Personae
What *are* we, anyway?

Posted by

misterjonez
12/15/17
34

I don't know exactly where to go with this, but I'll dig in with both hands anyway.  I'm sorry if this comes across as too morbid or as ill-timed.

Doc's recent absence got all of us to thinking, and some good comments came out in the 'Loyalty' post where he assured us he's on the path to recovery from the ailment that attempted to lay him low.  For this good news, we're all rightly thankful.  And in *this* crowd I don't assume that more than maybe one or two of you won't have already pondered the issues of mortality, legacy, and other meaning-of-life-related issues at least as much as I have.  But I thought this would be a good time to relay a single, crystallized thought I've had since I was probably nine or ten years old (it's not 'original' in the objective sense, but it is 'original' to me, at least at the time).

We are not our bodies, nor are we what we *think* we are.  We are best defined by our impact on others, not by our impact on ourselves.

I'm a badly flawed human being.  As badly flawed as any of you regulars on this board.  I have said and done things I'm ashamed of to the point of pondering my self-worth at the most fundamental levels.  But none of *you* know those facets of 'me.'  What I am to *you* is what I project onto this narrow slice of communicative medium that we all cherish so much.  None of you know that I'm currently building a poultry farm in the Philippines, for example, and that this endeavor consumes probably 80% of my waking thoughts.  Few of you know that I'm an indie sci-fi/fantasy writer with 16 novels currently available on Amazon, and even fewer still have ever checked out my author page there or gone to my eponymous website (this last is in no small part due to the fact that I don't broadcast that information regularly--which I refrain from doing precisely because it's unimportant to our interactions *here*).

And the most fundamental reason that not every one of you knows those things about me is because, to you, that's not who I am.  I'm 'Jonezy,' the eccentric lurker who infrequently bombards the place with overly opinionated rants that sometimes make you roll your eyes in annoyed bewilderment, and sometimes resonate *just enough* to keep you from wholly ignoring everything I say ;-)

I don't know much about our dear friend, Jeff Clarke, beyond my interactions with him here.  Those interactions have revealed that he's a truly generous person, who is eager to share his wisdom with those who would listen and who 'tends his flock' (read: us) almost as an 'instinctive' act rather than any conscious objective (and I loathe the term 'instinctive' because, usually, it seems to diminish a person's choices and character--that is not my intention here).  He has deeply touched all of our lives, even though most of us have never shared a room with him, and to us (even though he, himself, has chuckled at the etymology of the nickname) he's 'Doc.'  And here's where it gets a little more interesting, to me at least:

He'll *always* be Doc to us.  He could logoff tomorrow and never come back, and the impact he's had on our lives wouldn't diminish in the slightest.  If you're putting down cold, hard cash at close to even odds, then you'd have to bet that this community wouldn't survive his permanent absence.  Such is the way with charismatic leaders.  But Doc's popularity here isn't built solely on his charisma--it's built on his wit, his wisdom, his love, and his devotion to the people he cares about.  In that way, the person he is to us will live on forever.

Some people have jokingly chided in the last week or so that I'm doppleganging Doc's shtick of late, and to a point that's true.  But it's not a 'conscious' decision on my part to do that so much as it's become routine for me to slip into the Jonezy character whenever I'm here with y'all.  That Jonezy character has been pretty deeply impacted by his interactions with Doc, and even the guy behind Jonezy has been irrevocably changed for the better by his communications with our good friend Jeff.  Such is the impact that Doc's had on all of our lives.

And honestly, I'm more than just a wee bit envious of him for that ;-)

As a writer with perhaps 1,500 fans of my best-selling series, I respect and admire Jeff's legacy that he's built here.  I can only imagine his legacy in the Real World.  The number of lives he's touched, the number of souls he's saved, and the sheer quality of interaction he has provided to countless people is something that any of us would be proud to have accomplished in our lifetimes.  And I don't say this as someone attempting to curry favor with anyone.  I mean it sincerely: our friend Doc has impacted all of us so deeply that, even though the reason for our initial gathering (Seattle Mariners baseball) has withered to an unrecognizable husk unworthy of our ongoing attention, we continue to gather in this place and talk about it, among other things.  Why?

