I have spent some time thinking about New Orleans today.  It is hard not to with all of the coverage of the ten year anniversary since hurricane Katrina and all that.  I was reminded that more than eighty percent of that city was underwater on some level in the wake of that event. More than a Million people were made homeless and more than eighteen hundred people lost their lives.  The damage that can be tallied ran into the billions of dollars.

I am impressed by the degree to which New Orleans has recovered.  Happy that the Army Corps of Engineers has really stepped in and built the flood risk mitigation system that the city needed to protect the residents.  Overjoyed at the vast array of people who have managed to rebuild their houses, their homes, and their lives.  With the coverage, I was happy to see that many of the residents are using the day of the anniversary as a day of service.  They are coming together to work on a host of projects for the betterment of the community as a whole.

The recovery effort over the last ten years has exposed a host of problems though.  It has exposed how inept and incompetent government programs and their administrators can be at times.  It has exposed how flawed the flood insurance program really is, and how little it covers in many cases.  It has exposed how some can use process and procedure as a mechanism to delay and deny the legitimate needs to rebuild and repair.

In view of all that, I find myself still awed by the human spirit of the residents of the city as a whole.  I am impressed with the sheer will and determination of many to just return their lives to whatever normal needs to be for them.  I find myself without words to adequately describe what it must take to get up every day and work through the difficulties of the existing framework and somehow manage to get by and make a bit of forward progress toward normal.  It is a degree of courage and faith, that I am not sure I possess. 


In listening to the stories I have heard through the remembrances of Katrina, it lifts my spirit.  It reminds me for all that we are not as a nation, as a people, and as a culture; that at least in one place they have made it work despite all the long odds.  Despite all the flaws, weaknesses, and stupidity a large number of residents of the great city of New Orleans are fighting to restore what was in the hope that it can be again.  It reminds me that faith even in small amounts can do amazing things.

I have to say up front that I have been over the last few months trying to stay out of controversial subject territory.  The reasons for this a many.  For the most part they all boil down to the conservation of energy.  By that I mean that I just don't have the energy, the desire, or the will to argue about these subjects.  In this day and age a 'discussion' about any of them is not going to change anyone's mind.

The truth of the matter is that we have become such a polarized society that there really is not an undecided middle ground anymore.  Regardless of the subject the vast majority of people already have their mind made up.  Talking about it only makes things worse more often than not.  Given the divisive nature of the majority of these subjects today, airing an opinion any opinion can end friendships limit job opportunities, and prevent other good things from happening.

And so I have been keeping the counsel of a wise friend of mine at work named Kraig.  He opined once, 'Todd, never miss a chance to keep your pie-hole shut'.  And I have been doing my best to keep to that advice until now.

I am absolutely horrified that a reporter and cameraman were gunned down this week in Roanoke, Virginia.  Horrified that someone would be this evil.  Horrified that someone could plan and perpetrate this act.  Horrified that it even took place at all.  Let me add, this is the feeling I have every single time a senseless act of wanton violence takes place regardless of the tool used to carry it out.

Do I deplore violence?  Absolutely!  Do I find that we as a society suffer every single time it happens?  Unequivocally!  Am I shocked each and every time it happens?  Definitely!  

I am also sickened by the opportunists that can't let a single tragedy go by without attempting to advance their agenda.  The bodies of the dead had not even been released from the morgue yet before the president was decrying the violence in an effort to advance a gun control agenda.  The families had not even had a chance to mourn the loss of their father, mother, son, daughter, wife, husband, cousin, aunt, or uncle before our president was calling for the congress to act on his agenda.

I am sickened every single time this cycle of events happens.  The pattern is that some acolyte of the cult of evil and death perpetrates a horrendous act.  And then the opportunists in the gun control crowd come out from wherever they have been hiding to attempt to advance their ideological perspective.  It is ghoulish, parasitic, and downright uncaring.

Especially given that nothing in their agenda would have stopped this event from taking place. Based upon the facts as we know them right now, the offender in this case, did not have a criminal record, and was not in the system as suffering from a condition that would prevent him from understanding the gravity of his actions or grasping the notions of right and wrong.  You will have to pardon me if I think that stumping for solutions that would not solve the problem in the most recent tragic event is at best inappropriate and at worst heinously insensitive bordering on evil in and of itself.


