What I’m Blogging

When things go really bad for a professional soldier, there is an expectation that they will improvise, overcome, and adapt to get the job done. When this is, by all practical measure, an impossibility, there is another option open to them. They can fall on their swords. Romans did it in the bath tub, Samurai had a nice cup of tea first. My thoughts on Day 22 of the NaNoWriMo is what the heck are writers supposed to do?

…raising the white flag of literary surrender…

If I fall on my laptop, even with a cuppa fist, I’m really just going to break it, and the tea will make the keys stick even more than they do now. Not really an option. I suppose the best I could do would be to fall on my pen. It at least is sharp and pointy. This is at least in the spirit of the whole falling on something genre.

I am raising the white flag of literary surrender. The word count is too far behind, and life, family, the job, and even the alignment of the planets do conspire against me. OK I made that last bit about the planet alignment up, but the tires on my 12 year old Mercury Sable need an alignment, does that count?

Where did I go worng? Well interestingly, there is an interesting book put out by the founder of the NaNoWriMo called No Plot, No Problem. In the pages of that book are explained all the reasons for my capitulation. Not locking up my Internal Editor. Falling too far behind in the count. Allowing self doubt to creep in after 4 days of writing nothing… Boy If only I had read this before I started!

“But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for.”

-Paulo Coelho (Mystical author, one of Brazil’s most successful novelist)

Final Tally:

This is a post about, what else, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Don’t worry. It’s not what you think. It’s really a tale about a Dad, his son and daughter, and a fairly good way of killing a Sunday morning and a good chunk of the afternoon as well.

…we are not in Kansas anymore and heading like a speeding bullet into adolescence…

The Kids had been well behaved and as a result, eager to claim their reward of going to see the latest of the Potter flicks. There was no chance that I was going to take them on opening day. I mean it was a good movie and all, but I didn’t need to see it that much. I aimed for the 11:30AM show on the Sunday. Heck we even got there at 11:00 AM and the darn thing was still sold out. Sure I could have bought tickets on-line, but then I wouldn’t have had my little rant now would I? In any event rather than join the queue for later show tickets, I waltzed (yes literally) over to the the “auto-ticket-kiosk-thingy” and swiped my credit card right into the next available show at noon.

Now of course, I was in a theatre with about an hour to wait and two kids to deal with. What to do, what to do? Well don’t these huge massively googleplexed cathedrals of entertainment have that all sorted out. There was food to eat, air hockey to play, video bad guys to shoot, and all other sorts of activities of the video game aperture type to hold our limited attention spans for the next sixty minutes. Insert credit card, receive tokens, Cha Ching! Children’s entertainment increased in direct proportion to the increase in my debt (and by extension a decrease to their eventual inheritance). Time to see the flick!

No spoilers here. Even if you are one of those rare individuals on the planet who have not seen the movie, I will not ruin your experience, except as it relates to the point I’m trying to make. So bail now and don’t say I didn’t warn you. My daughter loved the movie entirely. She wants to run away and be a wizard at Hogwarts. She’s eight. Heck, I’m in my forties, and I want to do that too. My son used to think this way, but recently he’s added a new spin on it. It was the scene at the ball, all of the characters were dressed in their finest robes. The climax of the scene was building, the audience was held in silent anticipation, and then we see Hermione in her gown transformed from little girl into beautiful young woman. The scene is magical and breaking the silence the audience is treated to a very loud “Whoa!” coming from the lips of my son. He’s eleven and swears that he hates girls. I, and several hundred witnesses think that perhaps he doth protest too much.

And so it begins… he either has a huge crush on Hermione, or he’s really into dress design (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Either way, we are not in Kansas anymore and heading like a speeding bullet into adolescence.

If your thoughts turn to Voltaire on this, the day of his birthday, why not look into one view of how Voltaire’s legacy of Reason has turned out over the ages. I’m sure if Voltaire knew what this legacy had become, he would disown it.

Saul, John Ralston. 1993. Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West. Penguin. ISBN 014015373X.

