March 17, 2013

On Transhumanism

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– Or The Individual Dystopia –

I am just going to make this disclaimer now: I am probably full of bulls*** regarding this topic. I’ll be making references to materials that explain Transhumanism and the like, so it’s best to go there for more accurate information. Most of this is just referencial knowledge and brainstorming that I am using to write a story. Thank you for indugling me. 

Today, in my creative writing class, we had a discussion on what it meant to be human, and…sort of, what it meant to be a woman, because of a short story I rewrote a couple of weeks ago. The story that I put up and took down almost immediately. It evolved into this fairly philosophical debate about the world I was creating and the social situations I had put my character in (much to my dispair – I actually wanted feed back on how I wrote the piece, more so than my content). So, I thought of a question – had I displayed the dystopia I was attempting to adequately enough?

“No” was the definitive answer (from my own inner critic) so I went back to the drawing board. What was so ‘bad’ about transhumanism, at least in this character’s case, and why does it isolate her?

So I started with transhumanism – or H+ – which is the idea that, at some point, humanity will have the technology to enhance our strength, senses, minds, to previously unheard of heights. [For more info go here, here, here, and here.] That affects my character in this way – she didn’t choose to augment herself, and so she is having trouble adjusting. She has a tendency to blame most of her psychological problems on the tech that’s keeping her alive, which causes the people around her much frustration. She also is now faced with prejudices she previously didn’t think much of.

This is why the universe around my character isolates her. She is judged harshly almost every time she leaves her apartment. It’s difficult for her to do rudimentary tasks with out breaking things or taking too long to execute them. This forces her into a corner she had never previously been in, and sort of distils her natural sarcastic personality into this sort of cynical one.

I want to show this, and the story in its current form does not do an adequate job of really defining the world and my character’s problems with it. So, it will require another round of rewrite-your-story-from-scratch, but it will be worth it.

February 27, 2013

Taking The Criticism

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– Or Emily and the Criticism Sandwich –

I have problems with criticism, but not in the way that you might immediately think. I fear it because I imagine every worst case scenario, every terrible comment, everything bad about my story, and I beat myself up with it.

I am extremely insecure about my writing, especially when I take risks with it. For example, I have to workshop a piece that I spent an agonizingly long time rewriting (for more info, see my last blog post). I wrote it in third person, something I don’t frequently do, because I felt like I needed to give the reader (and myself) some distance from what my character was going through. I made this decision, mostly because I became disturbed by what I was having to write about.

This was a terrible idea.

I didn’t get specific enough. I didn’t outline relationships enough. It wasn’t good enough. Better than the first draft, but not good enough. So, naturally, I began beating myself up about it. I started geting defensive about the first two forum posts about my story. I was becoming a rage monster over critiques, which is a things I hate in myself and dislike in other writers.

So, I prepared myself by saying “I tried something new. It didn’t work. My peers will suggest ways to fix it.” And I started reading the critiques – most of which started of very nicely. I read through four or five poorly disguised ‘critiques sandwiches.’

Critique sandwiches are what I call peer critiques, because I frequently sandwich the critique between two strong compliments. Like, I found something truly interesting and uniques about your piece; here’s something you could work on; but, over all, I thought it was pretty good here. That is the basic structure of the critique sandwich.

Unfortunately, you have to use this structure, even if the story is not so good. And I can tell when people bulls*** because I do all the time, though I try to be sincere in my compliments as much as possible. I realize that I did not write my story as well as I could have, and that disappoints me. So, when I read critique sandwiches that sound forced, I sort of lose resolve to work on anything ever again.

This story, however, matters too much to me. I have ideas of how to fix it, and I hope that maybe, just maybe, critiques on my piece will lean in the direction of ‘here’s how you can salvage this’ rather than ‘here’s how you can duct-tape this garbage heap and pretend it looks good.’ And I hope that these critique sandwiches are sincere, and not just there because my peers are trying to say nice things about the crap that I feel I handed them.

