ARCgate: When Librarians Get Angry

So there's this thing happening right now on Twitter--on the librarian part of it, anyway. Arcgate. What is it? Well, you could read the post that started it all, or you could just have my recap. There's this thing called ALA. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's the national conference for librarians. I've been to one in DC. It's c-r-a-z-y big and busy, and there's an exhibit hall full of publishers giving away things called ARCs (advanced reading copies of books the publishers will be selling in the not too distant future).

Why do publishers do this? They like to build buzz for their books before they get released to the public. Librarians are a great audience for those books. All is well, right?

Well, wait a minute. For a librarian to get access to the conference, it costs a couple hundred dollars, plus ALA membership dues. It's pricey. But for $25, anybody can get a "exhibits only" pass for the conference and go to see all the fancy publishers and authors and hopefully get those ARCs. (Note--anyone can do this. Librarians could do this, if they wanted. But then they wouldn't get access to the panels and development opportunities, which is supposedly the main draw of ALA, not the free books.)

So one dedicated librarian didn't get some of the ARCs she really wanted to get, because she was too busy doing the thing she was supposed to do--go to panels and get professionally developed. A fairly new, enthusiastic book blogger paid for a pass, and showed off her haul after the conference: 150 ARCs. She was ecstatic. The librarian who missed out and came across this book blogger? Not so much.

Cue the outrage.

What it all boils down to is this: many librarians seem to feel entitled to getting ARCs at ALA--as a perk of going to the conference. It's a conference for librarians, they reason, so librarians should have first dibs on the juicy shiny ARCs. How dare these hoi polloi wander in off the street just to get free books! They can go to some other book thingy.

My take? Librarians who are outraged are looking at this wrong. Publishers don't bring ARCs to ALA as some great Offering to Librarians. Publishers and authors go to ALA to build buzz. The exhibit hall is a madhouse. It's insane. If someone's interested enough to brave that chaos to get some ARCs, they're clearly dedicated readers. Good on them. You don't have to be a librarian to have a corner on books.

Now, that said, other people are speaking out about how rude the exhibit hall can get--how cutthroat it can be, with some people just obsessed about getting their ARCs at all costs. That's not cool, but it's also not just non-librarians doing it. Supply and demand works for everybody.

So this blogger got 150 ARCs. That does seem to be quite excessive, and it's sad that one person should get so many while so many get so few. But if she reads the ARCs and reviews them, or gives them to people who read and review them, then the system is working as intended, I'd say. (If she eBays them all, then we're talking about something entirely different. But don't kid yourselves--plenty of people are doing just that. I remember when I went to ALA and signed Cavern of Babel copies we were giving away, it wasn't more than a few days before they started popping up on eBay. You're not at ALA to make a profit, but it happens. If my Tu Books (my publisher for Vodnik) had copies available at ALA, I would be more than happy to have a book blogger get one.

I suppose I'd leave this topic on the idea that librarians shouldn't feel like they have a corner on enthusiasm for books. It's natural that at their national conference, many people who share that passion will congregate. And when passionate fans all want access to the same thing, feelings will get hurt. But the solution isn't to cast out the passionate fans. Maybe it's to enforce order somehow. Bring the chaos down a few notches. Some of this might also subside as eARCs are more widely used. Who knows? But I do wish many of my fellow librarians sounded a little less whiny right now . . .

Anyone else have anything to add?

About the Health Care Ruling

Because it's going to be all that anyone's talking about over the next few days, news-wise, I thought I'd open my big trap about the matter now. Again. (For those of you who have forgotten, I wrote about this back when the bill was passed, as well. I also have talked about the cost of health care in this country.)

So Obamacare was upheld by the Supreme Court. And now we'll get the obligatory back slapping from the Democrats and pitchfork waving from the Republicans. And we'll hear about how it's the best thing since sliced bread and how it's written by Satan himself.

Thank goodness I don't have television and won't be tempted to watch the 24/7 news people drag this out even further.

As I said before, I fully support a mandate that everyone have health insurance. Yes, I realize this puts me at odds with many many many of my Republican friends, a few of which are even now unfriending me. Such is life. Call  it a tax, call it a mandate, call it an edict--I don't care. What I do care is that I shouldn't have to pay for someone else's shortsightedness.

When I go to the doctor or the ER, it costs a lot of money. Fact. My insurance pays most of it. Also fact. If you don't have insurance and go to the ER (because emergencies happen, you know), it still costs money. If you can't afford it, they don't turn you away. They still treat you. But the bill doesn't magically disappear. Someone has to pay it. That would be me, through my higher health insurance costs.

This is not fair.

And yes, I realize life doesn't have to be fair. But in this instance, it can be. I see one of two options. Either only people who have insurance or are independently wealthy can use the ER services--in which case the ones without insurance can just heal their broken bones or their cancer or their whatever all on their own--or everybody pitches in and pays for it. You don't want insurance? Fine. Don't have any. But chip in so that I don't have to cover your cheap hide.

(Friends out there who are against Obamacare--tell me why you are. Be specific. Don't talk about "liberties." Explain how not having health care wouldn't essentially tax everyone else. Tell me why I'm wrong. I'm open minded. I'll listen. But I'm doubting you can convince me.)

It also is far from just and fair that the only people who get access to health care are those who are employed full-time, and that the quality of that coverage varies wildly based on what specific employers are willing to pay for. I have writer and artist friends who would love to have health care, but they can't afford it. That needs to change.

So I'm all for this passing. If this election were solely about health care, I would be scared stiff of how hard nosed the Republicans are about this topic. I completely disagree with them, and when Romney boasts about how fast he'll repeal Obamacare, I really worry. Get rid of it, and replace it with what? The old broken system. We can't be playing a big old health care hokey pokey game where you grant it to people one second, then yank it away the next, only to give it back later.

I hate politics.

Sigh.

That's all the energy I have for this topic at the moment. Maybe I'll add more in the comments.

Conquering Our El Guapos: Dieting, Parenting, and a Healthy Does of Ramble

I'm back on a diet. Again. Why? Because I just can't seem to not eat in moderation. Not consistently, at any rate. I know I'm not alone in this. I also know it's my fault. Not McDonald's. (I hardly eat fast food ever anyway.) It's not the way I was raised. It's not what my wife makes for dinner (well, maybe some of that bread . . .). It's me. When I get stressed, I eat. When I eat, I feel better. No one makes me eat. I do it all on my lonesome.

And so I end up on this stupid roller coaster of dieting. Not that the roller coaster I'm on has particularly steep ups and downs. It's more of gentle climbs, followed by mildly exhilarating dips. I'll get my weight down some, and be having some success, and then get busy and lose focus. It's not that I start ballooning out of control. I still eat pretty healthily. But I like to bake. And I like to eat what I bake. And even when I don't overeat, an extra brownie here and another slice of cake there tend to add up over time.

Why do I blog about this? Because when I'm public about my goals, I seem to do better with them. I'm also using the topic today to springboard onto something else I wanted to discuss today: parenting.

I came across this article in the New Yorker, focused on why American kids are becoming such brats. I don't agree with it 100%--I know many parents who are doing admirable jobs of raising wonderful children--but I do think it makes some very good points. When Denisa and I first had TRC, I remember how hard it was. Feeling like we had to do our best to make sure everything was perfect. That he was happy all the time.

That lasted for a good two weeks, I'd say. We were losing it. Denisa was extremely low on sleep, everybody--including TRC--was cranky. Not good. The big turning point came when we realized something: it's okay for babies to cry. They do it all the time. I remember talking to my cousin, who was a big advocate of Baby Wise--something Denisa and I started to follow and still heartily recommend. She told us how she would set a timer when her babies were crying. If they were still going after 15 minutes, she'd check on them--make sure everything was okay--and then put them back down and repeat the process.

I remember the first time we tried that. TRC was crying. And crying. And only 2 minutes had gone by on the timer. 5 minutes. 7. And then at 10, he stopped crying and went to sleep. Slept happily for his nap.

This was huge. Mainly, I think the change was going from a child-centered life back to a parent/spouse-centered one. TRC was no longer dictating what we were going to do. We had a plan, and we stuck to it. We've been doing that ever since. TRC and DC get some say in what we do as a family, but they also recognize that the parents have the final call. They have chores, and there are consequences when they don't do them. It's not easy, but I think it's much easier than it would be if the kids were using me as a doormat every day.

