Combating Writer's Expanse

You've seen it countless times in the movies: a writer sits at his desk, staring at a blank screen (or paper in the days of the typewriter), not able to write. The implication is that he has no clue what to write, his mind's a blank slate. But, being a writer, I don't think that's entirely correct. I think the problem is that he has too much on his mind. He's asking himself, "Do I write the story about the mutant sapient turkeys or the one about the half-insane time traveler or...." And before you feminists get offended because I used "he" for the generalized pronoun, I will say that "he" is a projection of me, so I could've used "I." Those two ideas I mentioned earlier, they are actual stories in development from my fertile mind. But a fertile mind can still be a type of writer's block. To distinguish this type from the more "traditional" tabula rasa writer's block, I will call it "writer's expanse."

You see, we writers are a curious bunch; we can see a story in almost anything. You may see burning your tongue on hot coffee as an everyday annoyance; I may see the beginning of a four-part epic. We are trained that way, to avoid that dreaded tabula rasa. How? By writing to a prompt. "Write something about..." It focuses the mind. But the drawback is that everything becomes a prompt. Well, how do you combat that? The poison is also the cure: you write to the prompt. But you have to focus on just that prompt. You have to forget about that Idea you had when you were driving to work the other day. Focus. Easier said than done.

Publishers can help. They want to sell product to targeted readers. No one wants to produce something that includes both Historical Romance and Space Opera because the intersection of those two readerships is too small. So books and magazines are categorized in genres and themes. The writer is forced to write to a prompt. I wrote a story for thefirstline.com, which supplies the first sentence of the story and the writer comes up with the rest. I actually didn't get published there, but I changed the first line and it got published elsewhere. Still, that first sentence was the motivation I needed to write the story.

How does a writer combat writer's expanse when a publisher doesn't provide a prompt and a deadline? I'm still working on that. One way is by brute force. Those two stories I mentioned in the first paragraph, they came from prompts. One I think is near publishable. It helped that the prompts came from a writer's group because I had to show up the next meeting with at least a semi-completed manuscript. It got the ball rolling. I often promise myself not to start something before I finish something else. But that doesn't always work. I'm writing this blog entry in part because I don't want to revise another story I'm working on. I've tried the brute force method using National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), where a writer must write at least 50,000 words in a month. It forces the unnecessary tasks like writing blog entries out of the picture. But even without NaNoWriMo, I'm getting better. I just have to remember that writer's expanse is also a good thing. Because all the stories I have on the table right now--regardless of stage completed--came from writer's prompts.

On "Profiling"

Much has been said recently about Arizona's new anti-immigration law and the word "profiling" has come into the public's consciousness. But what is this "profiling?" Last night, on The Rachel Maddow show, Maddow argued against the Arizona law and racial profiling. She profiled (couldn't resist the pun) some proponents of the new Arizona law. Among those was Scott McInnis, who is running for governor in my home state Colorado under the Republican ticket. She showed a clip of him in 2001 when he was a Congressman talking about profiling. I believed she mischaracterized what profiling is, so I wrote a letter. That letter follows below:

Dear Dr. Maddow,

On your show you played a clip of Representative Scott McInnis saying in 2001: "Once we begin to use ethnic profiling as a component, one of several components to build a profile, I think it is very legitimate."

Now, what he said is entirely correct and legitimate, from a law enforcement perspective. There is a difference between general law enforcement profiling and the more narrowly defined racial or ethnic profiling. The former builds a description of a possible suspect using several factors, one of which may be race, as Scott McInnis said. The latter, racial profiling, is just one of the factors that may be used to build a greater profile. Yes, using racial profiling alone is discriminatory, but, again, that is not what McInnis said, as you implied. He clearly said it is "one of several components." He may have said something more damning, but that clip isn't it.

In the interest of disclosing all my biases and short-comings, I am a Coloradan, and a registered Democrat. I doubt I would vote for Mr. McInnis, but what he said in that clip I agree with. I am not a member of the law enforcement community. What I know about profiling comes from society-at-large. It seems obvious to me that profiling must be used in law enforcement in order to narrow down suspects. But racial profiling used alone is indeed discriminatory.