Because Doc literally made this community, and he made it (largely) in his own image.  It's an extension of him, just like it has become an extension of each of us.  He's the brain of this particular body (called 'SSI,' or 'DOV,' or whatever else it's been labeled in the past), no doubt about it, and no bodies survive long without that all-important organ.  But even if this place closed its doors tomorrow, the personae we've crafted and been exposed to would persist between our ears and on the immortal e-pages of the interweb.  The impact of those collected personae will be felt not only in our lives directly, but in the lives of everyone who comes into contact with them, or with us (the people behind those personae) as we navigate the often turbulent waters on the River of Life.  We've grown our personae (birthed here or elsewhere but significantly cultivated in this place, under Doc's loving guidance) into permanent extensions of ourselves, and those extensions have radically altered the way we not only interact *here* but how we interact everywhere else.

I'm proud to have been part of this place, which means I'm proud to have been part of each of your lives (in the narrow fashion this medium permits).  I've always felt like a parasite here--meaning someone who takes more than he gives--but such an accusation could never be made of our good friend Doc, whose persona and legacy will survive long past that 'Jeff' guy, whoever he thinks he is.

Because one thing I've learned in my life is that it's our impact on others that best defines us, not our impact on ourselves.

Tags: 
philosophy
Meaning of Life
Legacy
community

Comments

1

Hey 'jonezie'...you may or may not be aware that I've spent the last three years working very *very* hard to hone my abilities as a writer (in the sci-fi genre, no less), under the tutelage of friends in the Catholic writers' communities, two major amateur writing guilds (who each count among their members many multiply-published authors who make decent livings at it), and a professional critique group led by a bestselling author (if you're curious, look up Anne Fortier). The learning is starting to bear fruit, in that I've drafted and re-drafted and re-re-drafted my ongoing science fiction world-building concepts so much that I've started to gain momentum and am beginning to actually hit self-imposed writing deadlines on a path to finishing my first novel early next year...and in the sense that when I read things I wrote a year ago or more (even things that won small contests), I annoy myself with my sad, imperfect writing efforts compared to what I see in the thing I'm currently writing.

I mention all of this now because I am genuinely curious, now, what sort of sci-fi writer you are. It'd give me a good excuse to make some time to read from a friend.

It's a funny thing...

I think I know all of the frequent commenters here...but I don't. I don't really "know" anyone here. I know only what they are willing to say about themselves and how they interact with others. If everyone is judging by that standard, I'm amazed I don't get hate mail. Anyway, this sort of post makes the community feel much more real...much stronger...to me. I wish more of the regular commenters here would take turns talking more about other aspects of their lives...stuff they don't consider too private, of course.

Doc's writing style sort of automatically reveals a lot about him...we know many of the types of jobs he's taken. We know how he interacts with his wife and children and faith. We know a lot about his sense of humor. :) And we know how fiercely loyal, moral, and caring he is. It may be a bit ridiculous to an outsider looking in, but people like him (and my wife, in different, yet very similar ways) have made me want to be a better man.

That's what human interaction should be about. And so rarely ever is.

2

Here's the link to my Amazon author page, and here's the link to my eponymous website (which, if you're interested, I could probably have my buddy craft a copy for you once you've got your first novel ready for the presses :-) ).

I've read authors who say that you have to write down, as FINISHED NOVELS, 1,000,000 words' worth of material before your feet under you and your stuff is 'worthy' (whatever that means) of being read.  Those same voices generally say that, over the course of the NEXT 1,000,000 words, you become the author you'll basically be going forward.  Honestly, aside from the 'worthiness' bit, that's tracked pretty well with my experience.  I'm over 2,000,000 words e-published, and I've *kinda* gotten a rhythm and form down that works for me and, I think, for my readers.

And yeah, don't fret your earlier stuff.  We all stumble early on, but if you judge your current ability by your product of yesteryear, you might as well judge your current math skills by that worksheet you bombed in second grade.

Here's the key: don't ever stop.  Not for anything.  If you've go a story between your ears, write it down--even if it's just a Post-It tacked to the fridge with a concept.  WRITE. IT. DOWN.  And then stare at it for awhile until you've got the resources/faculties to do it justice (at least to the best of your ability--MOST of my 'best' plotlines are a lot better in my head than they are after I put them down, but sometimes--sometimes--I get it 'right.'

