I'm Aware, I'm Aware

I’m sure you’ve seen that status before—it’s popped up on my newsfeed six or seven different times.  When I first saw it, it was humorous.  When it appeared the second time, I thought that my friends were just copying one another.  But around the fourth or fifth time, I started to smell a rat.  I commented on one of those statuses, partly because I wanted to know what was up, and partly because I wanted to be a bit snide about it.  Hey, I’m only human.  Well, I got my answer: no sooner had I posted my comment than I received a message in my inbox from the friend who’d posted the status.  

“So here’s the rules: For liking or commenting on my status, you must now post the same message as your status to continue the game for Breast Cancer Awareness (unless you’ve lost your sense of humor!).”

Awareness, huh?  Seems to me that just like the need to pretend to be a slug, that word is turning up everywhere.  People are all about raising awareness for one cause or another these days.  Video responses, hashtags, facebook posts sharing articles and photos—the social media world enjoys this game of “pass-it-on”.  Maybe a bit too much.

I know, call me a grouch, and maybe I am.  Raising awareness about bad things in the world is important, isn’t it?  Well, yes—people need to know about the problems that need solving, or they will never get solved.  But the fact is, after a certain point, raising awareness doesn’t help us very much.  Most of us don’t want to be reminded of bad things.  I never did pass on the slug status; I saw the “game” not as a necessary way of sharing information—which it didn’t, not really—but as a chain letter, daring others online to continue the trend or TERRIBLE THINGS WILL HAPPEN.  I deleted the message.

It’s easy to send out a chain letter, and easy to ignore one.  It takes a lot more than that to make a difference in the world.  The hard truth is, sharing information doesn’t really help, either.  You can spout information until you’re blue in the face, but most people use as little information as possible to make decisions (see note).  Even with the most compelling facts and figures, there are always other reasons for bad behavior or apathy.  Most people know they should eat well, but McDonalds’ is still in business, isn’t it?  Most people know that cancer is a terrible disease, so why doesn’t everyone contribute part of their monthly check to finding a cure?  People will do what they want.

That’s what it comes down to: wanting.  Brainy as we are, we humans as a whole are more reliant on intuition and emotion when it comes to making decisions.  I myself will usually make a decision based on whether or not it feels right, whatever the pros and cons add up to.  So raising awareness with a Facebook status or a tweet might make us feel better—and it does feel good, because it makes us feel self-righteous and accomplished.  But it usually doesn’t accomplish much, and sometimes it can even do the exact opposite of its intention, making someone like me roll her eyes in irritation.

To get a reaction, to make a change in people’s behavior or drive them to action, you have to make them want to change or to act.  Intrinsic motivations are the key here.  You need to get personal, to show rather than tell.  Instead of talking about the number of women trying to support their families abroad, offer the story of a woman named Noor Zia, who started a beauty salon in her home with the help of a small business loan.  Instead of listing facts and figures about why smoking is bad, use the voice of a young boy worried that his father’s smoking is going to kill him.  If you’re going to use a game, make it unique and fun, as demonstrated by the enormous success of the Ice Bucket Challenge.  All this takes a lot more effort than the moment it takes to post a silly status to “raise awareness”.

We all know the world has problems; we get it already.  There are so many problems that one person can’t possibly bear to know about all of them.  We can’t care about it all, so we try not to care at all, most of the time.  Raising awareness is important, but we have to do it the right way, and it will never be easy.  But you get out what you put in, right?  So let’s do a little bit more than make people aware—let’s make them care.

Note: This is an idea discussed in an excellent article by Jesse Singal, which takes a more in-depth look at the psychology behind raising awareness.  Find it here.

Interview: Johanna Lemon

As promised, ladies and gentlemen, here is my interview with my fellow writer Johanna Lemon.  Johanna went to Hollins University with me, and we shared several different creative writing workshops, didn't we, Johanna?  So the two of us are relatively familiar with each other's work.  She has just returned from two years with the Peace Corps in Morocco, which is totally cool, and now she is spending the summer before grad school trying to get four (count 'em--four) books published.  This is me doing my part to publicize the books and get them out to as many readers as possible.

The questions are from me, and I've added a few comments in italics and parentheses below.  Other than that, I've just let Johanna speak for herself.

How do you decide what to write?  What is the process behind it?

When I think of an idea for a story, I go about creating it one of two ways.  If the idea has to come out now and I mean right now then I go for it.  I get on my computer and type out a couple of chapters and see where my imagination takes me.  The problem with that method is that often the plots aren’t fully formed, so by the time I reach the center of the novel I’m stuck on a plot hole.