February 19, 2013

Writing in Video Games

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– Or Emily Links You to Many Videos, Part One –

I am going to talk about bad writing in video games. And by me, I actually mean the awesome people at Extra Credits. And by talk, I actually mean respond to.

I direct your attention to the video below:

 

The argument in this video, (in case you didn’t watch it, in which case you are missing out on some quality stuff. Please watch it. I’ll wait. Done? Good) is that writing in video games is considered separate from the entire process. I think of this as something akin to writing a script for a movie – you write this script, and then the game gets made and everything is great. Right? Well, not exactly.

For the sake of this blog post (and, let’s be honest, the rest of this series), I will be talking about two games and how they convey their stories: Deus Ex and Journey. Both of these games, in my opinion, have excellent stories. The narrative is handled differently, of course (duh, Emily, jeeze) but over all, they have excellent writing.

“But Journey doesn’t have dialogue!!!” Yes, intelligent reader in the back, but I guarantee a writer was involved. “BUT WRITING NEEDS WORDS.”  Okay, Caps-lock Guy, calm down. Writing does not need words in the world of video games.

Video games are interactive, which means that the story is told through cut scenes, dialogue options, music, codexes, and game mechanics. Journey is a story told entirely through silent, pre-rendered cut scenes and the mechanics of your little clothite’s journey, which are incredibly simple. Yet, there is undoubtably an incredibly moving story in those mechanics.

Let’s look at Deus Ex: Human Revolution, though, because that game does have dialogue. The story in this game is delivered through dialogue options and cutscenes, and less through the mechanics at first glance. Except you have so many valid ways of game play, and so many options that also affect the story – you can read every single email and ebook, for instance. But Deus Ex does something else that really makes its story interesting- it plays really heavily on your emotions. Seriously, there is a section at then end that feels terrifying and dangerous simply because of the music (also, the twist that come out of left field).

The point I’m trying to make here (and really, the point is made much better in the video, so watch it) is that writing for video games involves all of the dialogue and codex entries, but also all of the game mechanics and play options as well. Writers are considered late in development, or considered complet individuals who don’t need to work with the dev team, and I think that’s where writing goes wrong. The writer needs to account for all of the factors that go into something – like camera directions in movie scripts, or the mechanics of a game. And the writer needs to work with the dev team, because they’ll know how everything works.

Essentially, work together, writers/dev teams, and you’ll tell a better story.

tl;dr: Emilly rambles about video games and you should really watch Extra Credits. 

 

February 17, 2013

Rewriting

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– Or Why Writing Is Hard, Part One Billion –

If you pay attention to my blog at all, you will notice that I deleted a story called ‘The Precession’ that I wrote about two-ish weeks ago. This is because I re-read it and really, really, really hated it. And that’s fine. It was a first draft, and first drafts are allowed to suck. Not everything I write can be awesome (though, it does mean I am now down a blog post).

Thing is, I’m now rewriting this story, and it’s hard. I have to put myself in this terrible, awful mental state to get anything close to what this character is feeling and it’s difficult. One, I’m not missing any limbs, so the closest I can get to the pain of having those replaced is imagining what I would do in the event of an amputation. How would I react? But I’m me, and this character is Cedar, and Cedar is more stoic than I am. She is less willing to cry or admit frustration. How do I portray that? How in the bloody *@$^ am I supposed to convey what she’s going through?

So, I’m writing it in blurbs, in small paragraphs and short sentences, and right now my story is the most disjointed thing I have ever seen. I’m terrified that I’m not going to get it done in time or that it will be just as bad or worse than my first draft. I sit down, look at my word document, and cringe.

So far, I seem to be doing alright. I have an idea, I have a focus, and I only have two full scenes that I have to work on. Really, it shouldn’t be this hard. But it is. It always is. Writing takes everything out of me (unless it’s ‘fun’ writing. Like fluffy, sappy, sunshine-and-rainbows writing) and it is hard on my emotions. I have to pt myself in the situations my characters are in and it takes every ounce of sanity you have just to get the words on paper.

