Hell and Wheels

Not too long ago, I was having what I thought was an equitable conversation with someone. She asked me what I did, and I told her. Without a blink she replied, “Oh. I don’t read fiction. I guess I’m too well educated.”

At first I didn’t take offense. A day or two later, I started to resent the comment. A day after that, I let it go, chalking it up to common ignorance. But, it ignited in me a sort of awareness of this prejudice I’d never really noticed before — the odd notion one can be too educated for something. The more attention I paid, the more aware I became of the alarming frequency this subject comes up among writers; one genre views itself superior to another, the highbrow views the ‘dregs’ with disdain… I just don’t get it. Even as I sat watching Lost last night, this issue arose. One of the Others was having a book group and her friends were giving her a hard time for picking a Stephen King novel. One said something about not even deigning to read it in the bathroom, as if Mr. King’s words were somehow beneath him.

It all seems vain and trifling. Like writers don’t have enough obstacles in their paths, new ones need to be invented; clubs have to be formed and the mean little kids manning their plywood forts have to wing stone missiles at the approach of any of the uninitiated and unwelcome.

I have no use for any of that. I’m a storyteller out to do just what the title implies. And if I can help just one person let go of whatever is troubling him for a little while, I’ll be more than satisfied with my life’s work, regardless of the opinions of others.

Maybe I am uneducated. Maybe I’ll never be part of the intelligentsia. But, I know who I am, and where I’m going. And I believe in myself enough to let those who have “too much education” slide by me without affecting my outlook on life. I’ve got too many better things to do than worry about other people’s hang-ups.

I’ve gotten all the way through the editing and am now faced with having to gut the final quarter of this book. I knew it was coming, what with the changing earlier scenes to make Quinn and Wyatt more active. But I didn’t know how encompassing those alterations would become as the end drew near. What I initially thought would be a new chapter and a few modifications to support it has turned into me having to print the final twelve chapters and annihilate them; they just don’t fit with the rest of the novel anymore. I’ve taken the pages, highlighted all the information I’d like to keep, and then transferred the facts to my blessed index cards (God, I love whoever invented those things). A newly created stack of cards sits nearby, holding my notes on what I’m going to add, keeping track of all of those small changes that have grown larger, spawning additional bits of information like bunnies in a cage.

It’s all there. All I have to do is incorporate the two. But I haven’t. Even though I did it before, spreading out my stacks of cards in front of me and then reassembling them in the correct chronological order, even though this time is a much smaller assemblage of facts, those damn cards just sit at the edge of this desk, mocking my impotency. And I think I know why. I’m not sure I’m the master of my own ending. That’s pretty bad to admit, right? But, it’s been with me all along. Writing the original (now trashed) ending also brought with it the same fear — the intense wash of foreboding that made me think I’d somehow missed some crucial plot point, that single overlooked fact that will cause my entire story to unravel like a cheap sweater.

So many books and courses will emphasize the essentiality of first ten pages of the story, and tell tales of the difficulty in getting those initial paragraphs down. Don’t get me wrong, they’re very, very important. But, at least for me, the ending is by far more torturous. With four point-of-view characters and six sub-plots, I’ve got a lot of loose ends flapping away in the breeze. I’m just worried I’ll miss one (or five). But, I’ll never find out if I can do it if those cards stay where they are.

It’s a nasty, rainy day. A good day to plop down on the floor and stare at the pastel-hued cards with barely legible writing scrawled across them. A good day to get my ass in gear and begin the end — again.

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U.S. Representative Chris Cannon, R-Utah, has proposed a new bill, HR 5528, titled the Pornography Jurisdiction Limitation Act of 2006. This bill, if passed, would stop federal courts from hearing any case regarding state pornography laws and deciding if those new laws would impede on first amendment rights.

Doesn’t sound too bad? Wait. The waters get murkier.

Not only would this law affect pornography in the strictest sense, but would also permit individual states to ban otherwise legal media, including mainstream movies and novels. While I’m sure many of you would like to discuss the ramifications of this proposed law on your favorite theatre experiences, I happen to be a writer, so my particular peeve today is with the proposed license for a state government to ban a book.