And yeah, I'm always curious how to enhance my writing career.  If things had gone a *little* better for me on that front, I probably wouldn't be doing the poultry farm (which, now, in the middle of a torrential downpour as the latest typhoon blows through the Philippines--killing my latest batch of chicks from the cold and wind--looks like a dubious decision), but I've got irons in the fire on the writing front that I'm hoping pay dividends in the coming quarter :-)

Would love to connect with you directly so we can talk shop, if you'd like.  Feel free to hit me up at my facebook, or via email (if you join my author newsletter, you'll be able to reply directly to me through my MailChimp setup).  I'm also on Twitter, if you use it.

3

Did bunches of SciFi short stories early on.  My brother told me to pick up a book of his that was in remainder for $5 at Barnes and Noble.  Since reading that in 96 I have spent 20+ years hunting down other things he wrote to read them then gift them to my brother.  I just picked up his 1st published story in a Galaxy from 1971, the Hero.  George R. R. Martin had the same voice of human understanding and fleshed out characters with real conflicting motivations in everything I've read of his.  I've never read his independent comics from the 60s.  Haven't read his fan-gush letter published in Fantastic Four #32 from 1964, at 16, where he praised Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, then apparently pointed out a hole from a recent plot.  Plan is to get that for his birthday.  That remainder book was the 1st edition hardback of Game of Thrones, now worth more than 50 times what I payed for it.

Point being... his voice is strong in mystery stories, horror, sci fi and fantasy.  The genre doesn't even make Stephen King, who's written dozens of non - horror short stories and novellas that rival anything he's written storytelling wise.  The core is characters, story and voice.  Details and cohesion (path and flow) are important too.  There's no one way to go about anything though.  If anyone tells you that you must do precisely something to find your voice then they may know about how they found their own but they don't know much about human beings.  Another human can always find another way.

I'm a singer, lyricist, poet and do Maintenance for work.  I can write nearly anything lyrically, rhyming or not with unique rhythms, rhyme schemes and stick to subjects.   I've worked in just about every construction field separately and now do more major multistep repairs quite often.

4

That series isn't the kind of story I usually go for, but that doesn't mean I won't geek out about how great a writer Martin really is and how cool that you found his work in a bargain bin before he blew up into celebrity. :)

5

as a guy who wrote a few He Man scripts, personally ;-)

Game of Thrones is a TV sensation, and the book series is a literary one as well--though I *think* that the hoopla being made of it will largely die down, rather than grow as JRR Tolkien's legacy grew following his death.  Ditto Aasimov, Clarke, etc..  I think Martin belongs in that echelon, but he'd be on the lower end of it for me.

His characters are superb, it's true, but it seems to me that the shock factor (the M. Night Shyamalan effect, if you will, at least from the literary perspective) is what gained him so much notoriety (incestuous characters, child-killers, parricides, and slave-traders are POV characters you actually ROOT FOR in that story--impressive writing chops are required to weave a tale that makes you think characters like Jamie and Cersei Lannister are protagonists).

Still, he's in the top shelf of writers from the last century.  I'd just put him down at the end of that shelf rather than front-and-center.  Could be wrong, of course.

6

Is the one that pushed me past my comfort zone with creepy heroes.  But then Donaldson knows a bit about psychology.

The Losers by David Eddings is another strong psychological character story that comes to mind and not at all his standard genre.  Believe he coined the phrase "crisis junkie"in that.  Takes place in Washington/Oregon, without giving too much spoiler.  It's a great read anyway.