That, I think, makes stories real. I can only hope this one is as real for others as it is for me.

January 16, 2013

Will All Be Forgiven

, , , , , Self, Writing 2 Comments

– Or Cedar Reeves Has Emotional Issues –

UPDATED: Okay, so this is a short character study, set in the Deus Ex universe because…well, I can do that. This is now the second draft, but it will probably change even more. I’ll do my best to update it. 

Detective Cedar Reeves was not a famous detective. She worked in East Lansing, Michigan as a homicide detective dabbling in petty crime, as homicides were rather rare on that side of Lansing. Or, at least, she did.

Cedar had been on bed rest for the last four months, and would continue to be on bed rest for the foreseeable future.

No, Detective Reeves was not a famous detective, but she was known for something. Her injury in the line of duty even made Picus news, which would have been shocking, except that Cedar’s injuries came at the hands of an augmented dead-beat.

She had been working a case, and had stupidly followed a lead on her own. The man she was tailing was huge, clearly a muscle head with the two largest arm augmentations Cedar had ever seem on a person. His name was Gabriel, and he looked like a gorilla. Which is why it was easy enough for him to overpower Cedar and steal her car.

Cedar woke up in the passenger seat of a car driving straight for a house. The next thing she remembered was waking up in the hospital, half way through a slew of surgeries. Both of her legs were still gone, but Cedar was too doped up to care.

Her mother had made the decision; ordered life saving surgery, and a complete overhaul of Cedar’s body.

“You’ll be able to work again.” Her mother had wailed when Cedar put her fist through a painting on her recovery room wall. The LIMB clinic moved her to isolated recovery some nights later.

Cedar sighed and pulled out her cigarette case. She had never really been a big smoker, but that was back when she had stuff to do. Currently, she was in her apartment, watching raindrops roll down the windows.  She lit the cigarette.

Her apartment was large, by most standards. She was currently sitting in the living room, straight down the hall and down the stairs from her front door. It was cavernous; two rectangular couches sat in the center of the room, facing opposite walls. They were oversized, more like beds than couches; one faced the large, wall length windows on the north wall, and the other faced the TV on the south wall. Old family pictures and prints of Van Gogh paintings hung on the east wall, which was lined, at the bottom, with bookshelves full of well-loved print books.

The rest of the apartment was cramped in comparison to the living room. Cedar’s tiny kitchen was up the stairs and to the right. There was a window over looking the the single tree in the strip of grass between Cedar’s building and another in the complex. The bedroom was to the left of the stairs; large and mostly empty. Cedar spent most of her time on the couch in front of the windows.

On any normal day, she would also be accompanied by her German Shepard, Riddick, but he was at the kennel for another few days. He had been put there for the duration of Cedar’s ‘trip’ to visit her ex-boyfriend’s parents after his funeral. She came home a week early, but had paid for two weeks. He was probably a bit happier there, anyway; everyone needs a vacation.

Cedar took a long drag of her cigarette, exhaled, and slammed her head against the back of the couch. “The boredom,” she lamented to the ceiling, “the boredom, I could probably handle if I could go outside without feeling exposed. I can’t stand the staring.”

Cedar sat up, put her cigarette in a free slot on her ashtray, and ran a metal hand over her face.

It’s not as if she looks exceptionally weird. She’s six-o, built (but not bulky), and exasperated. Her face is round, the bags under her circuit-green eyes are a dark purple, and her short, brown hair is spiked up and out of her face.  Cedar hadn’t been self-conscious about her looks since high school.

But now she was ‘missing’ an arm and a half, a leg and a half, and had scars running across the whole of her face. She had been angry over the change, yes; furious. Once she let it sink in, however, Cedar hadn’t thought much about the physical change. She even had humor enough to…adjust the wing tattoo on her left shoulder blade. It’s now broken, ragged where the metal meets her skin.

