From the Vault: How to Survive Living with a Writer

From the Vault: How to Survive Living with a Writer — Blue Ink Alchemy

For the benefit of my new flatmates, here are some tips on living with a writer!

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Courtesy Floating Robes One of the most popular posts ever over at terribleminds is this one, entitled "Beware of Writer." He also penned a sequel that's just as worthwhile to read. But let's say you've ignored his advice. You're going to fly in the face of common sense and good taste and actually shack up with one of us crackpot writer-types, in spite of the tiny hurricanes of impotent rage and the nigh-constant smell of booze. Here's a couple things to keep in mind that may help you keep from running screaming into the night.

Writers are Finicky Bitches

In addition to being very easily distracted (if you didn't know, we are), writers can get new ideas all the time, at the drop of a hat. It's not uncommon for a writer to have a few projects at work at any given time. Let's say our subject is working on a novel and some poetry, and all of a sudden gets an idea for a new tv series about puppet detectives. It's not enough for us to be distracted by video games or movies or pet antics or offspring or bright flashing lights or loud noises. No no, we need to distract ourselves on top of all of that. Writers either drift in a slight miasma of barely cognizant perceptions as they indulge in their distractions, or they're frustrated by efforts to reassert their concentration on something they're righting. It can make a writer seem bipolar. And if they really are bipolar, woo boy you talk about fun times!¹ Surviving this as an outsider requires a metric fuckton of patience. Either you will be asked to participate in some sort of odd habit, or you will be all but ignored as something new distracts the writer. You can go along with it or rail against it, but the important thing is to remind the writer that they should, at some point, write. Yes, you may get bitten over it. That's what the rolled-up newspaper is for. Aim for the nose.

Writers are Masters (and Mistresses) of Excuses

You're going to catch a writer not writing. This can be like catching a teenager with their pants down and making them explain the nature of the self-examination they seem to be enjoying. You just need to keep in mind that procrastination is perfectly natural and lots of writers do it. There are even some writers who encourage other writers to procrastinate. Before I stretch that metaphor any more uncomfortably, the important thing to note is that writers will tell you all manner of tall tales in an effort to avoid your scrutiny. Especially if said writer's bailiwick is fiction. I mean, come on, these people lie for a living. Or at least as a primary hobby. Of course they're going to tell you space monkeys invaded in the middle of the night and that's why the lawn hasn't been mowed or the dishes remain unwashed. Damn dirty space simians!² Just as writers need and, if they're responsible and good, want to be told when something they write doesn't quite work, writers also need to occasionally be called on their bullshit. "Space monkeys? I don't see any poo on the walls other than your own. It's time to shut off the Internet and make some more of that word magic happen, pooplord." Your exact wording may vary, but you get the idea.

Writers Do, In Fact, Want to Write

So let's say you're keeping a writer focused on the now. You're getting them to help out around the house. They're watching the kids. They're cooking meals. They're renovating your siding and keeping you in whatever it is you like to do when you're not working. Guess what they're not doing? If you guessed "writing", you just won a bigass shiny No-Prize! Congrats!³ Take a look at any writer pontificating on the need to write, and you'll see something emerge. There's definitely a deep-seated compulsion there. On top of any other madness or psychosis, a writer needs to write. Yes, the writer may procrastinate, putter around, put off writing because writing can suck a big fat one from time to time, but at the end of the day, writing is at the core of who that person is, otherwise - Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? - they wouldn't be a writer. So do them and yourself a favor. Take the kids for an hour. Put the video game down yourself. Mow the lawn or wash a few dishes. Just give them space, and a little bit of time. If it's been a while since they've written, you bet your ass words will happen while you're tending to chores. Or you could not, and they'll resent you in a deeply personal way. Your call. I think this may be the biggest key to surviving life with a writer. Giving a little measure of time to write, moreso than calling them on excuses or distractions, relieves the pressure in their minds and helps them get closer to their goals. And the writer will love you for it.