In a summary of the bill by the Free Speech Coalition, “HR 5528 would allow states to reduce the expression available to adults regarding sexuality and nudity to material that is suitable only for minors.” That’s right. A state could prohibit the sale of any novels containing any amount of sexual content. The local bookstore and library’s fiction collection could suddenly be consigned to a juvenile section. Our literary (and movie-going) lives could become one giant, G-rated adventure. And there would be no means for any of us to challenge the decision on a non-biased, federal level. Sound pretty Orwellian to you? It does to me. And what does Mr. Cannon have to say about it? “My legislation puts the power to protect families back in the hands of the states, where it rightfully belongs. If there are those who believe a state’s anti-pornography laws are too strict, they can find another state in which to live.” Ahh, the age-old argument of, “If you don’t like it, get out.”

I find it very difficult to swallow the concept this law is being proposed for the welfare of innocents. It is not about keeping a child from wandering away from an inattentive parent and going to the adult section and picking up just the right book and flipping to just the right page and finding a random sex scene. It’s about imposing morality on the population – using the iron fist of the government to clamp down on our purportedly filthy souls for the sake of our own salvation. Well, I’m not in the market to be saved. And I’m certainly not in the mood to be censored.

If you’re still on the fence, thinking the price of relinquishing your world of entertainment just might be a worthwhile trade for protecting a child from having the wrong book fall into her hands, think about this. An author writes a novel using the full scope of his imagination. A publishing house prints it and delivers copies of it to bookstores across the nation. But one state has passed a law banning any type of sexual content in the books its stores sell. This novel happens to have a sex scene, so it cannot be put on the shelves. The author loses an entire state’s worth of sales (and let’s just dispense with the assumption most authors make tons of money — it’s a lie) and his publishing house loses revenue. But, it’s not just about the cash. See, in order to generate sales the next time around and continue scraping by in his chosen profession, the author might be pressured to change his style and write a novel that won’t be banned. And there it is — the suppression of free speech at the source. The absolute annihilation of the First Amendment.

The federal courts are in place to protect us. The judicial system is there to halt the Powers That Be when they overstep their bounds. And that is exactly what the states will be doing if they are granted the right to ban movies and books without any means for their creators or the public to appeal their decisions.

So, what does our future hold? A vast array of knowledge and entertainment at our fingertips with only us as judges of what content is acceptable? Or, a government winnowed selection of works?

This proposed law might never affect you. Then again, you might one day venture to the bookstore and find an empty space where your favorite author used to rest.

And you might never get to know me, or my many writing friends who have incredible stories to tell.

Those of you who’ve been reading since the beginning know of my issues with writing too much and then not being able to edit later. Well, I think I’ve had a breakthrough. When I finished the first draft, I had upwards of 250,000 words. My goal for this book was to get it down to a (still long by industry standards) 175,000 words. I’ve ruthlessly annihilated many of the things I once found ‘necessary’ to the plot, and destroyed every bit of superfluous fluff I laid eyes on. I’m thirty-five chapters down, and have thirty-three to go.

My current total of words in the edited portion is just over a hundred thousand. The un-edited remainder — (gasp) a mere sixty thousand! I’m actually under my goal for the first time in my life.

Before I get too self-congratulatory, I need to remember there’s an ending I have to totally re-write. And you can be pretty damn sure I’ll shoot myself in the foot again while I’m doing it. My fingers will click out a flowing saga, and I’ll be faced with twenty thousand words over what I’d intended. Then, it will be back to chopping and hacking.

But, I really don’t think I could do it any other way; I seem to need that excess to move around and shape to my liking. It’s sort of like re-arranging the letters on one of those roadside signs – the more words up there, the bigger the creative license one can have in putting them back in an altered state.*

Whatever the reasoning behind my affection for word-overkill, though, I’m relieved to find out I can manage it.

*This statement does not imply the author encourages, condones or participates in the humorous editing of public messages in any form.
That would be wrong.

