but doesn't really concern them. I hope the more they invest in the eBook business, the more invested they become in protecting digital copyrights. I could use a big hitter instead of just rolling with the punches here. Yes, down here.

Meanwhile, back in the jungle, writers such as myself, the ones only getting started, are keeping the faith, and typing those takedown requests as fast as we can so we could get back to our WIP. For many of us, how our books sell equals what we end up making, and that's all there is to it, to that equation. What I've often wondered is how many end up quitting because they can't get it off the ground financially. Many dream of writing; many hope to write for a living. It's a valid dream eviscerated by sabotage so widespread some are prepared to understand it, even condone it. That's the way the cookie crumbles. But in the name of promotion?

I have no illusions. Not many of those stealing and spreading and reading stolen eBooks would probably buy those books. Would they steal those same books from a bookstore? And explain it away to the nice officer exactly how? Who benefits from this? There are only losers, the biggest ones being the persons who originally came up with an original idea. Some of them are not only losing their income, they are losing heart and motivation leading to fewer books and stories, and less varied voices. Is this on someone's agenda? Does someone actually want this? Is something right only because it's prevalent, or possible? 

As for you book thieves... Unless you're prepared to share the fruits of your labor with me; give me freebies I can flaunt in your name; products of yours I can throw around in the name of spreading the word; let me try out your services for free...please don't do me any favors.

*An individual who uploads and/or downloads the intellectual property of others, including digital copies of works of fiction. Not the asserted author or owner of rights to those works, only a smug jack who hijacks them.