The second method is what I like to call the Balloon Popping Method.  When an idea strikes me, instead of going at it like a bull at a toreador, I sit on it.  I sit on and think about the plot while I listen to music and play out the scenes in my head.  I think and I wait for the pressure of the balloon (metaphor here for ‘idea’) to rise to a level that simply cannot be sustained.  Once the idea is fully formed enough to pop the balloon, I start writing.  By that time I usually have a functioning plot, though it’s not a completely detailed I-have-this-written-on-a-storyboard plot.  I like surprises, and I think it’s incredible when I’m writing away at a story only to stop and think, “But what if my character did this instead of that?”

Listening to music helps me think about my scenes and plan what I’m going to write.  I like to play my story out in my head like a movie, with action sequences and fights or really emotional moments occurring during songs.  Then, once I have the story playing in my head like a movie I’d actually watch (aka, the popped balloon), I begin putting it down.

As for where my ideas come from, they come from everywhere and nowhere.  I got the idea for Inked from a post on Pinterest that was taken from a post on Tumblr.  Godmother Girl was the result of a deep love and respect for fairy tales.  I always wanted to write a book where I turned a fairytale on its head or shine light on an unsuspecting character, kind of like what Gregory McGuire did for The Wizard of Oz, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  I got the idea for Beatrice Betwixt… well, I can’t actually remember that one, but That Girl spawned from thinking about what one of my ultimate Peace Corps vacation fantasies would be.

Describe your writing schedule.

My writing schedule is cyclical—as in, I do it and then I don’t do it.  It’s like being obsessed with a Netflix series.  Like, when you have to watch ALL the episodes of a series and then you’re unable to move on afterwards because of you’re so emotionally exhausted.

When I’m not writing, I sometimes find it hard to begin—either with a new project or restarting an old one.  But, like the laws of movement, an object in motion will stay in motion and an object in rest will stay in rest.  It’s much easier to keep going once I’ve already gotten so far, but if I’m stuck or lagging behind, it’s too easy to remain stuck and blame it on writer’s block.  (I have exactly the same problem—getting started and getting unstuck are the two hardest things to do as a writer.)

So in order to avoid The Block, I’ll issue myself a challenge, even if I don’t have a story to work on.  NaNoWrimo (the national novel writing month challenge that normally happens in November) is a wonderful motivator, and I don’t simply relegate myself to participating in November.  I’ll say, “I’m going to do a NaNoWrimo in… July!  Or during Ramadan!”  (I’m not Muslim, but I lived in Morocco for two years, and Ramadan was the perfect time to go hard at writing because there was really nothing else to do until breakfast).

NaNoRamadan was the reason my third book, Godmother Girl, was written in a timely fashion.  For the whole holy month, I went to my favorite café, ordered a tea, set my cell phone timer to one hour, plugged in my headphones and uncapped my pen.

So yes, once I have a schedule, I stick to it, but I have to have a schedule first.

How do you write?

It depends on the story.  I’ve written about five books in paper notebooks—journals, diaries and spirals.  As a result, I collect interesting notebooks so I can use them later with the right story.  Two of my soon-to-be-published novels that began in notebooks include Inked and Godmother Girl.  For other stories, if I have this urgency to get them out as quickly as possible, I write them on the computer, like Beatrice Betwixt and That Girl.

Both have their advantages.  When I write longhand I go slower, so I have time to think of the words I want to use.  But if my brain is buzzing a million miles a minute about a story, I use the computer because it’s faster.  I can type out scene ideas and insert snappy dialogue that I think of and feel in the moment.  It’s easier to travel with notebooks though!  So whenever I wander, I always make sure to take one with me, whether I’m working on a story or not.

How do you edit?

I don’t.

Haha, just kidding.  I believe that editing is the most frustrating part of creating a novel.  I see it like this:  writing a novel is a little bit like being pregnant.  You watch your story grow and gestate in pieces and increments.  Yeah, you get morning sickness and backaches in the form of plot holes and frustrating characters.  And sometimes you can’t even see your feet (or the end).  But once you’re finished, once you give birth, you’re so proud!

You bask in the newness of parenthood for a few days, thinking about how amazing you are for producing and creating such a masterpiece, but then you get kicked out of the hospital and you realize, “Oh, so this is where all the real work begins.”  (This is the best metaphor ever and I am totally going to use it again.)