How does this relate to my dieting?

It's all about that personal accountability thing. We're all responsible for our own happiness. Each of us, individually. I can't make anyone happy. That's a choice they have to make for themselves. This includes my children. If I went around each day trying to make them happy--to do everything in my power to make sure they had no want left unfulfilled--I would be doing them a disservice. I would be teaching them that someone else is supposed to make them happy. Supposed to handle the Big Problems. I'm happy to be a support, but I can't be the only one.

Just like me and my diet. I can't turn the keys over to Denisa and tell her to make sure I eat right. In the end, it all comes down to me. And while I'm capable and competent in so many other things, eating healthily 100% (or even 75%) of the time doesn't seem to be one of them.

That's okay. I'm working on it. We're all working on things, trying to improve ourselves--hopefully, at least. This all made sense in my brain before I wrote the post, but it seems to have come far afield now. And when that happens, the best thing to do is show a YouTube clip and walk away. Have a good Wednesday, folks.

Adventures in Not at Girl's Camp

So Denisa's away at Girl's Camp yesterday through Thursday. (Girl's Camp in this case means a yearly church camping trip for girls aged 12-18. I think. I'm kind of hazy on the exact details. Somebody says "Girls Camp" and I hear "Doesn't Concern You at All Camp." Denisa's one of the people in charge this year. I try to be supportive however I can (printing up handouts for it, taking time off work so I can watch the kids for her, etc.), but I don't think I have a real handle on what actually happens there. I know there's some hiking and camping involved. This year, there's supposed to be a lot of raining, too. I imagine there's eating, and some sleeping. Probably some spiritual stuff. I'm great at specifics, aren't I?)

What am I doing in the four days? I'll be teaching two grad classes that I've had scheduled for quite some time (friends are watching the kids those days), but other than that, I'm hanging out at home, working on writing, playing with the kids, and cleaning the house some. Movies will be watched. Books will be read.

But it's always more fun when Denisa's here. Even the kids are figuring that out. (Although they do look forward to drinking Kool-Aid, since that's something Denisa doesn't typically tolerate. :-) They've also been wondering if I can take them to the grocery store, or--as it's known when I go with them--the junk food store. We'll see.)

Anyway--that's all I've got for you right now. Some big things in the pipeline, though. Just no news to share with any of you yet. Hope your day was lovely. See you all tomorrow.

Noses, the Olympics, and Die Hard: Vodnik Chapter Nine

We're up to chapter nine this week, and this is another one that has a lot of various odds and ends. First up is the Czech movie Tomas sees with Katka. You know the one I'm talking about--where a woman's nose goes on an international trip, all while still being connected to her face? The Czech and Slovak classic?

Yeah. That one.

I didn't make it up for the book, you know. It actually exists, and is called Tri Veterani. It is truly bizarre, from an American standpoint--but totally beloved from a Slovak one. It's times like this--when watching the movie with my wife--that I'm reminded how drastically different your views on life can be, depending on where you're raised. It's easy to assume that humans all share the same core values. And we do, more or less. But the interpretation of those values can really depend on your culture. What's acceptable and good in one place can be the complete opposite somewhere else. Not that nose-walking-movies is the perfect example of this, but it makes the point.

And yes, we own the movie. Haven't showed it to the kids yet. Maybe we need to correct that . . .

The experience Tomas has smelling food with Katka is also based on my experiences with my wife. She'll often tell me to smell some food to show me how good it is. Bread. Sausage. You name it. For the first five years or so, I had no clue what she was talking about. I'm slowly starting to come around, though. It helps that she's a baker, and that I've had a fair number of good quality sausages by now. :-) And I still remember the first time I was in Slovakia with her and we went to a bakery later in the day. The place was chock full of breads, and Denisa complained that the selection was really crummy.

Like I said--different outlooks on life.

And finally (MINOR SPOILER ALERT), there's Katka's seizures. In the original draft, she was just fine. Still slated to die, but it was due to heart failure, not a brain tumor. This was changed for a number of reasons.

• First off, if Katka isn't sick, Tomas finds out about it from Morena through complete coincidence. He was leafing through her death date book, and happened to see Katka's name. Having plot points depend on coincidences is something that should be avoided as much as possible.
• Secondly, putting the seizures in up front managed to make the earlier parts of the book have more tension. In the first draft, it took a really long time for things to develop to the point that real significant conflicts started to arise.
• Additionally, Katka's condition ties the conflicts of the book together better the more closely it's related to Morena and the vodnik. Tomas finds out the vodnik wants to kill him. He finds out his new best friend is going to die soon. And then he finds out the two problems are intertwined. Deal with the vodnik and Katka's death at the same time.
• Finally, Tomas finding Katka's death date by coincidence misses a chance for him to excel as a character. By changing it so that he has the foresight to look for her name in the book, it makes him more resourceful. In the earlier drafts of the book, Tomas had a lot of things happen to him. He was fairly passive, as far as characters go. Having a passive main character is a recipe for boredom. 

After the seizure scene was added in the second draft I wrote, the rest of the chapter didn't change too drastically--mainly because so much of it is scenery/slice of life details like shopping and the movie. But the more I write, the more convinced I become that having scenery/slice of life moments are a must in a book. Maybe not all books, but it's necessary to take breaks from the action now and then so that the characters have a chance to be people.

Think of the Olympics. A lot of people complain that NBC focuses too much on the people stories instead of showing the actual events. But I've watched the Olympics without knowing anything about the people competing. It's not even half as much fun. If you don't know the stories behind the competitors--the issues they've struggled with, the families they've come from--then the competitions don't mean as much. It's just a bunch of people trying to run fast, or throw something farther.

Yes, you can have a book or a movie with non-stop action. Just event after event after event. But I doubt you'd care much. Take Die Hard as another example. Awesome action movie. But it works as well as it does because it takes the time in the beginning to set the stage: to show that the main character has a family. Is trying to get back together with his wife. Or follow the teddy bear McClane is taking to his daughter over to Hunt for Red October, where the bear is a gift for Ryan's daughter (trivia: it's the exact same bear in real life. I know. I just blew your mind). They take the time there to establish what the characters want. What they're defecting for.

There's a temptation to leave out the boring parts, but here's a writing tip for you: parts that establish the stakes and the characters and the setting don't have to be boring. In fact, they may be more important to your story than a lot of the action scenes.

MP3s, eBooks, and 3D Printers: The Wave of the Future

Jonathan Coulton (famed musician of Thing a Week notoriety) has a fascinating piece up today about scarcity and the future of commerce, essentially. I highly recommend giving it a gander (although fair warning: there's a bit of salty language in there).

As an author and librarian, this is a subject that is very near and dear to my heart. Books--written information of any sort--have already made the transition into the digital world. Anyone with an eReader and the desire can download books illegally. It isn't difficult. As more and more eReaders go out into the wild, it's only a question of time before practically anyone will be able to read any book they want for free--no library involved.

The question, of course, is will they?

I'm not sure they will. Just because something is free doesn't mean people won't pay for it anyway. There are plenty of examples of this, from free music over the radio, free television over the airwaves, free water at public drinking fountains, free public sports facilities. MP3s are free these days, but people still pay for them. Why is this?

For one thing, you've got what I'll call the public water fountain effect. Some people just don't like having or using something they might get germs off of. Yes, MP3s can be downloaded, but many times you might end up with some other nastiness along with the MP3. Viruses, Trojans, Keyloggers--you don't know where that MP3 has been. I believe there will always be people willing to pay a reasonable amount of money for the assurance that what they're getting is new, clean, and unspoiled. This is why thrift stores can coexist with high fashion. It's all clothes, but there's a different audience for each level.

I also believe that many people are inherently good. When it comes to readers in particular, they develop a strong connection to their favorite authors. They want their authors to keep writing, and they're willing to pay money for those new shiny books. This is why hardcovers have sold so well over the years. Same information, radically different price point, but people pay extra to read it first. Even if you cut out all the publishers, agents, editors and the like (which you can't--I'll get to that in a second), readers will still want new stuff from their favorite authors. Authors who (speaking from experience) can't afford to write for free. Not at the level fans have come to expect.