Other authors have used the term "humanist" to describe Martin's pre-Game, multi award winning (17 awards before GoT, I believe) work that few people have ever read.  He has always had fully formed people in his stories, never the stereotype to a tee.  No cookie cutter, cardboard stand-ins.  Of course there's all types of people in the world so when he created a world he included all types.  That's not a bad thing, though it is unique.  Heroes on the surface that are not fully heroes are more realistic than most storybook heroes.  People viewed as evil that do good deeds with motivations that make sense not because you've seen them in 80% of everything you've read and watched.  His voice is still fresh to me because it's his alone.  If people ever read his other works his star will continue rising.  Way more body to it than Tolkien, never wrote a Silmarillion (thats a whole other conversation, but it wasn't technically finished).  Fevre Dream: Best Vampire book I've ever read.  Armageddon Rag, 1983?  “The best novel concerning the American pop music culture of the sixties I've ever read.”— Stephen King.  I could go on and on.  I'm trying to refind a magazine from about 81, Horror monthly that had King, Carpenter and Martin listed as the kings of horror... He's no one trick pony.  Even wrote scripts for a decade.  Game of Thrones may lose some lustre over time but he's written so much more than that. 

7

BUT...that doesn't mean I don't appreciate that Martin has shown IMMENSE skill with character creation and with giving the reader a truly challenging angle from which to view events. Not just GoT...he does have a rich library and highly varied in genre and theme.

I think I take Tolkien, though, at least in part because he is Catholic and deeply rooted in Catholic philosophy and reason...which resonates with me. And at least in part because I *LOVE* world-building and there are few places in SF/F that ever achieved his level of complexity, detail, knowledge, and creative development w/r/t the world of Middle Earth and without being an ensemble effort (I'd argue that the Star Trek universe is beginning to rival Tolkien's in depth because so many have gotten a chance to work on it).

Anywho...my own writing is more Tolkien than Martin...I write in allegory and character depth, and I have done a HUGE amount of homework in my world-building efforts. I have a 70-page note-set about the history of the human race from 2010 to 3257 (my story begins in 3255 but the past is highly relevant and a secondary story is being told within it that takes place between 2087 and 2144)...so...I'm biased in his direction. :D

8

The complexities, traditions, songs and religions of different cultures around the larger world Martin created actually dwarfs Middle Earth.  Speaking of the songs, he's the only author I've ever read that wrote multiple songs into stories that weren't half bad in my opinion.  Most others offerings are as cringe inducing as my teenage works. They've used about 5 of his songs in the series, I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.  And they all had good rhythm and rhyme.

Motivations of the Tolkien villain is absolutely empty.  There's no humanity to any of them.  Shannara is the same (since it's getting the TV treatment).  "But they're demons, not humans."  Yeah, that's why I'm not religious.  Those villains aren't believable to me either.

A group of 8 or 10 friends and family between 3 and 4 books in had already discussed and anointed Song of Ice and Fire the best fantasy series we had ever read.  3 of them have read thousands of books with a fantasy preference in their choices.  Not saying they're experts, just that their opinions are thoroughly informed.  Tolkien was top for most before, including myself.  All of us have trouble reading other fantasy now after being spoiled.  I personally have had trouble reading other authors to the point I've gone back and read classics by Jack London, Kerouac, Steinbeck, Twain and others which mostly just weren't the same to me anymore.  Most don't have that same experience.  Many Stephen King short stories still do it for me though.

My first attempt at writing a book was a Xanth rip off (shaped like Washington, of course) when I was 15-16 that actually got ripped off from me.  I kept it in a Sonics gym bag with sports cards and other stuff and someone stole the bag from my locker.   Those who read it generally asked me to let them know when I had more because they liked what I had so far.  It was around 50 pages.  Had not thought about that in a long time.  Rickey Henderson collection, Griffey RC, Payton RC, all the other stuff I don't really care but I wish I could re-read that. 

9

...your understanding of the motivations of Tolkien's villains is lacking. Sorry. :)

Every one of his villains makes their specific purpose quite clear. Of course, you're not going to like the rationale if you aren't religious...he's writing for a crowd that was predominantly very steeped in such things and from a religious perspective. If you're going to call that not believable, I understand...if you don't ascribe to a faith, you won't believe in things that people who do believe in. I'm just gonna have to flatly disagree, though. :)

10

it seems to me that the major difference between Tolkien's and Martin's villains is that Tolkien *does* take a very Western Civilization approach to the issue of 'heroes vs. villains,' and in truth it's an approach that the Chinese largely share throughout their own storied history.