Most people, however, don’t share her humor about the situation. Fact is, someone made the call to have Cedar outfitted with SWAT-standard augs, and those scared people. Walk into a store with black, metal arms that give the user ridiculous levels of strength, and even the most pro-augmentation individual is going to give you the stink-eye.

It doesn’t help that ‘bed rest’ is a nice term for ‘recovery and therapy,’ which is still a nice way of saying ‘Detective Reeves is sending up all of our psychological red flags.’ She pulls her cigarette to her mouth on shaky fingers.

Drag.

 

Exhale.

“Computer, play artist: Murder By Death.” Cedar drawled lightly, amused that, somewhere along the line, her house computer became the computer of the starship Enterprise. If only it could make her a good cup of earl grey, too.

The computer complied and the first chords of ‘Shiola’ oozed out of the speaker system. Cedar scowled, but let it play. The rain picked up, and pounded against her window, trying desperately to get in. Each drop was backlit by the sulfur-yellow lights of the apartment complex.

Cedar put her cigarette back in the ashtray, and walked over to the window. The man who drove her through that house; he killed a couple and their three children before dying in the front seat of Cedar’s car. Picus had painted Cedar as some sort of hero, but she had made a rookie mistake. If she still had her job at the other end of this hell, she would be disappointed in the department.

That family died, and Cedar got to live. Stigma must be her punishment for that. Neuropozyne was a close second in terms of tourture.

She mouthed the words to the song: ‘Shiola, Shiola, will all be forgiven?’ Cedar pressed her forehead to the cold windowpane.

‘Shiola, Shiola, am I strong enough to start again alone?’

December 13, 2012

2024

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– Or 2027 Backstory –

[So, if you’ve been paying attention, my friends and I have been writing about our theoretical futures in a world similar to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In this series of stories, my augmentations make the least sense, so I’ve decided to explain them a bit.]

April 5, 2024: Breaking News:

Editors to Leave Chicago Publishing House Over Augments

I managed to stay unaugmented until March, 2024. My publishing company decided we weren’t good enough. That’s what it was. ‘The editing staff isn’t good enough.’ The company decided that hiring a bunch of augs might go over badly, so they organized a conference  Infolinks were the new form of communication – it seemed ridiculous that we weren’t keeping up with the times. If you didn’t want an Infolink, there was the door.

They were paying, and it was just an infolink, and my prospects out in the publishing world of Chicago weren’t…good. So I went in for surgery. Just an infolink, nothing more. Except it wasn’t just the info link. It was a social enhancer and a rebreather, too. That’s why we left; Jen, Sati, and I. And we sued for everything that company was worth.

News 10: November 26, 2024:

Writer Heli-vacd to U. Chicago for Emergency Surgery

I don’t remember the car wreck; I don’t even remember driving that day, but when I woke up in the intensive care wing of U.C., they told me I was in a car accident. The injuries were extensive, and claimed a leg and a half. The right leg was gutted, apparently, and my left calf was infected. Amputations for both. They told me that I’d suffered a severe blow to my lower back, which might make it impossible to walk again, even were I to get prosthetics. Good news: My neural augments escaped unscathed and my rebreather probably saved my life. Thank God.

My husband, Niels, and Kay couldn’t come visit because there were protests going on in central Chicago – anti-augmentation groups, that sort of thing – and the doctors said that my family might be accosted if they came and visited. So I called Danny (the old fashioned way, mind) and we talked about my options. I spent a month in a wheelchair because we couldn’t afford prosthetics (the money from that court case was split 3 ways, and I donated my share to our coworkers for their neuroprozene), and I didn’t want augmentations, but the city had changed. Handicaps weren’t as accepted anymore – just get augs and you can walk, why should we be wheelchair accessible? – and I couldn’t get to my office. My employer wanted me to be able to do my work, and collaborate with my coworkers, so they agreed to pay for whatever I needed to walk again.

I went in for testing. The nerve damage was too extensive – I wouldn’t be able to walk again unless I got augmented to override the damage. Up the neuroprozene dose. I looked at my husband and he nodded. I had a new, robotic leg and a half, as well as an Icarus system by the end of the week.