And what about those editors, agents, and publishers? I believe that more and more, people will turn to them as the gatekeepers of quality. Not the sole gatekeepers. There will always be breakthrough authors--whether they're discovered by an editor or by an audience. But quality rises to the top. Inevitably. If you're writing at a high level of quality, sooner or later, you'll be found, and you'll be paid for it. Yes, some people might continue writing books for free, but unless there's a huge spike in the number of talented, independently wealthy writers out there, you don't have to worry about that subset of the group.

And it's important to recognize that authors don't write in a vacuum. That editors and agents contribute significantly to the process. They earn those paychecks, folks.

So will books become like Legos? Printable and indistinguishable? I don't think so. They're not interchangeable. It will be interesting to see what happens as 3D printing takes off. Laws will change. Behavior will change. But there have been imitation products for sale for a long time. Products indistinguishable from the original. People still pay good money for the original. Why? Because. It's new. It's real. It's authentic.

I suppose I'll end with an observation. A lot of the time in these "what will the future be like" articles (not in Jonathan Coulton's, mind you), writers focus on one aspect of society, taken to an extreme. I believe society changes and evolves in so many different ways that it's impossible to predict what will happen. Yes, piracy will increase. But industry will adapt. Laws will adapt. People will adapt. Libraries will adapt. Authors will adapt.

We all change. Change isn't bad. It's necessary, even if it can be scary sometimes.

Thoughts?

Off to Topsham: How to Organize Legos

I'm at a library meeting in Topsham today, so you're pretty much on your own, internet. Because I love you all so very much, though, I'm going to leave you with an excellent link that talks--in detail--about how to organize Legos. I forget where I came across this, but I've been looking for a good method for quite some time now. We're amassing an extensive collection, and for a while, I thought a series of fishing tackle boxes was going to be the answer. This seems much more effective--and cheaper--which is always a good thing.

Anyway. Hope some of you find it useful: http://www.evilmadscientist.com/2008/how-to-organize-your-lego-bricks-for-efficient-building/

See you tomorrow!

Obscure Netflix Movie Review: The Dam Busters

In my continuing Quest to Watch All the Movies on Netflix (so you don't have to), I took on The Dam Busters a few days ago. The premise was intriguing. WWII British movie made in 1955, focused on the efforts of the British to come up with a way to blow up strategically important German dams. (They were protected in such a way that bombs couldn't be dropped in from above, and they couldn't be torpedoed from below. So . . . WWII and science. Awesomesauce.

And guess what else? It was one of the films George Lucas used to edit the attack on the Death Star together in Episode IV. So it's geekily important to boot.

Did it live up to my hopes?

More or less. The pacing was a bit off in spots (ironically, the science parts were the best done, I felt. As were the actual action scenes. It got bogged down in the preparation scenes at times.) (It also has one of the most objectionable dog names I've ever seen in a film: it's the N word, folks. Awful that they used it. Also interesting that they switched it to "Trigger" for US releases, so clearly they knew they shouldn't be using it. Just goes to show how different the approaches to racism can be depending on which continent you're on. So if that word will upset you, avoid this film. It's in there a lot. Not the dog's fault.)

But overall, they managed to make a subplot of WWII into something that was inherently watchable. Good buildup of tension, and actually more or less historically accurate, judging by the bit of research I did after the watching. Directed by Michael Anderson, who also did Logan's Run and Around the World in 80 Days. If you're looking for a good, lesser-known war movie, look no further. (And comparing it to the Death Star scene in Star Wars, you can totally see the influence--very fascinating on a filmic level.)

Three stars, maybe a smidge higher.

(And in other Netflix news, I've now watched America's Sweethearts, bringing my John Cusak number of seen movies to 23. Verdict on this one? I enjoyed it, although I enjoy pretty much anything Cusak is in. I have no idea why. Denisa thought it was too vulgar in many spots. I did think it was ironic that a sweet romantic comedy had that much profanity and crude jokes. So take that for what it's worth.)

In Which I Realize I am Don Draper's Son, or, The End of Second Grade

I remember leaving second grade behind me. I remember my teacher: Mrs. Ramundo. I remember doing worksheets in math, going to Gifted and Talented, looking forward to recess, talking about Garbage Pail Kids (forbidden!) at lunch. Yes, these are distant memories, but they're quite clear, and there are quite a lot of them. I still recall what it felt like to sit in class waiting for recess to finally roll around. How the end of the year felt, with class work rolling down, parties ramping up . . .

It doesn't seem like that long ago.

And today, my son is through with it.

The other week, I came across some home movies of him. Movies where he's younger than DC is now. Those memories are clear enough that they might as well have been yesterday. I could close my eyes and step back into that, it feels like. Drive home, and still find TRC that age.

It's very strange to see my son entering into the space of his life where I can actually remember occupying. It's enough to make a guy philosophical.

We bought him a bike last Friday. He's already riding it like a pro. He did a much better job learning than I did. (As I recall, it took me weeks--though that might just be a remnant of how long days seemed to last back then.)

Part of me is very tempted to treat TRC the way I wanted to be treated at his age. To view his struggles as identical to the ones I went through. And in many ways, they are. But at the same time, in many ways, they're not. The summer when I was 8, the big movies that came out (big for me, at least) were Harry and the Hendersons, Superman IV, The Chipmunk Adventure, Benji the Hunted--there were hushed whispers of RoboCop. The original Legend of Zelda came out for the NES (still remember that awesome gold cartridge).

Internet? Computers? iPads? Netflix? Facebook? Cell phones? None of these existed. The reality I must accept is I am to my son (1987 to 2012) the way 1962 was to me in 1987. 1962! Manchurian Candidate, State Fair, To Kill a Mockingbird. We're talking Mad Men season 2. Don Draper's son in that? That's me growing up in the 80s to my son's point of view today. I am DON DRAPER to my son (minus the womanizing, the smoking, the poor parenting, the drinking, and the personality disorders, of course).

That's a hard pill to swallow, because like I said--I still remember looking forward to recess.

So just like the 8 year old I remember being would tell Don Draper's son to get lost--would insist that he didn't understand what I was going through . . . that's how my son views me. (Again, the analogy isn't perfect, but I'm trying to put abstract thought that's hard for me to wrap my brain around into a format that's familiar to me, and that's pop culture.) And frankly, Don's boy wouldn't understand being a kid in 80s, just like I can't understand being a kid in 2012. More so, probably.

And at the same time, things haven't changed at all. Kids are still kids. They're mean to each other. They have feuds. Homework is still hard. Chores are still a pain. As an adult, you recognize all these things. But I remember what the 60s seemed like to me growing up. Old. Ancient. The Jetsons. Flintstones. Andy Griffith.

My mind. It is blown.

Thoughts too big for a blog post today, folks. You'll have to fend for yourselves the rest of this fine Tuesday.

Vodnik Deleted Scene: Tomas Drowning

Guess what? I came across an even earlier draft of Vodnik today--the original first draft, that I only got halfway through before I decided enough needed to be changed that I should just start over from the beginning. This might not be that exciting to you, but I was tickled pink to come across it. I knew it existed, but I thought I'd just written over the original draft when I was editing it.

Now I know I actually kept a copy. (Which is very like me. I don't like throwing things away. Especially not digital ones.)

Anyway--one of the coolest things about it was that I found the original prologue, which I haven't read in six years. It's the scene where Tomas drowns as a child--something which is only referred to in the book as it now stands. Yes, some of the characters have changed personalities some in the meantime, and it's much darker than the final book became--but I thought it was cool enough that I wanted to share it with you all today. I'll resume normal commentaries next week. For now, I hope you enjoy . . .

Prologue

The festival was just winding down when Tomas saw him: a strange little man in a top hat and dressed all in green, sitting on a rock and piping on a small flute.  The man looked at Tomas and winked.  For his part, Tomas was suspicious.  His parents had always warned him about talking to strangers, but this was the day of the festival.  Over a hundred people had flocked to Trencin castle to meet and trade and do the various things medieval reenacters did, like fencing and juggling and archery.

