Reading Kafka

So I’m reading a collection of Kafka’s works, which is nice and all but horrendously frustrating. Almost all of his stories (he wrote both longer short stories and a bunch of flash fiction) were incomplete and unfinished and abandoned (as much as one can abandon flash fiction, I suppose).

In fact, he even asked that upon his death his literary executors destroy everything he had ever written. Thankfully, his wishes were mostly unheeded and his work was collected and published.

But this brings up an interesting feeling in me. When I think about the idea of writing and not even considering publishing (in fact, destroying the work) I’m aghast. Absolutely horrified. To me, there is nothing more wrong or more misguided.

I know it’s a personal philosophy kind of thing. Many writers write to write, but I couldn’t do that. I need the idea of an audience. I would not write if there was nobody to show it to. Without an audience, I would find another medium. I continue with the novels because I know that they’ll have an audience out there, just because I know they aren’t terrible and I know that some people would enjoy them. But not having people who have read them is a deterrent even now. Never having anyone read them would destroy my motivation.
I suppose it’s a difference in perception. The act of writing is private and lonely, but I don’t see any reason to keep it that way after the fact. I’d rather revel in what I’ve done, giving it to all who would take it. I’d rather stand up and talk about it and listen to people talk about it and put myself and my work forward to scrutiny and criticism. I need an audience. I need a receiver for my voice.

I suppose that’s the difference between the traditional reclusive writer like Kafka and a burgeoning literary rock star, such as myself. I don’t do it for fame, exactly, but I do it for the audience. I write for those who read it. Otherwise there’s no point for me. I’m very particular about what I write, sure, and I don’t pander, but … what I really want is people to read my writing.

State of Blog (ver 1.1) Why Blog, Again?

When I started this blog in late November of last year I asked myself a question: why blog? The answer I gave seemed sufficient. But in truth, it didn’t really address the question. It was little more than a mission statement: the world of an aspiring writer as he takes steps towards refining and hopefully selling his work.

But that wasn’t really the full answer, so far as I can see it. So that’s why we’re here again. The question returns, in a bit of metablogging retrospection I’d like to call the State of the Blog Address.

You see, the problem with giving you the up close and personal view of what it takes to be a writer is that being a writer is a long, abstract, fairly boring process. I sit and goof off, until I write a bunch of stuff down. I do this for two months. Then I sit on it, until I’m ready, then I spend two months going over everything I wrote and make it better. Rinse and repeat with new ideas.

If I only made my blog about when something relevant happened in my writing, I’d be posting maybe every two weeks. Probably more like three or four. And I want to blog more regularly than that. Or … not regularly, but at least with a higher frequency. Regular is for regular people, and I’m not. Just consider me your irregular literary rock star.

So the blog really isn’t about writing. For an author’s blog, I talk about writing and the process and my books almost none. Instead, the blog has become more of a statement on life. Part philosophy, part observation, part sounding board. It’s limited only by what I do with it. And as such, it’s grown past a place for writing-related news. Instead, I want it to be something more.

To create one must have experiences. One can’t create in a vacuum. If you live in a Skinner box, you are only going to be able to create based on the reality of your Skinner box. To be successful at creating one must make a normal life look like a Skinner box and go beyond the mundane to something much different and more interesting.

So that’s really what my blog is about. It’s about finding the content in everyday life. To blog with anything resembling frequency I have to continue to pull worthwhile things out of my day to day experiences, which are repetitive and not worth talking about more often than not. It’s a practice in insight and world view. There’s as much interest as I make there be.

So everything I write is written to help me connect to the world and connect the world to my writing. There is no vacuum, I write in the world I perceive, and if I can mine ideas out of it I will be stronger for it. A writer must have an eye for the worthwhile in the worthless. The moment in the noise.

So my writing blog isn’t about writing, but at the same time it is. Writing has to have content. We don’t just write words. We write meanings and purposes and images. This blog is for me to express myself one-on-one with an audience, sure, but it’s also a content-generator. What comes to me here helps inspire and reinforce the mindsets and attitudes that push me to continue to make new fictional content.