Local News 5: March 28, 2025

Local Woman Assaulted on 5th

I wasn’t the local woman. I was the bystander stupid enough to interfere, and I don’t regret that stupidity. He had lye on him, and he was attempting to blind a girl in an ally I happened to walk by on my way home.  I stepped in, and took a fistful of lye to the face. Asshole ran away and right into a cop, so I feel like I did something at least. 

The lye left me blind, however. Less than three months from my last major surgery, and a year after the first disastrous set of augments, and here I was, facing the end of my editing career. I wouldn’t be able to see my children again. Danny said I cried for hours while I was hopped up on medication, and he made the call. He’s apologized for it many times now, because it was the selfish decision, but its done and there’s nothing I can do about it. 

The doctors knocked me out on the 29th of March and gave me new eyes. 

The journal entries and accompanying newspaper articles are scattered about my desk. I’m writing a memoir, or at least, attempting to work on a memoir. My coworker and editor, Sati, coerced me into it.

“So much has changed in the last three years,” she’d said. “I think you could write beautifully about the issues you’ve faced.”

Right, uh huh.

Most of these things happened before I got my first novel published, so each news article is, quite literally, local news. Few people outside of the state even know what happened, and most of those who know don’t care. With the exception of the court case; that was incredibly public and, apparently, more interesting. Point is, I kept this as down played as possible. None of my friends know the whole story; they only know about the ‘I didn’t ask for this’ case, the rebreather and the social enhancer. R knows about my Icarus system, but she doesn’t know the extent to which I need it.

I don’t want them to pity me, or feel like I hate my life. I don’t. I’m perfectly happy; I’m able to see, walk, and do my job without being forced into anything I don’t want or need (anymore). But, I don’t want the first time they hear about this to be a book.

‘Oh, yes, I was comfortable telling the world, but not you guys.’

I fling my pen across my desk and run my hands through my hair. I heave a sigh and look out the window…well, really the far wall of the office. It looks over Lake Michigan; I remember going to the beach over on the Michigan side of the lake 29 years ago. I wonder if it still harbors a sea of dead fish.

It’s dark – I’ve been hiding out in my office in the middle of the night, trying to work on this book – but I can see the waves hit the shore. The light of the city is good for that. The moon is reflected in the middle of the waves, and gives everything an eerie, silver glow.

I decide to call everyone in the morning. Tell them the story first; then we can get on with this madness.

 

 

December 9, 2012

2027

, , , , Self, Writing 1 Comment

– Or Holy Deus Ex, Batman! –

The plan is simple; write a short story based on Deus Ex, then kill the Batman. Also, this is based on a theoretical future, in which human augmentation with technology is possible and common. Danny is entirely fictional. The initial-ed people are all real people, but I’m not putting their real names here. 

Roster: 

Name: Emily Milner

Age: 34 

Sex: F

Family: Spouse (Male, 36), Children ( Male and Female, 5)

Known Occupation: Author, Publishing Writer/Editor 

Active Augs: Enhanced Rebreather, Enhanced Legs, Icarus Landing System, Smart Vision, Social Enhancer 

Status: Under Surveillance 

It’s raining. Again. It’s been raining a lot in Chicago lately, not that I’m complaining. It’s the wind that gets me…and the cold, but I took that risk when I moved to Chicago with Danny seven years ago. The midwest is only ever cold. So much for global warming.

The kids are in bed still; I don’t know when in hell I picked up a 6:30 wake up time. El would be horrified. I’ll need to be quiet if I’m going to go out now – Danny’ll be up in fifteen, so the kids’ll be fine. I just need to get out of the house for a bit. Maybe call D or El or H. Just…out of the apartment. Not enough space here.

I throw a glance over at the wall. It takes a second, but I can see Kay and Neil’s sleeping forms through the wall. Still throws me off, these Eye-Know augs; seems like yesterday EL, D, and I were casually freaking out about this sort of thing in the lounge back in Blacksburg, and now…well, now we have them. Last I checked, D got the “lungs” he needed a few weeks ago. Haven’t heard from him since, but that’s normal for D.