Raising your child into a functional, reasonable, responsible adult is basically the editing portion of creating a novel.  Sometimes it can even take longer than writing the novel!  I wrote Beatrice Betwixt in 2012 but had been editing it on and off until June 2015.

I edit by taking the first draft of my story (once I type it into the computer) and I read through it, editing as I go.  I correct it chapter by chapter and just keep swimming.  Again and again.  If I’m having difficulty with a revision, sometimes I feel like I’m rolling hamster wheel.  But that’s what I do, I keep proofreading it until I’m satisfied with the end result.

Inked was edited professionally, but Godmother Girl, Beatrice Betwixt and That Girl were all edited via a consortium of friends, family and my own blood, sweat and tears.

Do you write every day?

I do write consistently whenever I give myself a challenge or a schedule.  During my last NanoWrimo/NaNoRamadan, I tried to write each and every single day, and if I missed a day I made it up later.  Unlike NaNoWrimo, I do not give myself word limits.  I think word limits make people focus more on the quantity of words rather than the quality.  So I give myself time minimums instead because sitting down and actually doing the writing can be incredibly easy to put off.

When I started timing myself, I used smaller increments, like 30 minutes.  I would prepare a hot beverage, set my phone and begin.  I would not stop writing or even look up until my phone went off.  Once I became comfortable with 30 minutes I’d augment it to 45 minutes and then finally an hour.  I feel like an hour is about as much as I can do without losing focus or getting an intense hand cramp.  Of course, if I’m really on a roll then the time minimums don’t apply.

It doesn’t matter whether I’m writing longhand or on a computer, the time limit is the same.  Of the stories I’m about to publish, I wrote in the largest increments for Godmother Girl and Beatrice Betwixt.  For Godmother Girl, the longest I wrote at one time was two and a half hours longhand, and for Beatrice Betwixt, three hours on the computer.

Do you cross genres, or stick to one thing?

My main genres are young adult, new adult, and… adult.  Paranormal, urban fantasy and romance are my three mainstays.  I love to write and read all of those genres.  Basically I just like to write about people having awesome adventures in mystical settings.  I have written poetry and nonfiction, but I generally stick with fiction.  Inked, Beatrice Betwixt and Godmother Girl are all paranormal or urban fantasy Young Adult, whereas That Girl is one of my only New Adult romances.

How long have you been writing?

Oh man since I was really little.  Like, itty-bitty can’t-really-hold-a-pencil-well little.  Some of my fondest memories of writing include:

Writing a book about breaking my arm and going to the hospital at age 8 (pictures were included and no, they were not good).

Winning a poetry contest for writing about a mermaid when I was 10.  I even got a certificate!

Writing my first fully-fledged novel, The Mystery of the Blue Mark, age 11.  It featured a high school detective named Ashley Atkins on the hunt for the murderer of her English teacher.

After that, I wrote a story about a mermaid marriage contest.  Yeah, it sounds weird but I was happy with it.

Beyond that I turned to fanfiction.  You may laugh, but writing fanfiction really helped me hone my craft and sift through what worked and what didn’t in order to find my voice.  (It’s also where I found out I was creepily good at writing romance).  And hey, I gained a lot of followers through my stories on those sites.  (I agree about fanfiction.  It is writing on the “easy” levels with the characters and setting already established for you.  If you do it right, you can learn a lot about plot, character development, and keeping a writing schedule.)

Then throughout college and the Peace Corps I really began to blossom and develop my own stories and voice.  And now here I am, on the cusp of self-publishing.

Do you have a day job?

Writing?  (Haha, I wish).  At the moment, I’m on break.  I just finished serving two years in the Peace Corps and in the beginning of August, I’ll be heading to Illinois for graduate school.  I’ll be studying Recreation Parks and Tourism Administration at Western Illinois University, so I’m pretty excited about that.  Since I’ve been back I’ve spent the past months editing, re-editing and editing some more, in the hopes of getting my books out there for the world to see.  And now I soon will!

How do you work writing around your job?

Once graduate school starts, I have a feeling I’ll have to find a better way to manage my time.  I don’t have to at the moment, but I love schedules and To Do lists, so I have no fear that once I get settled in I’ll formulate a routine between writing, classes, homework and physical activity.  I mean, one can hope…

Do you listen to music when you write?