The idea is simple: boil a 'good' or 'bad' character in a story to a single, dominant characteristic--then do your best to disregard everything else about that character in terms of DIRECT story impact.  If your baddie in a fantasy story is, say, a demon, the whole IDEA of 'demons' or 'saints' is to distill a characteristic down to a digestible, sound byte-ish presentation on what motivates that demon.  So pretty much ALL Westen literature that features demons, or devils, or other nasty paranormal critters/entities assigns such a characteristic--like lust being personified, demonically, in a succubus.  Vengeance being, what, the Archangel Gabriel?

So it seems to me that Tolkien's approach was very much in the spirit of this historically dominant approach to storytelling, which is pretty easily the MOST SUCCESSFUL approach to character building in our species' history.  When just about every human civilization down through the ages employs some variant of this 'distillation of character' methodology, you know it's got something serious going for it.

Martin's approach is very much more...I don't know if this is the right word, but I'll use it anyways, 'comprehensive.'  His characters are three-dimensional, so even if they're predominantly driven by a single facet of their psyche (Jamie's loyalty to his family; Ned's slavish devotion to honor; Littlefinger's incessant scheming-for-the-sake-of-scheming; etc..) they are never *reduced* to that facet for the purpose of their interaciton with the story.  For many (most?) of Martin's fans, this sets him apart from the rest of the literary giants.

For me, however, it does not.

And the reason is pretty simple: I don't see cardboard cut-outs when I watch television with wooden characters, or when I play video games with flat scripts, or when I read books with F-key dialogue and plotlines propelling the protagonists from one page to the next.  I impose the depth those characters rightly deserve, even if the author/director/actor failed to do provide a clear line-of-sight to it--and until my third decade, I assumed everyone else did too!

So, for me, cardboard characters are a lot more fun than perfectly-fleshed-out ones.  They give my mind open paths to wander down, and my favorite reading experiences are ones where the author gives me *just enough* rope to hang myself with, conjecture-wise, and where he only occasionally snaps me up with a correction to my presuppositions.

Martin, it seems to me, employs the trope of the Great Plot Twist better than any active author in the sci-fi/fantasy world.  Things like Clegane-bowl (yet to materialize on the TV show, but a near certainty for a variety of reasosn) are slow-motion trainwrecks six or seven books in the making, and when they finally go off he has a truly impressive knack for pulling the rug out from under his readers in some usually subtle fashion (but sometimes, like with Mountain vs. Viper, it's pretty squarely in-your-face).  Combine that with his fleshing out of the characters, and the depth of his worlds' histories, and yeah--he's a top drawer author whose name is going to go down alongside the greats.

But in the end, what morality tale is he telling?  What is his message to the world?  If his message is simply that pragmatism will always triumph over ethics/morality, there's a mountain of Chinese literature (beginning with Romance of the Three Kingdoms) that's centuries or millenia old which tells the same story.  Again, Martin's *style* is superior, but what's the substance?  If it's simply to be entertained, he's as good as anyone.  But what's the enduring legacy of a story like ASoIaF?

Tolkien's Great Work was (at least significantly) about the enduring bonds of friendship being more powerful than any force in existence, that love ultimately triumphs over hate, and that everyone needs help from time to time--and that you should be careful when dismissing potential sources of that help, since even lowly hobbits will eventually get a turn to save the world.

I'm not saying one approach is superior to the other.  I'm just saying that, to me, Martin's Great Selling Points aren't *really* anything special, but a huge part of that is because I was raised with stories like Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  I done seen that show, and though it's a good one, I'm not blown away by a Western author taking a similar approach to epic fantasy.

Wow, that was a ramble.  Sorry.

11

Is hard to gather before the ring is thrown, per se.  SoIaF hasn't yet thrown the ring.

I don't believe that every story must have a moral or theme to be good.  There may be a need among critics and scholars to assign perceived principals for their purposes but my enjoyment goes beyond morals and messages.  For it to strongly endure I'm sure it would have to be perceived as having such by those that feel the need to find it.  The message in entertaining storytelling is not always apparent or even intended. 

I nominate this message

People will surprise you

12

A story must have a purpose for being told. I won't engage with stories that lack such a purpose, no matter how interesting the characters, no matter how deep the world. I don't even think Martin would claim his stories have no objective, but, to me, the reader, their apparent objective isn't always worth the energy needed to read them. I don't think a story can last and stand the test of time if it isn't being told to communicate something to the reader.