Ah, there it is – aug use head ache. Completely expected, and not at all pleasant. I need the reminder sometimes, though, that these augs don’t fix everything – the pulse thrumming against my forehead is a decent enough memory jog. I’ll need to see my doctor about those tomorrow.

I reach the stairs in a matter of minutes and look down -no one appears to be around or up; time to have a bit of fun. Our apartment is on the fifth floor, and I can totally make that jump. The orange glow of the Icarus landing system is…weird, but I suppose it gets the job done. Slows everything down a bit, though I think that could just be some weird psychological thing. I am essentially free falling to the first floor and slowing my decent down enough to prevent damage. I land as silently as possible, what with all the goddamned noise this system makes. The lady at the front desk looks a little alarmed, but that’s normal. Most things alarm her.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Milner,” she says, her voice shaking a bit. “You’re up early.”

“Just going on a walk, Amy, chill.” I smile wanly, and she manages a polite, fake smile in return. I really should try to talk to her sometime, because you would think she’d be used to my ridiculousness after three months. It may require the Social Enhancer, though, which is what holds me back. I try to reserve that for working book deals and contracts. Outside of the office, it shouldn’t be necessary. Amy watches me walk quietly through the doors, which is totally not weird at all. I pull my flannel tighter around my torso. It’s cold, and the rain has been reduced to a drizzle. There’s a balcony in front of my building, which looks over a sort of park. I lean over the rail and watch the drizzle hit the fountain in the center of the park.

The city looks ridiculous from here, a forest of concrete, steel, and light. I haven’t see the stars since we took the kids out to see them a year ago. That’s ludicrous – taking a vacation to see the goddamned stars. We had to go pretty far to see them, too; about 50 miles out to reduce the light pollution enough to see anything.

I pull out a compact mirror from my back jean pocket, and just…look at myself. Objectively, I suppose nothing much has changed, out side of the scars. My hair is still short, close cropped, and light brown. My eyebrows are still wildly unkempt. Eyes remain brown, despite the augmentations. Nose still looks like a beak.

What gets me is the scarring. The strange web starts at my forehead and spreads down to my left eye. There’s a nasty line on the right side of my mouth from a fight I got into two years back. There’re scars on my lower back from Icarus, on my hips from the legs (sleek, white metal legs), and across my chest from the rebreather. Nothing and everything has changed about me in the last three years.

It bothers me, I suppose, as much as the light pollution of Chicago does. Enough to register, but not enough for me to worry about it constantly. It’s bothering me now, in the early hours of the morning, when I used to worry about things in college. It’s causing my chest to contract uncomfortable ways; panic attack, or the beginnings of one. God, I need a drink.

“Oi, Emily.” My info link knocks me out of my self-indulgent reverie. It’s EL. What the hell is she doing up?

“EL? How’d you get this frequency?” I answer, smirking at the inside joke.

“Ancient chinese secret. Now listen.” I can hear the sleep deprived delirium in her voice. She’s been up researching, or perhaps surfing the internet instead of sleeping. Typical.

“Haven’t gone to bed yet, eh?” I smile. “What is it now, uranium or new transhumanism things?”

“Oh, new Augs.” She says. “I researched new eye enhancements all night. Been running on…four hours of sleep today. Hey, what time is it?”

“My time? 6:30.” I say.

“Yeesh.”

I roll my eyes. “Scream at me about the new augs around 3 p.m. my time, I’ll be back from work around then.”

“Alright, fine.” El sighs. “Just know you’re encouraging me to stay up until midnight. Have you heard from A or D in a while?”

“Nah. D is just on radio silence, and A is probably out doing something…questionable.” I huff out a laugh. “How’s H?”

“Oh, she’s good. She’s coming to visit soon, so we can have story conversations.”

I smile. “Sounds great. Heard from N?”

“Isn’t he doing…confidential stuff? Something with robots, I think.”

