Philosophy as Fiction: Is Life Meaningless?

Literature has the power of philosophy made plain, tied to human emotions and given a body. I’m reading the 6th in Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, and I am continually moved by it’s lengthy examination of the question: is life meaningless?

This is where Goodkind shows his true genius – not in his writing skills per se, but in examining and pushing the limits of human psyche in various fictive scenarios. With the last book, I was about to give up on the series – I don’t really care about movement of troops and battles. But this book, Faith of the Fallen, he has stepped back into the intimate of the human. Why do we do what we do? What is the point of continuing on? His answer, I think, is moving toward something I’ve thought similarly – meaning is found in relationships and the experience of loving and being loved.

This sounds like a trite answer on the face of it. It is, when it’s the knee-jerk response. Love is the reason for living and for hope – a common fictional tool – It’s the thing that saved Harry Potter and is otherwise commonly depicted as the only thing can ultimately overcome the greatest evil and power. It is so common we cannot see underneath the statement – the never-ending complexity of this answer.

The more I think on love, and experience it, the more I think of it as something magical, and by that I mean, it’s Other. Not grasped by reason, or even words adequately – the experience of it, like other physical sensations I can feel, but never describe, or have described to me in any way close to the actual experience of it. I’m not even talking about understanding it from biological and anthropological standpoints – the emotion of love as a series of chemical responses and electrical brain activity that maybe one day will be charted by computers. That won’t make it less real, because it is Other. It is a language that reason cannot understand. It simply IS.

Maybe one could try to explain in terms of evolution – that these feelings of attachment evolved as a way of keeping a family unit stable, of bonding a mother to care for her infant so as to promote the survival of the species. I’ve tried for a long time to understand why love is. But at the end of the day, I can only call it magic. Other. Something I experience in different ways at different times, and whatever makes love what it is, it's the reason for living.

Making Art Without "The Mood"

I was reminded again today that doing art is most often about working and practicing when the mood or inspiration isn't striking. It's about the day to day, as oft-quoted Jane Yolen put it, of "Butt In Chair". Writing and painting when you DON'T feel like it, practicing a craft to become great is just like atheletes working out for hours a day. Oh god, did I just use a sports metaphor? I hate sports metaphors, but you get the idea. Other people work hard hours practicing to become good at what they do, I don't know why we think art becomes "stiff" or "formalized" if you do it when not in the mood because there's a presupposition that it should be this magical process of some muse taking over our body and producing Art. Maybe it's just a lot of hard work. Maybe we use the tired phrase of needing "inspiration" as and excuse for procrastination. If I only wrote when a thunderstorm struck and I had the perfect cup of coffee while listening to the perfect piece of music for that shining moment when I was really "in it", I'd write maybe ten pages a year.

I'm trying to get into the discipline of writing a 1,000 words a day, or about 4-5 pages, but then again, I'm in the kick-it first draft writing phase right now, so it's the get-words-into-the-blank-pages kind of writing and play around to mold it later. Pages produced, in the right 'voice' (voice being the new Big Idea affecting my writing lately). I'd say that's my primary focus right now.

Oh, and you know, grad school. Which is starting to really rock my socks off, as far as the things I'm learning. The classes themselves are still not uber-great, but all the reading I'm doing is really awesome - pushing the boundaries on my thinking kind of stuff. Both classes are challenging me with new ways to see the world and humanity. I could go off on all this stuff, and maybe I will soon. But today I mainly just wanted to express the thought: making art has to be a discipline just like everything else. The discipline should certainly be mixed in with some love and ethos, but nothing will ever get done without Butt In Chair.

The Utopia That Was Not

So. Grad School. Let's just say that it's not what I thought it would be. Because the discussions that are had are not any more intelligent than undergrad... and, how do I put this delicately? the standard for academic excellence isn't set very high. Why, in grad school, am I still only required to write five-seven page papers? In both my classes. Aren't much longer papers supposed to be the standard - like 10-20 pages? Which would be hard, but that's the point - it's supposed to be a lot harder therefore making you push yourself to new levels. Because, you know, we should have a lot more to say about topics, more research, more analysis, I mean, freakin' A! I guess I just imagined grad school like this academic utopia where every one is really smart and dedicated, and not only DOES the reading, but tries to UNDERSTAND and analyze the reading in a meaningful way that promotes intelligent discussion. Isn't that the point? Where we are learning how to participate in the larger academic community of quality scholarship??? The answer is, maybe not at Texas State University. Time will tell.

