It's the Principal Of The Thing!

By now anyone who's remotely plugged in to US politics on the web will have heard all about the saga of the Kansas student who tweeted about the state Governor and wound up in the principal's office over it.  In short, she claimed that she had been rude to his face in a joke tweet that was not true - she had been present while he gave a talk to the class but never spoke to him.  Then the Governor's media monitors (yes, he has those) were trawling the web for people's personal opinions on him and decided they just had to make her life difficult for displaying 'disrespect'.  So they called the school and demanded that she be punished and forced to write an apology letter to the Governor, losing any chance the guy ever had at actually earning respect by petulantly demanding it.

She refused, her sister went to the press, and twitter exploded with the tag #heblowsalot.  Now Emma Sullivan is a brief household name, and Sam Brownback's name is mud.  Good job, that'll teach that little bitch for having an opinion.

What I find fascinating about this little story is the gulf that it displays.  Much like the income inequality between the 1% and the 99%, it seems to only ever get wider and those with the power and the privilege are digging in their heels, refusing to give up any ground.  For this situation to become what it did required a series of adults to be, in essence, not adults, and to not care.  It required grown men and women in the big bad world of politics to deliberately seek out negative comments on the Internet, care enough about them to find out who said them and when, and care enough still to think that an 18 year old high school student was worth their time harassing and bullying in order to make an example.  And then it required a school district and principal, presumably adults themselves, to bow to this ludicrous demand for an apology and drag the young woman to the office, berate her for an hour about what a terrible person she was for a tweet that took all of ten seconds to write, and waste everybody's time and energy.  And of course, it required all of these adults to act without the foresight to think that perhaps this was unreasonable and bound to look stupid to the rest of the planet.

An update on the story can be found here: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/teen-who-tweeted-about-brownback-wont-apol

Anyway, you may remember from earlier I mentioned that part of the reason I left the Catholic church was the attitude of teachers in my Catholic high school, which tended to range from apathetic to despotic.  This is not purely a Catholic or religious issue, though.  I see it in education, policing, politics, and anything with any kind of hierarchy really.  It is a common human failing that seems to come crashing down particularly hard on the young as they are the most vulnerable.  When you are faced with a teacher screaming in your face with literally no justification, what recourse does a student have?  When they punish you for having done nothing wrong, or their punishment is overzealous and outrageous, what can you do or say?  All the power is theirs, the scales are entirely tipped in their favour.  Or so they think.  So they would insist, and in their childishness they fully believe that it should be so.  Yet this little story demonstrates that in essence they have no power but that which they are granted by people bending to their will.  Emma Sullivan refused to be cowed and simply said "No, I will not apologise, I will not accept a punishment".  And the school district backed down, revealing themselves to be complete cowards in the process as they tried to pretend in a statement that they never intended or tried to censor a student's speech.  This is what happens to those with power - they fear losing it, and most of all they fear that when they try to wield it they will discover it is simply not there.  Losing face is such anathema to them that it makes them act irrationally and tip their hand, revealing they hold jack shit.  Governor Brownback himself made a hollow apology, saying he was sorry for the actions of his staff and of course wiping his own hands of the mess.  I imagine he expects us to believe his staff trawl twitter for negative comments about the Governor for a hobby and it was never ordered or endorsed by him.  Regardless, as soon as this girl stood up and said "no", her myriad bullies crumbled and embarrassed themselves in their haste to pretend they had not been trying to bully her at all.

Unfortunately this approach does not work when you have to go it alone, and does not have such immediate results when the bully is licensed to hurt you with impunity.  I had to go it alone at school, and my bullies thus held all the cards.  The world has its bullies to deal with, and tweeting #heblowsalot a half million times is unlikely to stop them coming with their clubs and their chemical sprays.  It's not hopeless, but it is going to require that this time the meek dig their heels in, that this time the downtrodden decide that they shouldn't have to play by the rules either.  When the grown ups don't have to be grown up, when the child is the only one with courage, and when keeping the peace means spraying people in the face with a chemical weapon, maybe the meek shall inherit the Earth.