Thanks,
Sean

Tonight, she again implied what Scott McInnis said in 2001 referred to discriminatory racial profiling. Oh well. I admit, I could be wrong. Perhaps in the parlance of law enforcement, "profiling" is never used anymore. Perhaps an FBI Profiler is never called a "Profiler." Perhaps an individual whose actions and appearance are suspicious is no longer being "profiled." But that's technical language. For the rest of us, "profiling" includes a much broader definition. And I don't think I'm being pedantic about this. Yes, using racial profiling alone is discriminatory, but in general, profiling is not. I'd hate the day would come where the pendulum swings too far the other way. I'd hate for the day to come where cops would be afraid to arrest or act on something that looked suspicious because they might be accused of "profiling." Maybe, in certain cases, that day is already here.

To be absolutely clear again, being stopped simply for being Hispanic or Black or Asian or whatever is discrimination and illegal. But IF that information adds to a greater profile, it should ABSOLUTELY be used. It is a shame the media cannot use more precise language when describing racial profiling.

A Meta-Brain Storm

A neuron doesn’t do much thinking. It passes electro-chemical potentials from one synaptic gap to another. It is almost impossible to imagine how a neuron is conscious of itself. Yet, it must be conscious of itself in some very basic fashion because if you network about a 100 billion of them you get a different kind of consciousness: you get a human mind. What happens when you network several billion human minds together? You can call it a meta-mind. No, this is NOT science fiction. We may not be connected to each other the way neurons are connected to each other. And as it’s impossible to imagine how a neuron is conscious, it’s also nearly impossible to imagine how civilization’s meta-mind is conscious. So, you may ask, this is a fun little thought-game, but why do I care? The answer: the connections between humans are becoming stronger, the metaphorical “synaptic gap” between each other shorter.

I found this realization through what one might call a meta-brain storm. Like an individual’s brainstorm, disparate and random pieces of info come together (neurons from all over the brain fire) to create something new. A friend (thanks, Stace) posts a blog link about networks. Curious, I read it. I like it. I really like it. Someone said something that makes sense, about things that have been rattling in my head for years—she just brought it into coherence. That “she” is Venessa Miemis and this is the blog entry:
http://emergentbydesign.com/2010/03/16/an-idea-worth-spreading-the-future-is-networks/

I strongly encourage you to check it out. The sci-fi imagery is mine but I owe her a huge debt for getting me here. Besides, you may have to read it in order to make more sense of what I’m talking about; I’m not going to regurgitate too much of what she says.

In an earlier post (http://bit.ly/dyfAAE) I talked about how the Internet is bringing us together in unusual ways. That was only the tip of the iceberg. It’s not just connecting us, it’s changing us in interesting ways. Our society is becoming more globally conscious, the meta-mind more awake. Yeah, maybe someday we’ll all download our consciousnesses into a supercomputer and solve all the world’s problems overnight. But the meta-mind exists now and each passing day it strengthens as our technology progresses. I don’t know what the future holds—it’s impossible to predict the outcome of a brainstorm—but if we approach it with compassion and understanding, we can make the world an awesome place.

Goodbye to the Jungle

My printer was in the midst of a jungle. I had to rescue it. I was tired of living in my own place and not being able to use my own stuff. So one night (which would be morning to most people; I work graveyards) I went into the jungle and I rescued my printer so I could print out a story for critiquing. Mind you, the jungle created was not my own (unusual, but true); the jungle of boxes and bags was created by the woman who had taken residence in my living room. “Why would you allow someone to live in your living room?” you might ask. Because she hadn’t worked in over a month and didn’t have the money to pay the rent anywhere. So yes, I felt sorry for her. Yes, I didn’t want her out in the streets. There’s a word for that: empathy.

Empathy is an oft-used word that gets thrown around a lot. At my work it means, “Say the proper phrase so that the customer will be happy and therefore get off the phone faster.” It’s often used interchangeably with sympathy. Etymologically, they mean essentially the same thing but in modern English sympathy is more about what you say and empathy is more about what you feel. Empathy is about putting yourself in another’s shoes. So I asked myself, “Would I want to be strapped for cash and perhaps living homeless?” No. So I took her in.

Most people thought I was crazy; they wouldn’t even think of doing it. The woman and I were in no way romantically involved. In fact, we didn’t really get along that well. “So why the hell did you take her in, Sean?” Again, empathy. I'm not saying I'm perfect, that I'm always empathetic. I definitely did have my reservations. But I try. “I’d never do something like that!” they told me. And that is part of the problem.

