Writing This Made My Stomach Hurt

A brief disclaimer: I have never been diagnosed with anything along the lines of anxiety, so I am not trying to speak to a general sentiment here.  This is my attempt to explain my own difficulties with interpersonal relations.

Social anxiety makes everyone into strangers, while simultaneously making strangers safer than friends.  For me, strangers are easy to interact with, particularly in the contexts I usually find myself–when I’m working, or when they are working, it’s easy because I know what to expect from someone who comes in to order food or someone who is processing my requests at the post office or the bank.  It still makes me nervous, but I can prepare myself.  

Once I kind of know someone, however, some of the padding goes away.  Once faces and names are familiar, people expect more of me, and different things, things I can’t predict.  People who come into the store quite regularly start asking me questions about myself, offering information about themselves.  I have no idea how they are going to respond to my responses.  These conversations I find much more awkward, and therefore much more terrifying, than the light small talk exchanged with strangers.

Then there are true acquaintances: people I know from church or from work, who know the general shape of my life and I know theirs.  If I know about their family and they know the name of my cat and my roommate, in some ways it is easier.  But I still have to play the role of the person they know, still have to fit myself into the parameters in which they expect to see me.  And while I no longer have to quite explain myself every other sentence, which is a relief, there is a new fear in the form of defying the expectations they already have.  I have to guard myself to make sure I won’t say something out of character, something that doesn’t fit in the mental picture they already have.  It's not rejection I fear, but lack of understanding--that I will describe something that is so very important to me and receive a blank look in return.  Those awkward "oh, okay"s are horrifying to me in a way that I can't explain.  I am constantly concerned with protecting other people’s comfort level with me.

I’m so grateful for my real, true friends, who have revealed time and again that even if I let down my guard, even if I just be bluntly obvious about myself, they will still find something to admire and love in me.  These, of course, are unicorns, precious and few.  And still even with them, sometimes I can’t ask for what I need.  I love them so much that the idea of burdening them, or even inconveniencing them in any way, terrifies me.  What have I done for them, after all?  What do they really get out of this friendship with me?

Is it any wonder that I haven’t found a significant other yet?  This final level of friendship, this boss fight of human interaction, would mean a person in whose company I am always comfortable, whose love and acceptance of me are beyond doubt.  This someone would have to be someone who had been tested and tried and had proved themselves worthy of seeing my soft, vulnerable self with no shell whatsoever, and who would never be tempted to take advantage of that trust.  Not only am I terrified of the process it would take to get to this level, I am doubtful that anyone could ever actually beat it.  And yet I long for this person, for this one human, this exquisite creature, with whom I could share my least, strangest thought, and know that they understand and resonate with it, with me.

All Hail

I’m nearly always late to get excited about trends.  I’m the anti-hipster—I only like things once they’re not cool anymore.  Most of the time it’s because I am reluctant to invest in any story, no matter the medium, unless I’m sure that I will enjoy it.  My time is way too valuable to waste.  While this protects me from some bad works, it also means I miss out on wonderful things unless someone who knows me strong-arms me into the experience.  Oddly enough, it is often Pinterest or Tumblr that convinces me to watch or read something.  Fans will post art or quotes from the story, and these things will persuade me that maybe I should actually check this story out.  This is how I was introduced to Night Vale.

Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast which began airing in mid-2012 and just recently reached its 100^th episode.  It is written in the style of a small-town local radio show, featuring news, weather, traffic, local events, etc.  All of this might not be very interesting except that Night Vale is a place where very strange things happen.  An aircraft appears for a moment in the middle of a baseball stadium, hooded figures wander through the dog park (where under no condition are you to go, nor to take your dog), and various surveillance helicopters fly over the town, occasionally scooping up stray children.  And that’s just the first episode.