“Well, that’s specific.” I snort. “Last I talked to him, he said airplanes. Just airplanes. I don’t know what that’s supposed to tell me.”

“Yeah, well, that’s N for you.” El says. “How are you doing, then?”

“Oh, you know, hanging in there.” I sigh. “Still getting used to my augs, and it’s proving…weird.”

“Well, talk to me if you need anything, Kay?” El pauses for a second. “I can ship you tea and hugs!”

I laugh a bit and push off from the rail. “Thanks, El.” I turn and walk back into the apartment building. “Promise me you’ll sleep tonight, kay? Sleep deprivation is not helpful.”

“Your mom’s not helpful.”

El disconnects. I’m still uncomfortable with my lot in life, but it’ll get better. It has to. I can get through these worries with my friends and Danny. Now, the kids should be up in half an hour, and I need to make breakfast.

 

December 4, 2012

Revision

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– Or Noone No One Gets it Right the First Time –

If you have been paying attention to this blog in any way (and even if you haven’t because I’m about to tell you what you should have noticed anyway), you’ll have noticed that most of my posts are littered with typos and grammar mistakes. Even, in one massively embarrassing case, I attributed a quote about technology to Milton. MILTON.

Anyway, my point is, I screw up, often and spectacularly. And that is okay. Screwing up the first time around is okay, and frankly, necessary.

Why? Well, the first go around, you just write out the skeleton of your idea. You have dumped everything you have about your topic contained in your brain onto a page. You have, perhaps, shaped it into paragraph format, organized it a bit, and voila. You have the first draft of whatever you are writing about.

Now comes the fun part – revision. Most good writing is developed in revision ( I paraphrased this from a John Green video. He may have been quoting someone else. Who knows) and that’s why it’s so awesome. You get to play with your language. Whe else are you allowed to mess around with your words in an attempt to make it sound better? It’s super easy – you already have the framework laid out in front of you, so the hard work of conjuring content out of thin air is complete. Now, you just have to make is sound fun or intelligent or serious or what have you.

Don’t get carried away, though. Revision can quickly become a sickness, if you let it. It infects you, makes you think your writing must be perfect the first go. It doesn’t. Resist that urge, the urge that tells you to revise your first paragraph before moving on to the second. It’s evil and it will eat your soul.

Well, maybe it won’t eat your soul, but it will certainly eat your productivity. You will never finish with the goal of a perfect first draft. First off, those rarely, if ever, get produced. There are always things to change, to tweak, to tighten up for precision’s sake. That in mind, leave them be. Your first draft is allowed to suck. It’s called the first draft for a reason; it implies that there will be MULTIPLE drafts. There may only be two. There may be a thousand. You can always make more changes.

(Be warned though; at some point, it’s time to stop editing and just let the work go. It’s okay. There will probably be one or two more mistakes in it, but I promise you are the only one who notices.)

So go forth! Find the mistakes in this first-draft-blog. Find your own mistakes. Appreciate them. Love them. Fix them. Revise, my pretties, revise!!

August 25, 2012

Torn From The Map of Michigan

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– Or Childhood Memories –

When I was five years old, we lived in a tri-level house on the corner of Boston Blvd and Quincy. It was this strange rosy-purple color – the siding, that is – and had no garage. The yard on the left was flanked by pink-rose bushes, and we had three trees in the yard. In the fall, there were enough leaves on the grass that my dad could gather them into a pile about as big as I was at the time, and I’d jump in them.

My room was in the basement, sort of – my window opened up to the ground. We had a computer room on the third floor, where my dad would work, and there was a green futon in it, and it matched the green lamp on the desk that always reminded me of my dad’s office at work, for whatever reason. I think he had a similar one on his desk there.

I remember the night my brother was born, and leaving the house with my grandparents to got see him for the first time. (I held him and he burst into a fit of tears; the picture is quite hilarious.) I remember the small craft table I had in the kitchen, and the couches in the living room; I remember sliding around in my socks on the wood floor. Parading around with my brother, bags or blankets on our heads.