It depends on the day and the mood and the story, but in general yes.  Music is involved in all parts of my writing process.  In fact, I like to match the story I’m working on with the type of music I listen to.  If I’m writing a really energetic, fight-the-system scene, I’ll listen to Fall Out Boy or All Time Low.  If I’m writing a scene with a lot of attitude or a headstrong character, I’ll listen to pop and hip-hop.  If I’m writing a love scene I’ll listen to—go ahead and chuckle—Taylor Swift.  If I’m writing a sad or angry scene, I’ll vacillate between Secondhand Serenade or the Goo Goo Dolls.  Of course, I have much more music than that, and it’s all very subjective, but still, it helps to pump me up and puts me in the mood to write even if I don’t want to.

While writing Beatrice Betwixt, I listened constantly to hit radio stations like 93.7 KHF Lynchburg or K 92.3 on my parent’s CB radio.

While writing Godmother Girl, I had Australian singer Guy Sebastian crooning into my ear.  Remember that two and a half hour writing session?  Yeah, I listened to Guy Sebastian on repeat the entire time.  But Bastille and The American Authors also made appearances.

While writing Inked I listened to a lot of All Time Low, which is my all time favorite band (get it?  All time…?).  I also rocked out hard to Fall Out Boy because they’re always amazing.  It was the same with That Girl, which is a bit funny, because one of the main characters in That Girl is the lead singer of a punk band.

Oh!  And I almost forgot, if I’m in the mood for amazing, electrifying music that doesn’t have any words, I’ll put on the incredible Lindsay Stirling.  She composes and plays electric, rock-pop on her violin.  It definitely energizes me while writing and I would recommend her albums to anyone.

How much do you research for your work before writing?

When I write, I begin with an idea and a plot.  Once the overall plot is finalized, I then begin to work on the characters.  I am of the opinion that most readers fall in love with characters over setting, so I take particular care in developing characters who work with the plot and vice versa.  It’s a little like how you don’t need The Globe Theatre to perform a Shakespeare play.  It doesn’t hurt but you could take those characters and put them in a parking lot and they’d still be dynamic.

Anyway, once I finally know my characters—what they like to eat, their most embarrassing childhood memory, their secret hopes and dreams, their greatest fears—I then toss them into the plot, mix it up, hone in on the details and begin.

I’ll do research in order to further educate myself around a topic in my story, but I won’t build a story around research.  I feel like research should supplant the story you’re already well on your way to forming instead of the other way around.  One of the things I like about writing fantasy and paranormal stories is that you can make a lot of stuff up and no one can tell you, “That’s not right!” because who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong in fantasy and fiction?

My life experiences also heavily influence what I write.  For example, I have a love affair with the city of Paris, and in my latest book That Girl, Paris is a huge part of the first half.  I also share my experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco in That Girl.  In fact, the main female character is an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer)!  So yeah, a lot of my research comes from life experiences, and not the Internet.

Experience!  The research of life.

What is your ultimate goal in regards to writing?

I write because I love writing, not because it’s easy.  Trust me, if I wanted an easier hobby, I would take up something far less mentally taxing, like training cats to perform Hamlet.  (Ha.)  But in the end I write because I love it.  I love producing stories and watching them grow.  I love meeting my characters and watching them go from two dimensions to three.  There’s no greater feeling than reading over a scene you love and chuckling or crying or sighing because you feel what your character is feeling.

Now, obviously, I would love to make a bit of money with my books.  I am, after all, going to graduate school and resuming the life of the poor student is not going to be fun.  But making money is secondary to making an impact, and I especially want to make an impact with young girls.  We live in a world where gender equality exists on paper, but not in reality—not in politics, business, media or military defense (and that’s only in America).  What I want is for my books to get girls thinking about issues of gender equality.  I then want them to take those ideas from my pages and put them out into the real world.  That’s why I write about strong female heroines and male heroes who can not only handle an equal partner but revel in meeting someone of such fantastic caliber.

In conclusion?

Read my books!  Please!  You can find more information about them at my blog:  thewanderinglemon.wordpress.com.  I’m putting up pitches, excerpts, book covers, and more!  I plan on rolling out my books at the end of July and/or early August and if you’re kind enough to buy all four of them, I might even jump for joy.  I might even send you a post card!

BOOKS:

Beatrice Betwixt

Inked

Godmother Girl

That Girl

BLOG:

thewanderinglemon.wordpress.com

DATE:

            Flexible but definitely coming soon!

Ready, Set, Collaborate!