The host of the radio show and voice of Night Vale, Cecil, is a man with several mysteries of his own.  He is cheerful, humorous, profound, and inspiring.  Though initially just a voice on the radio, he soon evolves into a character of his own, struggling with imperfect relationships.  What I find most fascinating about him and the way he tells the story is the way he frames what can be a truly nightmarish life.  In Night Vale, surveillance is everywhere, magic and sheer weirdness destroy lives in every episode, and yet Cecil still talks about the goodness in life.  He reacts to horror and pain with humor and wisdom, making the best of the various strange situations and showing love for his home and his town despite its danger.

Night Vale truly does question the notion of what is normal.  There are several points in the series where Cecil wonders if he or the world even exist, or if it is all just an illusion.  Time travel, wars in space, and dark sacrificial rituals are de rigueur, and town-wide disasters happen so often that people tend to get bored of them.  What’s more, though, is Night Vale normalizes some things that still cause controversy in the so-called “real world”.  One of the running plot points for the show involves the development of the relationship between Cecil and the town scientist Carlos.  The show features disabled characters, non-binary characters, and characters with various religions and races, and they are all treated as if these traits are secondary to their value as thinking entities.  Indeed, Cecil offers support and understanding to artificial intelligences and five-headed dragons, so why not?  It is a powerful statement, I think, on how to respect others regardless of their viewpoints or backgrounds.

Most fascinating to me, however, is the beautiful and thought-provoking language, and this, I feel, can only be conveyed in the exact words, so here are a few of my favorite quotes.  Some of them are drawn directly from the podcast, while some come from the associated twitter, @NightValeRadio.

“The universe is unraveling, but how beautiful these moments within the dissolve.”

“Fear is consciousness plus life.  Regret is an attempt to avoid what has already happened.  Toast is bread held under direct heat until crisp.  The present tense of regret is indecision.  The future tense of fear is either tragedy or comedy.  The past tense of toast is toasted.”

“I could teach and preach and shout and explain, but no lesson is as powerful as the lesson learned on one’s own.”

“All the beauty of the world was made within oppressive limitations of time and death and impermanence.”

“Mostly void; partially stars.”

“Today you will meet a beautiful stranger.  Actually hundreds of beautiful strangers.  Everyone is beautiful and you know almost none of them.”

“ ‘Human being’, like ‘men working’ and ‘children playing’, is a sentence with a noun, a verb, and the possibility of an imminent disaster.”

“Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.”

I highly recommend this exquisite, humorous, expansive work, still ongoing after five years.  Episodes are released twice monthly and can be found through ITunes or other podcast apps, on YouTube, or via their website, welcometonightvale.com. 

“Close your eyes.  Let my words wash over you.  You are safe now.  Welcome to Night Vale.”

Features Make Me Feel Special

I've been featured as a guest on my friend Yafen's blog!  Such a joy to share influence (such as it is) and readership (such as it is) with a fellow writer.  Check out her blog here!

Speculating on Speculative Fiction

I love being a writer.  I love the feeling of my fingers dancing across the keys, love to watch the words running across the screen, love to let my mind trace the events and ideas I describe on the page.  I am proud of the three novels I have completed, and though they are not yet published, I am confident that someday they will be.  But there is one thing I do not like, and that is when people ask what my books are about. 

Yes, I know that this is a natural question to follow the announcement that am writing a book.  I recognize that this question is a necessary evil.  But if I could tell the story in the time allotted to a casual conversation, I wouldn’t have written an entire book (series) about it.  More than that, though, I feel awkward talking about my work to people, because I have this idea that they will lose interest the moment I answer their question.  You see, I write science fiction and fantasy, and there is something about those genres that reduces the respect people give to the writing.  I have expressed my feelings on this stigma at length in a previous post (“Niche”), so I won’t get into them here. 

I think the reason for this uncertainty is the fact that these genres—collectively with horror called “speculative fiction”—have long been outliers of literature, enjoyed by only a few and not considered by academics to be worthy of analysis.  Even now, when fantasy and science fiction are becoming more firmly established in popular culture—think Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, not to mention Star Wars and Star Trek—still I had trouble finding a professor who had any knowledge about (or indeed, interest in) my chosen genre.  These genres are escapism, a way to get out of the world, and I think most scholars tend to find realistic fiction more relevant.