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¹ I can't say anybody acted all that surprised when I was diagnosed as bipolar. There was plenty of relief that legitimate psychosis wasn't involved, though. Not that the doctors could detect, at least. Suckers. ² They're rude as hell, too. Coming in the middle of the evening and keeping me from finishing a blog post with their howling and poop-slinging and I was researching League of Legends champion builds and got distracted from finishing this last night I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry please don't bap me with the newspaper again. ³ Actual contents of No-Prize may vary, from "absolutely nothing" to "sweet fuck-all."

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Change Isn't Always Fast

Change Isn't Always Fast — Blue Ink Alchemy

Have you ever walked into a room in your home, be it yours specifically or just one you tend to occupy, and look around with a feeling of "Boy, I have got to clean this thing up"? That's been my feeling regarding this website lately. I've never had a whole lot of success selling myself. I have some ink here and some recognition there, but it's difficult not to feel put off by a litany of rejection that is evident with even a cursory glance. And while I can't necessarily do one specific thing that will magically make all of that do a complete about-face, there are steps that can definitely be taken to make it easier to present a marketable, business-like face to the public. So in addition to other work I'm doing, I'm looking into the best way to push the blog to a sub-section of the site, and put a better face up front for folks to see. I know it's been done by others (Chuck Wendig for one), and I'm curious as to the best way to go about it. This is part of a plan I need to define for and impose upon myself to make change happen. It isn't easy, and it's not always fast - in terms of personal growth, it's never as fast as we'd like. But I didn't move out here to not change things. As always, I am open to suggestions. That's what the comments section is for!