The insensitivity to the families and the victims here is awful.  They have not been given a chance to grieve at all.  They have not been given the grace and the freedom to feel the weight of what's happened.  They have been robbed of a chance at private grief and mourning.  They have had their loss turned into someone's political football.  It is wrong, and it should not be tolerated.


All I would ask from this point forward, is that we all shut the heck up for a period of time to let the families grieve this.  There will be an appropriate to discuss this at length.  That time is not now.  Right now these families need us to pray for them, console them, and comfort them.  This tragic event should not be used a fodder for the political sausage press.


Thus endeth the rant.

It has been a couple days since my last post on the daily page.  Allow me to fess it up at the outset.  I violated my mantra recently, 'Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys'.  I became concerned about things that have nothing to do with me or my writing today.  Rather I was caught up thinking about how they may impact me if things go well down the road.  It was an interesting exercise in What If, but it was a distraction from my stated goal, that being to write.

And it is so easy to be distracted from the primary task for a writer.  I set down to write, but somehow my 'oh look, shiny' nature distracts me and then I find myself playing Starcraft instead of writing.  It does bother me that I am so easily distracted when all I want to do is fulfill the primary purpose for which I was created.  It bothers me that I allow petty distractions to drag me away.

It is my hope that by admitting the truth here at the outset tonight that I failed.  Furthermore, it also my hope that by admitting it, I can find the strength to continue to try.  I hope that my efforts to write whatever book or books is inside me will not someday be a regret.  Regrets suck, and I already have accumulated enough of them for one lifetime.  I sincerely do not want this to become one more.

All I will say about the thing that got me distracted in the first place is this, Members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing community, can't we all just get along?

Today started with the notification from my wife that our deep freeze is dead.  I thought 'wow this is all I need'.  Don't get me wrong, I knew it was likely 15 years old.  I knew it was getting up there in years.  I knew that someday it would fail.  I was just not prepared for it to be today. It was more than a little jarring for something that was nowhere on the priority chart to jump the list to number one with bells on it.

I did the work I do in these cases, I checked sales, gathered prices, checked availability and all that.  I entered the evening with a plan.  I had made a selection, and had confirmed that the store had it in stock via their website.  The plan fell apart in 2.4 seconds at the store when the sales associate informed me they didn't have it in stock.  What happened next I suspect was a bait and switch attempt, but I cannot prove it.  

The improvement on my part was to take it in stride and not allow it to affect my mood.  I did not get angry.  In the past I would have gotten honked off and given the guy what for in the store. Tonight I just thanked them for their time and we moved on.  I was not happy, but I did not let them know that.  I figure the best I can do for myself and the people around me is to just let it roll off and move on.

Yes it wrecked the plan.  Yes it put me back to square one.  Yes I needed to review the data again.  It was the only option, because I was not about to push a bad position and do something rash and then regret it.

My wife and I regrouped.  I made some calls, and found out the following.  The market segment for a 14 cubic foot stand up freezer is evidently extremely narrow.  Most places either did not have one, or could not get one to us in the time frame of 'we need it now'.  One place place appeared to have no freezers at all in their store whatsoever.  While another store could get me one by the fifteenth of September.  Not the results I wanted.

I did manage to keep my cool, and make the last call.  I spoke with the someone in the appliance department and we worked together over the phone.  She helped me find what I was looking for. She went to the warehouse to verify it was in stock.  She even pulled it and prepared it for sale for us.  She was amazing.  Exactly the service I was looking for from the beginning.

The staff even loaded it in the van for us.  It fit perfectly in the van as if it was meant to be there. I was so happy with the staff at the last place that it is not even funny.  Pleased does not even begin to cover it.

Tina and I got the freezer home and got in the house.  We then declared victory.  And called a halt to our labor.  Getting it downstairs, in position, set up, and running is the challenge for another day.  Today was just about getting the replacement and getting it home.

In the midst of what I was hoping would be a quiet day, and a quiet evening, life happened.  I am happy in the improvement in how I handled the situation.  I am happy that I was able to be flexible and just roll with the punches and just in finding a way to deal.  This has not always been my strong suit in the past, so happiness abounds.

Today was somewhat of a strange day.  I had a sort of out of body type of day.  The kind of day in which my brain was working on two tracks at the same time.  This is rare for me.  I was doing the things I needed to do.  At the same time my brain was actively reviewing what was going on and providing active commentary to it.  

