Things have been a little quiet on my blog this month.  It’s because I’ve been focusing all of my writing energy on my NaNoWriMo project.  I’ve been doing a pretty great job with that project, and I’m really liking how the story is going.  I started off strong, meandered a little bit around chapter 6, then gained a lot of momentum after I had an epiphany about what my story was about.  Chapter 6 will get dealt with when I turn my attention to editing.

“Editing” is a good segue into another subject.  Specifically, editing myself.  Even more specifically, I’m talking about not posting stuff here, for fear of offending a new friend or two.

I made a few friends at Convolution that I admire and respect, and I value their opinions.  They are fantastic people, and I look forward to seeing them in person again, and sharing my work with them as it develops.  They’re great people, but sometimes they post things to Facebook that make feel three or four degrees short of uncomfortable.  Maybe that means the posts are effective, because I’m thinking about the subject material without feeling outright upset.

So now that I’ve spent three paragraphs on build-up, let’s get into what I really want to talk about: __________.

Damn it, I can’t even fill in the blank right.  I think I’m supposed to put in “feminism” or “women’s rights” or “gender balance” or something, but I don’t know which terms I should use, and which ones I should avoid.

I’m going to struggle with this topic, because I’m a straight white male in his 40s, making a decent living and supporting his family.  I’m the “privileged.” With all of the advantages I have, it seems like I shouldn’t have an opinion that counts for anything.

The problem is that I was born white, I was born male, and I was born straight.  I chose none of that.  And sometimes, when I read about some of the gender imbalance issues, I feel like I should be apologizing for these attributes that I was born with, and did not choose.

That is the root of the problem.  No one should have to feel bad or apologize for traits they are born with.  I try to live my life and make choices to the effect that no one should have to regret the person that they are.  I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman, or a gay man, or any race other than the one I was born with.  The struggles of other people can be described to me, but I’ll never know them.

But what about responsibility?  Don’t I have a responsibility to try and promote equality across the races, the sexes, and the genders?

I believe I do have a responsibility.  The way I address it is through respect, and to take no action to propagate the unfairness.  By respect I mean, I don’t presume to know something I do not know about someone else’s life experience.  I try to teach my children to respect everyone in the same way.  Maybe I am not doing enough, but I don’t know what else to do.

Now, at the risk of undoing any good that I’ve done with this post, I want to talk about something more specific: men objectifying women.

The main character in my current novel is a dog, and I don’t mean a canine.  He objectifies women.  He stares at their body, and isn’t uncomfortable with terms like “tits.” He’s in his early twenties, mostly broke, and basically just wants to have a good time.

Why am I writing a character like this?  Actually, I don’t have to answer that question.  It’s fiction.  People can write whatever they want.

The real question is: am I propagating gender inequality by writing this story, with this character?

One of the articles Juliette Wade (here’s her blog) posted on Facebook talked about gender inequality in terms of results.  The point was that when women objectify men, there are no ramifications, but when men objectify women, it results in continuing the inequality that is still present in our culture.

In my story, Mel’s objectification of women will have no ramifications.  Him staring at a model with lust in his eyes isn’t going to impact how much money she makes.  It’s a realistic depiction because Mel is one rung up the social ladder from homeless.  The real world would not care what Mel thinks of women.

But I’m adding this story to the real world, so what about my responsibility to adding to the culture?

Perhaps I’m justifying, but the view we’re getting inside Mel’s head is honest.  Men look at women in a lustful fashion.  I think women look at men, too, but having never been a woman, I have to take other people’s word on that.  Objectifying strangers happens daily.

We are animals.  I know that when I’m standing in line at Starbucks, I notice waistlines and breasts and eyes and slim necks.  My brain is constantly bombarded with stimulus, noticing what I’m attracted to, and what I’m not.  I want to think that every male has the same experience as me in this regard, and I also want to think that every female also has the same experience.