What I liked about this book: I originally read this book when it was first published in 1993. I bought it in hardcover at the World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto, and then I devoured it. It is witty, intelligent and for the first time opened my eyes to the “reasons” the world is the way it is - ratioanlism taken to extremes, exercised by technocrats, to the ruin of freedom.

Saul… argues that the Age of Reason, now nearing 500 years old, displaced medieval society with a reason-based state-corporate structure in which there are no values–and power became the new religion. Reason without values left the citizenry confused and yearning for meaning, Saul writes, and the new ideology was exploited by the ambitious to seize and justify power. “Knowledge became the currency of power,” he says. “The most common characteristics of our elites are cynicism, rhetoric and the worship of both ambition and power. These were also the characteristics of eighteenth-century courtesans.”

What I disliked about this book: nothing at all.

Available from Amazon Canada, UK and US

It’s the birthday of the man who helped spark the enlightenment in France, writing under the name Voltaire, born François-Marie Arouet in Paris (1694). He wrote so much in his lifetime that his collected works are still being assembled and edited by French scholars. He’s known to us for a single short novel: Candide (1760), about a young man who follows the philosophy of Doctor Pangloss that no matter what misfortunes befall us, this is the best of all possible worlds.

…People who believe in absurdities will eventually commit atrocities…

Voltaire grew up at a time when Louis XIV had instituted the persecution of Protestants, turning France into a ferociously intolerant society, with little freedom of speech or religion. Voltaire began his writing career just a few years after Louis XIV had died, and he was one of the first writers to challenge the restrictions by writing satirical poems about the new king. He was sent into exile and then thrown into prison in the Bastille for eleven months. At the time, he wasn’t particularly well known, and his imprisonment only served to make him famous. It was when he got out of prison that he began using the pen name Voltaire. No one is sure how or why he picked the name.

He became a well-known playwright and poet, but in 1725 he got into an argument with a nobleman. A few days later, that nobleman hired a group of men to surround Voltaire in the street and beat him with cudgels. The nobleman stood by and watched.

Voltaire was outraged when none of his political friends came to his aid in trying to get retribution for the incident. He had thought that his stature as a poet made him the equal of a nobleman, but this incident made him realize that he was still a second-class citizen. He began writing about what happened and calling for justice, and he was thrown into the Bastille for a second time. He was released only on the condition that he leave France, and so he went to live in England.

Voltaire spent most of the rest of his late in exile, but he continued to write about his home country’s religious fanaticism. He became a crusader for human rights and one of the most famous and respected men in Europe. People would cheer when they saw him passing on the street. He wasn’t the first person to think about or write about human rights, but he did more to spread the idea of human rights than almost any other European writer.

In the last year of his life, Voltaire was allowed to return home to Paris in 1778, after twenty-eight years in exile. More than three hundred people came to visit him his first day in the city, and one of those visitors was Benjamin Franklin, fresh from helping to lead the revolution in the United States of America.

Voltaire wrote, “People who believe in absurdities will eventually commit atrocities.”

From the Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keillor
Available by e-mail daily.

Further enlightening reading available at Amazon Canada, US and UK

The government tells us that 2005 is the Year of the Veteran, and that we should remember with honour, those who served this country and gave the ultimate sacrifice for us. The Government is absolutely right on this point. But as we remember, cherish, and pay hommage to those heros of the past, we should not for get those heros of the present.

…telling the Men and Women of the Canadian Forces that we care…

Operation Rudolph is a way you can make a difference this Christmas Season. It is run by the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and whether or not you agree with the politics, it’s not about that, it’s about telling the Men and Women of the Canadian Forces that we care about what they are doing for Canada. We all want peace. We all want an end to war. These are issues for the politicians to sort out, politicians we elected and politicians we can change if we don’t like what they are doing. But the soldiers go and serve because our country orders them to. We have a duty to support them on whatever mission we send them on.

“Please take a minute to buy a holiday gift for our soldiers in Afghanistan. You can make a secure online donation or call 1-877-383-8320. You will receive a tax receipt for your donation.

You can also join the many students and adults who are sending a thank-you note to our troops for building democracy in Afghanistan and security here at home.”

So take a minute and send a note or make a donation and let the soldiers of today know that their country appreciates them, and hopes for their safety.