I disagree (of course).  I think that these genres have a great deal of relevance in today’s culture, that they can teach us much about ourselves and the world we live in.  Maybe people do come to these genres to escape, to stop thinking about the troubles of this world, but I think they find in these stories that even in fantastic and outlandish and impossible worlds and situations, people are still people, still relatable.  Readers of science fiction and fantasy see the best and worst of humanity displayed in ways that we don’t see in our world, and that has real value.

Fantasy is defined by the use of imagination to construct a world unlike our own.  Of course all fiction involves imagination, characters and places that do not actually exist, but to qualify as fantasy, a drastic change has to be made.  Either the story must take place in a different world entirely, or elements of our world are consciously altered.  Magic is a common tool and a clear sign of fantasy, but there are others—divergent histories, for example, in which one finds the world just slightly different than it actually is, because the author imagines what might happen if a certain historical event had not happened or had been changed. 

Early fantasy came out of stories for children, fairy tales in which the rules of the world are not questioned.  Indeed, fantasy relies on suspension of disbelief, a willingness on the part of the reader to accept things as they are presented.  John Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River and George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin are often cited as the earliest examples of fantasy stories, published in 1851 and 1872, respectively.  After them came other works by authors such as William Morris and Lord Dunsany, establishing the genre.  In the early 20^th century, the most popular form of fantasy described various “lost worlds”, feeding off of archaeological discoveries in South America, Egypt, and the Middle East.  More and more fantastical stories appeared throughout the 1920s and 30s, though juvenile fantasy was much more successful than fantasy for adults.  In the 1950s, “sword and sorcery” fantasy, with its fast-paced action, romance, and focus on personal matters was most prevalent.

It was high fantasy, best characterized by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, that brought fantasy into the mainstream.  These stories focus around a single hero or heroine, usually with a special heritage or a mysterious nature.  The story follows the hero as s/he matures, and it often features a mentor figure and a powerful enemy.  The conflict of good vs. evil is central to such stories.  Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia both fall into this subgenre, and so it is this that most people think of when they think of fantasy—sweeping epics in other worlds or in societies set apart from our own world.  There is, however, a subgenre of “low” fantasy, in which the story is set in our own world with the inclusion of magical elements like personified animals or toys (The Indian in the Cupboard), altered physics (The Borrowers), magical powers, or time slips.  These stories are less black and white than their high fantasy equivalents; their heroes and heroines tend to be more cynical and have their own agendas.

My first fantasy book was probably The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, and I would often rent the movie adaptation of The Princess and the Goblin.  I went on from there to Tamora Pierce’s Alanna and John Peel’s The Secret of Dragonhome.  I don’t know when it was precisely that I was hooked, but it got to the point that my father would tease me I wouldn’t read anything unless it had wizards and unicorns in it.  High fantasy, low fantasy, I gobbled it all up, and to this day it remains my favorite genre.

Four of my five major writing projects are fantasy, and they feature elements from both high and low fantasy.  While my Snapdragon series has no magic at all and a world following almost all the same rules ours does, I have another series where the culture of the world is defined by a decades-long war with demons.  Both subgenres present different challenges to the development of character and plot, and both offer fascinating explorations of human nature.

“Fantasy is the impossible made probable.  Science fiction is the improbable made possible.”

Rod Serling

Science fiction is equally difficult to define—anything that is considered “speculative” will naturally push any boundaries one tries to set around it.  What one normally finds in science fiction, though, is a story which looks to the future, finds a world that is technically possible, and explores how it might come about and what it might be like if it did.  