What separates us from the animals is how we act on the stimulus.  I acknowledge what I see on some level.  I even enjoy it, sometimes.  But I try not to act on it.  I try to treat everyone as equally as I can.  I try to be generous with people, regardless of whether or not I’m attracted to them.  I try to remember to smile at everyone, and not just the ones my body thinks would be good to press up against.

Along that line of thought, I don’t think my story will be damaging to our culture.  What we see of Mel is an honest depiction of what’s going on in that particular male’s head.  He’s a little bit of a creep, but he’s also young, which makes his behavior even more believable, if not acceptable.  I don’t think I’m promoting objectification as much as I’m acknowledging that it is a regular part of our normal lives.

I already wrote about my crazy schedule this last week.  In the Tetris game of time management, I wasn’t able to get all of the pieces of my life to fall neatly into place.  Or, maybe I did, but the lines didn’t clear out and leave room for other things.  I don’t know.  I’m still a little too tired to metaphor correctly.

My NaNoWriMo project was going really well until this week.  I was even managing to keep pace while at the convention, and again on Monday.  I only have a single hour free on Mondays, and I was able to fill it with about 1200 words.  I was kicking ass and taking initials; I didn’t have time to stop and take names.

Then, just like last year, there was some travel in the middle of the week, and my schedule went straight to hell.  I couldn’t write on Tuesday or Wednesday, and I was too exhausted Thursday and Friday.  That means that I need to write around 9000 words today in order to get back on track.  I have a hard time seeing that happening.

I’m not going to worry too much about the word count.  I’m actually not that worried about getting to 50,000 by the end of the month, though I still think it’s an achievable goal.  The writing is what’s important to me, not the quantity.  The quality is also important, but I’m getting better at leaving the first draft well enough alone, just to get through it.

I will spend a good amount of today with Mel Walker.  I’ve been having a ton of fun writing this story.  It’s been more fun than the fantasy novel.  I still want to tell that other story, but I’m realizing how good an idea it is to let it sit for a month.  When I get back to it, I’ll be better than I was when I left it, and I’ll be able to give those characters a greater treatment.

Before I settle into writing, I’m going to go help a friend move.  Someone once told me that if your mind is tired, go exercise the body, and if your body is tired, exercise the mind.  I’m still tired all over, so we’ll see what happens.  I haven’t told them that I’m coming to help yet.  I just know that they’ll be at their house with a truck in about 30 minutes.

After the move, I’m going to chain myself to a table at Starbucks and see how long I can sit and type.

I just finished posting my notes on Convolution 2013 under my Convention Notes.

In my last past, I’d given my first impressions of the convention, and I complained about some of the shenanigans that went on with registration.  I tried to state that the people running the convention made up for those shenanigans, but then I talked about the panels, and I think I might have given an impression that I wasn’t having a good time.

I had a very good time!  It was not perfect, but it was excellent.

I had a little bit of the blues throughout the weekend.  I wasn’t depressed or sad, but I kept feeling like I was on the edge of being depressed or sad.  I smiled and socialized, and I tried not to whine or suck the life out of any of the rooms I was in.  I think I did a good job, and I think people enjoyed me as much as I enjoyed them.

I did get tired more quickly than I normally do, and I wound up going to bed early both evenings.  That was too bad, because the Goblin Ball was really neat.  I loved the costumes, and the performances that I stayed for were really well done.  I wished that I had done something a little more on the costume front myself.  I had borrowed a jacket and a hat from Michael, but it would have been more fun to have gone all out like some of the other people had done.

I would have posted these notes sooner, but then I got really busy.

Mondays are always busy, and the Monday after the con was no different.  It was a very long, complete day.  Tuesday, I had to get up extremely early so I could get to work extremely early and get some work done before heading to Albuquerque.  I got there in the evening and went to dinner with the other guys that had traveled with me.  I foolishly had a beer, so when I got back to my room, I was just a little bit too tired and fuzzy to get more programming or writing finished.