This not my normal state of affairs.  Normally my day is like a fall down a rat hole and follow my nose sort of experience.  So the event of finding myself thinking about more than what is happening in the immediate context is different for me.  To be able to keep a mental log of what I am doing and how that relates to what I need to be doing, is not normal for me.

I even had a meeting with someone in my work life that I have had serious conflicts in the past, and was able to deflect their interest in having a fight into a desire get a process hammered to help solve a problem.  My brain was reminding me repeatedly during the meeting, 'he's trying to start a fight, don't let him'.  The particular troll has in the past has had my number and can easily get a rise out of me.  Today not so much.

Today felt like I was finding my legs for the first time in a long time.  Today was all productivity and not much feeling stuck in a quagmire.  It is a rare thing for me.  If your immediate desire is to make fun of my day today, please hold that for a moment.  I don't have many solid good days like this.  Some of this is due to my own personal growth.  Some of this is a confluence of understanding that the only way to move things forward is to engage with the things that vex me, and seek to make positive change.

I am feeling good about my day.  I am happy.  Coming home not feeling like the day was awful is different.  Coming home feeling like I think I made a difference today felt good.  I am not perfect. I realize that days like today are not the norm.  I am just hoping that I can have more days like today than not.

So the French household is on the precipice of another school year.  We had the obligatory meet and greet tonight at the school, that essentially had more to do with bringing in the metric ton of school supplies on the list than anything else.  Our children's teacher's seem nice, but teacher's at this stage of the game always seem nice, so only time will tell.

I was reminded tonight that I really don't like crowds.  This was not always the case.  Over the last few years this disgust has come on as a side effect of curmudgeon's disease.  So night's like tonight make me roll my eyes and take deep breaths to keep my lack of excitement with crowds in check.  Tonight was a sea of people.  I should have expected it, but I didn't.

I was trying to share some salient details with one teacher regarding my child, only to be interrupted four times by the same annoying parent with no tolerance for waiting.  My ability to control the fist of death was sorely tested there.  I did however manage to keep it under wraps. And to the parent that named her daughter Micah, (a boy's name), and then spelled it awful, Micaiah, all I can say is WOW.  And when you didn't understand why the teacher had a hard time saying it, I was like 'really?'?  I wanted to say, 'You could not have screwed up naming you child much worse, and then you look at the teacher like they're the idiot?'

I guess this comes back to a simple thing about tonight is this, I was reminded how flawed I am. I was reminded just how little patience I have at times.  I was reminded just how much I struggle with controlling my tongue in social situations.  I was also reminded how vibrant an inner monologue I have.  I almost wish that the inner monologues of people could be let out in an anonymous setting.  That I think would be hilarious...

I do struggle with events driven by chaos and tonight was that in spades.  I felt on some level like, the school had months to plan for the next school year, and this is the best they could do? Oh well, we managed to get through it.  We survived it, and that's about all that was possible in this context.  Just thought I would share my events of the evening tonight.

Today I would like to share a bit of my writing process by sharing part of yesterday.  Yesterday, in the course of listening to some old podcasts, I found a website that tracks all sorts of open submission requests, magazine data, who the editors are, what their submission requirements happen to be, etc.  The website incidentally is ralan.com.

In course of doing some just general review of the website, I hit upon an open anthology catering to super hero short stories.  The status was still open, still accepting stories, and it doesn't close until the end of this month.  I became excited at my good fortune to have found it.  As a huge fan of the genre of hero fiction, I thought it would be awesome.  

I came to the idea hoping there would be an easy open door.  A five thousand word piece in the super hero genre seemed at first glance a quick easy lay up piece.  As it turns out, I was wrong on that point.  The couple starts I had came out cliched and maudlin.  I did not plan it, I thought I could at least with this fly by the seat of my pants.  When I struggled, I had nothing to fall back on.

Growth for me is in realizing the problem and recognizing it for what it is.  This was a failure based in arrogance and hubris with a planning chaser.  This was not a failure of ability.  In the past, I would have gone down the dark path.  I would have been overly critical of myself and my ability to write.  The dark path would have consumed two days or so, and I would have come back here to where I am right now.  So at least I can say there is growth.

A superhero short is a unique animal in our current climate.  There is a lot of content out there right now of varying degrees of quality.  With the success of Marvel studios, Marvel comics, DC comics, etc; the task of creating something original is herculean in nature.  The sheer volume of content makes the creation of something new, unique, and fresh a painful process.