I’ve always considered writing to be a solo operation.  Frankly, it’s one of the things that drew me to it as a young, broody adolescent.  A job that wouldn’t require me to talk to anyone for days on end?  Sign me up!  Of course reality has a way of teaching you the error of your dreams.  Writing, at the beginning, is a solitary career, but once the book is written, there has to be more than one person on the boat.  There must be proofreaders, agents, editors, publishers, marketers—if you’re lucky.  If you’re not, you get to be all of those people yourself.  Writers these days have to reach out on their own, seeking out assistance to attain the goal of having many, many people read their work. 

This would be considerably daunting, but I have learned much about playing nicely with others since I was the aforementioned broody adolescent.  I have been educated on the joys of co-creation, writing with the assistance and inspiration of others, and now I am learning that even the less fun parts of writing that come after the inspiration can be shared.  We writers can be editors and marketers for one another, helping to polish the work and spread the word.

To that end, I will be linking arms with a pair of talented women, old classmates of mine from the mighty and wonderful Hollins University.  We three will be guesting on each other’s blogs, sharing information, stories, and publicity over the next few months and helping one another to get our work out to more people.  Allow me to introduce them.

Johanna Lemon is an adventurer just back from a two-year stint in Morocco with the Peace Corps.  She is a paranormal and fantasy writer in the young-adult genre, and she has amazed me by having recently completed four books, entitled Inked, Beatrice Betwixt (I do love that title), Godmother Girl, and That Girl.  They will soon be published, which is terrifically exciting, and we’ll be talking a lot more about that as time goes by.

Yafen Liang is living in New York, working full time and studying to get her MBA.  Somehow, she manages to find time to work on her YA dystopian, The Gods We Built, which looks at a controlling regime from both sides of history.  She is also a whiz who knows the mysterious ways of the publishing industry, and I can’t wait to pick her brain a bit about the nuts and bolts.

And for symmetry, as well as for those of you who may not know, I am a writer of science fiction and fantasy novels, working away at them on my days off and during my breaks from my job as a waitress.  My main project now is a four-part series on an artificial intelligence named Youngest, and I have also written the first of another four-parter, this one fantasy, entitled The Nine Lives of Snapdragon.  They are nearly ready to publish, but I’ve had no luck in that quarter as of yet.

I’m hoping that Johanna, Yafen, and I can take inspiration from one another, as well as advice and encouragement.  We will share interviews with one another, quizzing each other on our writing process, our current works, and the struggle to succeed in the writing market.  Expect to see an interview with Johanna in the next few days.  I’m looking forward to the exchange, and I hope you are, too.

If I had a doobly-do, I would post links there, but I am not so lucky.  You can find Johanna's blog, "The Wandering Lemon" here, (blurbs blurbs blurbs!) and Yafen's "Afterthoughts" are in this location (she also has a mini-TARDIS, which makes me incredibly happy).  Go check them out!

Can I Be Both? One Christian's Struggle with the Gay Rights Campaign

Let me begin this post with two disclaimers.  First, I am not an authority on the gay rights campaign.  I have been following the news with at best half an ear, moderately interested and supportive but not fully invested.  I do not fall under any of the LGBTQ categories, and frankly I'm not worth that much as an ally, except to my immediate friends who are involved, maybe.  Second, I am not a Christian authority.  I flatter myself that I'm fairly well educated with the historical background of my faith, but I just finished my first read-through of the Bible last week, and it took me three years, so that might tell you how much time I devote to it.  My own personal faith is all the strength I have to offer in that respect.  That all being said, I am feeling convicted by that faith to figure out what I've been feeling in regards to the recent Supreme Court decision, and I thought perhaps there might be others who are going through the same things I have.

It seems that there are two stark sides to this fight.  Either you approve of the decision and have added a rainbow filter to your facebook profile pic, or you don't and are under obligation to defriend all of those rainbows.  (A friend of mine related a comment the other day that his feed looked like a mass of Christians having a fight with a Skittles factory.)  But there is a middle ground, and I find myself standing square in no mans' land, which is a very uncomfortable place to be.  As a person, a member of homo sapiens, I have to say that I support gay marriage.  I see no reason why people cannot love whom they wish to love.  But as a Christian, it gets a bit more complicated.  When I bought into this faith, when I said, "Okay, yeah, I can go with this" to Jesus, I made an agreement to follow the values of his lifestyle, his people and his history.