Now here it is to reflect upon, your moment of zen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaeCqChRQms

Time...

Well, it's been a while.  Over a week.  I think I must have gotten lost somewhere in the region of Skyrim.  Sorry about that.

Anyway, last time I talked about fan fiction, and how over time a piece I had received much commendation for turned out to look a little dog-eared.  My plan was to tinker with that and polish the overall piece, to make it suitable for enshrining here on the altar of the Internet.  Obviously I have been busy lately, and have not really had time to get out my red pen*.  Instead I have a climactic scene from a fan fiction I wrote years and years ago that could still do with a little dusting.  Here is the original scene, as written in the year 2001:

Hunched over the decaying, hideously disfigured body of his mother, Luke Skywalker glared up the stairs at the silent, immobile figure in the throne. At the side of the high-backed chair, slicing through the silence with his mechanical breathing, Darth Bane gazed back down at the boy.

"The other is here," Palpatine said suddenly, and, as if to confirm his word, the turbolift hissed open, and a young human female with chocolate brown hair slipped quietly into the room, then gasped at seeing her brother's frail state.

"Luke!" she cried, and knelt beside him. "Are you alright?" she asked, trying to avoid the desturbing...thing that was lying on the floor beside her. The thing with equally brown hair... Suddenly a realisation struck Leia. "Mother..."

Luke nodded, slowly, and turned to face his sister. His eyes were sunken in deep, purple sockets, and the rest of his skin was disturbingly pale. He also smelled strangely, as if he was burning.

"Excellent," Palpatine said, and rose from his throne.

Leia looked up at him, then at the shadow-like figure to his side. The black figure did not move.

Palpatine, however, continued to stride forward. "I now have the last in the line of the Jedi at my hands..." he said, and raised his hands before himself, stretching his fingers out.

Luke winced, and seemed to become very tense. This didn't help Leia's already frought nerves.

"Now, the Jedi shall become extinct, and The Sith will have their final revenge!" the Emperor spat, his face contorting with anger. Suddenly, blue bolts of electricity shot out from his fingertips, and seared their way through the air towards Luke and Leia, wrapping themselves around their violently shaking bodies.

Leia screeched in pain, but Luke remained quite silent, having destroyed his voice box already from screaming so much.

The crackling energy vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and the Emperor grinned at the two smoking, twitching bodies.

Leia slowly raised her gaze upwards to Darth Bane's metal face-plate, and pleaded. "Master, please..."

Deep in the black helmet of Darth Bane, an old man blinked, and glanced sadly down at the Skywalkers, remembering when he had pleaded with their father to spare his life and save him over two decades ago, when the Jedi Council had been all but destroyed. He began to slowly stride away from the throne, forcing his metal body to obey his will, and reached out to the cloaked figure in front of him.

The Emperor raised his hands again, and blue energy sparked from them. However, instead of hitting the cowering young Skywalkers before him, they screeched over their heads. The Emperor noticed he was rising above the ground quickly, due to the metal hands clamped around his cloak. He roared as the energy crackled around him and the black figure who carried him, and screamed as he was dropped over the side of the railings beside his throne, into the chasm leading to the very bottom of the Death Star.

The black, metal figure dropped to his knees at the railings, and the blue energy that had coursed through him finally wrapped around his helmet then vanished. Kenobi slumped back against the side of the throne, as a young woman limped up the steps and crouched beside him.

"Thank you..." Leia whispered.

And here is the Special Edition:

Luke Skywalker glared up the stairs at the silent, immobile figure in the throne.  He stood hunched over the decaying disfigured body of his mother.   Atop the stairs, at the side of his master's chair like a Cyborrean battlehound, Darth Bane gazed back down at the boy.  His mechanical breathing sliced the silence. 

"The other is here," Palpatine said.  As if to confirm his word, the turbolift hissed open, and a young human female with chocolate brown hair slipped quietly into the room.  She gasped at seeing her brother's frail state.