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Masks Off

Masks Off — Blue Ink Alchemy

I've had kind of a shitty week. I haven't heard from recruiters. Barely a word from the dayjob leads I'm pursuing on my own. I've had difficulties in maintaining focus, getting words out, not being pulled into discussions on the Internet. Hell, I finally went to bed at a reasonable hour last night, and I still didn't rise again until most of the morning was gone. I'm pissed at myself, which is kind of dumb, since I have no conscious control over whatever the chemicals in my brain are doing on a day to day basis. I'm not even on any drugs. Nothing fun, at least. It's all vitamins and mood stabilizers and cholesterol regulators, and even those are starting to run dry. (The last two, at least. I've got vita-gummies for weeks.) The thing is, waking up and making coffee and sitting here, a thought occurred to me. I could do an extensive write-up on the experience I had yesterday with some GG folks who were actually nice to me, and answered my questions logically, and the really terrible knot in my stomach that I got afterwards. But I'm not going to. For one very simple reason. I'm not getting paid for it. I'm going to write the article. I'm going to give my observations on the phenomenon, how it's grown, what it does - really does, in spite of what happened yesterday - and what it could mean for the future of gaming culture. But I won't be putting it here. It's going to get pitched. I'm going to write about the appeal of old games and why GoG announcements make me giddy. I'm going to write about the reasons why I'm finding myself playing Old Republic so much lately. I'm going to write articles from the perspective of a cantankerous old bat of a gamer who wants the Candy Crush kids off of his goddamn lawn and the Call of Duty fuckwits to stop egging his house. The only way to write is to write, and I think I've been afraid to do that. I look in the mirror and I see something that scares me. I see someone tired. I see someone bruised and battered. I see someone who doesn't believe he's good enough to make it on his own, and I mean entirely on his own, no corporate structure or steady paycheck to back him up. The mask has worked so well. The smiling mask. The one I would put on every morning before the commute to the office. I think I've been trying it on again, and the damn thing is itchy and uncomfortable and sticking to my skin and I'm sick of it. I mean, I can be that guy, but I don't necessarily want to be. Yes, I know. Beggars can't be choosers. Any port in a storm. A job is a job is a job, and slinging burgers at McPuke's or presenting clothes to women who feel judged and uncomfortable just walking through the goddamn door at the Gap is better than no income whatsoever. I'm not an idiot. But I'm also sick and tired of pretending. I'm not a hateful person by nature. I'm an optimist. I would like to believe in the better aspects of humanity, that individuals can rise above the miasma of self-centeredness and stupidity that seems to dominate our species. In my mind, intelligent folks who can conceptualize the circumstances of others and imagine those concepts in a complex manner can work together to make the world a better place. I've seen it happen. Unfortunately, I don't see it happening often enough. I see people taking advantage of others. I see victims who carry senses of shame and regret a hundred times bigger than their cardboard signs, victims of a system that's fucked them over or choices they would undo if someone just gave them a chance (but nobody does). I see fat cats getting fatter while they people they claim to care about and protect suffer and scream and plead and die in obscurity, their supplications drowned out by lobbyist money and the hum of narcotics. I see societies and individuals railing against change because it means that you don't get to have all of the best toys to yourself anymore. I hate that bullshit. I hate ignorance. I hate misogyny. I hate rampant materialism. I hate reckless misinformation. I hate the corruption of young people. I hate corporate globalization and I hate upper-crust greed and I hate people who lack empathy or compassion and I fucking hate making people feel worthless because they don't fit your advertising image and I fucking HATE people who make liberal use of slurs like "faggot" or "bitch" or "slut" or specific racial terms I won't repeat, THOSE ARE HUMAN BEINGS YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU IGNORANT ASSHOLE. This is me with my mask off. Boo. I'm a role-player. I write fiction. I pretend as a matter of course. And I'm pretty good at it. But you can only lie to yourself for so long before it starts to drive you insane. I'm not giving up on the job search, but I can't maintain this level of dishonesty with myself and people who would choose to trust me with what is, to them, important work. I've tried it before and I've always let people down. The more I push myself to try and care, to adopt that mask, the more something inside of me rails against it and along the way, something breaks. I really need to stop getting into that cycle because it never ends well. Hence the brutal honesty. I'm going to start coming at things differently. It's never too late to change things. It hasn't been easy so far, and the practical and static side of me has been fighting me along the way because, like I said, change is frightening. Lying to someone to land a cushy corporate gig is easier than putting myself out on the edge of everything, tossing out pitches on the end of lifelines and hoping someone grabs one and gives me just enough positive momentum back from the void so I can finally say, without a trace of irony or caveat, that I am a goddamn journalist. If I can do that, I can write more and write even better, because I won't be held back by this endless sense of guilt that plagues me because I might be letting down my parents since I'm not holding down a steady job. If I can do that, I might be able to forgive myself for wasting a good portion of my adult life chasing cubicles instead of opportunities for a decent byline. If I can do that, then I can finally set this stupid mask on fire, and never look back. That's the plan, and I'm fucking sticking to it. If you believe in higher powers, pray for me. If you believe in luck, wish me that. Otherwise, just keep reading. A mind needs words like a sword needs a whetstone, and my words are worthless without your eyeballs.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Reset and Realignment

Reset and Realignment — Blue Ink Alchemy

Today is a busy day for me, but I'm still having trouble getting the day started as early as I'd like. I'm doing what I can to reset my schedule so it's easier for me to rise when my alarm goes off, not when my cat paws at my face until I feed him. But I still managed to pay bills, toss out some resumes, and get myself ready for some errands. So that's something, I suppose. My writing waits to be completed, words and ideas crouched for employment in the corner of my mind. I'll be unleashing them soon. But first - cheap gasoline! ... in my car, I'm not going to drink it or anything.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

From the Vault: No Guilty Pleasures

From the Vault: No Guilty Pleasures — Blue Ink Alchemy

I've had a pretty rough week so far, so instead of the post I wanted to make, here's an expansion on a comment I made to my flatmate the other night, while she was watching The Mindy Project. It took me a while to encapsulate this idea properly, but here it is.