The hope is that it’s useful. That my kind of slanted world view appeals. In a way, it’s a direct line to the kind of themes and ideas that will make up my eventual fictional works. Somewhere a long way down the road, I want people to be able to read a novel by me and read a blog post and say “this is clearly related.” The blog will be the nonfiction centerpiece of a fiction writer.

A writing blog should aspire to no less.

On Religious Freedom

WARNING! This post makes no attempt to be fair and biased about religion--a topic near and dear to people's hearts. If you're easily offended when someone attacks religions in general, please skip this post. I think my points are valid, but if your faith is of that silly 'unassailable due to righteous indignation' type, we're going to be unable to hold a discussion here. kthx

So I'm an ordained minister. I've been one for a week and a half now, ever since Tuesday, January 8th, 2008. I figure I should remember a date like that, because ordination is supposed to be a pretty big deal, one of those things that you remember with a piece of paper and maybe a party but you certainly remember the date.

In becoming ordained, I guess I've chosen a religious affiliation. So, as of the time of my ordination, in perpetuity, I am a member of the Universal Life Church (ULC). The ULC is not a Christian organization, though they welcome Christians. I suppose that in the truest sense they are nondenominational. All people are welcome to join, no matter their faith or beliefs. There are no dogmas to the Church, and there is little in the way of official services/facilities in the traditional sense.

What they do offer is instant ordination to anyone who wants it. You join the ULC, provide your name and address, and they will officially ordain you in their faith. In doing so, you have all of the various pluses of being an ordained minister (monetizing your practice you're taxed like a minister, which is good and bad), among which is the legal ability to perform wedding ceremonies.

If this sounds a little shady and underhanded, instantly being ordained online, then perhaps you're looking at it the wrong way. The ULC has won through multiple legal battles the right to ordain whoever they wish into their faith and for their ordination to be as valid as that of any church, be they Jewish or Catholic or Protestant all the way down to Pastafarian or Jedi (do we really have official ministers in these religions? Doubtful).

What is important is the bias of our government and lawmakers towards religious institutions. Marriage can be conducted by a Justice of the Peace, but the power also resided in the ordained ministers. In fact, marriage is one of the only legal powers granted to an ordained minister over Joe Blow on the street. However, the criteria for ordination are typically conflicting. Many religions force someone to adhere to a strict credo, go to seminary or other similar religious school, and then devote their life to a congregation in exchange for little more than an inflated sense of self-importance and one more legal right.

The ULC wishes to take this power out of the hands of the few, and into the hands of the many. When we believe that to be an ordained minister requires that kind of time and dedication, we set up a state of power in which there is a religious elite that we feel should have more. That kind of mindset states that we should be subjected to the decisions of a religion minority who not only are more entitled than we are, but also deserve to have more legal power because of the strength of their religious convictions.

I believe this to not only be false, but harmful to society and the individual as a whole.

Religion is an inherently very personal thing. And one that has forever been entangled with the legal systems of all countries, despite efforts to pull the two apart. However, when God is on our money and in our Pledge of Allegiance and our highest governmental leaders regularly point to their faith as a guiding factor, we know that those efforts are more or less superficial. They claim religious ambivalence, but we've already shown that they're willing to grant superior legal status to a religious official over a 'normal' person.

However, in doing so they perpetuate the system of the religiously devout being pulled into a higher state of power. As a mostly Christian country, it's no surprise that the Christian special interests hold significant sway over the workings of our government. That is because on some level, people are raised to believe that those men and women who go through religious indoctrination are somehow more valid in their opinions than anyone else. Ordination grants legitimacy, a holy sanction that makes them freed from the confines of most secular concerns.

This could not be further than the truth. Ordination is not a structured thing. A religion might enforce schooling and devotion to weed out all but the most faithful (and most controllable) but there are options to grant the same legitimacy in 5 minutes sitting at your computer. In the eyes of the law, my ordination and that of a man who paid thousands of dollars to go to a seminary are entirely equal in rights and legitimacy.

And the same rights and privileges are open to everyone. We do not have to exist in a state where the religiously devout are granted greater rights in the eyes of the law. I want to be clear on this; ordination IS NOT a matter of faith or religion. It's supposedly tied to that by traditional religions, but that's mostly as a way to further the legitimacy of its ordained ministers in the eyes of the laity.