Tomas looked around him.  There were still plenty of people there, haggling over last minute purchases.  The sky was free of clouds, and everything was bright.  He looked back at the little man, or to be more specific, at his flute.  Tomas was only six, and he loved anything that made music.

Finally his curiosity overpowered his fear, and he walked over to the man, who continued to play.  It was a strange song, full of runs and trills, and it reminded Tomas of the stream up by their cottage in the mountains.

When Tomas was close, the man took the wooden flute out of his mouth and held it out to the boy.  “Do you like it?”

Tomas nodded.

“I have another, you know,” the man said.

Now that he was closer to the stranger, Tomas noticed some details that hadn’t stood out as much from farther away.  First, even the man’s hair was green.  It flowed out from beneath his hat like water from a spring, and it matched the green of his hat and coat perfectly.  As for his clothes, he was dressed formally, in a suit with tails and a vest.  Curiously, he didn’t wear any shoes.

“Where are your shoes?” Tomas asked, his suspicions roused again.

The man laughed.  “It’s been such a long day, I took them off to relax a while before I went home.”

That was a reasonable answer, even to a six year old.  The man put the flute back to his lips and resumed his song.

Tomas listened to it for a while longer before he asked, “Where is the other one?”

The man stopped and smiled.  “Beg pardon?”

“Where is your other flute?”

“Of course.  It’s right over there.”  The man pointed up the path a little, toward the main keep.  “Right by the little pool.”

Tomas turned around to see where everyone else was.  People were beginning to break up and leave now.  He could see his parents over at the far end of the castle terrace, by the Lover’s Well, talking to Uncle Lubos.  Tomas always felt safer when his uncle was near.  He lived right next door to them, in the same building, in an apartment he had all to himself.  Tomas looked back at the man again.  “Can I see it?”  If anything went wrong, Uncle Lubos would take care of it.

The man leapt off his rock like an acrobat and smiled even wider.  “Come right this way, then.”  He held his arm out in invitation, and Tomas started up the path.  It was a steep climb for a six year old, but he was used to that.  When they got to the pool, Tomas looked around for a bag or a box where the flute might be.  There wasn’t one there, only a fire that was on its way to going out.  Smoke wandered around in the air, tickling Tomas’s nostrils and making him scrunch up his face.

“Where is it?” he asked.

“Don’t you see it?”  The man pointed.  “It’s right there.  By the edge of the pool.  See?”

Tomas didn’t.  He went forward a few more steps.  There was nothing there.  The pool had developed as runoff from the castle’s gutters had slowly carved their way into the rock over the years.  There was a large stone pipe that led into the ground, and a lot of stagnant, green water, but no pipe.  “Is this some sort of a trick?”

The man’s face turned serious.  “I assure you, it is not.”  He looked over his shoulder, and Tomas noticed that they had gone out of sight of the rest of the people.

In a flash, the man grabbed Tomas by the shoulders and jumped into the pool with him.

Tomas managed to get a gasp of air before he went under, and he struggled against the man’s grip.  There was no give at all, at least none that a six year old could overcome.  The water was dark--too dark to see anything except the dull light of the sun seeping down through the surface.  And none of this made any sense to Tomas.  He kept fighting, but his breath was running out, and his lungs were beginning to burn.  The man, on the other hand, gave no sign of tiring.

Tomas was saved as suddenly as he had been put in danger.  The water blazed alight, and he felt his entire arm sear with flame.  The pain was too much.  He blacked out.

#

His parents found him by the pool, stretched out and soaked except for his right arm, chest, and part of his neck, which were black with char.  Worse yet, he wasn’t breathing.  His uncle pushed them aside and rushed to the boy’s side, administering CPR quickly and efficiently.  After a few repetitions, Tomas coughed out an alarming amount of water, sputtering for air as his body automatically fought for life.  He opened his eyes for a moment, screamed, and then just as quickly lost consciousness once again.

The next ten minutes were a bustle of activity.  Some of Lubos’s friends made a stretcher, and they rushed Tomas down the hill to a waiting ambulance.  With a roar of sound and commotion, his parents and the boy were whisked away, leaving the rest of the revelers staring after the ambulance, confused.  How could a boy who was drowning receive third degree burns at the same time?

But night was coming, and tragic accident or no, they still had to leave the castle before closing.  Tents were packed up and wares put away, and Lubos, who worked as the night watchman at the castle, saw the rest of the group out.  Only once all the people were gone did two other forms emerge into the open, the little man in green from the pool where the boy had almost drowned, and a much different figure from the smoldering campfire next to it.

It was definitely a woman, but her skin, hair, clothes--everything about her was made up of what looked like solid fire.  Her hair was a burning red in the shape of a woman’s long locks, but where normal women would have strands of hair, she had strands of fire, each strand pulsing and flickering with the same light as the campfire.  Her skirt had stripes, alternating shades of flame, and her blouse was the blue of the inside of a candle.  Her skin was a lighter shade of orange, with her features well defined and beautiful.  The air shimmered around her, like it does above pavement on a hot day, and when she spoke, smoke came out of her mouth.

“You are an idiot.”  She glared down at the man beside her.

“Well why did you have to go intruding like that?” he said.  “You nearly got yourself killed.”

The woman shuddered, the fire inside her rippling as she did.  “I couldn’t just let you kill the boy.  He’s practically the only human left who can still see us.  Still talk to us.”

The man sniffed and adjusted his green tie.  “They don’t have to chat with me for me to take their souls.  What’s the difference?  They all talk to me once their dead.”

“The difference is he was my friend.”

This was met with a bark of laughted.  “Friend?  A human?  For a fire vila, you certainly have a strange choice of companions.”  He flicked his fingers, and drops of water sizzled where they touched her.

“You are a pest.  I’m just glad the boy’s out of your reach.  He’ll think twice before he comes near you again.”

The smile on the man’s face turned from one of enjoyment to one of contemplation.  “Ah, but they forget.  They always do.  I’ll get him eventually.  The boy’s uncle works here.  He’ll be back, and one day, he won’t be watching.”

“Not while I’m around,” the fire vila said.

The man looked at her.  “Of course.  I forgot about you.”  He shrugged and walked back into the pool, his head disappearing below the water, leaving only ripples.

The fire vila watched this happen, then smoothed off her blouse where the water had touched it.  While she was looking down at her clothes, the man resurfaced and let forth a stream of water from his mouth, right onto the few remaining flames of the campfire.

The vila shrieked in pain as steam hissed from her body.  The man kept up his spout of water, moving it around the fire and thoroughly soaking it.  The woman staggered to the edge of the water.  “Stop!” she managed to get out.”

The man shook his head and kept the water coming.

The fire vila was fading now, with large holes appearing in her clothes and body as first an arm, then her legs, and then her torso started to fade.  “The agreement,” she gasped, and then in a puff of smoke, she was gone.

“Agreement.”  The man came out of the water again and stomped a wet foot on the now sodden campfire.  “Outdated and overrated.  What sort of an idiot creature makes itself out of something so easy to get rid of?”  And with that, he walked off in the direction of the well, brushing off his suit coat as he went.

First Time Trawler: Fishing with TRC

A friend took TRC and me out trawling yesterday evening. (You know, for some reason, I'd always thought it was spelled "trolling." Go figure.) For those of you who don't know, this is a kind of fishing where you toodle around in a boat with your line trailing behind you, with bait that spins in the water, pretending to be a little fish. Bigger fish try to eat it, and voila! You've caught a fish.

We went out on North Pond (in case you were interested), and we caught about 50 fish (I lost count) in about an hour and a half. (My friend caught 109 in an hour when he went out last week with two other people.) If you don't typically fish, let me just assure you that that's an awful lot of fish. They're white perch, and there's no limit to the number you can keep of them. Still, we released about half. Most of them were in the 9-10 inches range.

TRC had a complete blast. For the first 45 minutes, he'd caught maybe 10 fish and I'd caught 2--he was feeling quite the fisherman. He was convinced the fish were coming to him because he was eating tic tacs. And I must say--once I ate a couple, I started catching plenty, too. So maybe there's something to it. (Or maybe my breath was really that bad?) By the end of the day, TRC was casting the line out by himself, reeling in by himself--he was doing everything but taking the fish off the hook once he brought it in the boat. (White perch are pretty scaly, with sharp fins. I cut myself on one yesterday while I was cleaning them.)