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I'm making plans to go see Transformers: Age of Extinction later this week. Possibly on that most American of holidays, Independence Day. What better way to celebrate the birth of a nation and honor the sacrifices made by those fighting for its autonomy than a big-budget action movie filled with Americana iconography and military/weapon fetishism? I'm someone who tries to see media in general, and movies and games in particular, from a more critical standpoint, adding my voice to those attempting to discern good qualities from bad and directing the spending of those willing to listen. Admittedly, however, there is a part of me that will always love the Transformers, no matter what Michael Bay does to them. And that's okay. I'm honestly getting more and more disillusioned with the notion of the 'guilty pleasure'. There's an idea in our culture that there are certain things that we are not allowed to enjoy, or at least not allowed to admit we enjoy. We should hate ourselves for eating food we know is bad for us. Entertainment that goes for cheap thrills or laughs should be put down. And if you admit to enjoying sex, slut-shaming will fall on you by the bucketfuls. I mean, it should fall on everyone in this culture, but I think we all know women get it a lot more than men do because the patriarchy is, in fact, an extant and present danger to progress and free thought. Let me wrestle this thing back onto my point. My point is that, as long as one is being safe and smart in their choices, no pleasure should be labeled as guilty. Sure, if you eat nothing but fast food all the time you're going to have health problems, but that isn't to say you should never eat any fast food ever. There are those who make that choice, and they're healthy people I admire. I may even join them someday. But on occasion, I will get a hankering that can only be satisfied with a late night Taco Bell indulgence. Basically, if no actual harm is occurring, and things are being taken in moderation (including moderation, as St. Augustine would say), it's difficult for me to really describe any pleasure we take from life as "guilty". After all, life is long and difficult, and moments of true pleasure, joy, and release can be hard to come by in our daily struggle to keep ourselves and our dreams alive. Why make things even more complex and potentially hurtful for ourselves or others by leveling judgement on what we enjoy? Sure, some things can be objectively bad or wrong with what we like. We can acknowledge that red meat is bad for us. It's easy to see the flaws in a movie that's not up to standards. Hell, I love Flash Gordon even though I know some of its effects are cheap even by the standards of the day and a good few story points make zero sense. But I love it in spite of those flaws. I enjoy the hell out of the time I spend laughing at the antics or belting out Queen lyrics. It's just fun. It's a pleasure. And I don't feel guilty about it. I don't think you should feel guilty about your pleasures, either.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Go Outside

Go Outside — Blue Ink Alchemy

I love the amenities of modern life. Video games, the Internet, films, toaster ovens, books, on and on. As a writer, I am used to making myself a bit of a recluse, something of a hermit, tucked away in a solitary room where shelves heave with papers and the only sounds are the tapping of keys, the scratching of nibs on parchment, and my occasional outburst of profanity. But I have to remind myself that I need to go outside. People are outside. This can be a frightening thing, to be sure, but it's also where stories come from. Every person is experiencing their own story. There's also the fact that this is our audience, as writers. The people wandering the streets, riding in buses, and grinding their teeth in cubicles want - no, need the escape fiction provides. And we, as writers, are poised to provide that escape. Fresh air is good for you. Even a brisk walk to and from the corner store can do wonders for the body and the mind. I'm a big proponent of public transit, not only for the environmental aspect and its positive affect on city infrastructure, but because it promotes folks like me not being quite so lazy and actually walking more from place to place. I have errands to run, and I'm actually looking forward to it, because it means getting out of the house. I'm not saying you have to go run a 5k. I'm not saying you should eschew key work times to go for a stroll. I am, however, saying you should go outside from time to time. Your work, your games, and your refreshments will still be there when you return, and the rewards will be all the sweeter for your efforts.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Flash Fiction: Hello Human

Flash Fiction: Hello Human — Blue Ink Alchemy

So Chuck Wendig coined the phrase Spammerpunk and I thought I'd get down on that.

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Hello human, Greetings from another human. I am human and interested in human things. Your planet which you call Earth has many resources important to humans. An offer generous to humans can be made. Many lucrative offers to other humans have provided human familial units with much material wealth for reasonable replacement demands. Many benefits material wealth can be provided unto your fleshy human carapace especially when alternative is complete annihilation of species. Compliance is preferable to resistance. Please to be considering generous offer.

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Blue Ink Alchemy