Haunted By My Book

It should have been a ghost story, it behaves like something haunted. But in reality it is only a few pages of typed text and a hand-written outline.
Over ten years ago, when I was playing a lot of role playing fantasy computer games (RPGs) and reading just as many fantasy novels, the idea occurred to me that I should write a book. I have a good imagination! I like to write! I could do this. I doesn't look hard. So I thought at the time.

So I poured myself into my new project. Writing my story...pondering laboriously over prose. And it was intense! I couldn't believe what it took to write those pages. At about page twenty I quit. I put it away. No one in my family would even look at it. I didn't know if it was good or bad and I felt kind of stupid writing a fantasy novel when other people I knew were writing about Economics and political upheavals in Eastern Europe. I put my little notebook with its outline and maps and character descriptions on a shelf. I put my book-writing days behind me.
Or so I thought.

That story has never left my mind. The book would not let go. It didn't want to die. I found myself constantly thinking about it. How to make more sense of the plot...and where was I going with this story? What was this history behind it? How would it end? How could I make it more my story and not simply a reflection of the books I had been reading at the time? That ten years of distancing myself from my book has probably been a good thing for both of us. I pulled it up and read it the other day. I still like what I wrote. This isn't trying to be literary genius, but it is good reading and fun. I looked at my outline and realized I had gone further with it than I remembered. There was a pretty good story in there trying to come out. But it needed me to do it...to do the work in setting it free.

Some of my ideas had changed over the years and I think for the better. It is really my story now and I see where it is going. I started typing the other night...a prequel, mostly for my own reference, that sets the stage better for the tale I had begun to tell before. This story does not take place on Earth. I started doing research and building a solid base for my world and the things that are living in it. It was fun to find myself creating and naming flora and fauna for this place...a calendar... continents ...mountains and seas.

I need to build this framework and be sure it is sound in the interest of consistency when I am doing my actual writing. References and descriptions in the context of the story may be fleeting, but they need to make sense and be consistent with what has been described before and what will be described later on. I may even draw pictures of things...insects, animals and plants so I have a good picture of what I am referring to when I write. I cannot rely on what is familiar. That is the fun of Fantasy writing, but also the difficulty. A solid foundation needs to be laid first.

I had thought of taking a writing class to get me focused back on my book. But for now, I don't think I will. It isn't that I don't need help or guidance. But I am inclined to just bumble along and see what comes of this endeavor. This won't begin to get the book out of my thoughts, I am sure it will be there even more. But if I am steadily working on it I can consider it as less of a haunting and more of a creative process.

The Decline of Reality

I quit watching TV about 15 years ago. I started watching my monitor instead. I enjoyed playing games and surfing through various news sites and gathering information about subjects that interested me. TV to me had lost its appeal. I could feel my brain cells dying as I sat there mindlessly staring at it. The entertainment value of TV can't be denied, but that is all it has become, whether you are watching Survivor, Dancing With the Stars, American Idol, The O'Reilly Factor or Countdown. Quite a few years ago, it became clear to the bean counters responsible for television programming that the money is in entertainment, not news. News used to be something that came on at 5:30 or so and that you had to listen to (or not) while you waited for your favorite shows to come on. It wasn't particularly entertaining, but it was unbiased and as accurate as it could hope to be. It was there to give people the facts of what was going on in the world at that time. The opinions people made from those facts was up to them. News shows weren't expected to make money, but they provided a service. A very vital service, indeed.
Today, there is no pretense of being unbiased. News programs unabashedly broadcast their political leanings under the guise of being "News". Interestingly, people seem to believe that what they are seeing is truly news and not in the least bit biased. They don't stop to think that it might not make sense or seem rather far fetched...if it is on TV (or the internet) it must be true! (at least as long as I agree with it)
How did this come about? The answer is pretty simple, really. Everyone has their own leanings politically and socially and they watch the shows that validate their opinions. There is a comfort zone there. Choirs love to be preached to! All of us like to think that what we believe is right. We read articles and listen to broadcasts that agree with us and make us feel good about our conclusions. Dissenting opinions grate on us...make us mad...make us want to argue with someone. But you can't argue with a TV or a newspaper article. So back to the comfort zone of our favorite shows. We associate with people who agree with us. The internet has made it easier to find like-minded people. They chat and grow closer and find themselves more and more estranged from people who don't agree with them. Other people validating your point of view is a very comforting thing. The bad thing is that this doesn't require a lot of thought or introspection. "Ditto Heads" (this applies to both left and right really, even though Limbaugh popularized the term) like their "facts" spoon fed to them. Have we gotten so lazy that we can't handle the effort of wading through various facts and actually coming to an independent conclusion?
As a result we have extreme polarization in our political system right now. No intelligent discourse, no compromise and the absolute shutting out of opposing viewpoints. The aisles in the Houses of our Legislature and Senate have become like mine fields that no one dares to cross. We cannot go on like this...we cannot govern like this. It needs to stop before we drown ourselves in a sea of acrimony, bitterness and hate.
It is up to "we the people" to bring about change. There is common ground we can all find. Talk to people you may not agree with. Find that common ground and go from there. You will find that you are not so different after all. Get away from the TV. Go to meetings and get active in your community. Find a cause that you want to work with, whether it be tutoring school kids or volunteering at your local food bank. There is nothing like a good dose of reality to make you think and realize that the world is not just red or blue and that solutions are not always as simple as what you have been lead to believe. Making our country a better place is up to us. Are we up to the task? I believe we are, but am not sure of what it is going to take to make it happen.

Differences...