"Luke!" she cried, and knelt beside him. "Are you all right?" she asked, trying to avoid the disturbing...thing that was lying on the floor beside her. The thing with equally brown hair... A whisper in the back of her mind, and suddenly a realisation struck Leia. "Mother..."

Luke nodded, slowly, and turned to face his sister. His eyes were sunken in deep, purple sockets, and the rest of his skin was pale. The smell of burning hung in the air.

"Excellent," Palpatine said, and rose from his throne.

Leia looked up at him, then at the shadow-like figure to his side. The black figure did not move.

Palpatine, however, continued to stride forward. "I now have the last in the line of the Jedi at my hands..." he said, and raised those crooked old hands before himself.  He stretched his fingers out.

Luke winced, became tense. Leia looked from him to the Emperor, neck whipping frantically.

"Now, the Jedi shall become extinct, and The Sith will have their final revenge!" the Emperor spat, his face contorting with anger. Blue bolts of electricity shot out from his fingertips and seared their way through the air towards Luke and Leia.  The surge of energy wrapped itself around their violently shaking bodies.

Leia screeched in pain.  Luke could no longer.

The crackling energy vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and the Emperor grinned at the two smoking, twitching bodies.

Leia slowly raised her gaze upwards to Darth Bane's metal face-plate, and pleaded. "Master, please..."

Deep in the black helmet of Darth Bane, an old man blinked.  He looked sadly down at the Skywalkers, remembering when he had pleaded with their father to spare his life and save him over two decades ago, when the Jedi Council had been all but destroyed. He began to walk.  Slowly, step by step, he strode away from the throne, forcing his metal body to obey his will.  Bane reached out to the cloaked figure in front of him.

The Emperor raised his hands again.  Blue energy sparked from his fingertips.  However, instead of hitting the cowering young Skywalkers before him, they bolts screeched over their heads. The Emperor cried out; he was rising above the ground quickly.  Metal hands clamped around his cloak. He roared as the energy crackled around him and the black figure who carried him.  His screamed hung in the chamber as he was dropped over the side of the railings beside his throne, into the chasm leading to the very bottom of the Death Star.

The black, metal figure dropped to his knees at the railings, and the blue energy that had coursed through him finally wrapped around his helmet then vanished.  Kenobi slumped back against the side of the throne, as a young woman limped up the steps and crouched beside him.

"Thank you..." Leia whispered.

Quite a difference, right?  It still isn't perfect writing, and it may suffer from some of the common issues of fan fiction such as the rush to get the story out of the author's powerful imagination and onto the page.  It surprises me, looking over the whole piece, that I managed to retell the Star Wars saga in 55,000 words.  What would be a 20 page battle scene in a modern novel has been told in a few paragraphs.  That breathless enthusiasm is common in young writers and fan fiction, but it is almost amusing looking back now, when I struggle to cut a short story under 10,000 words.

Most of the changes are word order issues and cleaning up that speaks for itself.  Another large chunk is showing, rather than telling.  That age-old advice to writers is usually difficult to keep in mind when hammering out your vision on a keyboard, but I find that reviewing after a break tends to catch it.  That is, of course, when it is quite apparent - sometimes the difference is not as clear as text-dump histories vs constant point-of-view observations.

Another problem, and another trait I have found common in fan fiction, is the use of passive voice.  I went through a phase of writing in the passive voice quite consistently, reporting rather than exploring a story, and it is a habit that sometimes creeps in if I don't keep an eye on my writing.  Again, it tends to be easy to catch on a review, but it is also something that I find is not always a problem.  Passive voice, along with telling rather than showing and Stephen King's much-hated adverbs, are often treated as cardinal sins in the writing world, but they exist for a purpose and can be effective.  Toward the end of the passage I have left a segment in passive voice to give the impression that the reader is now a distant, remote viewer of unfathomable proceedings - much as Luke and Leia would likely feel, watching Darth Bane turn on his master and save their lives as they recover from being tortured.  

Hopefully you can see the difference and even more hopefully you agree with me that the revised version is a much more solid piece of writing.  Unlike George Lucas, I tried to restrain myself from cramming in unnecessary fluff.  Either way, let me know what you think.