Instead of seeing it as an enlighten minority, see it for what it is, a system that grants rights based on supposed faith. This system of allowing greater rights to a religious official just undermines the separation of church and state that our government purports to be under (and I believe should be under). And it's not picky about it, mostly because it couldn't afford to be without angering too many people. In the eyes of the government, any religious official is inherently granted higher rights than a normal person; for no reason other than a religious institution says they are worth granting rights to.

This is why the ULC exists. It does not enforce a faith, because it isn't about faith. You can be whatever faith you are and be a member of the ULC. It opens its doors to all peoples of any walk of life. It does not require you to go to school for your faith. While it might be important to do so in more dogmatic religions, in ULC your personal beliefs are inherently your religion and there is no way to teach you what you believe.

And most importantly, it has no qualms about granting you rights that are supposed to belong to a privileged few. You sign up, and it will give you what is supposed to not be for you, but those in power. And you have just as much legitimacy (if few resources, admittedly) as a Catholic Priest or a Protestant Reverend or a Jewish Rabbi. You have the exact same rights as these people instantly, should you choose to take them.

It's only when we choose to take freedom for ourselves that we show that we truly value it. I believe that the more people who accept their freedoms and as much autonomy as they can, the further we can wrest power from the minority and into the hands of the majority. The best place to strike is at faith, that supposedly unassailable bastion. When we take true religious freedom as an individual, instead of under the control of those who took this freedom and didn't tell you you could do so, too, we say essentially 'I will not allow someone to have more rights than me because they claim to be more pious.'

Religious freedom, the freedom to practice as you believe and the freedom from control by people who would abuse the religious cracks in our legal system, is an essential step to freeing oneself from oppression by those who would gladly subvert your freedoms for you when you remain silent--or ignorant.

More information on the ULC, ordination, the legal status of ordination, and the various requirements to perform marriages legally ( some states have more requirements than simply being ordained, but the ULC offers services to help meet those requirements ) please visit the ULC website at www.themonastary.org or www.ulc.net.

On Striving, Philosophy, and Myself

So last night I was witness to something amazing. I don't know exactly how one would describe it, maybe a … personal awakening? Regardless, it was completely empowering. It made me feel as if I wasn't completely insane. I felt justified. Even if I had nothing to do with it, really, I felt justified. I want to see more of those. I want to make them happen, like lighting off fireworks or folding paper cranes. Just create them by my existence. That would be very rewarding.

And then it was brought to my attention today that my personal philosophy is lacking. Lacking what? Mostly a name and structure and concrete themes. I have one, of course. And it's actually extremely sophisticated and well-developed. But it's all in my head, and it's an amorphous mass determined in no small part by the whims of the moment. I've allowed my emotions to override my better sense before, and that's from a lack of structure.

So I'm tempted to formalize my philosophy into something more concrete. It wouldn't be a book, per se, but a kind of treatise paper. I don't think I would ever publish it formally, either. Mostly because it will be a doctrine of insanity and paradox, fueled by a very interesting stance on the world. Also, I would NEVER presume that it would be a finalized doctrine. I am in a constant state of flux, and as my understanding grows I regularly change my mind on even very simple topics. So formalizing a published document would kind of back me into a corner in the eyes of most people who don't accept chaning your mind as a matter of enlightened living.

So I might hash something out, and I might even make it available to people who are curious. But I'm not going to expound upon it as the new philosophy for our generation. If it continued to hold true when I'm older, I'll unleash a refined version of it upon the world. Until then, it's not really something that I feel is suited to unleashing.

The main reason I do it is because of my writing. A good part of the reason I write is the ability to touch people. Fiction inherently gets under people's barries by presenting fictionalized situations and sympathetic characters and whatnot. Once it's there, under people's barriers, the theme becomes all important. You can write a book to entertain, and that's a noble enough pursuit, but books can also contain within them deepseated convictions and truths that you wish to impart to the reader. That is what I do. That is what I aspire to.