In other news, I'm re-writing the novel I had been querying agents for. Really learning the ins and outs of how the market works, especially as regards to children's publishing, has been invaluable, and something i think only could have been done the hard way - i.e. writing a book, trying to sell it, understanding why its not selling, and not just being like - fucking publishers! don't realize GENIUS when they come across it! So. There are some problems with the book. The main one of which is "voice". I kept seeing this all over agent requirements - they don't care what the material is but only if it has strong voice. One agent put it simply, "Voice, voice, voice!" And me sitting there constantly seeing the phrase and idea pop up, was like, what the fuck is voice????? That was always one of those words I'd heard bandied around, and vaguely had an idea of meaning, but not specifically, and not enough to put my novel and my writing under the litmus test to discover if it had this elusive entity of "voice".

I'm finally kind of getting it. It's like tone, which is also hard for me to define, other than just saying - you know, how it feels, the vibe you get from reading it. But where the rubber meets the road - how the hell do you CREATE that feeling or tone? I've been writing seriously for four years now, written two and a half novels (two of which were about Persephone, trying different angles, but all completely different...and all shitty) and I still don't know exactly how to manipulate language to create the tone I want - though I'm finally learning. I've written thirty pages on the new novel, writing it as Persephone in the 21st century as a teenager - and I'm writing first person, plopped directly in her head, so that what is on the page are her thoughts and personality. And I think it's getting a vibe.

Also, it should be a much better sell when I start querying for it because it actually FITS. Unlike straight high fantasy, which the one I've had is. Urban fantasy, or at least starting from a relatable protagonist who is just like us, and then taking her to crazy places, is not going out of style anytime soon. It's kind of timeless - that starting in our world and then bringing in fantasy or surreal elements. Just ask Alice. And I'm writing with attention to voice for the first time, which is this wild paradigm shift that I've really needed to move forward with my writing. I'll still be querying and honing the old version in case I do catch interest somewhere, but I have a feeling it'll be the new version that starts that chapter in my life.

Excited like a little kid on her first day of school

So, I'm sitting here inside Flowers Hall waiting for my first grad school class to start - I'm here early of course because I'm a giant nerd, and not only was I excited to get here, I was worried about catching the bus, and times, and walking, and all of that... so I'm here thirty minutes early! And just sitting here buzzing with excitement. Literally, I have a giant goofy smile on, and I can't wait to meet my classmates and teacher and... wait, aren't I supposed to be cooler than this, or at least outgrow being excited about the first day of school? Or not.

I have a problem with the MICRO in microblogging

Because I always have so damn much to say!!

And my fingers like to type. And verbiage is my friend. In fact, it's one of my favorite snooty words: verbiage. Ahhh.

SO. I did not go to class tonight after all because I dropped my Medieval Lit class and added a Children's Lit Class - Golden Age of Children's Literature, which is on Friday afternoons. I've read almost all the big modern chidlren's lit classics, but not some of these older ones, like The Wizard of Oz, The Jungle Book, The Little Princess, The Wind in the Willows (though I do think I read that one as a kid).

I'm excited to learn about what has made children's lit tick in the past - what makes a classic, what makes great storytelling. Finally I'll be taking classes applicable to my extra-curricular writing activities. Much, much, MUCH better than trying to wade through Old English. Which of course I'll have to do eventually because it's required to graduate, but why do today what I can put off until tomorrow... or next year? :)

And I've finally decided I'm going to make Children's Lit my area of emphasis, or "cognate", i.e., the graduate version of a minor. I just admit it now: what I really want to do is be a writer, and this is the genre I love. I'll probably end up an old decrepit teacher instead, but it won't be for lack of freaking trying!

My Name in Print !!!

Eeeeeee! Exciting - the first thing that I've had published in a print literary journal!! Came in the mail today! See how pretty!!!

Schools almost here. Which means the summer is almost over, and I'm not quite ready for it to be. I got one of my manuscripts back from a friend who did a read-through, so now I'm hacking back through with the changes. Overall, really trying to contemporize the language. When I first thought about selling the book, I was like, oh, perfect - YA fantasy is huge right now!

Except, not exactly. Urban fantasy is huge. Epic fantasy, which I've finally realized mine could be interpreted as closer too, is pretty dead. So I'm doing something that I think all around is going to make it a better book - going through and checking every piece of dialogue, every chunk of description and taking out the stilted verbosity of which I am too fond :) Little things like having the main character call Demeter "Mom" instead of "Mama". Using slang, like "okay" and "yeah" throughout.

It's intentionally anachronistic, but I've read epic fantasy before where the language was so perfect and grand, it was hard to disappear into the story. I'm trying to cut through that shield between the reader and the text.