Category: The Ramble (page 164 of 475)

I received a helpful — sorry, “helpful” — email that asked me to, and I quote, “get back to the writing advice, please.” The core idea of the email being that I’m spending too much time on the blog talking about other things (cough cough the bread and circuses of politics) and not enough time on talking to you about characters and commas and how to defeat the bleak unrelenting despair of being a creative human being.

Or, put differently, I am a monkey doing the wrong monkey dance.

So, though I’ve responded to this sort of thing before, I thought I’d take another moment to discuss this request and provide my response to it.

First, this blog is not a writing blog. It’s not any kind of a blog. It’s just a blog, which is to say, it’s a platform for me to squawk and gibber into the void. Further, like with most blogs, it’s free to you — though, be advised, it costs me a pretty penny to run. Free to you, not to me. Now, my books? They’re the opposite. Those are free for me to write, relatively, and cost you. Which is why my books are for you, and my blog is for me.

Second, I am presently wrapping up the writing of a new book (current title which is likely to change: DAMN GOOD STORY). It’s a crunchier, meatier book on storytelling than what you’d normally find here — it’s still silly, occasionally, but it’s a book that tries very hard to make sense of the art of storytelling. And that means I’m expending a lot of my writing/storytelling advice on that book — so, harder to muster it here, because it needs to go there.

Third, and I dunno if you’ve noticed this, but things are really going slippery in this country. We’re all in a tractor-trailer driving across a frozen lake, man. The back end has gone wobbly. We’re fishtailing here and the ice is fracturing underneath us as we rip forward. I don’t open the news and find much good there — it’s hard to say, OH, THANK GOD THEY’RE PUTTING GAG ORDERS ON VITAL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS TO MAKE SURE THEY DON’T TALK TO THE PUBLIC, YOU KNOW, THE DEPARTMENTS THAT THE PUBLIC FUCKING FUNDS WITH OUR PUBLIC FUCKING MONEY. Our president and his press secretary get up there and spout easily disprovable lies (remember: the duck is a dog, you traitor).

I respect you not wanting me to talk about this.

Honestly, I don’t wanna talk about this shit either.

I’d rather talk about literally anything else. Otters! Bees! Cool new sex moves! Books I’ve read, movies I’ve watched, ancient beasts that I have hunted through eldritch wood! I would much rather talk about writing, or cursing, or arting harder, or poop jokes, or pee jokes (though at least there, our current president allows me to pull double-duty). But I wake up every day and I just peek at the news with one half-lidded eye through gently lifted Internet blinds and boom, it’s like that scene in Terminator 2 where the nuclear blast annihilates everything. OH GOD CHRIST IN SOCKS IT BURNS, IT BURNS. The news isn’t good. It’s not, “Hey, Congress did something nice today.” Or, “Wow, Trump gave a kitten some milk.” Instead you get WALLS FRAUD LIES MUSLIMS ILLEGALS TOMBSTONES OBAMACARE CARNAGE SEND IN THE FEDS.

I don’t want to talk about any of this.

I don’t want any of this.

Some of this is normal run-of-the-mill bad. Some of it is a guttering transmission bad.

Some of it is existentially bad.

So, on the one hand, I get what you’re saying. You want to come here, and maybe you want a vacation from the horror show. I grok that. I do. I want to be that port in your storm (wait that sounds sexier than I intend it). I want to be safe harbor from Satan’s Orgy. (Actually, let’s not diss Satan like that. This is much worse, and Satan’s probably pretty cool — after all, he hosts orgies.)

On the other hand, sometimes it feels like when I get these messages, what you’re saying isn’t that you want an oasis in the shit-show, but rather, you want me to shut up about stuff. Because sometimes your emails have that vibe of disagreeability, as if it’s less that you don’t want to hear about politics and more you don’t want to hear my politics. You want me to do the monkey dance you like, not the monkey dance you don’t.