The problem is, without a structured philosophy, what I instill is largely devoid of conscious control. Which is why I've always struggled to know what I believe about almost anything. Even when it's wrong, I need to have an opinion. Without some viewpoint, something other than ambivalence, how can I effectively put forward any philosophy or viewpoint as inherently my own and worth knowing through my works. Knowing myself allows my themes to happen naturally as an extension of what I believe.

Let's just examine the main themes of my first three novels:
Margot: The death and corruption of heroic ideals in the face of 'rationality'
MS: The importance of asking 'why do I do what I do' and the power of creativity
WTC: The necessity to choose true life over the alternative options.

And both Margot and WTC contain within them the belief that reality is what we make of it, no more and no less.

These are all themes that are greatly personal, and very much in line with my philosophies. Without slowly gaining an understanding of my philosophies, I would not be able to develop these themes, I would not be able to properly instill them in my works. In the end, they would be hollow entertainment. And like I said, that's a noble enough pursuit, but I would never settle for it. I write to inspire and teach and provoke thought, entertainment is just the vehicle for those goals.

So maybe I will work on my philosophy. Its something to do. And putting my thoughts into words usually helps me with all that I do. In the end, it might be best for me to draft something up. So that when I need to, I can refer to it. So that I have a baseline on which to operate. So I have a structure with which all new things can assail and hope to topple.

Because the best part of creating a structured philosophy will be the pleasure I have in making it fall apart with some eventual revelation. Death to dogma. Death to stagnation. Death to death. Embracing the capacity to change is the true gift of humanity. Or at least, so I believe.

Stages of Mind - A Process

I had an interesting day yesterday. Spent a good portion of the day doing some reflection and learning, and accumulated a few things I felt were worth incorporating. When I find something to incorporate, my mind seems to undergo a particular process. Almost always the same. I explained it to a friend of mine, and he found it quite a useful metaphor. So I told him he could have it, if it helped. And now I give it to you.

We examine the world through the lens of our perception. We see as clearly as the lens allows us, and all things are interpreted through that lens. It's tinted, of course, based on the experiences and opinions that make up the matter of the lens. But it's our lens. It's all we've got, so most of us treat it well (assuming we realize it exists).

When something new is encountered, something powerful and worth incorporating, it typically strikes the lens. If your lens is built to accept new things, the lens will shatter. All of the sudden, you have the explosion of thousands of fragments of self and awareness exploding through space, a solid becoming a cloud of potential as a new thing is found and works its way into the cloud of glass. You only have to be aware of this expansion process. Know when it happens. And let your mind explode with the new potential of whatever you've found. Let your awareness explore the cloud, and see the strange new potentials of the thoughts that fall in shards. Look for that thing which pierced your lens and caused this trouble. When you find it, you'll be ready to begin the next step.

Once you've discovered the new thought, it's time to evaluate. All these pieces are scattered, and you'll gather them up. Don't worry, you don't have to fit them together. Instead, they will all lie there in a pile, and your lens will no longer be a lens, instead it will be a kaleidoscope. The kaleidoscope sees many things at all different facets. For the time you're using the kaleidoscope mind, all things will be seen from multiple angles. Opinions all seem valid. Viewpoints seem transparent and you'll be playing devils advocate with everyone not out of spite, but simply because you see the other side just as well. It's all there in a jumble.

This is the time to figure out which viewpoints you agree with again. Done properly, you'll know what your new thought or idea or belief is, and you'll know what it touches, and you'll examine those things as they relate to the new thing. Take your ambivalence to opinions as a time to examine your own and see the other side. Look at the many ways of approaching something, as opposed to the singular view that is typical when you have the lens mind.

Slowly, the kaleidoscope will fade, and you'll be left with the mirror mind. The mirror mind has once again melded all of the various pieces into a single existence. Yet, that existence should be turned inward before it'll be turned outward. The mirror mind is deeply introspective. It looks into the heart and soul and tries to come to terms with what it finds there. It is sometimes brutally honest and critical. It is sometimes good at pushing buttons. But it's a good thing, usually. It allows you to rediscover yourself with this new viewpoint. It allows you to get further and further into who you are, to help create a solid center.