Now, one thing I know is that Jesus himself did not say anything about homosexuality.  So there you go, my rainbow-tinted friends are saying, done deal, right?  Well, maybe not.  See, Jesus is a package deal.  He said himself that he wasn't wiping out all that had come before him.  "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets," he said (this is Matthew 5.17 and following, from the NRSV).  "I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill.  For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished."  So all of that crazy stuff in the Old Testament still applies.  It was, after all, the guidebook for the Israelites, God's "How To Build a Culture That Will Lead the World to Me".  And part of that culture was a certain passage which has become the evangelicals' favorite.  You know the one, come on, say it with me: "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman: it is an abomination."  Good ol' Leviticus 18.22.  You'll be seeing a lot of that one in the next few weeks.  And according to Jesus, who is, by the way, the highest Christian authority, that is still relevant.  I know that, and I think it's very dangerous to question the Bible.

So the two friends of mine who just started dating after years of will she, won't she?  Abominations, apparently.  And yet my immediate reaction when they told me they'd gotten together was joy.  I've seen the love they share, and I cannot see anything wrong in something so bright.  But my faith, my spiritual history, says that it's wrong.

How do I deal with this?  Well, you can't dismiss the Bible.  The Word of God is not something that can be just tossed out when we don't like what it says.  Maybe Leviticus is right.  I have to point out, however, that Leviticus was written over three thousand years ago.  That was the culture that was needed back then, but the world has changed, and the world needs something else.  Also, since Moses's day, the OT has been through--hmm, let's see.  Hebrew to Greek to Latin to German to English, and then back and forth a few times, I'm sure--at least ten different translations?  And the human hand and the human mind is fallible, and corruptible.  It may be that one of those scribes or copyists had someone leaning on his shoulder, someone authoritative who had an agenda, or a vendetta.  There's so much we will never know in the past, and I think Satan would be very, very pleased to have placed a trap in the very text of God's word.

Some of my Christian friends will be tempted to stop reading at that last--doubting the Bible in this way runs close to blasphemy.  That is where the "I'm not a Christian authority" comes in.  Stay with me, I'm still thinking out loud.  Besides, faith would be pretty flimsy if you didn't confess to some doubts, right?

So what does this uncertainty mean?  Can we just ignore the Old Testament?  No, I think not--remember Jesus?  "Not one letter, not one stroke of a letter."  The words may be in question, but God's intent remains, and cultures may change, but morals don't or shouldn't.  So how do we know what the true intent was?  How do we know what morals God wanted us to show the world?  (See what I mean about not being comfortable?  I'm a rope in a tug-of-war.)

The funny thing is, I've already given you the answer, or at least the one that I find the most comfort in.  Look back earlier in that same verse I just quoted, Matthew 5.17, specifically the second half of the verse.  "I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill."  The one thing I know about the Old Testament, without one single doubt, is that it points to Jesus.  Everything in it, the law, the history, the prophets, was always leading to him.  Jesus is the one authority for me on how to be a good human being, and he is the one I'm going to be following.  But Jesus didn't say anything about homosexuality! you're thinking.  True.  But his teachings can still be applied to this issue.

With that in mind, I have two points to offer in favor of my support, both straight from the Savior's mouth.  The first is one of my favorite passages, one on which I base my faith.  Matthew 7 begins with this commandment: "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged."  Judgment is God's job.  Only He and His Son can be truly unbiased, truly just.  I have no right to condemn or point out anyone's sins; I've got enough trouble picking out my own.  Maybe homosexuality is a sin, but that's none of my business.  Is it any worse a sin than pride, or sloth, or vanity, all of which I'm guilty of pretty much every day of the week?  Only God can say, and I am not going to try and speak for Him.

The second point is the deciding factor for me.  At one time in his ministry, the Pharisees, trying to test Jesus, asked him to pick one of the commandments as the most important.  Jesus didn't flinch (he never did).  He recited, not one of the ten, but one that stood above and encompassed all of them: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."  (This is all from Matthew 22.34-40, btw.)  Then he added one like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  To me, these two commandments are the Christian faith in a nutshell, and if you read nothing else of scripture, read and remember those verses.  Listen to what Jesus said right after that: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Boiled down to its bones, Christianity is love.  We have the scriptures to tell us how to be God's children, but no one, not one person on the planet, can or will ever keep the law perfectly.  That's why we need a Savior.  All we can do is love our God, love each other, and try.

So in this particular battle, I'm choosing to err on the side of love.  I am putting my arms around my brothers and sisters who have won this cultural battle, and I am opening my heart to them.  I hope my Christian brethren will do the same, and I hope they know that I do the same to them, that I have compassion for their defeat and hope they will find peace again with themselves.  Whether or not this is wrong, I leave to my God, and I have perfect faith and trust that He has everything well in hand.