And while I respect that, I gotta do my monkey dance. Not yours.

So.

I’ll make a deal with you.

I’m going to keep talking about this stuff because, c’mon. This affects me and it affects people who are far more vulnerable than me, and it feels right to talk about. We have a Russian puppet Tyrannosaurus Rex barreling down on us — flanked by a Congress of eager velociraptors — and you want me to talk about something else? You’re telling me to shut up about the T-Rex, and I’m trying to warn you about the T-Rex. So, I’m going to keep talking about it — and if that bothers you that much, you are welcome to leap into the maw of the beast and end up as dinosaur shit.

The offer I’ll make is:

Yes, I’ll keep talking about other things, when I have them to talk about. And even when I’m shrieking and freaking out and loading the DINOSAUR TREBUCHET, I’ll still try to be funny or weird or otherwise “me” about the whole thing. I mean, hell, even this post has all the hallmarks of a good Wendig post, doesn’t it? Poop. Satan. Orgies. Dinosaur trebuchets. I’ll try to keep it all at least a little bit funny, because if the laughter dies, our souls die with it.

I’ll get back to the writing advice, relax. The monkey dance will evolve.

But I’m also gonna keep doing what I’m doing, and if you don’t like that, here’s your money back.

*opens pouch, upends invisible and non-existent coins into your open hands*

*last thing out of the pouch is a middle finger*

*and bees*

*so many bees*

Sometimes I get on Twitter and I have a little fun.

Because if I can’t laugh, I’ll chew through this belt I keep biting.

Please to enjoy.

Summer is a much better time to go poking around and taking macro photos outside — though winter yields its own bounty now and again. Still, going through some older photos, seems like a good time to pop in here and post a couple insect macros I missed. Not great photos in terms of their clarity, maybe, though I like the composition.

Or, if you want a little grubby millipedey critter coiled in a rotten stump:

There you go. Couple more buggy photos.

Though if you really want some great photos —

Shots from the Women’s March from every continent.

Beautiful and inspiring. Hope is back — so let’s keep it back. (We sadly were not able to attend any marches — the illness my son is just getting over is the illness my wife is now in the thick of, so it did not seem wise to go out and infect like, scads of people with viral nastiness.)

NOW GO FORTH AND CONQUER MONDAY, FOR IT INSULTED YOUR MOTHER

Today’s challenge is as apt as you want it to be — the theme of your as-yet-unwritten story must be, we need hope in the face of of hopelessness. It’s a bit dramatic-sounding, but themes are rarely served by a soft touch. So, that’s your task. Tackle a short piece of flash fiction that deals with that as its central theme: why we need hope in the face of its opposite.

You’ve got, mmm, let’s say 2000 words for this one.

Due by Friday, January 27th, noon EST.

Post online, give us a link below, etc.

I set that as my 7AM reminder this morning.

I set it because, I dunno, maybe up until this point I’ve been hanging onto a loose and fraying thread that clearly, surely, some savior force would come in and reverse what was coming. The vote would prove to be rigged. The “OMG RUSSIA DID IT” investigation would advance to the point of no return. Obama would rip off Comey’s mask and reveal Old Man Giuliani underneath, who would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you crazy Millennials. Joe Biden would challenge malarky-havin’ Comrade Dumpkov to a ski contest on the K2 and he would win the day against the rich punks for all us underdogs and underachievers. I dunno what the fuck I thought was going to happen. Probably nothing, but maybe something.

Maybe?

Please?

Yeah, no.

No one is coming. Our plane crashed, and we’re alive, and no help is on its way.