13

I couldn't tell you what they are in many cases where I think scholars could easily nail them down.  It's not been something I looked for in most things for decades now.

The rewatchable movie conversation recently I probably couldn't give a moral of the story for most of them.  Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile and others gave you the moral right there in the original printing of dialogue or narrative thoughts.  Many others are obscured enough to me that I never found them, though I never really tried.

Die Hard

Matrix

Monty Python (mostly) 

the Usual Suspects

Big Lebowski

What about Bob

the Hunter

Ghostbusters

the Sting

There's morals and allusions to strength of mental determination affecting things around you in Star Wars movies but what's the message?  Am I just missing them all?  Is message important in literature but not in film? 

14

I'm not saying every story must have a moral message. Every story must have a reason to exist...a point to be made.

The purpose in the telling of each of those movies on your list is very...very evident to me.

Die Hard: this is commentary on how the heroes have their lives impacted by our expectations of them (what it has done to the protagonist to be who society needs him to be and what he is still willing to do when that need arises again)

The Matrix: A comment on how we humans exist in a reality that we never stop to examine...that falling to understand the nature of reality makes you a slave to it...And on a side note, that we are in danger of enslaving ourselves to our technology for that very reason

Monty python: all satire has the same purpose...to call attention to the outright absurdity of the parts of life that we take far more seriously than they deserve to be taken

The Usual Suspects: the goal of this story is to tell the audience that the storyteller is like a God...that a great story well told can make you completely blind to an obvious truth the teller wishes to conceal

The Big Lebowski: this one is particularly obvious..."the dude abides".. The main character has all manner of incredibly strange things happen to him...his life seems objectively in shambles at all times...yet he is ok...he finds a reason to be happy. He abides. There is something in that for us...there is a reason to be happy, if we just let ourselves embrace it

What about Bob: be careful what advice you give...someone might take it to heart. :) it's actually a bit more complex...but I won't belabor it too much...it's a role reversal comedy and generally those are about making the audience think about the roles we force on people

Haven't seen the Hunter

Ghostbusters: like most absurd comedies, this is a commentary about people...you know those huckster scam artists on infomercials...these are those people...we get to see their humanity and we get to laugh at ourselves for being taken in by them all the time

Haven't seen the sting

Point is...I believe a life unexamined is not worth living and that includes a natural tendency to instinctively break down a story and understand why it is being told. If it's a good story, there's always a reason. Whether I like the story then depends on whether I like the purpose. (Like doesn't mean agree with, btw...I can like a story that challenges me by disagreeing with my world view too)

15

If you haven't seen The Sting, go straight to Jil, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Or avoid this terrible fate by watching the movie. The introduction to Scott Joplin's rag music is worth the effort all by itself.

16

And I don't think that the lack of a meaning automatically chops a couple HOF points off a given piece of art's value.  I do think, however, that art *with* a message is much more complete, compelling, and worthwhile than art without a message--assuming style is roughly equal.

I could go off on a real tangent here, but there's a game--Final Fantasy VII--which had a single, unifying concept underneath the glitz and glamor of what is *easily* a top-5 all-time video game.  That concept was basically this: a person's character is as much a part of them as they are a part of it.  That game, while a blockbuster of its day, and a genre-definer to this day, had such wacky (and often downright terrible) writing for long stretches, with such bizarre gaps between the various plot reveals that nobody--NOBODY--played that game having a 100% grasp of what the point was.

And while i don't think that was the developing team's intention, it was *clearly* their intention to explore the complex interplay between one's ego, one's id, and the way the world views a person independent of how that person views him/herself.  The protagonist/antagonist team (Cloud/Sephiroth) were, practically speaking, the same person (with radically different hair)--or, at least, they *were* the same person at a given point in their lives.  But peculiar circumstances warped them into radically different paths, and in the end they square off against each other in diametric opposition on every important issue they face.  The story was about *character* and how it comes to be, and that's why it persists as one of the greatest video games of all time.  The style was top notch for its day, but video games undergo quantum leaps in quality every 2-3 years, so it's the substance which marks an enduring classic like FF VII.