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often cited as one of the first science fiction novels.  After her came writers such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, inspired by the wave of new technologies made available in the early twentieth century.  American pulp magazines sprang up to feature science fiction works, and in the late 1930s, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ray Bradbury brought us some of the most common elements found in science fiction, namely robots, space travel, and new political systems (see I, Robot, The Sentinel, and Fahrenheit 451).  Over time, two different subgenres developed: “hard” science fiction, featuring a focus on the natural sciences and accurate details, and “soft” science fiction, which is less concerned with accuracy and more with speculative culture and society.  Other subgenres include cyperpunk, steampunk, time-travel, dystopian, and apocalyptic.

I’m somewhat of a newcomer to the science fiction genre, having come to it late and somewhat by accident.  When I first started to read Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, I thought that it was fantasy—an agrarian society in a made-up world, a culture led by musicians…fire-breathing dragons?  Of course it was fantasy.  But as I continued to read, all of these elements were explained in a way that would technically be possible, and Pern was revealed to be a distant planet.  From there I went on to McCaffrey’s collaborative works Acorna and Freedom’s Landing, and then to Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness.  As a teenager and young adult, I started to pick up some of the dystopian works trending at the time, like Uglies by Scott Westerfield and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  In my reading I definitely lean towards soft science fiction; I’m more interested in the way possible worlds might affect people’s lives rather than the technologies in their lives. 

My Youngest series I would definitely classify as soft science fiction.  My interest is in the interactions between people—and yes, I do consider Youngest as a person, despite the fact she is an artificial intelligence.  That debate itself is part of the reason I started writing her story.  This kind of question is something that can only be asked in science fiction, and it leads to many fascinating themes—the relative worth of sentient lives, the interaction of human and not-human, the value and the danger of technology, the comparative horror of death and pain—which are deeply relevant to today’s world. 

So mainstream or no, science fiction and fantasy have great value.  The trends in these genres outline the direction of human imagination, bringing life to our hopes and fears for the world.  They give a shape and a voice to things we don’t often think about, to issues that we don’t usually talk about.  I think that’s worthy of some thought, don’t you?

If I’ve convinced you, and you would like some recommendations to start your own exploration into these genres, here are a few in addition to the ones I’ve mentioned above.

Fantasy:

Abarat by Clive Barker

Green Rider by Kristen Britain

Which Witch? by Eve Ibbotson

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Science Fiction:

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Science Fantasy (yes, there is such a thing!  Science fantasy stories feature elements of both science fiction and fantasy)

So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde

The Giver by Lois Lowry

She Made Space

The cords under my feet, the six or seven inches of chair under my hips, smooth dark desk under my arms—I find myself very aware of the physical space I occupy this evening.  Not surprising, as I have just come from viewing a play called “She Made Space”, a new work by Meredith Cope-Levy, a dear friend of mine.  That friendship was the primary attraction for me; I rarely go to live theatre performances, mostly because I am extraordinarily picky about the stories I invest in.  If I don’t know even before diving in that I will enjoy the story, I won’t waste my time.  But I had the privilege of participating, in some small part, with Meredith’s undergraduate thesis project, and from that experience I learned that she truly is a master of her craft.  So off I went up two flights of stairs to sit in the back row of a tiny theatre for a heartwarming and thought-provoking evening.

The play opened with a direct challenge to the fourth wall—“we’re in a theatre,” proclaimed the main and only character, Echo.  She proceeded to explain the premise of the hour-long performance: an exploration of one woman’s place in life, in terms of the spaces she occupies in her own regard and in the regard of others.   This I had learned from the play’s advertisements, but what I hadn’t known was that the play’s narrator and protagonist was an echo in truth, speaking about Meredith’s life and tracing Meredith’s path of revelation and self-discovery.  I watched, entranced, as a window opened into my friend’s mind and heart, etched out in reality on the stage.

Emma Sperka’s performance as Echo brought the story to life as she spoke in many different languages.  She spoke in image, scattering petals as she went back and forth and referring repeatedly to a silk rose, which was pretending just like Echo was.  She spoke in motion, sinking to the floor as “my heart dropped”.  Metaphor, poetry, and theme intertwined as Emma’s husky voice told many stories of many women, loving and hurting and struggling for truth and acceptance.  And I, I gave my heart to Echo and to Meredith from the first moment I realized they were one and the same.