We stopped and fished with worms for a while, too. You could just see entire schools of fish at the surface, gobbling up whatever they could see. Put your hook in, and five seconds later, you'd caught a fish. It was getting to the point that it felt like cheating, it was so easy. They'd even bite at bare hooks. (You have to wonder what some of those fish are thinking. They've got a bunch of buddies at first, and then their buddies start disappearing, one by one. And yet they keep doing the same stupid thing they were doing. Maybe fish have watched too many horror movies.)

The most fun was definitely watching TRC enjoy himself so much. He couldn't stop talking about how much fun he was having, and how he wanted to do this all the time. I'm going to try and go get some poles for ourselves, and then take him out to some rivers and streams to fish. We don't have a canoe or a boat, but we can fish from the shore just as easily. I'll just have to make sure to wear some bug repellent. :-)

Pictures were taken, but I don't have any copies yet. I'll post them to my Facebook page when I do.

Happy Friday, all!

Portamancy Unleashed: A Discussion of Grittiness and Magic

Back when I went to Boskone a while ago, I made several new friends. One of them is none other than the illustrious Myke Cole--new author and fellow JABberwock (and future roomie at WorldCon). He was kind enough to give me a copy of his book, Control Point. And I responded by not reading it until now, months later. (Sorry Myke--my To Read list can be quite lengthy at times.)

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Military fantasy action conspiracy goodness. (It's definitely an adult book--for language and violence--but that sort of goes with the territory, ya know?)

I think the thing that stood out most to me about the novel was Portamancy--the magical ability to create portals to a different world. On the surface, this sounds fairly intriguing. Until you weaponize it, at which point it becomes fairly awesome. Control Point is very much a modern book. It takes place in the here and now, with the exception that magic is real. And while you could argue that many books take place in the here and now (like Harry Potter or Narnia, when it was written), there's usually a wide range of realism and grittiness.

To use movie examples, Black Hawk Down and When Harry Met Sally both take place in the present day, but on opposite ends of the grittiness spectrum. (Wouldn't a crossover mashup be awesome? When Black Hawk Met Sally?) Much of what writing a story is all about is deciding what elements to focus on. You could easily have a movie that starts out with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan falling in love, and then ends with them having a gun fight ala The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Guns exist in the world of Harry and Sally. But they're conveniently missing for the purposes of the movie. Just like romance and giggles exist in the world of Black Hawk, but they have no place in the story.

The same thing holds true for magic. At any point in Harry Potter, Harry could have been the victim of a drive by. Or maybe Ron gets gunned down, and Harry turns to a life of violence to get revenge on the random Muggle who killed his best friend.

Have I rambled enough yet? I've got digressions within digressions.

This is all just to say that when Myke has portals in his book filled with guns and explosions, they aren't portals to Care-a-Lot. His main character, Oscar Britton, discovers those portals act like razor blades when they open up. So you can slice someone in half with one. But he also learns how to use them to affect the physical world. Throw someone through one that leads to a spot 30,000 feet up in the air, for example. Or, of you're falling from that height, you could open one up that shoots you up into the air in the opposite direction, so now you're flying upward instead of falling. Then, just when you start to fall again, open one up beneath you and miss the whole splatting at the bottom thing. (Myke, you could actually use Portamancy to fly pretty effectively, could you not? That would be awesome.)

I don't know. I guess I just got a kick out of how Myke used what's often the mechanic to bring people into a world of wonder, and then turned that into a way to kill people. Maybe that says something about me. I'm trying not to overthink it.

(And as a final aside, one other thing I've been noting (hard to miss it these days) is how often books and movies are taking one trope and then throwing it into another to see what the result is. Everything from Shaun of the Dead to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Some do it well. Some, not so much. But I'm usually up for something new and different. I like the ones that do fresh things with it. The ones that don't try hard enough . . . not so much. Please also note that Control Point really doesn't fall into either category. This is just a thought that occurred to me while I was writing this post.)

In any case, if you like military action fantasy with a hard edge, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't check out Myke's book. (Maybe I should have just tweeted this post and saved us all a lot of trouble.)

Pro Dad Tip: Journaling with Children

I've been doing something with my kids now for a good four years, and just the other day I realized that I haven't told anyone else about it--despite the fact that I really enjoy it, and I think others would benefit from it. Not like it's rocket science, or anything, but I help my kids keep a journal.

How it works for me is simple: about once a week, I sit down with my kids and ask them to tell me about their day. I transcribe what they say, word for word--obviously, this is easier if you're a fast typer. The key to me is to capture exactly what they say and how they say it. I started with TRC back when he was in preschool and only four years old. I've started with DC even earlier.

This is a great thing on many different levels. First of all, it's something I can do for my kids that I think they'll enjoy in later years. I remember writing a journal when I was little (like 8 or 9). I've since lost it, and I have no idea what was in it. I would really love to have it back. For my kids, I store their journals in the cloud. No risk of losing them. They're backed up.

Sooner or later, they'll take over their journal writing on their own--although I might keep having them do the journal with me, even once they're writing solo. I keep a daily journal. My blog is honestly a better depiction of my thoughts and actions, but I keep doing the journal because I'm never sure when I'm going to have something important to say. When I do, I know I wouldn't write it down unless I'm in the habit of doing that every day.

My kids love to read what they've written before. They love it the same way they enjoy watching family movies. I love these journals because they're practically a time machine for me. I can read them and be back at that instant, remembering writing them with them back when the entry was first created. I don't know . . . something about it connects me with the past in a different way than videos and pictures. Maybe it's because I write so much already.

The entries aren't always long. And they're not always on what was happening that day. Sometimes my kids would rather have me transcribe stories they make up. Other times, I have to ask a few questions to get them started talking. But it takes only a few minutes, and it all adds up over time.

Anyone else out there do this with their kids? Any questions about how I do it? Feel free to ask.

This Mormon's Take on Gay Marriage

Whoa boy. This isn't really a topic I've had any desire to write about over the years that I've been blogging--despite the fact that Mormonism and gay marriage have no small amount of . . . history. I don't typically like or enjoy opening my virtual mouth when it comes to hot topics like this, and that's why I've done my best to steer clear.

So why have I decided to tackle the subject today?

Good question. I think some of it has to do with this post. If you don't feel like clicking over to read it, it's written by a gay Mormon who's been married for ten years and is finally coming out of the closet publicly. If that guy could come clean with who he is and what his take on all this is, then me writing a simple column on my blog should be easy peasy.

No. I'm not gay, if that's what you were wondering.

But I am Mormon (not like that's a big revelation on this blog.) Many of my most popular posts have been focused on me explaining why I believe what I believe. Many people have been at least somewhat interested to read about it. So today I'm tackling gay marriage.

Joy.

I think most people are aware of Mormonism's stance on gay marriage--meaning, we're against it. (Officially, the church has endorsed nondiscrimination ordinances in matters of housing and employment. It's the rights that go along with being officially married that are the hang up.) And I think in many ways, the Mormon church has been set up to be a bit of a punching bag in this arena. We're all against it, we're homophobic, we're dated, we're . . . whatever other mean label you want to attach to us.

My hope in writing this post today is to explain why I personally believe what I believe. Why this issue that so many people have told me should be a clear cut, easy decision (and I've had people on both sides tell me this) is actually pretty darn complex when it comes to me personally.

To adequately explain my views as a Mormon, you have to understand what I believe. First and foremost, I believe there is a God. We're His children. To me, the issue of whether God exists or not isn't affected one whit by what I personally believe. It's a factual thing. Every human on Earth could decide to not believe the sky was blue. Their lack of belief in a blue sky wouldn't make the sky turn green. Belief doesn't affect facts. Either God exists, or He doesn't.

Assume for a moment He does. Mormons believe that the purpose of life is to get to know God better. Understand the rules by which He lives His life, and become more like Him. We believe our church is the one true church, that Christ is at the head of it, and that He leads the church through revelation to living prophets on Earth today.