Wednesday morning, I got up around 4, managed to get some last minute programming tweaks done, and then we were off to Sandia Labs around 8:30.  We worked all day.  There were some bugs in our system, and I worked through lunch to get those taken care off.  Then it was back to the airport for our trip home.  I got to my house around 11:30PM.

The Thursday was upon me, and I went in to work at 8:00, as usual.  I wound up working until 6:00PM, because there was some stuff I really wanted to get finished.

So, tonight was my first opportunity to get my notes and final thoughts on Convolution posted.  I wish I’d been able to post some other stuff sooner.  Someone had noticed my previous post and had linked to it, noting that not everyone enjoyed themselves at Convolution.  On the one hand, I hadn’t meant to give the impression that I had a bad time.  On the other, I’ve never had 170 hits on this blog in one day before.  So maybe I should complain more often?

I’m in Birlingame, which is near San Francisco, attending Convolution 2013.  I picked up Michael early in the morning, and we enjoyed a leisurely trip West, stopping along the way to pick up a jacket from Michael’s Mom, and a brief tour of San Francisco State University.  It was a really pleasant way to start the weekend.

Once we were checked in at the hotel, we went to check in to the convention.  Michael is a special guest, so he wound up going some place different.  I got in the back of a very long line, and started to feel my first misgivings.

I don’t want to speak ill of the convention, but my first impression of it had me worried.  They were having some severe technical difficulties getting people through registration, and it looked to me like there was a single point of failure.

When they called preregistered people forward, I went, stood in another line, and then discovered that while they had me on the list, they couldn’t find my badge.  It was starting to get precariously close to the opening ceremonies, and I didn’t want to miss it because I wanted to give Michael my support.  He is the toastmaster, after all.

The convention staff redeemed themselves by taking my phone number, and offering to print me a new ticket and deliver it and my badge directly to me, wherever I was in the hotel.  That was very nice of them, and they did deliver.

I think I managed to not be a dick to them while they were floundering around at registration.  I was worried and upset, and I think I expressed that without being too acidic.  I’m pretty proud of myself for that.

Opening ceremony turned out to be a very brief affair.  After that, I went to a panel with Effie and Arley, a couple of writers I’d met at Westercon and seen again at LonestarCon.  The panel was about “Show, Don’t Tell” as it pertains to writing, and some of the ways that “Showing” can go horribly wrong.  It wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, but it was interesting and well presented, and I took some good notes until my laptop battery died.

After that panel was another one in the same room, about storytelling and teaching culture.  This panel I found fairly painful.  The conversation was interesting, but I didn’t see much that I could apply to my own writing.  Also, there was a vibe that we shouldn’t write about cultures that we’re not a part of.  It was more complicated than that.

The day isn’t done yet, but I’m already feeling pretty tired.  In a little while, I’ll head to the Guest Meet and Greet, and then probably head off to dinner with Arley and Effie and some of their friends.  Looking at the schedule, Michael is stuck doing some kind of special Bingo event.  I don’t think I want to attend Bingo tonight, so he’s probably going to be on his own for that.

My Dad died on Halloween in 1988.  It’s been 25 years, and I’d still give a great deal for one more day with him.

There’s too much that I don’t know about him.  I know that he was in the Army, but I don’t really know what that was like for him, or how his experiences would compare to mine in the Air Force.  I know he was married before he married my Mom, but I don’t know anything at all about those relationships.

My Dad was born in 1914, so he was 59 when I was born.  He was from a generation that I didn’t get to know when I had the chance.

My Dad took care of me and my Mom.  He’d wake me up every morning for school, and he’d drive me, even when the school was only a few blocks away.  He was the stay-at-home parent.  There was never any doubt in my mind that he loved me.

My Dad wasn’t perfect.  He was an alcoholic most of my life.  This led to some car accidents that I didn’t need to be a part of.  It also meant that some of the meals he’d fix for us were extremely adventurous.  To this day, neither my sister nor I can eat baked chicken.