The inspiration for the play was a photograph with two women taking up space outside a café.  One is talking, the other writing—“we are witnessing an exchange,” Echo said.  Later, she asked, “Where are you in this story?”  When the story was lived, I was a passer-by, knowing only the destination and a few stops along the way.  Tonight, however, I was an intimate part of the exchange, writing my thoughts while Meredith’s words spoke to me.  I am so grateful to her for opening her center to me, for the privilege of being welcomed into her space.

Of Our Own Device

Sometimes you just need to take a breath and hit reset.  Sometimes you need a break from normalcy.  I find that this happens to me quite often.  I need a rest from the “fine, and you?”  I need to express how I really am, whether it be floating on the transcendence of an excellent story, or descending slowly into a maddening creative silence. 

Recently I’ve been writing letters to various friends and family.  Letters are the easiest and truest form of communication I’ve found, because they are safe.  Time and distance separate me from the person I am talking to, so I can safely reach down into the core of myself and say what I am really thinking and feeling.  I don’t have to worry about the crease of brow, the twist of mouth that together say how outside of acceptable public expression my words are.  I don’t have to hear those people wondering what I am talking about, when what they mean is why am I talking about something that is not easy, expected, safe, normal.

I wonder sometimes if other people feel this way.  They must.  The human mind is so intricate, so fascinating, so expansive, and yet this small concept of “normal” restrains our lives, our actions, our thoughts, to a tiny area.  We are so afraid of straying outside of those lines that we make prisoners of ourselves.  I think that this is unspeakably tragic.

I hope that I can be brave enough to knock down those mental walls and think precisely the way I want to.  I hope that I can take those words I’ve feared in the past—words like weird and strange and crazy—and wear them with pride.  How can it be a bad thing to think of things that most others never have?  What I am doing is expanding the reach of human consciousness.  Should that not be something that we want? 

I refuse to believe that the human race wants nothing more than to be small, to inhabit the same mental space it always has.  I prefer to have greater faith in us than that.

Walk

I just got back from a walk.  Wanting some uninterrupted time to listen to a new podcast episode (Welcome to Night Vale, if anyone is curious), and maybe a little exercise too, I put in my headphones and set out for the Greenway which is a few blocks away from my house.  This section of the Greenway, which rambles all over my city, runs along the river, making it a very scenic route.

My first sight on reaching the river was a flock of geese, striding across the path in that particularly unhurried way geese have when they’ve become accustomed to humans.  Most of them were Canada geese, but there was one uglier white one in among them.  There were a few other people out on the path—a man pushing a stroller and walking his dog, a woman jogging who slowed to a walk as she passed me.  I nodded and smiled to them but said nothing to them, busy listening to a man with a deep voice tell me some very strange things. 

A few times along the way, I stopped to look at the water.  I took a few pictures with my phone, trying to capture the twisting colors of the river, brown and incandescent blue-green and black in the shadows and bubbling white.  I stood there as long as I could, just watching, and if I had been confident of remaining unobserved, I might have waded into the water, let it rise up around my knees and soak my jeans.  Maybe not—as I said before, it was cold.

I kept going, collecting images as I went.  The roots of trees extending out over the water, or rippling the pavement with cracks and tiny rises.  A toy gun hung from the branch of a tree.  Two ducks bursting into flight from the surface of the water.  Smooth stones polished to gems by the water—I picked up two, but they’re never quite as beautiful when they’re dry.  The wooden barriers by the path where the slope to the river became steep, inviting me to stop and lean on them and look out.  I did, once.

There’s no moral to this story, no particular reason I’m writing about it.  Just that when I go out like this—out of my house, out of my way, out of my own head—I like to remember it.  I like to think that even something as simple as a walk is something special, because it is.