Go To Bootcamp?

Once upon a time, I was a science fiction writer.

Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. I wrote science fiction. I was even published. Here's a link to the Locus Magazine Index of Science Fiction entry for me. I even won an honorable mention in the Writers of the Future contest.

And then, my sweet, dear, kind wife gave up a bunch of money so I could go to a writing class with New York Times bestselling author Dave Wolverton. You might know him as David Farland, author of The Runelords series. It was a great workshop, very educational, and very magnanimous of my wife to get me there. There are times when, in my self-deception and near-sighted frustration at the fact my writing never really took me anywhere that I want to blame my wife for being unsupportive. Such is near-sighted and unappreciative. She's been patient and amazing.

So I went to this great workshop with Wolverton, who worked together with me on an outline for a story, helping me flesh out a fully realized world, and a fully realized story. It was everything a guy could ask for. It was an amazing thing I'd been handed.

And I blew it. I choked. I never finished the story. In fact, I never, ever finished another story after that. I haven't even tried to write fiction since.

The first time I remember genuinely getting a reaction from an audience to one of my stories was in fifth grade. I wrote a series of stories featuring kids in my class, and when I read them aloud, the other kids loved them. I loved that they loved it.

I kept writing in sixth grade. To say it was derivative would be an understatement--I literally wrote only using existing characters. Sledge Hammer, Thundercats--I was basically writing fan fiction and turning it in for credit.

The big transition came in Junior High, where I actually wrote a story using an original character. It was a hybrid of a bunch of stuff I read in comic books--my love of Snake-Eyes and the Joker were apparent in my main character of a psychotic ninja who roamed around the country breaking in and out of asylums as the mood struck him. I don't know if it was characterization or my copy-cat roots that made me decide to have him quote movie lines as much as possible--that was the way I talked, so I certainly thought it made for interesting dialogue, and couldn't possibly be a creative crutch.

By the time I was in high school, I was already collecting rejection letters from Sci-fi magazines. First Analog, then Asimov's--but the stories were slowly becoming more and more mine.

One of my favorites was about two guys who were receiving government funding to study alien abductions. In order to maintain their funding, they fake abductions using rubber masks with voice boxes and a helicopter souped up with lights and spaceship sounds. One of them decides they can get more attention if they give somebody symptoms of a disease that's becoming wide-spread, and then make it look like the aliens cure them.

Except the biologist they let in on their little charade double-crosses them. It turns out she thinks she may have found a cure for the disease, but she needs somebody to test it on, since she's no longer licensed to do human trials. She decides these two guys who are lying about their alien cover-up are the perfect patsies. She gives them the real virus and her "cure."

One of the guys--the one who's not as keen on the plan--decides to test it out on himself before he gives it to some innocent person. He takes way too much of the virus, and realizes by morning that the symptoms aren't fake--he knows he's got the disease, and he pretty quickly realizes the "antidote" doesn't help.

In a scene I still love, he puts on one of the fake alien masks and drives in his convertible to the campus they work at to confront him about the whole scam, about what hypocrites they are. They got into this field to prove aliens really existed, and in their zealosy to further their work, they had turned into the very types of frauds they had despised for discrediting the field back when they'd been young and idealistic, full of innocence and nobility of purpose.

That scene resonated with me as I wrote it, and it still resonates with me now.

Don't get me wrong--the story was terrible. In my youthful ignorance, I actually had the guy "preparing" what would turn out to be a virus in a pot on his gas stove at home, as directed by the biologist. I guess I figured that was the closest thing he would have to the bunson burners I "knew" real scientists used.

But the story itself came from everything about who I was at the time--my love for James Randi and debunking fakes and conspiracies, my love for science fiction, and my own youthful belief in idealism and doing what you knew was right, even if it meant self-sacrifice.

And that alien mask on that guy while he argued about what hypocrites they'd become--that was powerful to me.

By the time I'm in college, my writing is coming along, and I get that story published I link to above. I first share it in a science fiction writing class, and the reaction of my classmates is much the same as the reaction I received all those years ago in that fifth grade class room. The story is published, and I feel like things have come full circle. My career is about to begin.

Well, years go by. I get married. I start a family. Things happen, and eventually I have responsibilities that drain me, leave me too tired to write most of the time.

I still write, here and there. And I get encouraging letters, here and there. I send out stories, but get back encouraging rejections. I join writers groups, and get back strong praise in them as well, but I can't seem to close the gap.