There were a few times that my Dad said some things that were not particularly good for my self-esteem.  I can recall him calling me stupid or “ignoramus” several times.  At the time, I didn’t really think anything of it.  I don’t hold it against him now, either.  It’s just one of the ways he wasn’t perfect.

I miss him.  I really wish I could introduce him to my family.  I know he’d be proud of them, just as I am.

It’s actually called The Ultimate Blog Challenge, or something like that.  The idea is to post 31 entries in 31 days, and you’re supposed to tweet about it with #blogboost or something like that.  My goal wasn’t to increase my blog traffic, so I didn’t do the hashtags or get into the promotion of it.  I just wanted to see if I could do the daily posts.

This is number 30, and I know what I’m going to be writing later today to make 31.  I can safely say… I’ve done it!  I reached the finish line!

I found this whole experience to be very positive.  I’ve dredged up some stuff that I carry around with me all the time, and I dressed some of it up to be publicly visible.  I’ve stood on my little soapbox and prattled on about whatever topic crossed my mind.  It’s been therapeutic.

It’s also given me a huge boost of confidence, because I’ve been able to keep up with the single post a day schedule.  I didn’t write any of these posts in advance.  I found the time, even on Mondays, to get myself in front of a keyboard and push something onto the server.

After today, I won’t be posting everyday.  I think I do want to keep a schedule, though.  Penny Arcade posts on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule.  I might do that, with an additional Saturday or Sunday thrown in.

For those that have been coming and reading my posts, thank you.  For those that haven’t, you aren’t reading this, so I can say whatever I want about you, and you won’t know it.  So I’ll say: you’re still a lovely person, even if that dress does make you look FAT.

Happy Halloween!

I stirred a minor hornets nest with last night’s post.  I imagine this one is going to kick over an anthill.  I’ve been thinking about it for a while, though, and it’s something I want to talk about.

I was Facebook friends with the remote girlfriend I mentioned in the last post, and not too long ago, she removed me from her friends list.

It was a completely appropriate thing for her to do.  We weren’t really friends anymore.  We hadn’t spoken in quite some time.  I think Facebook reminded her of my existence and she deleted me.

I had a little bit of an emotional reaction when I realized it.  I didn’t have any inappropriate feelings for her anymore.  Melissa and I have been happy together.  It still hurt, though.

If all that remains of us on Earth after we die are the pictures and memories we leave behind, someone on the other side of the US was making sure I was eradicated.  Whatever impact I had on her was negative enough that she needed to cut me out, like some cancer.

It sucks, but it’s probably what was healthiest for her, so I can’t begrudge her for it.  All I could do was reciprocate.  I made sure all of my computers and devices were scrubbed clean of her presence.

Deleting this person wasn’t easy for me.  It would be difficult for me to remove anyone; the difficulty wasn’t specific to this one individual.  I cling to my memories like a hoarder packing their garage.

Now that it’s done, how do I feel?  Should I remove other people from my life, like plucking a stitch out of the tapestry of my life?

I feel okay.  I don’t want to go through any of that relationship again, and I don’t want to go through excising something like it from my life again.

I don’t think I need to make anymore huge adjustments in my life right now.

Before I launch too deeply into this post, let me just say that right now, I’m not depressed!  I’m actually very well adjusted and happy most of the time.  I was extremely depressed for a while, but I’m not now, and I haven’t been for a while.

Most of my life, there have been times where I was really very down.  When I was much younger, I had some anger management issues.  I got into tons of fights.  I did property damage.  I started off as a runt with a chip on my shoulder, and I took everything way, way too seriously.  I was a bright kid, and I was imaginative and energetic.  I’m sure my sister could probably describe my younger years a bit more accurately.