Over time this mirror grows transparent. And as it does, the focus swings from inward to outword, and you're left with a lens. A lens similar to the one that you had before, but with a slightly different curvature. It looks at the world with a slightly altered tint. You will see things just that slight bit differently. And the hope is that it will help you engage the world on a more useful level. Refined, perhaps, or maybe wider as opposed to refined. But more suited to how you need to engage the world in the present.

This can happen all the time. Sometimes it happens more than once. Sometimes you'll be struck with a huge number of new thoughts, and the gathering takes forever as you find multiple new pieces. Sometimes the kaleidoscope mind has new thoughts that grow in the tumult and rise up and start the process all over again. Sometimes you skip steps, and when you gather the pieces that turn transparent immediately. Or the kaleidoscope becomes a lens. Or the mirror is struck from the inside by some revelation and you never see a lens in that cycle. Whatever happens, happens.

This happens to me quite frequently. And over time I've come to recognize each stage as it comes. I like knowing the process, even if I don't fully understand it. And perhaps you also will take something from it. If you do, that's great. I'm very happy. If not, that's okay to. I don't presume that this is the only way of existing and thinking. Just mine.

Rule Number One: Writers Write

"You certainly seem a more dedicated writer than I claim to be."
- comment sent to me

Here's a writing topic worth writing about. Something that I know about (sort of), have struggled with (before still and in the future) and something that I feel I can speak about and do it justice (sort of, again). Writers and writing, the eternal conflict between the two of them.

There are many people who want to be writers or claim to be writers but find trouble understanding the profession and what it means to be a writer. "I can't find motivation" they say. Or "I can't find time." Or "I have no ideas" or "my writing is terrible so I don't write." For all the writers in the world, there are a great number of them who don't write. Who are afraid of or even dislike writing. I'm not picking on the friend who sent me this comment. It just inspired me to go ahead and address this issue now instead of later.

I will tell you the hidden secret to being a writer! I know it, and it's deep magic, pulled from the depths of a great wealth of experience and angst. I quested into the past and into the present far and wide looking for the answer, and I finally found it sitting there in a shining treasure chest on a far off island where the natives always tell the truth and the visitors always lie. And I opened that chest, and what did I find? A chorus of angels. Heavenly light. And the answer to writing.

Writers are writers. What does a writer do? Writers write.

Huh? You might scratch your head. I certainly did when I ran into that pearl of wisdom. Writers write? Surely there must be more than that. Some sort of trick. Some sort of know-how. The secret society of writers where they all band together and give each other some potion that motivates them to produce written works. The Brotherhood of the Pen or something equally evocative and enigmatic. And alliterative, also, apparently. (That's a triple and then QUADRUPLE alliterative score, for those of you playing along at home.)

But I'm here to tell you what every writer will tell you after a while, amateur and professional alike. There is no secret society. There is no secret, even. There is no mystery to our profession at all. Writers write. What does that mean? That means that we put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and make words. That's what we do. We consider that our goal and our focus. I don't care if you're a journalist, a novelist, a poet, or whatever. A writer is a writer is a writer. We all have got to eventually write words. That's what makes us who we are.

And it's not easy. Let nobody tell you writing is easy. It's pretty neat seeing the professional writer, sitting there talking about his novel, the small compact book sitting on the shelf. You look at it and think to yourself: gee, that's so small, how hard could it be? That writing gig looks like cake.

I laugh everytime someone says that. It's a very, very bitter laugh.

Writing is hard. Excruciating. It goes against how our bodies and minds are programmed to work. It taxes your creative energy, your logistical skill, your emotions, and most likely your time and your health (both physical and mental). Writers, especially creative writers, have an abnormally high rate of mental illness and suicide. Nobody's sure why, but take it into consideration. Writing is a demanding job. It's not for those without will or perserverence.

And that's the key. What separates that 'one day' writer who sits and says "I'm a writer and one day I'm going to write a book!" or heaven forbid, "one day I'll be a writer" from the person who actually does it? In the end? Willpower, self-discipline, and hard work. If you continue to say "one day I'll write" you're setting yourself up for failure. You WILL NOT become a writer with that mindset. You won't ever find time, you won't ever be hit with motivation, the muses will not drop mystical fairy dust laden with ideas on your head.