I realize I’ve been straying from the intended purpose of this blog for a while but, “I’m still editing,” is about as boring a subject as one can broach. I am still revising and chopping and re-writing, trying to get this monster novel down to an acceptable size and as free of typos as possible, but, again, it makes for very tedious subject matter. So, to relieve you from the banality of my day-to-day struggles, I’ll bring up another subject — the news.

Now, those of you who have read Resonance’s MySpace blog might be familiar with Res’ intolerance of mass media. Well, let’s just say some of my own prejudices filtered down into the spirit of my creation.

I’m not going to launch into a lengthy tirade about the news. That would take too long and cause me to digress from my intended subject. So, while I have general reservations about the means by which the public is informed of incidents that directly affect our daily life and the future of our country, it’s the relaying of inane information under the weak terminology of ‘human interest’ that I’m about to discuss.

Fluff pieces – meant to take up air time while simultaneously tugging at my heartstrings, or somehow elevating my spirit in ninety short seconds. These bits of vapor have nothing at all to do with anything important or life altering for anyone who isn’t directly involved in the story (I also place house fires, car accidents that don’t jam up entire roadways, and sudden death tragedies in this category). I find it the most predatory use of the storytelling talent, representing a society-wide epidemic of degraded voyeurism – a disease without the support of an underlying pathology where people watch just for the sake of watching.

And I got to experience it firsthand.

I’ve been going to the gym for a couple of years, now, after deciding my waist looked more like marshmallow goop jammed in a vast expanse of denim than I’d cared for it to. I’m not much of a joiner, and the concept of participating in a class usually puts me back in that physical education mindset — the grass picking, slow running, non-athletic kid standing sullenly by as the two team captains fight over who gets to be stuck with me. It’s not all that pleasant and I tend to try and avoid it. But, a friend I’d made while slogging it out on the elliptical machine insisted I take a weight lifting/cardio class with her one day. Surprisingly enough, I kind of liked it.

I’ve been going for a couple of months now. I enjoy the challenge and the fact the instructor is neither perky nor bouncy. She’s grounded and plainspoken, and just a little acerbic — my kind of teacher. But, I just wasn’t feeling it the other day. Maybe it was because it was ninety-nine degrees out and the gym’s air conditioning wasn’t working right. Maybe it was because the class structure had changed and my equanimous mentor was suddenly sharing the cardio portion of the class with a nauseatingly chipper half-skeleton that thought screaming at us would keep us motivated (a practice that usually results in me reverting to passive resistance). Whatever the reason, though, when the classroom door flew open while I was straining like a constipated senior in an effort to lift that final rep of weights over my head, and the room flooded with brilliance from a spotlight mounted on top of a television camera, I was immediately incensed.

So incensed, in fact, I bolted upright and toppled halfway off my step.

Perfect. Not only do I never want to be on TV beet red and drenched in sweat with my bangs curling every which way from the humidity, I never want to be on TV looking like all of the above and appearing to be the town drunk. This is a relatively small town, and footage of me would most likely not go unnoticed. People on the third floor of my husband’s office building can spot me walking two blocks away. I tend to, uh, stand out. Add the wondrous invention of the zoom lens and I’m nailed pretty damn quick.

After class, I complain to some young guy at the front desk who has no idea who these people are or what story they’re doing. Then, I go home and solicit the advice of friends on whether or not to call the station and complain my image had been captured without my permission. It’s a safeguard, checking with other people. I tend to…overreact.

The deciding factor came from a young, but very wise girlfriend. “There are two things you don’t do,” she says. “You don’t ask a woman her age, and you don’t film her when she’s sweating.”

Vindication.

So, I call the newsroom. The woman at the desk informs me they were following some man who is on an extreme exercise regimen.

Oh? A human-interest story? Fabulous.

I tell her I don’t want to be on the news, to which she sagely replies, “They were only filming him.”

What kind of magical camera is there that films only the intended subject and blurs out the rest of the background? I need to get one of these.

“But, this was a class of all females,” I say in a change of assault after deciding the above sarcasm would most likely sail right over her head. “There was no guy in there to film. So, I guess you don’t need that footage, anyway.”

She promises then to speak with her producer.