Until next time, here it is, your moment of zen:

*I do not actually use a pen.  In fact, due to injury I can barely hold one, but consider this pen to be a metaphorical one, mightier than the metaphorical sword.

Where No Fan Has Gone Before...

Time heals all wounds, they say, though I have always wondered how long it might take to heal amputation.  What it doesn't do is make awkward, ugly writing look any better.  I have actually found that given sufficient time, a piece I thought overwrought or found I had to laboriously hack my way through reads as much more pleasant, but a lot of early, unpolished work stands out starkly when you've learned a thing or two and look on it with wiser, more critical eyes.

I wanted to share some of my old Star Wars fan fiction, to show how the medium can be a worthwhile exercise for aspiring authors as well as plain fun.  Unfortunately while looking over the manuscript for an appropriate passage, I have come to realise one thing: it's rough.  Real rough.  Not atrocious and not quite falling into the most egregious traps of fan fiction, though I do flirt with a Mary Sue Author Avatar.  It is not what I would call terrible, and as I believe I said earlier, it is what I have been told is genuinely 'good literature'.  I believed it at the time, and what 14 year old wouldn't consider themselves capable of such a feat in the guise of their own fantasy retelling of the Star Wars Saga?  It was quite the confidence booster,  and it can be hard not to feel deflated looking back and finding dialogue that clunks and cluttered prose that makes me cringe.  Well, at least the dialogue fits with the Star Wars universe, where one might wish they could wish away their feelings of burning hatred for sand.

Being harsh won't do myself much good, though, and in one way looking back at this is also quite uplifting - at least I know enough about the craft to spot the errors and iron out the terrible muddle of words that comes from having written, read and learned so much in the intervening decade-and-a-bit since I penned this tome.  And it really is a tome - 55,000 words gushed out in after-school writing sessions over a couple of months seemed quite a lot at the time.  Then I read some Stephen King and felt terribly inadequate.

Anyway, I had initially planned to simply share an excerpt from my critically-acclaimed work (if you assume everyone who posts on a Star Wars forum thinks themselves a critic).  Instead, I believe it would be more valuable to find a suitable excerpt, shine it up real nice, then post both and explain why the learning I have gone through led me to make certain changes.  Think of it as a working demonstration of editing in practice.

Now, as always, here is your moment of zen:

Satisfaction

There's nothing quite like finishing a story.  Whether it be a first draft or a first final draft (I see the final draft as the anti-Highlander: there will, inevitably, be more than one), writing those last few words and checking the word count can lead to a little rush, a surge of pleasure, and a sigh of relief.  I just finished a first draft of a story whose idea had been rattling around the back of my mind for about a year, and it feels good to knock that off the To Do list.  I wonder if I should light a cigarette, or would that be crass?

My aim for the story was a word-count of around 3000.  I went about 10% over, but I am quite confident I can shave that away with some strict editing.  I remember as I began learning the craft, after years of just going with the flow and letting my stories surge onto the page; I came across so much advice that revolved around editing, editing, editing.  Trimming lines, cutting the word-count down, even gutting out entire scenes seemed to be among the most strenuously offered advice for aspiring writers.  I always found this a bit of a turn-off, to be honest: I am not overly verbose (not in my stories, at least) and feel I can by and large say what needs to be said with minimum of fluff.  In high school and college I usually had to do a little creative padding to pip past the minimum word-count for essays, not out of laziness but because I had succinctly said what I wanted to.  And I always received high marks, so it was not as if the essays were sorely lacking.  To read the likes of Stephen King labour the point on trimming the fat could be a little troubling, not to mention confusing when you consider the source of that kind of advice.

Editing is of course required - you cannot publish an unfiltered stream of consciousness, unless you are an already famous avant-garde style artiste who can get away with that sort of thing and pretend it equates with bold talent.  Sometimes I do wonder how artists who make their living selling toilets, paint spatters or three line poems ever got taken seriously enough to get away with it.  But getting taken seriously is something that is always a concern to a writer, or any artist, early in their career.  It usually starts with a Presence: appearing where people may see you and becoming known to them.  I began my writing journey with a built-in and very exclusive audience, namely teachers.  Anyone who set my class a creative writing task enjoyed what I would come up with, and sometimes would even share it with my fellow pupils, but naturally they was not enough.  Writers are (very shy) attention-seekers.