If you want to be a writer, you only have to do one thing: write. Write now. Write today. Write immediately after reading this. Write while you're reading this. I don't care. And I don’t care what you write. Write a poem. Write an essay. Write a short story or a novella or a novel. Write trashy fan-fiction. Just get online and look for 'writing prompt' and write a short bit on the prompt. It doesn't matter how much or how little you write either. You can write 50 words or you could write 50,000. Do it now. Don't wait. In fact, stop reading this and write something down. Like I said, I don't care what. Come back when you're done.

… I mean it. Go. Now. We'll talk when you're done. I'll still be here.

…

Done? If not, you should feel guilty, and either go write or recognize that you might not have what it takes. Not terrible, just something you'll have to make peace with. Now, if you did do what I asked? Guess what: you're a writer. "Really?" Yes, really. That's exactly what I do or any other aspiring dedicated writer and it's exactly what James Joyce did and its exactly what Frank Herbert did and its exactly what Tolkien did and its exactly what Stephen King does or anyone else who you admire or trust in the literary world. It's no different. No magic formula. We sit down and we write. Most of us probably started slow, and waited for that brief flash of inspiration. It doesn't come. It might dance in front of you like some sort of ghost from time to time, but it goes away faster than you can capture it. Guess what? I've done that. More times than I've thought about. Chasing the will-o-wisps of 'inspiration.'

And if you're the struggling writer, wondering why you can't write everyday, you have two choices. You can ignore me and keep waiting and always wait and wait for the inspiration that won't come, or you can sit down and put words on a page. If you can only write 500 words one day, that's fine. The next day sit down and write again. Don’t judge what you do one day based on another. Just write. You won't like it. It won't be fun. It'll feel forced and your writing will be terrible.

Do it anyway.

If you actually listen and write every day, you'll find that you get in a habit. You might not like it, and it might not be fun, but we're creatures of habit and once it sticks we won't feel right if we don’t write. And when you feel like you're not doing enough, do more. Don't set an upper limit. Having an expectation is fine, but be realistic. Don't expect to just start pounding out 5000 words a day. Or even 1000. Or even 500. Just write. Find what you think you can do and try for that. You won't make it every day. Don't beat yourself up about that. When you beat yourself up you just cause anxiety the next time you write. Accept that sometimes plans go awry and write the next day as if the day before never happened. And if you write well one day, twice or three times your limit? The next day you're going to sit down and write again. No celebration. You're a writer. You don't celebrate. You write.

Don’t have the time? That's untrue. If you can't find 15 minutes in your day, then you need to reevaluate your priorities. Either one of your hobbies is more important than writing or you're doing an unhealthy amount of required activity. And if its your hobbies, look at them carefully. Are they more important than your writing? If yes, then you're probably not very seriously considering being a writer, and you might want to look at changing your mind about what you want to be. If you're unsure how serious you are, cut down on a hobby for a few weeks and write. Just 15 minutes, even. That's fifteen uninterrupted minutes sitting at your word processor of choice (or notebook or typewriter) and writing. Don’t think. Don't talk. Don't surf the net. Just write. Make words. For fifteen minutes. Then go do whatever else you're doing with your day. Come back in a few weeks and read this again, and see if my words make sense. If they do? Congrats, you've solved the great puzzle of writer-dom. If they don’t? Maybe writing isn't for you.

But don't wait. Don't ever wait. Writing isn't a job anybody's going to make you do. You have to fight for it every step of the way. You have to make the time and use the time and write like its going out of style. Because guess what? It is going out of style if you don't stop it. You're the only one who can make you into a writer. I can't do it. I can help give you advice, but you have to make that choice and make that leap. If you don't decide to be a writer now and write now you never will.

So stop claiming to be a writer and feeling guilty about not writing. Stop saying 'one day I'll write a book'. You won't. Don't lie. Either put up or shut up. Good intentions don't buy anything, and talk is cheap. Only the words you create will prove your intentions. I'm not asking you to present me a novel. Just write. Anything. Do it because you want to be a writer. Learn to love it. You can learn to love it, even if you don't believe me. Don't do it for the approval, the money, or the acceptance (because let me tell you, there is none). Do it for yourself. Do it because you have the burning thoughts in your head and the desire to make the words come alive. Do it because you know in your heart that you should be a writer. It's simple. Write, and you're a writer.