I'm Not Insulted

The top news item lately has been Bruce Jenner’s transition to Caitlyn.  The drastic transformation of such a public figure has brought widespread attention, approval, outrage, and speculation for weeks.  Now that the process is complete, there has been a positive storm of response, and for the most part, I mean that literally.  My feed and my wall have been covered with people lauding Caitlyn’s choice and her courage, which may tell you a bit about who my friends are, if not about who I am. 

But it is still a storm, and there are flashes of negativity out there.  I recently read an article speaking to the opposite side, mostly because a friend of mine shared it and I wanted to see where she stood.  The article was written by Matt Walsh and is titled, “Calling Bruce Jenner a Woman is an Insult to Women”.  Not mincing words at all, is he?  As you might expect, the tone is vicious and cruelly one-sided, and I hesitate to defend such a vicious piece in any way, but there are one or two nuggets in all the vitriol.

I think that to transgenders, the choice is a very personal one, and society has made it a very public battle. That this process has been so visible may be part of what made Caitlyn struggle with the decision. We have assigned conditions to our love and acceptance of people—they have to fit into our ideas of who they should be before we will give them any respect or concern. That's what makes this fight so difficult for them. But the writer, in making that point, embodies the cruelty he is describing.  He has missed the fact that disagreement and love are not mutually exclusive. (Remember that friend I mentioned, the one who shared this article?  If she does agree with it, as implied, well, I disagree with her, but she is still a good friend of mine.)

As for "unveiling a new self", I agree that that's poorly worded. We have only one "self", but that self is only partly seen by other people. For Caitlyn and other transgenders, their true self is more obscured than for most others, and it is brave of them to choose true self-expression over easy acceptance from others. This form of bravery, while very different from that of someone who gives up his life for others, is just as valid and should not be dismissed.

Finally, the point on Photoshop and plastic surgery being used to make an "authentic" woman intrigues me. It is an interesting dichotomy, that transgenders can use these methods to make themselves a "real" woman, but women are discouraged from doing so. I think it comes down to self-acceptance, and the point that we OURSELVES should decide whether we can accept who and what we are, as we are, or if we need to make some changes. If I retain anything from this article, it's that I should not criticize a woman for deciding, for her own sake and not the sake of society, to make changes to her appearance.

What it comes down to, I believe, is that we need to stop looking at the world in terms of black and white, because it simply isn’t.  I’ve come to this conclusion again and again—gender is a spectrum, sexuality is a spectrum, autism is a spectrum, the rainbow is a spectrum.  We humans are many things all in one, and there is never one thing in all of us.  That’s part of the glory of being human.  When we learn to first accept, and then cherish, that diversity, we will be making real progress. 

Right Sound, Wrong Thought

I am a big fan of pop music.  The top forty songs on the radio are usually just fine with me, no matter how many times they crop up.  When it comes to music, I’m not terribly picky—so long as the tune is fairly melodic, I’m all right with listening as I drive along.  Recently, however, I’ve been paying a bit more attention, and I’m starting to get concerned about the words that are worming their way into our ears.  In particular, I’m worried about what young women are hearing when they turn on the radio.  In more than one instance, modern music is starting to give girls the exact wrong message.

Let’s start with “Hey Mama” by David Guetta, with Nicki Minaj, Bebe Rexha and Afrojack.  This one has got me conflicted, because I love the sound.  It’s edgy, exciting, and really quite fascinating—cut off the words and I’d be happy to listen to it all day.  But the line “yes, I’ll do the cooking, yes, I’ll do the cleaning” has me switching stations every time.  That line, in connection with all the rest (the next is “yes, I’ll keep the na-na real sweet for your eating”, which I don’t think is talking about bananas), gives me the image of a woman confined to the kitchen for domestic work and rough sex whenever her man wants it.  Not acceptable, sorry.  The song seems to be  a step in the direction of a woman expressing her sexuality, and I agree, we need to be less shy of that these days.  But it’s a step that has us falling in a hole, making this woman sound desperate and even pornographic, setting aside her own wants and even her name for sex.  I don’t know about you, but I will never answer anyone who calls me “mama” to whom I did not give birth.  That is not my name, thanks.  