(Yes. I know that above statement can come across as very insulting, particularly to believers of other faiths. But this post isn't about which church is true. It's about why I believe what I believe. I don't mean to put down your faith--Mormons also believe that all good people can be saved, regardless of which religion they belong to right now. But that's a post for a different time. One huge topic at a time, please.)

If you don't believe God exists, then yes--this whole gay marriage thing becomes a lot simpler. Humanity can muddle along as best it can, making the decisions at the time that seem like they're the best choice available. But I believe God does exist. Why do I believe that? Because I have had personal experiences in my life that show me He does. I've experienced first hand things like direct revelation, spiritual healing, prayers being answered. These events in my life are not up for debate. They happened to me, and nothing anyone can tell me will change that fact.

So for me--a believing Mormon--life isn't just about doing what I think is best. When I was a missionary, I met a lot of people who wanted to find a religion that agreed with them on everything they already believed in. I don't particularly think that's how religion works. It's not a self-help institution. It's not about finding a place where you fit in. Religion--to me--is about finding out what God wants you to do. Chances are, you're doing things God doesn't want you to do. No matter how sensible and reasonable and splendid a fellow you are, some of those thoughts and reasons are going to be off base.

(In many ways, this reminds me of some conversations I've had with my kids. They think themselves very grown up, and they think their issues and problems are quite complex. Yet some of the things they come up with are . . . very inventive, and in no way based in reality. I love my kids, but eight and four year olds just don't have a complete grasp on how the universe operates. I think God likely says the same things about us often. "I love my kids, but forty and fifty year olds just don't have a complete grasp on how the universe operates.")

Because we humans are an imperfect lot, Mormons believe God calls a person on the earth to be the prophet and leader of God's church. This prophet receives revelation for the entire church. Today, the prophet is Thomas S. Monson. Is all of this making sense? So to a devout Mormon, when the prophet speaks, he's speaking for God.

It's through prophets that many of the things Mormons do (or don't do) have come about. That whole no drinking coffee thing? That's from a modern-day revelation. And I think a lot of the public perception problems Mormons have today stem from non-believers looking at some of the things we Mormons do and trying to explain them through secular means.

Take, for example, another sort of marriage we Mormons had a run in with over a hundred years ago: plural marriage. For decades during the mid to late 1800s, some Mormon men had more than one wife. Why? Prophets said that was what was supposed to happen. Much of America derided Mormons for this practice. And then, just as Utah was trying to become a state, the prophet received a revelation ending the practice of plural marriage.

"How convenient," the world says. The secular explanation of all of this is that Mormon men wanted to shack up with a harem of Mormon women, and when they wanted to become part of the US, they decided to magically have God tell them to stop.

Take another hot button topic for Mormons: blacks and the priesthood. Prior to 1978, blacks couldn't get the priesthood in the Mormon religion. That had been the policy for over a century. Then, just at the tail tail end of the civil rights movement, the Mormon prophet get a revelation saying blacks could now have the priesthood.

"How convenient," the world says. Mormons decided to get with the program, culturally speaking, and poof! Another revelation telling them to stop doing that mean discrimination thing they were doing.

I'm not an idiot (usually). I know how this all looks to a non-believer. But then again, if you look at things a bit closer, you'll see that if all of this revelation was happening for the sake of convenience, it would have come a whole lot sooner. The church is dealing with fallout from polygamy and accusations of racism to this day. If those revelations had come earlier, much of that fallout might have been avoided.

And there are other areas where the church hasn't bowed to public opinion. Women still aren't allowed to have the priesthood, for example.

But if it wasn't convenience that caused these revelations, what was it?

My answer? I don't know. Why in the world did the church wait until 1978 to give blacks the priesthood? I have no idea. God didn't think the church was ready for it? I could come up with a slew of reasons, but they'd only be conjecture. Why was polygamy fine and dandy one minute, then against God's will the next? Dunno. Again--there are some reasons that seem to make sense, but when you get down to it, it's all conjecture again.

And you know what? This makes sense to me. There are times when my son asks me a question, and I want to answer him completely, but I don't. Why? Because I know a complete answer is going to go right over his head. He won't get any of it. The same thing happens in mathematics. I remember when I got to calculus (it's been a long time, folks), my teacher explained that some of the "facts" we'd be told were rock solid weren't quite so rock solid after all. They were incomplete explanations that had been simplified to make learning the basics easier.

Mormons believe the organization of the church is changing and evolving over time. That's what modern prophets are for. Right now, the prophet has spoken out against the legalization of gay marriage. Why?

When you get down to it, I don't know. There are a lot of reasons I could try to come up with. Some of them might even be the right ones. But again--I truly don't know, and so to provide some explanation would be off base, in my opinion.

So why do I go along with it? I have friends who are gay. I have many more friends who are staunchly in favor of gay marriage. I like these friends. I like to consider myself to be a pretty darned open-minded person, for a Mormon. I don't think of myself as bigoted or homophobic. (But then again, I realize that bigots and homophobes rarely do.) In part of my circle of friends, being against gay marriage is definitely a no no. It's so obvious to people why gay marriage is fine, and any religious person who gets in a huff about it is just being short-sighted and rude, forcing their own world views on the rest of the world.

But you know what? I think a lot of what the world thinks these days is completely off base. I'm constantly dismayed at how romantic love and sex is portrayed and thought of as the ultimate trump card. In an unhappy marriage? That's okay--just have an affair. That's what Hollywood would have you think, at least. Not married? No problemo. Sleep together as much as you want. Sex is looked at more and more as an inherent right: I should be able to have sex with whomever I want, whenever I want.

I disagree with that sentiment.

Just remember. I have a strong belief that the worldview of Mormonism is the true one, not the worldview of the world. I don't think there's been a time in history when people have taken a look at themselves and said, "As a species, we're pretty darn stupid." There was a time when everybody knew the world was flat--even though it wasn't. Everybody knew the sun circled the earth--even though it didn't. The best way to cure a sick person is to cut 'em open and let 'em bleed. Lead paint is perfectly safe. People are constantly thinking things that just aren't true.

I don't mean to diminish the issue of gay marriage. I realize how serious it is, and how important it is to so many people. But I also believe that my understanding is limited. For now, the prophet has said to be against gay marriage. Why? I'm not entirely sure. Is it too much to think for a moment that there might be ramifications caused by something? Consequences we don't see in the here and now? Of course it isn't. That's what prophets are here for--to help us make decisions when we have a tough time making those decisions.

And so people will read this and accuse me of following blindly. Of just turning over my decision making processes to another person. I hope that if you know me, you'll realize that's not how I operate. I've thought this matter through. I've prayed about it. I'm not against gay marriage because someone told me to be. I have a firm belief that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly, but wrongly, referred to as the Mormon church) is true, that it's led by a man who speaks with God, and that this current position against gay marriage comes from God.

Fine, people will say. If you don't want to support gay marriage, then don't go out and get gay married. Why have my religion butt its head into other people's lives? Setting aside the morality of the issue (which I'm doing my best not to touch with a ten foot pole in this post), my belief is that God wants what's best for His children. If the prophet advises against something, it's not because God feels like being particularly vindictive right then. It's because that advice is what's best for us at that time. That might change. But remember, I believe that the God I believe in is the only God out there, and He's your father just as much as He's mine--even if you choose not to believe in Him.

I do my best to try and understand how other people think and feel. I would hope people would do the same for me. I know some people who read this would say the obvious thing to do is to leave the church. Anything that teaches something that people define as hateful and discriminatory can't be true. But again, to me there's a distinct separation between what we define as hateful and discriminatory. My son thinks I'm an absolute jerk when I make him do his chores or don't let him have a third helping of dessert. I don't think it unreasonable that humanity still doesn't understand everything God does.

I know I'm the worst guy to be writing about such a sensitive topic. I'm white. I'm American. I come from an upper-middle class background. I'm male. I'm straight. Look up "privileged" in the dictionary, and there's my smiling face, right next to Paris Hilton's. I know it's hard to be non-white, non-American, non-male, and non-straight--theoretically, at least. I've never been any of those, after all. And I never will be.