I believe in you. Now you have to believe in yourself.

Good luck, and good writing.

On Limits, Exhaustion, and Burning Out

So I've hit that interesting point of tiredness. I'm so tired that I sleep poorly. My eyes hurt. My head hurts. My body is in that tired state that I feel almost sick but I know that it isn't sickness but a great weariness that has settled deep down into my bones so entrenched that I can barely see it for what it is.

I've never felt better.

I've come to recognize certain things about myself, and one of them is the fact that I'm a sucker for my own forms of punishment. Not in a hugely masochistic, self-destructive sort of way. Don't get me wrong. But I like the adversity of things. And when I create my own adversity I don’t have to go looking for it.

I've been writing hard and long, lately. I know some writers make it a habit, but I've been writing anywhere from 2500 to 4500 words every day for the past seven or eight weeks. The days I've taken off can be counted on one hand. While I've been doing this, I've been working my day job, reading, trying to keep a social life, gaming, watching movies and anime, and starting up my blog and providing for my future plans. Not to mention getting involved in the NaNo community locally, meeting writers and forming bonds. Not to mention getting ready to move this Saturday.

This is not my typical state of being. I'm a lazy fellow. Or I always have been. Left to my own devices I tend to settle into well-known, poorly reaching patterns of thought or action. I lounge. I sloth. I letharge. I invent poorly conceived verbs.

But lately that hasn’t been the case. I was worried, a while back, that I would eventually reach a point where I became devoted to my art. Where I would become the 'crazy writer' who was all about his books and his dreams and ideas. I saw this as some sort of self-destructive behavior. Something to be avoided in favor of 'grounding' in that thing people call 'reality.' But somewhere along the way, I became that thing.

Not on purpose! I just resolved to write every day sometime in the middle of MS. And then I did. And it got worse and worse. Now when I don't write every day, I feel terrible. I feel like I haven't showered or brushed my teeth. I feel like I haven't eaten. It's something completely essential from my day missing. So I write, at least something. And specifically I write my novel. After writing no more than … oh, 30,000 words a year for the past four years, this year I've written somewhere to the tune of 250,000. That's a staggering jump. I finished Margot early this year. I started and completed Marton Syan. I began and just crossed the 70,000 word mark on WTC.

It's like some sort of burning torch in my mind driving me. And the more things I take on, the more I want to do! What seemed like an impossible time demand a year ago has become something that I do without blinking an eye. I write every day. I don't think I'll stay that way, but I'm going to try. And I find myself with so much more mental energy! So now I want to do all of these other things. My enabler, Tony, has labelled it my Ever-Expanding List of Wonder. In that I'm always reaching for something new with a crazy, manic sort of exuberance. I like that label. I've accepted it. Because it's true.

And so I'm tired a lot. And I keep pushing myself to this strange place where I'm so tired that I find energy everywhere. I have a few days left until I move, and that will probably very nearly wipe out the last of my reserves, but I'm looking forward to it. Each time you push yourself to your limit, your limit expands to accommodate. And you become that much stronger the next time. And so I push. And I will continue to push. And when the long-coming, inevitable burnout comes, I doubt I'll fall too far. And I will have all that potential at reserve to build back up to. I'll keep writing until it kills me. I'll keep adding to my EELOW until I'm a whirling tempest of idea and intuition and insane notions and aspirations.

I've become that crazy artistic fellow. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Affected Youth

I'm reminded, reading The Bell Jar, of the subsection of society that has remained the subject of media for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, the subsection that I most find myself relating to in a surprisingly real, honest way. This group includes literary figures such as Telemachus, Steven Dedalus, or Holden Cauffield. In movies the best example would be James Dean, though there are examples in many younger actors and actresses. A more modern example might be Leonardo DiCaprio. This group is marked by people, usually younger people, who hit a point in their life where they become disillusioned with the norms of the environment around them. When the people begin to crush in and the opinions of the masses grate just too much and these people reach a point where they have to break away. When they embrace the different and the difficult and the 'anti-social' in order to challenge what they believe and hopefully find their place.

