Monday, October 17, 2011

Level Up! (...or an elaborate excuse for not writing)

Nothing is more life affirming than stepping outside of one's comfort zone and learning a new skill or ability.  Sometimes these moments are recognized by a public acknowledgement or even a ceremony.  But oftentimes the smaller achievements go unacknowledged.  There is no great sin in this--at least on the interpersonal level.  But I do think it's important to give one's self credit for the little things that we do.

In the world of video games, new and incremental achievements are often accompanied by an electronic fanfare and the congratulations that the player has "leveled up".  Many persistent online games use this concept to entice players to keep coming back for more.  There's always the next attainable milestone, and with it the recognition that you've done something meaningful (in game terms).  Attaining that next level or that special item in the game is often an accomplishment that will be recognized by your peers, as well as theh computer.

Maybe the reason for this semi-pointless exploration of small accomplishments is that I want to pat myself on the back for wiring up a new dryer this weekend.  Unfortunately, it consumed some good writing time.  But I did learn a new skill: I used a multi-meter to make sure the circuit wasn't live before I started working.  And I think I can make the assertion that I "leveled up" in electrical wiring.  Perhaps more importantly, I earned an "achievement" with my spouse.  Last time I checked, spousal achievements are much more valuable than gaming achievements...

So, finally, we've arrived at the real reason for this blog post.  It's really meant to try and make me feel better about not working on the next Hemlock novel this weekend (although short story writing played a part in that, as well).  I think the time off may be good for the Hemlock project, though.  As I usually do when a project goes on hold, I have been thinking about it a lot and getting some ideas in place: specifically in the hard to define areas of mood and pacing.  I hope to report tangible progress on Hemlock very soon!

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Ants Marching Toward Their Fate?

We all arrive at destinations in our lives.  Sometimes we feel a clear sense that we have arrived as a result of our prior choices and actions.  Other times it feels like our arrival is the result of chance--or some interplay of choices and chance.

I was watching some ants crawling around a candy jar in our office kitchen this week.  Ants always fascinate me because they have an uncanny ability to show up around food--and they seem to do so by using some mysterious system of patrols, pheromone markings and perhaps...fate.

If I am feeling imaginative, it's not hard to imagine that the ants arrive at the food because it's there--and that their path to finding that food is reverse generated back to some point of origin.  I think of this in terms of some sort of system of temporal milestones connected by a chain of choices and coincidences.  Maybe these milestones are fated and our choices influence them in various directions.  Maybe drastic choices can even eliminate and/or create new milestones.  Now I don't necessarily believe this, but it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to consider it. 

It's undeniable that there are certain points in our lives that seem more significant than others.  Why do we remember certain things and not others?  For instance, when I was in high school our school won a contest sponsored by a radio station.  The rules of the contest were simple:  whichever school sent in the most petitions would win a free concert by a popular rock group.  I have a very vivid memory of one day in science class when the intrepid girl who was organizing our drive to write petitions stopped into our class to rally the kids to write another round of them.  I find it odd that I remember this day in class far more vividly than the subsequent rock concert!  How could that be?  Could it be that that exact moment in the classroom was a powerful and deciding moment in the outcome of that contest?

The passing of Steve jobs has triggered a wave of sadness in many people.  After hearing the news, I watched his commencement speech that he gave at Stanford University.  During this speech he discussed how seemingly trivial actions that he took early in his life turned out to have a significant impact on his later endeavors.  He mentioned that he took a calligraphy class that he assumed that he would never use--but when he was designing the user interface for the Macintosh computer, his knowledge of calligraphy helped him to make the Macintosh the most advanced desktop publishing computer ever made.  He also talked about having faith--even during the most trying of times.  His great trial was being fired from the company that he conceived by someone that he had hired not a year prior.  At that time, he could not forsee where his life would take him, but he persevered, and his later life took many remarkable turns.  He ended up being re-hired by Apple Computer when they acquired another company that he had started after being fired.

Jobs didn't come out and say it--but it sounded like he had some belief in the power of fate.  And as I looked at that ant in the candy jar this week, I wondered whether it was somehow destined to find that candy, or whether it was the beneficiary of random chance.  As a part-time fantasy author, I'm sure tempted to believe the former, even when my rational mind insists that the latter is true.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Just a tiny morsel

In lieu of a proper blog post, I offer up this silly little poem that I wrote today.  Hopefully my brain will untangle enough to do a normal post very soon!

The Whirley-Whimples

I know a place where the Whirley-Whimples play
they are dwellers in our cellars to escape the light of day
when they dance their whirley-whirley dance
they're wont to skip and frolick
and they sing a whimple-whimple song
with tunes like Jackson Pollock