We live in a very selfish society. Most of the time, we’re thinking, “What’s in it for me?” Maybe a few times of the year we’re not selfish, like around Christmas, like it’s some sort of seasonal fad. (What about the other eleven months of the year?!) I must admit that I am often like that. I'd thought several times during her stayover that maybe I was a pushover, the proto-typical example of “a nice guy finishing last.” I spun paranoia about her grifting money from me, or worse. And I personally think she wasn’t as honest as she should’ve been about her situation. Yet, the grifting fantasy (or anything else) did not come to pass. She and her jungle left with our very imperfect friendship dinged a little more. And, though I hardly “live” in it anymore, I now have my living room back. I am glad.

This whole experience was capped when I attended a Buddhist class Sunday afternoon. The class was, fittingly, about generosity. In Buddhist terms, the act of generosity helps the giver as well as the receiver. (Actually, if you want to go deeper, “giver” and “receiver” are merely conventional labels for impermanent entities; what’s really going on is a shift toward a more compassionate society.) I like this. I’m helping out myself. My mom--one of the most selfless, compassionate people I know--asked me, “Did you learn your lesson?” Yes, Mom, I did, though not in the why you might think. Would I do it again? Absolutely, even though the experience caused headaches. However, I’ve laid down some personal ground rules to protect my interests and my sanity.

I will leave with this parting thought: the jungle. Author Upton Sinclair used it as a metaphor for the horrors of the meatpacking industry. The rock band Guns N’ Roses used it to refer to Los Angeles. I use it here to indicate the clutter one creates from her possessions. But to the millions of plants and animals who live there, the jungle is home, their abode, and for many, they couldn’t live in any other place. We don’t like the jungle because we’re big, clumsy apes who evolved in the African savanna. There is a Buddhist saying that goes: “There is no difference between non-enlightenment and enlightenment.” It means that enlightenment is always within reach; that even the most horrible, unenlightening situation can be truly, literally, enlightening. Her stay with me was not horrible, but neither was it a picnic. In her jungle I became just a little bit more empathetic. There is no difference between no-jungle and jungle.

On the Internets

Much has been said about how computers and the Internet have driven us away from each other. How we have become little islands obsessing over the mundanity of a tweet or a facebook update. True, it can be an obsession and a distraction from “real” life. Just like anything else. But it also can be just the opposite: uniting us in ways we never thought possible.

Amidst all the hyped-up ads in this year’s Super Bowl was the Google commercial. It tells a story through the main character’s Google searches. He decides to study abroad in France, where he meets a French girl. He needs to impress her (with Google filling in the gaps in his knowledge) and they fall in love. A long-distance relationship follows, and then he moves to Paris, where they have a kid. You can watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxyVpSUw6Kg

The protagonist could do all this, the commercial implies, because he used Google. He could’ve, of course, used Bing or Yahoo or any number of search engines. Beyond the implied message that Google is the best search engine is the greater message: the Internet does connect people. Would Google’s protagonist have done all the things he did without the Internet? Perhaps. Would it have been easier, or even as easy? Most definitely not. And if he had not had access to such vast amounts of info, would he have made the decisions he made? Perhaps not. How would the story go in the pre-Internet days? Perhaps he noticed a posting for study abroad on a bulletin board. Then he would fill out the application, send it through snail-mail, and wait 4-6 weeks to get an acceptance. Once in France, trying to impress the French woman, he stammers, trying to find things to say with his limited French knowledge. Perhaps she thinks it’s endearing and they fall in love. He flies back, setting up the long-distance relationship. But how does he easily find postings for jobs in France?... Well, you get the idea. The point is that the chain of events could break down along any one of those points and our pre-Internet hero would wind up marrying someone else. To which you might say, “So what? What’s wrong with that?” To which I would say, “You’re absolutely right.” Enough about a cheesy romantic Super Bowl ad…

Take me, for example. I am a shy person. I used to be a pathologically shy person. The idea of me talking to a stranger used to frighten me the way most people might be frightened when confronting a large wild predator. But the Internet has helped to soften that shyness a lot. I regularly attend groups I find on the Internet. They go by various names depending on my various interests (which are evolving because I love to surf the web) but they all have one thing in common: I go because I am uncomfortable; I go to tame that wild predator that’s shyness. In addition, the Internet was partially responsible for me finding my current job. Though far from ideal, the job requires I take calls from customers, often angry, with little-to-none downtime between calls. I used to have to script out what I was going to say if I had to call somewhere. And sometimes it’d take days, even weeks before I got the courage to call. Of course, the customer service representative never followed the script I meticulously planned out.