It's encouraging and discouraging all at once. Rather than writing new stories, I start spending way too much time going back and revising and rewriting old ones. My output slows as I try to punch up the old stories--add new plots, trim away excess words.

This is when my wife makes the way for me to go to Dave Wolverton's writing workshop.

He does a fantastic job, and lays it all out. In a way I've never understood before, I see writing as the wonderful mix of art and technique and originality and interaction and wonder and mystery and openness and plainness that it is.

I choke. In the middle of all of it, I choke. And somewhere along the line, I decide I'm going to give up writing. "For a while," I tell myself. "Until I get everything else sorted out."

I don't write anything for years. I barely even think about writing.

And then Scott Card decides to have his annual literary Boot Camp in San Diego this year. Just a hop, skip, and a jump away.

And then the President decides to send me a check that makes paying for boot camp not seem like such a leap.

Back when I was writing, I wanted to go to the Boot Camp every year. But for the last few years, it hasn't even been an issue. I haven't given it much beyond a second thought.

But this year it was different. This year, I couldn't help but feel like I should go.

Why? Was it just the close proximity? Was it the money? I hadn't written in ages. What made it different?

At one point, I had decided that nothing was different. I had decided not to go.

But three things changed my mind.

The first was a talk that J.J. Abrams gave at TED. My father introduced me to TED, and sends me links to good talks every once in a while. After checking out a They Might Be Giants show he emailed me about, I saw a link to a J.J. Abrams bit, and decided to check it out. Here it is: (Strong Language Advisory)



In the video, he talks about a mystery box that he got at a magic store when he was a kid, and that he has never opened. The mystery box, to him, represents infinite possibility. So long as it remains unopened, it could be anything in there. He talks about his love for the mystery box.

I completely understand. This guy's speaking my language. His explanation of how cool the unopened mystery box is completely resonates with me.

But I have this other epiphany that probably only me and my wife can really appreciate--that I'm treating my life like he's treating that mystery box.

I'm a big fan of choices. My wife knows that I like to leave as many options open as possible for as long as possible, because I don't like the idea that when the time comes that one particular option becomes clearly preferable, or when a new and altogether better option presents itself, I haven't blown it by selecting a lesser option and sealing off passage to all others.

I've done this with my life. I've left my potential sitting unopened because I'm so enamored of what might be inside and don't want to spoil the picture of what it could be.

But the problem is, life doesn't sit patiently waiting the way the box does. Every morning, a new day gets opened up, and what's inside is not a factor of wishing or dreaming or hoping. It's a matter of doing, and if you spend every day just "getting by," comforting yourself with the hope that tomorrow's mystery box holds something exciting, chances are your days will begin to become remarkably similar to one another.

So his speech simultaneously intrigues me, with its discussion of infinite creative possibilities, as well as chastises me, as I realize that while leaving boxes of magic tricks unopened is a fun and intriguing game, leaving your own life unrealized is a tragedy.

The second thing that changes my mind is a talk by Michal Ballam called "The Creativity Factor. You can listen to it in Real Audio or Windows Media online, although the quality isn't great.

But the talk is about the importance of creativity in the lives of the young, and creativity in the lives of all of us. He talks about how one group of students from one class was encouraged in their creativity by a teacher who wanted to develop the potential in each of them, to let them be true to who they were, instead of focusing on what they couldn't do. And the miraculous way that, as the students developed the talents they were good at, the combination of confidence and trust they built in themselves made other things seem to come easier.

The final thing was not something I read or saw recently, but rather something that's occurred to me as I've pondered why I got so frustrated with writing and why I stopped.

I've blogged before about the book Bonds That Make Us Free.

In that book, C Terry Warner talks about being true to who we really are.

He talks about when he was studying the arts.

One evening when I was nineteen, I was walking along upper Broadway in Manhattan with Suzanne Miller, talking and looking in store windows. I had met Suzanne in one of Stella Adler's acting classes at Stella's studio, which at that time was located on Central Park West. Suzanne had a fierce integrity and a vigilance against humbug in herself that impressed me from the first moments I knew her. These qualities had already exercised a strong influence upon me. Nevertheless, she caught me completely by surprise that night by asking me: "Do you love yourself in the theater or the theater in yourself?"