So I looked for attention from a wider audience, and no audience could get wider, or more comfortably remote, than the Internet.  I first got online in the late 1990s and with Star Wars fever in full swing and captivating a boy my age (admittedly more due to this than this, at least at first), I had not only an audience but an outlet for my writing.  I began to write Fan Fiction.

No, don't go.  It's not really that bad.  At least, it was not at the time, though perhaps our particular forum was insulated or my own sheltered, naive mind just never came across the rather rank cesspool that fan fiction has become known for in more recent years.  Where I wrote, slash was not at all a sexually suggestive phrase, but simply something you did with a lightsaber.  Hang on a minute...

Anyway, next time I will discuss and share a little Star Wars fan fiction.  Yes, it's silly, it'll never be published and never make a penny, but for a young writer it was a great way to just write.  With characters and scenarios ready to be posed and played with like puppets, it allowed a writer finding their voice to paint a picture with some of the lines already drawn out for them.  It's not Shakespeare, but it is a place a lot of young and enthusiastic writers find their outlet these days, and have done for a decade or more.  It is also a nice, safe proving ground before going out into the big wide world of creating your own characters and settings to be judged by a public that probably has seen it all before by this point.

So, if you're still reading, you have that to look forward to.  I enjoyed it at the time.  I enjoyed the writing, I enjoyed the feedback, and I particularly enjoyed the forum gushing and occasional accusation of writing literature.  Until next time, here it is, your moment of zen:

Cards On The Table

I am an atheist*.

Used to be that saying such a thing was profound, bound to cause a reaction and kind of a distraction from any other topic at hand.  Here the topic is generally writing, but I already branched out a bit to discuss gaming and injected a little politics.  Just a little, since there are more than enough blogs out there to preach at us about how evil this side and that side are.  I bring up atheism, though, for a couple of reasons.

One, it's where a good portion of my traffic is coming from.  I've been commenting on atheist or rationalist blogs and sites for years but never bothered linking to any blog until now.  So hello, heretical unbelievers.  May the Flying Spaghetti Monster, sauce be upon him, touch you with his noodly appendage.

Secondly, I bring it up because it provides an excuse to demonstrate and discuss some of my non-fiction writing.  Writing is both an art and an industrial tool, and while the cliche goes the pen is mightier than the sword, it is generally the pen that gets the swords swinging. 

Writing says a heck of a lot.  Silence says more.  I was raised as a Catholic, but I certainly do not consider myself one now.  Unfortunately, the Catholic church had a rather different opinion on that.  To them, anyone baptised, regardless of lack of consent or their conversion to another faith or just dropping faith altogether, is a Catholic for life.  There are only two ways to get out.  Well, three, but the two ways to get out alive are either excommunication (which only really refers to the sacraments and is temporary, until you say sorry for whatever you did, like helping a dying woman have an abortion so at least one of them will survive) or formal Defection.  The church has kept the idea of Defection quiet for a long time, but it was possible (until recently).  Defection required the filling out of a form, signed by oneself and a Catholic witness, and a letter sent to the bishop of one's diocese to explain why one was defecting.

I sent my letter over a year ago, a couple of months before the Vatican slammed the door on those who wished to leave, in an act of pure cowardice.  Now the Catholic church is rather like the Hotel California...  Anyway, as of yet I have received no reply.  As it has been more than a year, I doubt I ever will.  Perhaps my letter got lost in the post.  Perhaps it fell down the back of a drawer, or under a desk, or otherwise managed to vanish on its way to the bishop's hand.  It's certainly possible.  However, given my experience with the Catholic Church in Scotland, I would not be surprised at all if it was merely glanced at, the first couple of paragraphs being enough to raise a tut of disgust before my letter, my story, was tossed in the bin.