On some Saturdays, my family would pile in the car and drive into East Lansing, onto the Michigan State campus, and we’d feed the ducks on the Red Cedar River, or wander the campus. Sometimes, we’d spend the day at the Beal Botanical gardens; this huge park filled with exotic and common flowers that wound around pathways and duck ponds. At one end, you entered from the street – from the sprawl of the city directly into this beautiful field of plants – and, at the other, was this huge, mesh peacock that the grounds keepers covered in flowers in the spring and summer.

I remember art fairs that sprawled over the entire college campus. I remember MSU, and its buildings that reminded my of gingerbread houses. And I remember trees – East Lansing was one of the few places with trees.

Later, when we moved to a dinky little township called Delta, I would build memories in the holes dug for house foundations, basements with no home to claim them, and piles of misplaced dirt. I would walk down to the creek behind my house – and, in one specific, freak incident, walk down in the middle of April, clad in snowpants, a jacket, and boots, to walk atop the frozen water. I remember the crushing despair at having to leave that place.

I remember Michigan, and I do believe I over romanticize it a bit, but it was my early childhood. I went to preschool there, kindergarden, first grade, and had three recesses! And it was dreadfully hard to leave. But, looking back on it, even though I miss the walks by the Red Cedar, and wandering around the MSU campus with my parents, and vehemently declaring that I would never, ever got the Michigan State, I also appreciate that it lead me to Virginia. It lead me to where I am today and still influences who I am today (if Soup Night and my lack of spice tolerance are any indication).

I suppose the point of all the grossly nostalgic writing is this – I think it’s important to know where you come from, and to look back, every once and a while, on the things you remember and how those memories shaped, and continue to shape, who you are as a person.

June 27, 2012

The White Raven

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– Or In Which Titles Cease To Make Sense –

I need to write. I need to write about air that is thick with rain, and conversations no one wants to have. I need to sit down and execute ideas. This is what I need to do, and I haven’t, and I probably won’t.

I have been consumed with such an intolerable lethargy that I am honestly upset. I have just wasted the first five days of being nineteen. I haven’t done anything productive, and I have no desire to do anything. Sort of like there was this light there, pushing me, making me work, filling my days, and now it’s gone. It’s gone and I’m worried that it’s gone for good.

It’s gone because I’ve pushed it away, and it has made me ill in the worst way. It has made me lonely.

And even that is mostly just an excuse. I could be doing anything with my spare time – spare time that I shouldn’t have, I should be working, but I’m never scheduled (That’s not your fault) – like learning sign language or finishing a book. Never mind that I’m no where close to finishing; I’ve only written 2 paragraphs in the last 2 months. That’s the worst track record I have ever had. The pressure of neverfinish is hanging over my head, and I don’t know what to do with it. It’s like there’s a ghost hanging over me when I write, and it just hangs there, gripping my neck, whispering ‘neverfinish‘ over and over again, sucking all of my ideas out through the pores of my skin.

Okay, wow, pleasant imagery there, Emily. Shut up, inner monologue. I do what I want.

And what I want most right now is a hug – an actual, physical hug, from a physical person. I want someone to talk to, who I don’t feel a nagging sense of ‘Crap-I’m-Scaring-Them-Off’ with. I need someone here so that I can muddle through why my summer seems to be going so wrong so far (and why this is the 4th blog post I’ve written this summer, and this will probably be the only one that gets published).

Mostly, I think I’m just worried that I’m wasting my time, because I am wasting my time, and worried that I don’t have enough drive to change this rut on my own.

Needing people around is a hard need to face. Missing something – some place, the place, college – this much never actually occurred to me. It was never a possibility. Then I realized my pool of friends in Northern Virginia is small, and it will probably be 2 months before I see anyone from Tech in any capacity other than video chatting. I don’t know if seeing my friends again will help ignite the drive in me again or not, but I do know this – it is awfully hard muddling through the complicated stuff on your own.

And this feels pretty complicated to me.

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