The question stopped me in midstep. I knew I couldn't answer it the way I wanted to be able to answer it. I didn't have to search my memory to discover that I couldn't; I knew it immediately--or possibly I should say, I knew it already, even before she asked. Indeed, I knew that this had been the question for me all my life, though I had refused to acknowledge it before. It wasn't a question about the theater only, but about my motivations for everything I had ever done. Did I love what I was doing, or did I love myself in doing it?

In that moment a choice lay clearly before me. I could spend my life assembling, feeding, and protecting the egotistical, ravenous, and addictive fiction I called my self--or I could refuse it every sort of nurture and let it die an unregretted death. I knew that unless I somehow could leave off my project of promoting and protecting myself and instead open myself to life, I would be doomed to a lifetime of self-involvement.

The question she asked is based on a quote by Russian playwright Constantin Stanislavski: "Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art."

So caught up was I in the situation he describes, that it took me several readings of the book to realize even so much as what he was saying. It took me even longer to realize that it applied to me.

At some point, I had lost sight of the fact that writing was once something I simply loved to do. Writing had become my salvation, my doorway out of my dead-end job, my path to money and recognition and salvation. When it denied me all of those things, I hated it for it. I gave up on it.

I even remember the exact rejection letter that tipped the scales.

In my age I had become the man I'd written about in high school, stripped of idealism and writing stories he hoped people would buy instead of writing stories he desperately needed to tell. I had the mask on, the voice box, changing who I was, because I was trying harder to be marketable than I was to be honest.

That's not to say a story I needed to tell didn't slip out here or there--one of the last stories I ever wrote, "His Full Fifteen Minutes," is also one of the most honest and heartfelt.

But the question I had to ask myself, and the one that made me decide that I do want to go to boot camp, that I do want to start writing again, is this one: Do I love writing enough that I would do it even if nobody ever paid me a dime for it?

That's the question that tells me whether I should start writing again. That's the question that tells me whether I should pay for boot camp. That's the question that tells me whether I should take time that could be going to homework or my wife or my kids or cleaning or exercise and spend them alone. Typing.

And that's what art should be. That's what art has to be.

When it's all said and done, I still might not get into boot camp. There is an audition process. If that's the case, I'll still go to the writing class, and I'll save myself a bunch of money.

But either way, I'm still going to start writing again.

It's what I do.

Props 98 and 99: Which one is really about eminent domain?

California voters are being subjected to a very confusing set of ads about Propositions 98 and 99.

A couple years ago, Jarrod and I did a pro and con on a fictional proposition making fun of tactics used in election ads.

I swear our parodies aren't that far from the actual tactics used in these ads. If you vote yes on one and no on the other, you're going to be ripping children from their homes. But if you vote no one one and yes on the other, you're going to be the direct cause of landlords only renting homes to rich people.

Fortunately, Timothy Sandefur, the man who quite literally wrote the book (and several articles) on eminent domain, has finally posted clearing up how you should vote on props 98 and 99.

If there's one man I trust on this issue in the state of California, it's this man. I've been waiting for him to weigh in on this one before I fill out my ballot--that's how much his opinion on this matters to me, and how much it should matter to you.

Random Musings: Thoughts On The Serenity Prayer

In the title of this blog, I kind of promise musings. I haven't posted a good musing in a while so here goes.

This is very, very random. I don't consider it to be all that insightful. In fact, I don't quite know what I'm going to say about this yet. But I saw something today, and I decided I wanted to work out how I felt about it.

What I saw wasn't anything particularly insightful or new. It was a very, very old homily that you've probably read dozens of times. I certainly have.

It was etched in blue glass held up by a wooden rack. It said this:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

A little bit of research reveals this little gem is known as the Serenity Prayer. It's a plea to God for a balanced view of life.

What struck me on this reading is one tiny little thing that I'd never really noticed before. The poem is actually making a second statement, besides the obvious one.

See if you can guess what it is. Go ahead and re-read the poem, and aside from the actual message of the poem, what other philospohy is it teaching about the way the world works?

The Wikepedia entry for this little verse includes the following poem, which I like better and contains none of the message of the Serenity Prayer that bothers me:

For every ailment under the sun
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it.

So what's the difference? What is in the first verse that's not in the second poem?

Okay, here's my answer: The first verse suggests that the way we interact with the world is by trying to change it.

The inherent message is we should see the world in terms of changeability. The world is a place that's full of stuff that needs changing, and if it can't be changed then we are safe to sit back and accept it, but if it can change, we need to be courageous and change it.

My problem with this is the inherent need this suggests to people that their best course of action is to go around changing things, only leaving the unchangeable things untouched among the altered objects.