A shame, but not unexpected.  Silence is, after all, the modus operandi of the Catholic church.  But I will not be silent.  I will share the letter itself, though I am not sure anybody is interested in my own tale of woe when so many people suffered such greater pains and injustices at the hands of the church and its agents.  Still, the bastards almost killed me, and I am happy to wash my hands of them.

Dear Mister [Bishop]

Having been baptised since the day I was born, an emergency ceremony performed by the chaplain of [Hospital] as I was gravely ill, it is not lightly that I write to you now to formally declare defection from the Roman Catholic Church. I do so with no personal ill-will toward yourself, but I feel that as an authority of the Catholic Church in Scotland, my reasoning would be best directed to your office.

As is clear from the current media scrutiny cast upon the church, a tsunami of abuse allegations have come to light. These allegations, many accompanied by verifiable evidence, span decades and cross continents. Though they are shocking and repugnant enough, they are but a drop in the ocean of blood and misery wreaked by the Catholic Church over the course of its history. The Crusades; the Inquisition; the witch-trials and burnings of countless women; the current lie that condoms spread AIDS which condemns thousands of Africans to a slow and painful death; turning a blind eye to the persecution of German Jews and the subjugation, forcible conversion and attempted destruction of Europe’s medieval Jews and of indigenous peoples across the planet rank high among the catalogue of horrors wrought by the organisation referring to itself as the One True Faith.

Though one hand attempts to present a contemporary and caring church, a ‘living faith’ that aims to enrich lives, the church crushes this image with the other through its reaction to the current scandal. The response so far can best be described as callous. For the Vatican to refer to the public outcry and the victims’ painful step of coming forward as “petty gossip” betrays a kingly disregard for the church’s own members. That the pope himself would make no direct mention of this tumult in his Easter address [note - this letter was from April 2010] reveals his own disinterest in the flock, and this is underlined by the evidence of his own inaction over the years in dealing with abuse cases. An organisation whose leadership firmly believes that public image is more important than the suffering of victims of serious crimes against both the law and the trusted position of the priesthood is an organisation to which I cannot and will not belong. It is also an organisation I am sure that, if he did exist, Jesus would have thoroughly condemned.

I have spent much of my life dealing with the Catholic Church in one manner or another, and in all this time I have never come across evidence to suggest it is a force for good in this world. I do not believe it is even interested in goodness or in the individual pains of people. It teaches authoritarianism and prejudice, breeding angry, fearful bullies who firmly believe in preserving the status quo at any cost, over the interests of suffering individuals. I attended a Catholic High school where such an attitude was commonplace among the Catholic staff. Children were berated and bullied into compliance with nonsensical, arbitrary rules simply as demonstrations of power. Dissenters were isolated and treated with even more scorn to be used as examples. Asking questions about the One True Faith in classes specifically for Religious Education was met with the shutting down of the discussion and even punishment. When the students themselves followed this example, bullying isolated and vulnerable classmates as clergy and teachers prey on the vulnerable children left in their charge, the school’s senior teachers resisted and ignored calls to deal with the matter. As far as they were concerned, as long as they did not acknowledge the problem, there was no problem. Being bullied myself, my complaints eventually drew the ire of the head teacher. He summoned me for a private chat and, as the Catholic Church continues to do to this day, shifted the burden of blame onto the victim’s shoulders by insisting that I had a maturity problem. He had no interest in helping me, stating “Bullying is a fact of life, and I think you have to grow up and accept it”.

This is the caring, loving ‘Catholic Ethos’ of faith schools we hear so much about. This man now is the Director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service.

So I reiterate: I will no longer allow myself to be counted a member of this organisation. Its very structure is poisonous to the human soul, and it bears the blood of millions on its collective hands. Now, I wash mine of it. I am not a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, child-abusing, mind-warping drone who thinks anyone who disagrees with me deserves to burn in agony for eternity. I am not a Catholic.

Sincerely

Me.

Until next time, when we'll be back to writing and fiction, here is your moment of zen:

 

*as in, I do not believe in any specific, personal deity that has a list of dos, do nots and where you may not put various bodyparts.