Still not through with my indignant rage however, I decided to call the gym and talk to the owner. I explain how unhappy I am and how I feel it would have been in my and the other patrons’ best interest for him to have posted a sign saying there was going to be filming going on.

“But they were only filming him.”

Again with that magic camera. Amazing.

After securing his undoubtedly sincere apology, I hung up and went to the DVR to set the timer to record the six o’clock news. I was at the store when it aired, but watched it later in fast forward. No me falling off of anything. No story on exercise whatsoever. I was in the clear.

“There’s always the ten o’clock news,” my husband offered once the final segment had sped past and I’d let out the breath I’d been holding.

Did I watch it? No. Sometimes the illusion of getting one’s way is better than the possible reality of the entire county seeing me freak out at the presence of a camera like a participant in the witness protection program and then proceed to fall ungracefully on my ass. That doesn’t mean I’m not still more than a little irritated about the entire event — including the smirk on the cameraman’s face as I righted myself.

“Aaah,” you say. So, this is about wounded pride? Well, yeah, a little. But make no mistake; it’s also about why the hell my privacy (at a moment when it was particularly important to me) was invaded for a two-minute bit of nothing that has zero to do with anything relevant.

It just shouldn’t be done.

I went to D.C. yesterday with some relatives. The reason for going was to take the three kids (none mine, by the way) to see the museums. Now, for those of you who’ve never been to our Nation’s Capital, there are a slew of museums lining The Mall: The Smithsonian Museums of Natural and American History, The American Indian Museum, The Freer and Sackler Art Museums, The Air and Space Museum, and The National Gallery of Art.

When I was a kid, it was a day trip worthy of an excited, sleepless night before.

We decided to skip the art museums, because, well, most children don’t really enjoy staring at wall after wall of paintings, no matter how pioneering or how contemporary and edgy they might be. So, we took them first to my favorite, the Natural History Museum.

As a child, just stepping into the rotunda alone was enough to make me breathless; an impossibly high domed ceiling arced overhead, protecting three stories of ivory stone. Two of those floors bore colorful banners above each of their squared, authoritative doorways, luring visitors into their labyrinths of discovery. And straight ahead stood the crowing glory — a massive elephant, stuffed and posed in a posture of supreme confidence.

Sadly, they no longer have the white, phone-like devices circling the base of the elephant that one could use to listen to a recording of the pachyderm’s resounding trumpet. I remember countless field trips beginning and ending with a circumambulation of the creature, picking up each headset in varying patterns, hoping to unlock the mystical code that would free the massive, stuffed legs and allow the suddenly reanimated elephant to crash to the ground and set off on a stampede down the yellow gravel of The Mall on it’s way to overturn the Washington Monument with its massive tusks.

The above never happened, of course, but the point was, I thought it might. I gazed at that elephant with eyes other than the ones plastered in my sockets. These kids didn’t. With only a cursory glance, they sauntered on past the magnificent beast. And that set the stage for the rest of the day.

Room after room, exhibit after exhibit, nothing impressed. Not the dinosaurs with their dark, model skeletons gleaming like gunmetal in the dim light. Not the diorama of the prehistoric burial with the mannequin of the decedent curled on his side in the fur-lined pit. Not the rainbow of minerals with their sculpture-like formations and channels that resemble glowing city grids. Not the mundane looking rocks that emanate mysterious green light when the case is darkened. Not even my tale of the supposed curse of the Hope Diamond could garner more than a roll of the eyes, an apathetic shrug.

By the end of the first hour, the chorus of, “I’m bored,” began. After another hour, one was asking to go to the hotel room.

“What are you going to do in the hotel room?”

“Watch TV.”

And there it was, the answer to my puzzlement. These kids are junkies. Exposed since birth to a constant barrage of flashing pixels, recorded voices and digitized interaction, they’ve become addicted to electronic stimulation. The virtual world is the pulse of their existence. These kids are strung out on technology, seemingly unable to take a ten-minute car ride without fighting over who gets to watch the DVD or wear the headphones. Adventure to them is a particularly challenging video game. Socializing is gathering ‘friends’ in Internet sites. The influence of prismatic, instant entertainment has turned the exterior world gray for them. A day trip to experience the cultured world is, for them, equated with the mundane tasks of life; eating, breathing — relieving themselves.