I don't think that's the best way to see the world. Seriously.

Notice I don't have any problem with the poem. I don't have any problem with the idea that people should actively try to find solutions to their problems. I'm all in favor of people taking initiative.

But the Serenity Prayer implies that solving your problem and making something change are the same thing. That trying to change the world around us is inherently virtuous. Specifically, it's courageous.

I disagree, for a few reasons.

The first one is that, most of the time, what people most want to see changed is people. People think that the key to solving a problem is to get other people to stop being the way they are. If the atheists would just accept God, or if the Christians would just stop believing, or if my girlfriend would just stop spending so much money, or if my Mother-in-law would just stop trying to control the way my kids are raised--if these folks would just change, things would be great and I could be happy.

The same thing that applies to people can also apply to circumstances.

If you feel like the only reason you haven't got a job is because the job market just isn't open to left-handed Delewarians with mullet haircuts, you can make a "courageous" change in the world by getting legislation passed that forces employers to treat you fairly.

If you feel like your neighborhood would be a better place if "that one" family wasn't around, and after talking to a bunch of other people in the neighborhood, you find out you're not the only one of that opinion, you might discover that you can make a "courageous" change in the world by getting together with some other folks and driving the undesirables out of your neighborhood.

Do you see my point? The problem with treating the world like it's our living room and we're the interior designer is that to do it, too often you're having to try to change stuff in other people's lives--or even other people themselves--in ways that they don't need or want. To me, the definition of violence is the attempt to impose your will upon another with no regards for their rights, needs, or desires.

Now I'm not saying that change isn't often necessary. Even violence is sometimes necessary.

What I am saying is that I don't believe that changing the world as we want it to be is inherently moral. In fact, trying to change either individuals or the world into being what I, as an individual, want it to be, runs a very good chance of being immoral.

For that to be obvious, just imagine the guy on the other end of whatever spectrum matters to you imposing his will on you. Does that make the immorality of it more apparent? Can you see what you were wanting to do to them?

Besides being immoral, it's also ineffective. The surest way to meet resistance is to start pushing things around when other people may want them pushed back. The surest way to make the rebellious teenager settle further into his bizarre new identity is to start subtly trying to manipulate him into changing. He'll see your attempts to change him as judgemental rejection and dig even deeper into his identity as he tells himself all the reasons why you're wrong and he's doing great.

Trying to get people to change for your sake is the sure path to them throwing down their own gauntlet of self-justification and them trying to get you to change, as you reinforce the idea in their minds that the two of you cannot coexist as you are. And then their efforts to change you will reinforce your beliefs that they must change, lest you suffer.

In reality, the biggest problem in your relationship is both of you trying to get each other to change.

So if I were to adjust the homily, I think I would say it like this:

God grant me the humility to stop expecting the world to change for me, and the sense of responsibility to deal with my own problems.

I'll be getting that printed up on blue glass soon.

Sci-fi vs. Lit Fic

Arthur C Clarke Dies at Age 90

If you were to ask somebody for the A, B, C's of science fiction, chances are the three names you'd most likely get would be Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke.

Asimov passed away in 1992, and now another of the big three has passed, as we have lost Arthur C Clarke.

The world would probably best know him as the author of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that probably perplexed most of them as much as it perplexed me the first time I saw it as a junior in high school--reading the book a dozen or so years later, it made infinitely more sense.

Among science fiction readers, he's probably best known for his short stories--particularly, "The Star," and "The Nine Billion Names of God." My mother teaches American Literature to college students who aren't native English speakers. When I ask people for suggestions for good science fiction stories to use in class, those two inevitably get mentioned, which would be great if Clarke hadn't been British (Perhaps she'll have to wait for her semesters at Cambridge).

More details and links at Locus Online.

Dan Harlan's Official Statement

Since I posted about Dan Harlan being arrested, I felt obligated to post his official statement regarding the incident, which I thought was candid and insightful.

Although I try to keep my personal life separate from my public life, that is no longer possible. In a way, that's good. I am going through a frightening and challenging time and I know I can't face it alone. Regarding the incident in question, I have no memory of it. I began that evening drinking at a local bar and I ended that evening in jail. The last thing I remember was singing karaoke, doing a little magic and everybody buying drinks for me... then I woke up being rolled into the hospital, bloody, handcuffed to the gurney, surrounded by doctors, nurses, and the police. Then I passed out again. Imagine yourself in my position. I doubt you can... but if you can, perhaps you'll understand why I've decided to seek help for my alcoholism.