According to what you hear on the news these days we are red or we are blue. I guess that makes for a dramatic story, but I don't believe it for a second. I think most of us are pretty purple, really. Maybe red-purple or blue-purple, but very few people are purely red or blue. I find that when people actually talk about what they want in life and their hopes and dreams, we are very similar. But these days there is so much fear mongering by the press and political pundits that it is hard to get people to stop yelling at each other and have an intelligent conversation. Everyone is upset and scared. It is a scary world out there and there are things to fear, but a lot of it is overblown by those wishing to keep us scared and hoping for change. Frightened people are easy to manipulate if you play on their fears. That is a political fact and has been a tool of those in power throughout history. It encourages isolation and keeps people from talking to each other and makes them more prone to believe in things they might have ridiculed in a different situation.
Today fear abounds. Terrorism. Crime. Immigrants. Economy. Unemployment. I'm sure there are endless blanks that could be filled in here. Everyone has their own fears.
Fear makes it easier to give up our hard-won rights in the name of greater safety or security. To take an airplane, we are expected to allow ourselves to be exposed to the radiation and humiliation of full body scanners or be subjected to the degradation of an intimate "pat down". Children and pregnant women are not exempt. What ever happened to the 4th Amendment? "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
We pass immigration laws to make it easier to determine who is a real citizen, forgetting that those laws apply to all of us and once again lead quickly down that slippery slope of unlawful search and seizure. It seems ok to do these things to "them" but not to us.  We don't think we would ever be in that situation since we don't break the law, right? But things can change and that attitude can backfire.
I've given a lot of thought as to why everyone is so scared and uptight. Obviously 9/11 had a lot to do with it, but certainly doesn't account for everything.  This has been coming on for some time.
I look back to how quickly technology has advanced in the past 15 years. We went from almost no one having a computer to almost everyone having one or more, not to mention a smart phone or PDA.  The internet is here and everyone is on the grid...we are bombarded with information and opinions. Our economy is no longer local...it is global and we depend on other countries to buy our debt and sell us cheap goods. We are surrounded by people of different races, sexual identities and religions who we don't understand.
Many Americans ask themselves..."What ever happened to the good old days?" "What ever happened to that Main Street American way of life that we used to see on Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best?" "We don't like this world of strange people who we can't identify with---we want it to go back to what it used to be!"
Of course, that isn't going to happen...Pandora's Box has been opened for good and for bad and we will have to adapt and go on with our lives in this new reality. But in the meantime, fear of change prevails. The Tea Party-ers want to "Take America Back"...from what I'm not sure, but they want it back...back to what it used to be in their dreams. Because back then it wasn't perfect either, but they can pretend it was.
The world is going to continue to change and move on and we will be carried along with it---either kicking and screaming or as an intelligent participant. America is never again going to be a sole super-power---we are moving into a global era where everyone is going to contribute and have their say. It is an exciting and dynamic time to be living in, but scary too in its uncertainty. Hopefully we as a nation can overcome our fears and establish America in her rightful place in the new world order as a leader and role model for equality and opportunity.

I've created a Blog!

Well, this took most of my night. I will try to make it more beautiful and interesting later on. For now, it is up and I'm too tired for deep thoughts.

I have looked at blogs that made me uncomfortable...I mean, people display their most intimate, private thoughts out in the wasteland we call the internet----for strangers to read and ridicule. What is it about people that want to share this stuff?? It makes me feel badly, because I know they are gonna get hurt.  They are setting themselves up for emotional disaster. And somehow I think that people who blog about their most tender feelings and most treasured ideas are the least secure----the ones looking for approval and who can least afford the public humiliation they are about to receive.
I love the internet. It is like a place to me...perhaps a second home in some ways. It is a marvelous resource and endlessly entertaining. But for all of its wonderfullness, it can be a very cruel and cold place. People feel free to speak their minds in ways they never would if they were confronting each other face to face. Anonymity has a way of bringing out the worst in some people as they sit safely behind their monitors typing venom and reducing their fellow human beings in cyberspace to smoldering ruins. Because when we become mere words on a screen, we somehow lose our humanity to some...we truly are no more than words on a screen...faceless, souless and unworthy of compassion.

I have never been able to disconnect like that. I yam what I yam, as Popeye would say.

I remember way back when...when I used to play Ultima Online. Ultima Online was one of the very first online games (or MMORPGs as they are called now----often shortened to MMO). My daughter and I often played together, even when she was away at college, we could go adventuring together in this huge online world---riding our horses, killing monsters and gathering treasure. There was an aspect of this early, ground-breaking game that I never really liked a lot or got used to....other players could kill you and take your stuff (and even kill your horse!). They were called player killers (or PK-ers). I really hated them. They ruined more wonderful adventures. And they clearly loved doing it! I despised them and the horse they rode in on. They would swoop in out of nowhere and just mow us down...and laugh. No matter how hard I tried I could never be like them...I couldn't bring myself to harm other players for pure enjoyment.
I just didn't understand how they could be that way. But they would say to me "It is just a game. So what?" And that was the answer. To them the world of Ultima was only a game, to be won or lost. To me it was the reality that I was in at the present. It was a place with depth and wonder. Because of that, being attacked and killed was personal and painful. It was just two different perceptions of the same situation. At various events over the years, I met some of these PK-ers face to face. They didn't have warts and fangs---they were just really nice kids who played a game on an entirely different plane of reality than I did.

Anyway, this blog is not going to be a soul-baring type of thing. Just a collection of meandering, random thoughts. It might get philosophical or political, depending on my mood at the time. Or I might just talk about my cats or my garden. I will think of it as my Journal, which is what it will be more than anything. If someone reads it, that is cool...if not that is ok by me. I'm writing it because these thoughts and stories need to go somewhere and quit bouncing around inside of my head!