From the other side of a controlling relationship is Nick Jonas’s “Jealous”.  Again, an enjoyable song with great music, but the lines about a boy telling his girlfriend that she is getting too much attention from others sets my teeth on edge.  The chorus is a detailed description of his reaction—clenched jaw, heavy breathing, red face: all signs of excessive anger.  The speaker even acknowledges that “it’s not your fault that I hover”, but the following line, “I mean no disrespect” rings hollow.  He is trying to control the girl’s actions, accusing her of straying “even though I know you love me”.  As much as I am a fan, Nick, it is not, in fact, your “right to be hellish.”  Jealousy is natural, but it does not give one the right to mistreat one’s partner.  If you’re jealous, that’s your problem to deal with.  Let me know if I can help, but don’t try to tell me how I have to fix it.  

Then there’s Meghan Trainor.  Oh, Meghan.  More than one of Meghan’s songs have made it onto my blacklist.  “All About That Bass” was a favorite of mine for weeks, until I really started to listen.  I’m not all that bothered by the slur against “skinny bitches”, though it isn’t a very nice thing to hear.  What bothers me is the line in the chorus that’s meant to be reassuring: “boys like a little more booty to hold at night.”  Wait, so that’s why I should be okay with my size?  What about loving and accepting myself?  No, it’s the approval of men that I should be striving for, apparently.  Another of Meghan’s songs that is starting to bother me is “Dear Future Husband”, which, aside from implying in its entirety that a woman needs a husband to be happy, also gives the impression that women are flighty, insane creatures and a man just needs to be patient with us.  (Meghan’s work has been picked through with more detail and eloquence here).

Now, all of these songs are ones that I’ve found myself singing in the middle of my workday.  They are catchy, fun tunes that stick with you, and that makes it all the more worrying  to me, because it means their message is sticking, too.  Girls are singing these songs and have no idea of what exactly it is they are internalizing in the process.  They are learning that they are valuable only in the respect of what they give to men; that men are allowed to be controlling and possessive and that being the object of such desire makes them “sexy beautiful”; that they need to strive to please men and seek out relationships with them to be complete.  Obviously, our music industry is falling short.  All of these artists are incredibly talented—what if that talent were directed at building up our girls, making them stronger in themselves and in the world?  It would be nice to be able to sing out with their music, without shame, without guilt, knowing I’m reinforcing something good. 

This, then, is my challenge to those who write songs that may sometime be working their way up to the top.  As you sing, think about what your words are actually saying.  Think about a young girl, just starting to figure out who she is and what she wants to be.  What is your song teaching her?  If it’s not to be the very best she can be, for her own sake, then maybe you should consider a rewrite.

Find the True

As a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I don’t spend a lot of time steeped in reality.  This morning, I was worried about how an artificially-intelligent machine would track down one of its friends without the enemy spotting it along the way; later today, I will turn my attention to a reincarnated princess and the nightmares she has of her past life.  For me, the word “reality” is loosely defined.

I wonder, however, if it’s not the same way for writers at the other end of the literary spectrum.  I read an article recently about memoirists, who possibly have the most right to call their works “real”.  These people are writing about their own lives, on which one would hope they would be the foremost authority.  Yet many memoirists talk about how they have to stretch the truth, adding things that may not have happened or skimming over events that they deem unimportant to the story they’re trying to tell.  That’s the point, after all—they’re reshaping their own lives into a cohesive, sensible story line, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life, it’s not cohesive and it’s rarely sensible.  Thus, creative nonfiction is a misnomer—there’s a lot more fiction in there than readers might think.

So what about my “fantasy”?  Is there nothing real in that?  If that were true, I doubt anyone would read it, and yet fantasy remains a very popular genre.  In the end, fantasy explores aspects of reality that we don’t often encounter in our daily lives.  What happens when a man can literally look into the darkness of his own soul?  Ask Ged, the main character of Ursula LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea.  What would be the result if a man could use words to corrupt others’ beliefs and values?  Check out the Graceling series by Kristin Cashore to find out.  How might the widespread use of robots change the way humans interact with one another?  See Asimov’s I, Robot for details.  There are limitations in our “reality”.  Fantasy and science fiction opens doors to more possibilities than this world allows, taking average human beings and planting them in extraordinary circumstances.

Where is the boundary line in literature?  What’s real and what isn’t?  I think people have been asking that question for a long, long time.  They’ll probably still be asking it in five hundred years when cities fly and humans are living on the Moon.  Writers are simply the first to ask “what if?”, and from the answers they come up with, we can learn more about our own "reality".

**The title is a nod to Anne McCaffrey, from the first in her Harper Hall trilogy, Dragonsong.