I have officially bottomed-out. I know I have a problem, because this is what it took for me to admit it. I have a lifetime filled with loss and regret. I started drinking when I was 9 years old. I drank heavily throughout Middle and High School, and constantly my first, and only, semester in college. I've nearly killed myself numerous times, I've ruined all my relationships, and I've lost everything good I've ever had. But I never asked for help. Fortunately for everyone I've known, I'm not violent, just stupid. However, I never thought I was capable of something as ridiculous as what happened that night. It frightens me to think of what might happen if I continue to drink myself blind. I'm thankful that no one, except me, was physically injured. I am in the process of recovery and attempting to "put things right."

I have not had any alcohol since then, and I plan to abstain in the future. My lawyer has spoken with the bar owner who is "heartbroken" over the incident and sympathetic. I never intended to cause any harm, but I know that I acted irresponsibly. The court date has not yet been set, and I have no idea what penalty may be imposed. In Ohio, voluntary intoxication is not a defense. I'm sorry it had to come to this before I was able to admit that I have a problem, and that I need help. I know that I have the love, understanding and support of my family and friends.

I'd also like to make one more thing perfectly clear. We have many young magicians just getting into magic due to its current popularity and I don't want any of them to think that my drinking has helped my creativity and success. It has not. In fact, it has kept me from achieving the personal and professional success I had always hoped to have. I have done all of my best work sober. I wish I had been able to enjoy it and build upon it, but I foolishly threw it all away. I'm hoping it's not too late for me to create a personal life which can serve as a good example for everyone.

Dan Harlan Arrested

So the headline is, "Man Loses Pants During Bar Heist." It's complete with a photo of how his mug ended up after his wardrobe malfunction led to a face-plant.

What the headline doesn't make clear, is that the "Man" in the quote is Dan Harlan, the magician.

Now nobody's ever going to say Dan Harlan is their favorite magician, and he's probably as famous for his haircuts as he is for his magic, but he's most famous for is inventing a trick involving a deck of cards with a little flip book on the back of it called "Card-toon." You can see video of it here.

Nearly every magician who was practicing magic around the time this thing came out bought one of these, and it's probably among the most recognizable trick decks on the planet.

Seriously, I feel bad for the guy. He sounds like he's in a tough place in his life right now, and I don't wish that on anybody.

But I think the take home lesson--and one that I particularly needed today--is that even if your ship has come in, it doesn't mean your ship has come in. Sometimes life is way more about how you're living it than it is about what you think you've acheived.

Quote of the Day

Saw this E M Forster quote in the new issue of Analog:

The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.

Real Stories of Malpractice

So, you may or may not have heard about Max Cannon, the Utah County doctor who was recently arrested for trading perscriptions for sex.

Well, neither had I. Until my Dad told me it was the same guy who'd done surgery on my grandfather less than a month ago.

Now that would be an interesting story if it ended there, but it doesn't.

Middle of last week, my grandfather goes back into the hospital because he's been feeling sharp stomach pains and vomiting. They run a bunch of tests, do an X-Ray.

Somebody goes, "Hey, is that a hemostat?"

But it can't be, right? They decide it must have been lying on the table when they did the X-Ray. They do another X-Ray, this time standing up. And it's a hemostat.

Now I've since been told this doesn't really have anything to do with the doctor. They tell me it's the nurses' job to count everything that goes into the body and everything that comes out of the body, right down to the number of gauze pads.

So of course, the hospital is being very accomodating. Free meals, free room at the Ronald McDonald house, and so on. "You won't believe how nice they're being to us," my grandmother said.

We assured her we could believe it.

But what's interesting is that that's actually the same hospital that finally got my wife's diagnosis right after she was misdiagnosed for a year and a half (Hooray for Dr. Keith Hooker!). The same hospital that got my wife's life back on track is the same place that's had to put my Grandfather under the knife twice in under 30 days because of a stupid mistake.

So yes, we are consulting with a malpractice attorney. But no, you're not going to get a crazy rant from me about how it's a hospital full of incompetent psychos.

It's just a bad situation.

Update: Actually, now that I think about it, it was also the hospital I was born in. Whether that's good or bad for the hospital is entirely a matter of opinion.

New Kid's Album: Here Come The 123s

New kid's CD/DVD combo from They Might Be Giants, Here Come The 123s.