That sounds dramatic, I know, especially to people who think this isn’t a big deal — but we’re staring down the barrel of a president whose stated intent is to sand down nearly every foothold we’ve gained in the last several decades. Worse, he’s got the run of the table with a Congress who has already begun their monstrous rending and flaying. Everything’s on the chopping block: women’s rights, health care, the free market, arts, humanities, science, education, national parks, bald eagles, anyone who has ever been marginalized, you, me, all of humanity, the whole fucking planet. Pounds of flesh cut from those who cannot afford to lose them, and given over to the vampire kings above us who want to bleed us all dry. It’s not dramatic to think that, at the very best, we’re going to experience an existential tumult over the next four years. At the worst, I dunno. At the worst we get hill cannibals, probably. Nuclear hill cannibals.

No one is coming.

But we are alive.

And we are together.

That means something. I don’t mean that in a glib, WE ARE THE WORLD way, I don’t mean it to be some kind of shallow sing-a-long. I mean that our president — the one who comes with the biggest winking-butthole-asterisk of all time by being a president who won by losing, who won with the help of shady Kremlin no-good-niks, who won by surfing to the White House on a churning tide of sexual assault and racism and inane non-policies, who still hasn’t filled most positions, who wants to fill his cabinet with the swamp monsters he exposed by draining the swamp — our president is way the fuck outnumbered. This is our asterisk president. This is a president who we didn’t earn, who didn’t win, who has a historically low approval rating and a historically high disapproval rating. He works for us, and we outnumber him by heroic numbers.

That’s a real thing. That’s truth. It’s not arguable that he’s surrounded by a miasma of illegitimacy. He can earn his way out of that — he can clear the fog by doing right for all Americans, not just the richest among us — but let’s be clear, the likelihood of that happening creates betting odds no gambler would take.

No one is coming.

But we are alive.

And we are together, and we can save each other.

You’ll say to me now, what does that mean? What does that mean, we can save each other?

My honest answer is, I don’t yet know. Not really. Because I don’t know what’s coming down the pike. I know the next four years will be contentious, but I don’t know if they’ll be ruinous or simply bizarre. But here’s what I think it means.

I think it means we can be there for each other. And we can be kind. We can help each other up.

It means we can use what power we have to help those who have less power.

It means making each other laugh, because oh Sweet Saint Fuck, we’re gonna need to laugh.

It means staying involved, and keeping up the pressure, and using our voice and our vote not just for our behalf but for the behalf of our neighbors.

It means sharing the things we love: art and books and movies, quotes and images and ideas.

It means knowing who our enemies are, and pointing our metaphorical weapons to those outside the trench, not to those hunkering down in the mud alongside us.

It means kitten pictures and dog videos and other forms of random comfort, and of course what I mean is otters, because fuck yeah, otters, you can’t deny the healing power of otters.

It means turning an ear to listen and offering a shoulder to cry on and letting people just wordlessly shriek at or near you for as long as they need it.

It means working around the system to find new ways to keep each other afloat — it means giving money to the ACLU or Sierra Club or it means demanding our companies do better for us even when our government won’t, it means finding loopholes and trapdoors that help us to help each other, it means empowering others to do the work when it’s work we can’t do ourselves.

It means harnessing the one-two-punch power of Critical Thinking and Empathy, which not coincidentally are also the names of each of Uncle Joe Biden’s malarky-thumpin’ fists.

It means being good stewards of this planet because we all share it, and no matter what the administration wants you to believe, it’s our responsibility not to fuck it up.

It means creating art and telling stories because stories have power, stories help us through, stories provide a narrative for those of us now and those who come later.

It means helping ourselves and practicing self-care because sometimes before you help someone else with their oxygen mask you gotta make sure yours is on nice and tight.

It means whatever it means going forward.

I’ll be here at the blog and online if you wanna swing by and say hi. Hope you’re doing okay. Fuck the inauguration. Go to a protest. Check out a museum. Read a book. I’ll see you on the other side.

p.s. fuck international fascism

Some folks asked for my Twitter thread the other day about Betsy DeVos and the array of unqualified cabinet members to be somewhere more easily shareable, so here it is.

Share as you see fit.

(Storify link here if you’d prefer to read it that way.)