I see the writing on the wall. I see that the country is headed toward accepting gay marriage. Does that fill me with dread? Am I worried my marriage will evaporate once it's approved? No. Humanity is really good at not doing what God wants us to. No killing. No lying. No adultery. How are we doing at all of that? Not too great. Has the world imploded yet? Nope. Life continues. I'll be happy for my friends when gay marriage is approved. Something they've really wanted for years will be here. I won't have taken part in that. In fact, I'll have been an obstacle to it. I won't be convinced it's the best thing for the country, but such is life.

Will the Mormon church ever come out in support of gay marriage? Again--no idea. I personally would be quite surprised, but stranger things have happened. Realize that according to Mormon doctrine, marriage is eternal. You're still married to your spouse after you die. You can still have children in the next world. That's one of the reasons of the entire universe. And try as people might, two men or two women can't have kids. Yes, they can adopt or have a surrogate, but you need a male part and a female part.

Anyway. I'm a bit typed out at this point. Hopefully some of this made sense. As always, I'm open to comments and questions. All that I ask is that they stay respectful--on both sides of the issue. I will delete anything dismissive or demeaning toward gay marriage or (as is often the case with articles on Mormonism) toward Mormons. So keep it civil.

When Pop Culture and Mythology Collide: Vodnik Chapter Eight

A big ol' mish mash of material ended up in this week's chapter. You've got the Roma elements--Tomas seeing some of the poorer Roma in town, and then talking to his mother about them. Then you have the pool scene and another flashback to Lesana. So much to discuss, and so little time. So I'll pick something I've been wanting to write about for quite some time.

One of the things I wanted to touch base on was a last minute minor crisis that arose in the writing of the book. Back when I was researching Vodnik, I had a big brainstorming session with my wife, and we went over all the different mythological Slovak creatures she could think of. One of my favorites (other than the Vodnik, of course), was Zubata. According to my wife, she was death personified. Sometimes she appeared as an old woman, sometimes as a young lady. Sometimes she had gold teeth. That was just crazy wacky cool, and I decided right away to put her in the book, after confirming some details about her with my brother in law.

I didn't think any more about it, until we were in the final stages of getting the book ready for print. I was trying to nail down exactly what Zubata looked like, and I started doing some research (sometimes a dangerous thing, for a librarian). I found out through that process that . . .

Zubata doesn't exist in Slovak folklore. As I mention later in the current book, she's actually a character from Perinbaba (aka Frau Holle), a super well-known (in Slovakia--and East Germany at the very least) fairy tale movie from 1985. Let me try to put this in perspective. Imagine someone was writing a book based on American folktales (assuming we had a slew), and he threw in a character called Indiana Jones, who's well known to be a whip slinging archaeologist who saves lost historical treasures.

How would that go over?

Um . . . yeah.

I want to be clear here--it's not the fault of my wife or her brother that this goof happened. I think it's just a natural part of the creation of fairy tales and folklore. Lots of creatures have entered the folklore cannon (in my opinion): Rudolph, Frankenstein, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Jedi, Scrooge--you name it. People tell each other stories all the time. Some of those stories catch on in the collective conscious. Over time, those stories evolve. Hundreds of years from now, who knows what will be viewed as folktales? Growing up, it's not like kids distinguish between stories: there aren't "Modern Stories" and "Folktales." It's all just stories.

So it makes sense that, when asked what Death was like in Slovakia, my wife fell back on the most popular depiction of Death that she knew of: Zubata.

Luckily for me, I was drawing on a universal trope. Death is kind of everywhere, and all cultures have some form of depicting it. Also lucky for me, the traditional Slovak goddess of death is Morena. (I found this out through a whole ton of last minute searching. Gotta love them library skillz.) So the crisis was averted, and I even threw in some of this into the book, by starting to call Morena by the name Zubata, and having her be frustrated with that later on in the story.

Crisis averted.

As for the rest of the chapter, I did want to touch base on the poorer Roma. One my biggest objections to the situation in Europe as regards to the Roma is that people say "Roma are like _________ because they are Roma." That just goes against everything I believe in. People behave the way they behave for any number of reasons. Upbringing certainly has something to do with it. So does the environment they're raised in. And just their inherent identity--the whole nature vs. nurture debate. It's complex as all get out, and it certainly isn't due to some inherent racially-set desire to steal or cheat or do whatever.

Are there Roma who steal and cheat and do whatever? Yes. Lots. But do they do it because they are Roma? Please. There are plenty of people in this world who steal and cheat and do whatever. Humanity does that well. In my experience, people are all people. And it's always easier to blame the Other Guy for all your troubles. That happens in practically every society. Find someone Different, and stick them with the bill for all your woes. Absolve yourself of any wrong doing. They do the bad things because they're different. You would never do those things.

The sooner was as a global community can recognize that this happens on an individual, community, and national level, the better.

And now I'll get off my soap box, and you can resume your normally scheduled Monday activities.

Thoughts on ePublishing--Harder than You Think

While I was out at CONduit, I was on a panel focused on ePublishing. It was well attended (as all ePublishing panels seem to be these days), and people had many questions. Enough that I decided I really wanted to write another post (assuming I already have written one, which is likely, but I'm too lazy to check) about the topic.

When you get right down to it, there are a slew of people out there who write books. Some have never finished one. Some have finished many. And almost all of them want their books to be published. The dedicated ones come to cons, hoping to find the secret to How to Break In--like there's some special handshake or initiation rite, and that once you've done that, voila! You're making millions and drinking tea with JK Rowling.

Then they discover that there is no secret. That everybody ends up taking a different path. That there's some luck and a whole lot of hard work involved, and that in the end, it all comes down to writing, writing, writing. (Seriously. Even once you're published, you still write write write. That's what it's all about, folks. If you're thinking you'll be published and then, like Johnson, Navin R. in The Jerk ("THINGS ARE GOING TO START HAPPENING TO ME NOW"), life will be different. Guess what? You'll still be sitting in front of a computer screen, wondering if what you're writing is garbage or not. Editing. Revising, Wracking your brain for ideas. It's all exactly the same. I don't want to disappoint you, but there it is.)

It's at this point that many people these days start thinking there must be an easier way. Simpler. Smoother. And there's the siren song of ePublishing. Free! Bahzillions of people will be exposed to your work! Put it up on Amazon. Amanda Hocking! You can approach it like a gateway drug. Put your first book up for free, and then when all the peoples are blown away and hooked, start charging the fools money! You're make thousands! Millions!

Um . . . no.

Here's the thing. You're not the only one who's had this idea. In fact, there are tons of people there already, trying to do the same thing. (In contemporary fantasy, there are 7,198 books listed right now. Tons of them are free. Why in the world is someone going to read your book? How will they find it? Let's assume you've made an attractive cover (note: you can't sort Amazon books by "attractive cover"). And you've categorized it well. Here's what 7,000 pennies looks like:

Your book is one of those pennies. Yes, you can plug it on Facebook. You can Tweet til you're blue in the fingers. You can email all your friends. Write guest blog posts. Lurk in dark alleys of the internet, peddling your book to every passerby.

And maybe some people will buy your book. For free.

I'm not trying to rain on your parade. I'm trying to be realistic here. If you're an excellent marketer, then you're one step ahead of the rest. If you've got a really popular blog, great. Just realize that every minute you're promoting your book is one less minute you're writing the next. And remember, it all comes down to writing. So unless you're independently wealthy or have an abundance of extra time . . . ePublishing is going to be a very very hard road to walk.

In my opinion, harder than the road where you get your writing to a level where agents and editors want to publish your book. Because in the end, you've got to perfect the writing. When I was in band, we had a saying: "Practice softly, play loudly." What it meant was that when you were just learning how to do something, it was often better to do that learning on your own. Not out in public where everybody starts to think of you as "the guy who can't play his instrument well." Once you've got everything down, you can come on the scene and wow them all. But first do the practicing.

The same thing goes for writing. I worry that a ton of people who want to jump on the ePublishing bandwagon are doing it because they want to take a shortcut to getting their books in the wild. Often, it's the time you spend working, writing, revising, and agonizing over your writing that teaches you how to be a better writer.

You don't want to take a shortcut around that. Trust me.

Anyway. Those are my thoughts, and I'm sticking to 'em.

Happy Friday, all. See you next week!

Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead

I've watched  my fair share of documentaries about the food/nutrition/obesity crisis in America. It seems like five more get made every day (seriously--isn't there something else to documentarize about?) So when Denisa said she wanted to watch Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead, I wasn't exactly enthralled with the idea. Yes, I need to eat less and exercise more. Do I need to watch another 1.5 hour movie to remind me of that fact?

In many ways, this movie isn't much different than many others. It starts with an Australian explaining how he's fat and has developed some immune deficiency things with his body that he has to take medication for, and how he hopes going on a juice diet for 60 days will cure all of the above. So he juices and juices and juices, talking to a slew of people across America about what he's doing, and getting fairly expected answers.

Until he meets a trucker.

And it's what happens after that that set this movie apart from the rest for me. I don't want to spoil what happens next, but I found the whole film to be quite inspiring, albeit in an "I'm not sure at times if this is an infomercial or a documentary" sort of way. Joe Cross, the Australian, is a big believer in juicing, and he has a website now that talks all about it. Some of this makes sense--it's helped him in his life. But I still can't help but feel like the movie is in many ways an ad platform for his juicing enterprise.

Then again, the film makes some pretty darn good observations. A lot of it boils down to "garbage in, garbage out." How should I be surprised if I don't feel well if I only put junk into my system all the time? (Granted, this movie came along to me at a very opportune moment. I'd just spent the afternoon talking to a friend who's given up processed sugar for the most part. I found this out as we were eating lunch, and I made my way to the dessert bar (two glasses of chocolate milk, three big cookies, a butterscotch pudding, and a brownie--they don't call it "all you can eat" for nothing, folks). He didn't get anything, and explained why.

I still finished all my desserts, then went back for a lemon bar later.

Then I watched this movie at night.

Sheesh.

Am I planning to start juicing? Not really, no. I feel like a lot of times people overreact to things. We're eating junk! No more carbs! Only juice! The key is moderation. Of course, it's easy to eat in moderation if you set hard and fast boundaries for yourself--"I will eat only juice for 60 days." It's pretty easy to tell if you're cheating on that diet. "Am I eating something other than juice?" Yes or no answer. Compare that to "Have I eaten more than ______ calories today?" That one involves a lot more calculation.

That said, I do think I need to pay more attention to what I eat, and I'm glad Denisa does a lot of that for me. I've been debating avoiding the processed sugars, like my friend has done.

I'm just not sure if I can do it.

Sigh.

That said, I want to be healthy. I'd like to be in shape. I'm sure eating better would help me feel better and sleep better. No doubt in my mind. The question is how much motivation I need before I actually do something other than blog about it . . .

Any of you out there seen this movie? Thoughts?

Movie Review: The Conspirator

Denisa and I watched The Conspirator the other day. It's the true story of the defense of the mother of one of the conspirators who assassinated Lincoln. That's a bit convoluted, isn't it? Let me explain. Yes, John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln--but he didn't do it alone. He had help from others, and they'd planned to not just kill Lincoln, but several other heads of state. They hatched their plot at the boarding house of one Mary Surratt, mother of one of the conspirators. After the plan went into action, they were all rounded up and tried for their parts in the scandal--and the mother was taken in, too.

This movie follows her trial, and it tries to be as historically accurate as you can expect a Hollywood depiction of the events to be. I quite enjoyed it.

First of all, you've got a really good team assembled. The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) directs. The Princess Bride (Robin Wright) plays Mary (and when did Robin get old? That's not allowed to happen!), Mr. Tumnus (James McAvoy) plays the reluctant defense lawyer, and Otto (Kevin Kline) is the head of the war department, set on hanging everybody he can. (Have you ever thought how cool it would be if actors played one of their previous roles in a different film? I wrote a book that had that as one of its founding ideas--except for books, rather than movies. But maybe it's just me who thinks that would be neat.)

Really, where the movie shines is also where it gets bogged down at times: it's "greater meaning." Redford has a tendency to politicize with too heavy a hand in this film. McAvoy is a young up and coming lawyer with big dreams. He thinks Mary is as guilty as sin, but he's roped into defending her against his will. Naturally, once he gets to know the specifics of her case, he starts to see how she might be innocent, and he ends up defending her too vigorously against an administration eager to be able to pin the assassination on a few individuals, kill them, and then let the country "move on." This movie has a Theme, and that's both a strength and a weakness. It gives it something to shoot for and aspire to, but we're hit over the head with it occasionally.

Redford put a lot of care into the historical aspect of the movie, and if you're a history buff, this would be right up your alley. The costumes and setting are all top notch.

In the end, one of the reasons I'm giving the movie a solid three stars is because it helped me see a slice of history in a different light. I think a lot of the time we read history books and imagine that an entire time period or event can easily be summed up on a few pages. The Great Depression was depressing. Everybody was jumping out of windows or starving. The Cold War was a time when everyone was worried we'd get nuked any minute. Life isn't like that. I imagine in sixty years, history will have relegated the Great Recession (or whatever they call this time we're living in right now) to a few pages, as well. But from what I've seen so far, life is life. It continues in one decade more or less how it did in another. There are shades of good and evil. The Civil War era was no different.

Yes, the movie can be heavy handed, but in the end, it doesn't go too far. Reading up on the trial afterward, it appears to have presented things more or less how they happened, and I can respect a movie for that. If you're a history or legal buff, this is a movie you'll enjoy, I think. If you want explosions and a rollicking plot line, move on to the next.

Anyone else seen this? Thoughts?

Relationship Success: Institute a Statute of Limitations?

So I was thinking some yesterday (as I am know to do from time to time). Actually, I was reading an article in the Ensign (the Mormon monthly magazine) discussing relationships, and it had this piece of information in it:

Personal attacks and dredging up incidents from years past were specific things I didn’t want in our marriage.

I'll admit that I've been as guilty of this as the next guy. (Assuming the next guy is guilty of it, that is. I mean, maybe I'm the only one who does this. In which case, I'm even guiltier than the next guy, who's completely innocent.) I have a good memory. Say something once to me, and if it sticks out at all in my head, then I'm good to go with that comment for the REST OF YOUR NATURAL LIFE. Just ask Denisa. She'll say something in passing, and then who knows when I might whip that comment out to prove or disprove a point during some future discussion.

This isn't fair.

I know this isn't fair, and yet I've done it anyway. (Please note: Denisa and I hardly ever disagree. I know you don't believe this, but it's true. We were play-bickering over how to load the dishwasher the other day, and TRC said, "Guys. Don't fight." I blinked in surprise. Clearly TRC hadn't really ever heard real fighting. I consider that a sign of success thus far in my marriage. Because Denisa and I have yet to really have a real fight. But I won't get into all of that. We've had our fair share of discussions.)

Anyway. I read that quote, and it struck a chord with me. Suddenly I thought--in an all-at-once sort of thought--that what I really need to do is institute a sort of statute of limitations on things that happen in my marriage or in friendships.

People change. It doesn't happen quickly, but it has been known to happen. People also do and say things they wish they'd not done or said. They make mistakes. They do something intentionally, and then later regret that they'd done that thing. And the law has a way of dealing with that. There's a time and place to bring charges against someone, but after a set period of time, that time and place ceases to exist. (For most crimes. Serious offenses have no statute of limitations, and I think this goes for a marriage, too. Abuse of any kind, for one thing.)

So what would such a statute look like in a friendship or relationship?

I think for one thing, it would mean something like "If an issue has been aired and resolved more than a year ago, that issue can be laid to rest. It's no longer fair game to be cited as incriminating evidence in the future."

Now, as I think about this, there are always some things that keep cropping up in a relationship. Consistent disagreements or misdemeanors. And typically what will happen, is that when one of these rears its head again, someone will cite the long history of that issue happening over and over again in the past. I guess this statute wouldn't apply as much to long standing issues. Those are things that need to be ironed out. But things that happened in the past that aren't being repeated now--but which are used as "ammo" when some other argument springs up?

Against the rules. You can't do that.

I'm not sure about all of this. How it would actively work in a relationship? The kernel of the idea is there for me--and I agree with it--but as I'm trying to express it in this post, it seems to be escaping me. Can anyone else see what I'm getting at?

Comments/Thoughts?