This group has been typically labelled the disaffected youth, but I dislike that term on principle and would recommend another one. Disaffected is such a negative term, with such negative connotations (especially in today's overly positive, sugar-coated social schema) that it calls to mind a bunch of burnt out hippie slackers doing drugs and getting into trouble and whatnot. That kind of image misses the point. That kind of image is more damaging to that group than it needs to be. So I propose another name.

Affected Youth are just that. They are those who have been affected. Disaffected, by definition, is an aggressive, divisionary term. It creates the disaffected youth as a group who has lost faith in, or trust of, authority figures. And while that is certainly a hallmark of someone in this subgroup, it isn't everything.

The Affected Youth are not those who have simply lost truth or faith in authority figures. If that was the case, the common 'disaffected' label would be applied to anyone who goes against the establishment group. Yet that doesn't seem to be the case. Instead, let's look at where the disaffected youth label is applied most commonly, and see why that application is faulty but does refer to a specific social group.

Most disaffected are youths. They are typically highly intelligent, though perhaps not formally schooled. They typically came from traditional upbringings, though this isn't always the case. They typically are introverted types, described as 'serious' or 'mature for their age' by those around them. They typically feel alienated by their peers. They typically remain skeptical of adults but prefer their company to that of people their own age. They typically like to press buttons and boundaries. They ask lots of unanswerable questions.

I'm sure everyone knows the type. It doesn't just have to be youths. 'Youth' implies an age bracket, but that's not the case here. I'm using youth as in 'one who is young' with young being a metaphysical mindset of youth where minds are uncertain and impressions are made more quickly and both belief systems and mindset are in a state of flux.

And that's really the key here. The affected youth isn't alienated because of some sort of rebellious impulse. There are rebels and there are affected youths and sometimes they're both in a person but they don't have to be. But what makes an affected youth so alienated is a questioning nature that is finally coming into a place of power. It isn't a typical counterculture 'let's blow of the man' mentality, but it is a mind that has come to feel some sort of wrongness about the status quo and is now looking for the meaning behind it and their place in it.

And that's why I choose affected. There are people in life who never hit the affected youth stage. It doesn't always have to be angsty, semi-depressed detachment from all that is 'normal'. It can be much healthier. But it does have to be a period of asking questions such as 'what is my place in the world?' and 'why do people believe _______?' and other questions. The Affected Youth is a person who sees the world as it is and is deeply affected by it. They feel a call to change something. A dissatisfaction with the status quo. And this is what drives them to slowly begin the process of determining what it is and what they can do and who they are that is different enough to make them the person to do it.

The people who don't ask those questions typically (not always, but typically) are those that end up just blindly supporting the status quo. Terms I've heard for them include 'normals,' 'old folks,' 'sheep people,' 'society at large,' and 'zombie-citizens.' They are usually marked by a closed-mindedness that borders or is willful ignorance, the inability to even consider questioning the status quo, a complacent discontentment with their lives and the world around them, and a general lethargy when it comes to any sort of pro-active life action.

What does this say about the affected? It means that they are the ones who are coming awake. The ones who see the world in a more critical way. The ones who at least think about changing their place in it. I believe that to blindly accept one's place in anything is the sign of a mind that is closed and dead. The affected youth might have their problems, and they might be prone to failure in their endeavors, but they do at least turn their minds to the question. Asking that question is what is most important. The development of the attitude of not accepting what's presented as 'true' and forging your own path is the way towards becoming a truly realized person with all the potential that comes with it.

I'm a card-carrying member of the Affected Youth. I'm proud of that fact. And I look towards a time when I can move past it into the place beyond (which I've stepped into and do step into from time to time) without losing the nature of the Affected Youth. Even the next step beyond, the Clay Existence, and the step beyond that, the Purposeful Life, can take from the questing, unaccepting nature of the Affected Youth. The Affected Youth is the enemy of dogma.
And as we all know, dogma becomes stagnation becomes death.

IMO.