So while the bloviators scream that the Internet is pushing the world away, I know for a fact it has allowed me to connect more fully with the world. For that, I am ever grateful. Maybe I’ll go to Paris…

Worst Persons in the World

Back in the midst of the George W. Bush Administration liberals had few news sources which would try to shine a light on the corruption of that presidency. “Mainstream” media refused to sully their hands and Fox News would’ve proclaimed Bush the Second Coming if he had changed his name. But we had Keith Olbermann. He did “The Nexus of Politics and Terror,” his Special Comments called for Bush to resign, he liberalized MSNBC to become the progressive answer to Fox News. And then…the administration changed. And then…I realized something. Perhaps I had changed. Perhaps he had changed. But it seemed he was spewing as much hatred as those he feels are his enemies.

A case in point: the Haitian Earthquake. Much has been said about Pat Robertson’s and Rush Limbaugh’s comments on the tragedy. Robertson said the Haitians had made a deal with the devil and Limbaugh believed Obama would use it as a political ploy. Olbermann admonished them in one of his “Quick Comments:”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PEaWUduCM&feature=player_embedded

But he went a step further. He said, “Mr. Robertson, Mr. Limbaugh, your lives are not worth those of the lowest, meanest, poorest of those victims still lying under that rubble in Haiti tonight. “ Really?! So if Rush and Pat were buried in the rubble, struggling just to breath, they are not worth saving? But a Haitian thug also buried, also struggling to breath, is worth saving? I am not saying that the thug is not worth saving while Rush and Pat are. I am saying that they all are. True, Pat Robertson is a disgusting excuse for a human being, and Limbaugh is not much better. And our hypothetical Haitian thug I wouldn’t want to meet. Yet all three deserve compassion. Whatever happened to “turn the other cheek,” not separating self from other? We are our brothers’ (and sisters’) keepers, even if we do not agree with them. How does it go? “Hate the sin but love the sinner?” Robertson or Limbaugh do not get that. And neither does Olbermann.

Another term for liberal is progressive. Perhaps a euphemism for the “L” word, but sometimes I like the progressive term better. Progressives move forward, always with the implication of toward a better world. And the opposite of progressive is not conservative; it’s regressive. Regressives would have us moving backward, toward a more savage and brutal world, where we were always fighting. No one would willingly call themselves a regressive, but their philosophy would be the natural opposite to progressive. Sometimes I think 100% of Washington is regressive, like that old joke: “What’s the opposite of progress? Congress!” And a lot of media is regressive. Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Keith Olbermann are regressives.

The Comic Cow

Hinduism has The Sacred Cow. Judaism has The Golden Cow. America has The Comic Cow. From the advertisements of Chick-fil-a to Gary Larson's Far Side, we think cows are funny. They're funny looking, they make funny sounds, they chew cud. Need I say more? One can imagine that if cows ever became sapient, they'd be stand-up comics or late-night talk show hosts. Or--perhaps funnier--murderous bovines. That's just what a friend of mine attempted to do: write a story about time traveling, war-like cows. (And this is the reason why I'm talking about cows in this inaugural blog entry about writing.) It was a good story when one accepts the absurdity of the premise. There are things he needed to clean up (as with any early draft) but it'll work as long as he keeps it a little tongue-in-cheek. He has also some heavier drama going on with his main character, which may be harder to reconcile with murderous space cows.

There needs to be balance, different in every story, between comedy and drama. And if the scale is off, the story comes across as stupid and lame. I am finding that balance is hard to achieve with my own writing. My animal of choice is the turkey, and my story is more knee-slapping hilarity. But it still needs a balance, a reference point with the real world, for the jokes to make sense. I've often heard that writing comedy is hard, and I think that's the case. Writing the pedantic, "woe is me" drama is easy. But making it funny, and making us care at the same time--that's the real challenge. Anyone up for uplifting some cows (or turkeys) to help with the task?