But I agree wholeheartedly that a deep, overarching theme or message isn't *essential* for art to have significant value.  But, all else equal, such a component often proves the difference between 'generational hit' and 'all-time classic.'

17

I, as a writer, am somewhere in between the traditional western "character expressing trait the writer wishes to comment on" approach and the Martin-esque post-modern "character that is completely and fully realistic" approach. I think too much realism in your characters can be bad for you as a storyteller because, if you make your stories like real life, they won't be coherent narratives with a core purpose, and your readers won't find them a very good escape from the complexity of the world.

We tell stories to give the reader something that they can latch onto...we send messages (not message fiction, but fiction with a purpose), we talk about aspects of humanity that we think need to be explored, we make the world make sense...even though it really doesn't, the story lets the reader find SOME sense...if we didn't tell stories, we'd all go stark-raving mad from the total lack of understanding and seeming chaos of life.

Martin doesn't go so far that I find him unreadable, as many in modern sci-fi do these days...but I think I don't like his stories as much as more traditional works because, in his efforts to create super-realistic people for his worlds, he robs himself of the chance to actually make a point...tell a story I can really latch onto and relate to.  Too realistic is LESS relatable to many readers...not more.

My characters don't tend to be archetypes fully, but I do tend to focus on a few key things I want the reader to remember about that character..that stand out and give the audience a reason to relate to them.

18

A second kind of loneliness.  It, to me, is similar to Lifeboat written by Steinbeck and later directed by Hitchcock.  My favorite Hitchcock film although his dialogue and characters were almost always top notch.  They're the 2 things Hitchcock imitators almost always fall entirely flat on, characters and dialogue.  Lines so good that 15 seconds of silence to leave you thinking on them is appreciated.  Mindwalk is another movie in that vein with a presidential candidate, a poet and a scientist talking about life walking around a French castle.  That's the movie, just dialogue.  Few have even tried that.  Before Sunrise/ Sunset/ Midnight is a phenomenal trilogy of success of that style.  Not everyone would enjoy them or even speak as highly.  Other people view things differently than I.  There's no one type of story that all people will like anyway.

21

to artistic expression/creativity.  Everyone's process is unique to him/her (to a point--I mean, NOBODY is truly 'unique' in the sense that we generally employ the term, at least not when discussing a relatively narrow slice of 'who' they are).

The one thing I think we can all agree on, however, is that if you want to be good at a thing you have to practice, practice, practice that thing.

22

It follows just about every major design principle put forward by Nick Stephenson (a design and sales guru who now makes a fortune teaching authors how to market their books after learning to market his own hard-boiled detective mystery novels. It's really great to look at, easy on the eyes. Love everything about it.

And yeah...I'd change the theme/color palette (I write "human wave" science fiction with a heavy emphasis on likeable people you can root for and stories revolving around, faith, hope, and love in the darkest places. I'm envisioning softer colors and images/covers that play with light in dark surroundings. But, otherwise, I'd love to have a site that looks like that. Impressive.

Question for those commenting on how much you'll write before you hit your stride...do fanfic novels count? Way back in college in the early 2000s, I wrote about 500,000 words in a trilogy set in a proprietary universe that shall remain nameless. :) It being proprietary, I knew I wasn't going to publish it...I had a grand story idea and wanted to practice my writing so I did it for fun.

The quote I heard said a million words in completed stories (including shorter works) and, if you count those and my fanfic trilogy...I'll be at about a million words when this book is done.

And this book is really teaching me how to plan and plot and how much work you need to do to research and develop your universe before you can really take advantage of it. This one, I will publish.

I'm under no illusions that I'll have "mastered" my process by the end of this...but I think it is important to publish and go through that whole process, and I hope it will be good enough to get me rolling toward bigger and better things.

I'll hit you up on Facebook (under your author name I assume?)...love talking shop with fellow writers. :)

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that employ some variant of the 1mil-->2mil-->ready to publish paradigms also say 'throw the first million out--as in, burn it and never look back at it,' I think I'd definitely consider a half mil in unpublished fanfic to count.  Again, it's not a perfect paradigm but I do think there's some surprising amount of merit to it.