Discovered over on Small Dead Amimals.

Garrison Keillor over at the Writer’s Almanac tells us today that it is the birthday of Margaret Atwood. In Canadian Literature the name Atwood either evokes feelings of admiration and love or fear and loathing. In some readers the journey has been from the latter to the former.

Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. Seal Books; ISBN: 0770429351.

I picked this one up on impulse. If truth be told, the thought of reading a Margaret Atwood novel was a little daunting. I was forced to read Atwood in high school. Forced to read an author I was not ready to appreciate. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and I was reluctant to read anything by Atwood again. It didn’t help that my English Lit teacher had a finely honned skill of sucking the life and joy out of any collection of printed words no matter how great the author.

Well I’m glad I got over my “atwoodophobia”, because I really liked this book. It is a cautionary tale about what can go wrong if we sit back and let business and scientific elites tell us what’s good for us. It is a tale of the aftermath of the unconscious society’s plumet to extinction. It is a tale told with wit, humour and an understanding of the urges that drive us. Well worth the read.

Available from Amazon Canada, UK and US

It was on this day in 1968 that NBC interrupted its coverage of a football game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets with one minute remaining in order to show the scheduled movie Heidi, about an orphaned girl who goes to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps.

…coming from behind to win the game 43 to 32…

In the last minute of the game, the Raiders scored two touchdowns, coming from behind to win the game 43 to 32. Football fans were enraged. So many people called to complain that the NBC’s telephone switchboard in New York City blew 26 fuses.

It was that game, and the storm of protest by fans, that forced TV executives to realize how passionate the audience for football really was. Two years later, networks began showing football on Monday nights as well. And because of that game, the NFL now has a contract with the networks that all football games will be shown until their completion.

From the Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keillor
Available by e-mail daily.

It’s the birthday of the playwright George S. Kaufman, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1889). He was known as “the hitmaker” in his lifetime, he co-wrote more hit plays than almost anyone else in the history of Broadway, including Animal Crackers (1928), Strike Up the Band (1930) and You Can’t Take It With You (1938).

…collaboration is marriage without sex…

Of the dozens of plays Kaufman wrote in his lifetime, he only wrote one by himself. He said, “Collaboration is marriage without sex, and subject to many vexations. But pay no attention to them, because in one respect at least it is wonderful. The total result is frequently far more than the combined abilities of two people might give you.” His various partners through the years all said that he was a meticulous rewriter and polisher, that he was never satisfied with a script even up till the last minute. Even on the most triumphant of opening nights, he could always be found backstage, pale and terrified that the play would be a flop.

From the Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keillor
Available by e-mail daily.

Further non-flop reading available at Amazon Canada, US and UK

Slow and steady wins the race. We have to believe Aesop knew what he was writing about. We need to understand that if we just keep at it, victory will be ours.

It is day 15 of the NaNoWriMo and I’m about 10K words behind where I should be. Part of it is work eating up my time. Part of it is me fighting a cold that does not seem to want to let me escape it’s clutches. But mostly it’s as a result of early, lingering procrastination.

I’ve been increasing my daily word counts lately. Sometimes over 2K. If I’m going to finish I really need to reach 3K per day. I’ve received lots of encouragement to keep going and that’s what is propelling me onwards. That, and a very understanding wife who is giving me the time to do this craziness. Right now I’m just keeping pace with the progress… Tomorrow I need to pick it up and push that little bit farther.

Hobbit

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
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…miles to go before I sleep…

In my mind I’m already gone, or so goes the line from Seinfeld. Unfortunately it has little to do with my present circumstances. It’s Monday. Monday Monday. Can’t trust that day. I should be well on my way by now, in my car, on the road, being one with the commute. I am. however, not. As you can tell by these electronic characters you are now reading. I was typing when I should have been driving. Wordsmithing while I should have been on my way to the place where we make rock flow.

OK I’m leaving for the office now. I’m not keen on it. I’d rather curl up on the sofa with a steaming cup of java and my laptop. Lord knows I have a novel to write. But I will trudge to the office on this cold gray Monday morning. There are bills to pay. My debts are lovely dark and deep, and I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.