In the midst of my octogenarian-like tirade of superiority, though, I’ve realized I, too, am one of them. Maybe not as severe a case, but still drawn by the lure of the flashing lights and the pretty pictures. More often than not, I’ll pick up a book to read, only to be distracted by the television or the computer. And I’m a writer. If I’m supposed to be a champion of the written word, then how can there be any hope for the rest of our society? If I’m supposed to be a role model for others, yet find myself slack-jawed and glassy eyed on the couch nine times out of ten, then what’s to become of the craft I love so much?

I guess what I’m getting at is I’m pretty sure there is a direct correlation between the age of technology and the shortening of attention spans. I’m not saying that the ‘good old days’ are the way to go and that anything else falls to just this side of Satan’s stomping ground. I can’t think of a time I’d rather live in than now. The Internet, DVR, high-def TV, and surround sound are all fabulous inventions that I’m very happy sharing my space with. But maybe there should be a little more caution involved when we pick up that remote. After all, if it can pull me from my work, and can zombify three children until corporeal experience is reduced to a bothersome inconvenience, then that pretty, luminous box should probably be accorded a little more consideration and respect. And maybe just a little fear.

A small deviation from my usual rantings about my book. This is a story I wrote when I was a member of an organization that really had no clue how to operate. It was for a flash fiction contest that never came to pass. So, I figured I’d share it here.

The Empress of Fescue

This is how a snake feels, awaiting the first rays of light to banish the insidious chill. This is how it will always feel, cold and alone. This is why my desperation grows – as hers must have – wild.

I bought her at an Estate sale to stand sentry against the hordes of sticky-mouthed candy grabbers trampling my front lawn. My winged, snarling chimera.

The Empress of Fescue.

As the sun fell below the false horizon of peaked slate roofs, my bare feet made their way across the prickling wetness of my lawn, so I could admire her grimace in the orange glow of the street lamp. Yet, when I arrived only a flattened patch of turf remained to testify to her existence.

Indignation welled in me. I had been robbed. And then the truth struck me with a physical blow – a winged wrecking ball to the back. The wind left my lungs in a rush and I sprawled onto my lawn, eyes level with the wheels of the neighbor kid’s overturned bike.

Masonry talons clicked against the sidewalk. With a velvet slink unbefitting statuary, she approached, carven jaws stretched impossibly wide. Panic resonated through my bones and I scrabbled forward, bare feet desperate for purchase.

The grass was slick.

I was slow.

She was on top of me in an instant, her terrible weight prematurely expelling the final of my breaths. Her maw sucked into me, consuming my soul, but leaving the rest. I struggled to stay inside but there was nothing to hold onto. No anchor to cast.

I pushed myself up with shaky arms. Not me. She, wearing me. I fit her like a well-made suit, and she beamed. She did a small dance of joy, cavorting out of view as she tried her new legs. In vain, I tried to track her. My neck remained rigid, my head fixed. Cast in a haze of gray, my world contracted to a pinprick view of life – a narrow strip of grass, a patch of siding, and my living room window.

It aches, sitting here, knees hunched up around my chin. A spider has built a web in the crevice of my right ear. The grass is cold against my concrete hide and I spend the long dark wishing for the following day to come without rain or clouds, so I might remember warmth.

I see snippets of her through the window, like clips from a movie I’ll never see. She seems happy. And why shouldn’t she be? She has it all; my life, my husband, my flesh. And she has me, The Empress of Fescue.

…Or messing them up. I’m not sure which. I’ve changed my URL to my name, since “Seeking a Life of Resonance” wasn’t doing so well with the Google searches. It tended to pull up info about MRIs. Now I’m Averydebow@blogspot – so everyone can have millions of hits about file dividers instead.

Someday I’ll get the hang of this computer stuff.

Or, I’ll finally make some money and hire someone with a few more brain cells to do it for me.