Add to that the plot issues, character archetypes, and thematic elements landing in cliche-land seems to be almost a foregone conclusion.  It feels like trying to plant crops in worn out soil on some level.  Hearing the chorus of, 'its been done before' and 'read that in [insert comic title name and issue number here]', seems a rather disheartening thing.

I was reminded of the maxim, 'if it was easy anyone could do it' at that point.  It won't be easy. Writing fiction never is.  So now is the time to gear up.  It is time to put on the big boy pants and lay into this one.  If the soil blows, get new soil.  If cliche is a certainty, then blow the doors off it with gusto.  The time to come to the plate and do the thing has arrived.

Writers write.  It is time to do the thing for which God created me.  Time to let the chips fall where they may.  Time to be about that which is before me.  So here goes.

Today was a good day.  I was able to participate in a google hangout with a group of other writers.  It was nice to hear from other people practicing the craft.  It made me feel normal as others in the group shared concerns, struggles, and frustrations very much like my own.  And to hear from a published author much the same was great.

Of course there is the other side of that coin also...  The author shared that she has some of the same issues I do.  She shared that editing one's own work is never fun.  The other side of the coin being that some of the things I struggle with, and don't like don't get easier or more fun as time goes by.  It's not disheartening, but it doesn't give me joy by any means.  I suppose that on those points the best you can hope for is learning to tolerate them, while developing enough skill to be functional at them.

I guess some of the fun part of today was that I finally got why authors attend conventions in droves.  This craft is largely practiced in seclusion in solitary fashion.  When opportunities arise to have a 'water cooler' moment as it were, we flock to do it.  Of course, I am not much for crowds, the public in general, and wading through seas of people to have a couple moments here or there does not strike me as an entertaining moment.  However, moments like this morning where clearly skilled professionals could gather from various parts of the country and talk are exhilarating in ways I cannot fully explain.

Having never been to this particular hangout before, I was not sure what to expect honestly.  I have been to typical critique groups in the past, and I am still a part of a functional monthly one to this day, so its not like I was completely unfamiliar.  I did have a bit of a fanboy moment as I am a fan of the work of the host, Mur Lafferty.  I felt like a twelve year old boy.  The event was part of a monthly bonus for her Patreon supporters. I had a great time.


I also spent time today downloading podcasts and getting them onto an SD card so that I can listen to them on my tablet.  Thank God for that external SD card slot on my Xoom.  My tablet is older, and it does not have all the bells and whistles of the current generation, but it does what I need it to do.  I read ebooks on it, listen to music and podcasts on it, and watch movies on it.  That sort of low intensity usage makes it easy for it to travel with me when I need it to.  If it just had a decent keyboard option I could replace my laptop altogether.


I do however digress.  In other matters related to my humble house, we came together to do some outside work.  We all pitched in to trim the bushes and our hedge.  I only mention it, because moments when my little brood comes together for common cause and purpose, I find to be rewarding on many levels.  The other hands in the house realize what it takes to keep things rolling forward smartly, which is always a good lesson learned.


The humble and simple nature of my home is the other element worthy of note.  I did not realize when I married my wife that I would crave the simplicity of domestic life.  Somehow a Saturday spent doing the basic chores related to our house is a good use of the time.  And somehow ending the day's labor eating my darling wife's meatloaf is a good reward.


There are concerns on the horizon.  War clouds of a work nature are gathering.  Struggles with the growth and maturity of our little ones are starting to manifest themselves.  And somewhere along the way realizing that time is zipping by hits me.  Somehow in the midst of all of that finding a way to detach from all of the stuff and just dwell in the here and now, and drink in the fragrant scent of this oasis is sublime.

As I start out tonight I need to begin this post with a caveat.  The day behind me has been a rough one.  I can't get into detail with it for a host of reasons.  I only point that out to explain my broader mood, and scattered process of thought.  Rough days tend to mess me up in a host of ways, so I thought pointing that out at the beginning was worth doing.  Now on to the post.

Agency

Agency was brought up on a podcast I subscribe to recently, (Shipping and Handling podcast episode 19 in case you want to know).  It was described as one of the largest flaws the hosts see in submissions that come to their respective agencies.  Specifically in the characters in the works submitted to them not having enough of it.