And yeah, my author name is, in fact, my name ;-)  You can find me pretty easily on facebook or Twitter; I try to use the same pic of my holding two baby girls, sitting on the side of my driveway here in (usually sunny, but presently typhoon-y) the Philippines.

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Not all authors would agree with that.  Some prefer being able to look back and see how far they've come.  Some don't dislike their early writing, even if they see flaws.  Some choose to later rewrite those flaws away.   Martin,  speaking at a book signing, seemed to be one that embraces all of that to an extent.  He's even collaborated with another author on rewriting an earlier story.  

Failures being ignored (assuming that you're burning them because they're automatically failures? Predetermined by who?  Psychics wanted: you'll know the number to call) and never revisited to learn from doesn't sound like any kind of good advice to me in general or any specific that I can think of.

I have early poetry that makes me cringe sometimes when I reread it.  I also find lines and phrases that my midlife self can steal from my teenage self, repurposing it with a better understanding of how to successfully surround the gold I'd forgotten about.  I'd never burn that gold and walk away, regardless of how much crap surrounds it in it's original form.  A million words for me?  That would probably be more than half of my work.  That would include my first published works as well.  I get that a million is meant for novels and not haiku, in the extreme, but I only know of one absolute.  There are no absolutes. 

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I still have the first two books in my unpublished trilogy...third book was not on the same HD and that other one died. :(

But two of my best friends suggested I take the stories, break them into their core meaning, and rewrite the whole thing with original characters and settings, and, some day, I might end up doing that. I love reading my early writing, even though I look at it and say "man...you had some BAD habits, son" or "that is so cliche that other cliches laugh at it"...because I like knowing where I've been to appreciate where I'm going.

27
SonicBOOM!'s picture

SonicBOOM! (not verified)

I'm gonna try to remember that I'm best defined by my impact on others. This is the best thing I've read all week (at least!)

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Very well stated.

To echo your thoughts, I've always believed a life winds up being measured by answering two questions:

1) Did you help other people?

2) Did you help the right people?

I have a feeling Doc gets a big WAR number on both of those.

And more specifically, there are people here who profoundly disagree with each other on a number of issues,  And yet, those opinions can be stated and respected.

How many other places on the Internet do you know where that happens?

For me, zero.

29

Can't think of another place on the internet (which seems to bring out unvarnished hostility, trollery, and downright short-sighted nastiness) where people who disagree profoundly (as, I think, you and I do on several issues we've touched on in the past) can still have reasoned, civil conversations about those very issues.

I cherish this place for that, among plenty of other things.

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... and am grateful to misterjonez for his good work in the place of our fearless leader.  I don't have much to add, but sure appreciate the fact that SSI is a good read with a good hearted give and take.  Nevertheless, come back soon Doc, or my poetry will take a dark turn.

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Good article, SirJonez.

(Don't know why I have a penchant for making small changes to screen names, but I've always done it. I think it's my way of reducing the impersonal nature of online communications. It's sort of like real life, where a nickname is more personal than a legal name.)

Thanks for giving us a sketch about yourself as well as a tribute to the transcending value of Doc and the Seattle Sports Insider community.

Makes me wonder if you've inspired another category for articles. In the past couple of years Konspiracy Korner has become a local genre. Maybe those so inclined might be willing to participate in the creation of a new genre, sketches that give us a handle on who they are beyond SSI. We get bits and pieces occasionally when someone mentions something, perhaps a term describing what they do for a living, etc. But I for one would welcome a fuller introduction from anyone here. Doc, if his health allows, could come up with an apt label for the genre.

P.S. -- A chicken farm in the Phillipines? Who'da thunk it?!

P.P.S. -- Doc, we hope your health is in restoration mode. If not, we anxiously await news. If possible, maybe you can give us brief update.

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Both the well-wishes for Doc (and the hope that he will let us know how he's doing or have one of his relations pop by if they're willing) and the idea of having an article series giving us more depth about who we all are as people outside of the Mariners...

I nominate for the title: "Who We Are" - simple and effective...and broad enough that you can talk about mundane parts of your life, or philosophize about how events have impacted you on a deeper level, or think even more broadly and talk about cultural movements and your place within them, etc.

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Excellent idea--and, even more importantly, one worthy of this community :-)

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