They described agency as being the ability of the characters, especially the main characters to have the ability to have control over their world and their choices and their responses.  While I agree in general with the concept.  I do think it runs into some serious opposition in fundamental ways.  The typical wage slave in our current world has little agency under this definition.  In many cases, the vast majority of their choices are bad or worse.  In most of these cases, the stories that can result from these struggles can be compelling reading.

The person pushed up against the wall forced to make a horrible choice does not have much in the way of agency.  Yet the narratives resulting from them are some of the best fiction I have ever read.  Many tropes in fantasy and science fiction are based on this formula.  The comply with evil or die trope has many derivatives and when written well are excellent.

In my view, agency is a negotiable thing based upon the overall arc of the story.  A main character can have essentially no independent choices of their own, (Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee), for three novels and it still be fascinating reading.  On some level if the character has no ability to make a choice a part from the fate thrust upon them, then the story telling needs to bear this out.  In other words, I think if agency is constricted or constrained somehow, then the overall narrative must increase, and the narrative needs to propel the character forward in seat of the pants fashion.


I do agree that agency needs to be a consideration, but it should be one consideration among many in the process of telling a story.  There are items that can trump agency, but they should be used sparingly and for good reason.  Agency should not be ignored or treated lightly.

There was a time when I thought having discussion on hot button topics on various social media platforms was a good idea.  Over the last year or so, I have realized to my horror what a wrong notion this was.  One would believe that in our age of vastly improved communication tools, that information sharing would bridge the chasm of differences between us all, and bring us closer together as a people, as a society, as a culture, and as a nation.  I believed in that notion firmly.  I was wrong and I admit it freely.

In our age of superior communication capacity, the underlying technology has only driven us as a species further apart.  There are many reasons for this, excuses mostly.  The most fundamental actual reason is that as a species we have by and large lost the ability to accept that other people have valid perspectives on any given issue.  We have allowed ourselves to become a polarized, dare I say balkanized society in which we have separated ourselves into whatever camps of association we deem to be important. 

This split manifests itself in a myriad of ways.  For some the split is political, others it is doctrinal, others it is philosophical, and others have more fundamental ways in which this split is made manifest.  We have allowed ourselves to become a shattered American that only barely speaks a common language.  Each instance of the nation has its own separate and distinct values.  Its own common beliefs.  Its own common villains and scapegoats.

This makes uniting the common whole as it were nearly impossible.  It guarantees factionalism and division on almost every topic.  It ensures that no single entity can govern effectively.  It makes every item that comes up a zero sum gain debate.  In essence for someone to win, someone else has to cede defeat.  It makes it harder for the United States to fulfill the promise of the founders in each successive generation.

With this being true, it makes it easy to divide and distract us.  It allows the powerful to instigate fights over trivial things that consume weeks of news cycles that fully consume the body politic allowing zero bandwidth in the fifth estate to cover the other things they might be doing in the background.  If you don’t believe me, ask yourself what else was going on while we were fighting over the confederate flag?  The final rules for the Trans Pacific Partnership were being hammered out in secret with no transparency, and zero scrutiny.  With the ‘We the People’ embroiled in a trivial fight over something that at most is trivial and at worst is a total waste of time, it left the media with little time to devote column inches or broadcast seconds to anything else.

This pattern has played out many times over recent years.  Serious issues are being subverted and turned into window dressing, so that we can be distracted.  As long as we tolerate this divide and conqueror methodology ‘We the People’ will continue to be divided, distracted, and disillusioned.

We need to wake up, and realize that our differences are being used against us.  We need to recover our ability hear our fellow Americans, and recognize that the opinions of others are equally as valid as our own.  We need to find a common language in which to communicate with each other.  We need to find a way to bridge the chasm that divides us, and return to a united whole.  We need to find a way to disagree without being disagreeable.  And somewhere in all of that we will be able to fulfill the promise of American for the twenty first century and make effective use of the communication tools at our disposal.

Until then, I don’t plan to talk about sensitive topics on social media.  Even if the bait about the issue is tempting as heck, I plan to keep my mouth shut.  Until then it is a waste of time, and effort.  And both of those things are limited commodities that I do not plan on wasting.  There are other things I could be spending them on that stand a much better chance of a positive return and not the hollow echo of my own words bounding off someone else’s hardened heart and closed ears.