I’m not going to draw this out too much.  I don’t think anyone wants to read all of the highlights and low points of my life.  Not in a daily blog post.  In terms of depression, though, I’ll just roll out the highlights reel: my Dad’s death, my early struggles with religion, falling in love only to have her run off with another man, joining the Air Force for perhaps the wrong reasons, finding myself alone, away from my family and friends, stationed in the New Mexico desert.

That’s a super succinct rundown of some of the darker moments in my life.  There’s a lot I could say about all of those things, but I’ll spare you.  Consider yourself spared, today.

That highlight reel marks points where I was really, really down, and for good reasons.  I was healthy enough to get through those times, one way or another.  I didn’t seriously consider taking my own life during those low points.

In 2010, however, I was down enough that it was at the forefront of my mind.  I made plans.  I did the research.

Upon reflection, the things that happened in 2010 weren’t any worse than the things that had come before.  I just didn’t handle it very well.

That was the year that Melissa and I almost divorced.  I moved out for a while.  I had a remote girlfriend.  I was reaching and grasping for things to pull me up and out.  I wanted to escape.  I felt lonely, and misunderstood, and I made some poor decisions.

Then I saw that the remote girlfriend wasn’t the answer, and that I was hurting my children, and I knew that I loved Melissa, even if she didn’t seem to understand me all that well, and I came home.  We made amends.

That’s when I hit the bottom.  That’s when I felt the most like I wasn’t my own person any longer, and I didn’t see a way out.  That’s when I felt the loneliest.  I was working for a life insurance broker, and after I found out that my family would receive death benefits even if I committed suicide, it was all I could think about.  It was a way out, and I considered coldly.

I wound up seeking some help.  I was offered medication, if I wanted it, but I turned it down.  During this time, one of my closest friends tried to get me some help, but he did it in such a way that it felt like a cowardly gesture, and a betrayal of trust.  I haven’t been all that close to him since.

Looking back, I don’t see how I climbed up and out of the dark place.  I know that WorldCon in 2011 was a big help, because it helped me remember who I am.

I think that returning to writing was the real medicine.  I started to feel like my true self again.  Playing my sax in a band helped too, I’m sure, but not nearly as much as the writing.

Pol had written about the schism of his life, and seeing all the different parts and the chaos around, and he put forth a question about how to find the harmony in all the discord.  I tried to suggest that faith might be part of the answer.  I don’t necessarily mean faith in God.  I mean faith, as in knowing and acting on something you cannot know through the empirical senses.

I think that’s what happened with me.  I started acting in faith, knowing that I was a person I couldn’t really see any longer.  And after I began moving, I was the person I believed in.  I think that’s how I dealt with the depression, and it’s how I’m able to look at the dark parts of my past with a kind of wonder.

I’m a 40 year old white heterosexual male, so maybe I don’t know anything about racial sensitivity, or gender equality, or any sort of equality.  I will never understand the struggles that non white heterosexual males have endured.

I’m not trying to be cheeky or sarcastic.  I’m trying to acknowledge right up front that the opinions I am about to express could be grounded in complete ignorance.

I don’t want to offend anyone.  I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable with who they are.  From the bottom of my heart, I want us to get along, appreciate our cultural differences, embrace some of those differences, and live with each other with love.  That may all sound like cliche tripe, but it’s how I legitimately feel.

While browsing some entertainment news, I read an article about Julianne Hough in black face, and how she should be ashamed and should apologize for insensitivity.  I was a little intrigued.  I thought, “What did she do?”

From what I can tell, she was dressing up as a character that she likes from Orange is the New Black.  I can’t see that she did or said anything.  She just… put on a costume?

I’ve always thought that racism was about intention.  I’ve always thought that it was okay to refer to someone’s distinguishing features, as long as it wasn’t to place unfair judgement or association of inferiority with those same features.  I think there’s a difference between saying, “A black man asked me for the time of day” and “Black men are too lazy to buy their own watches.”

Maybe someone will correct me and say that both example sentences are bad?  If that’s not a strawman argument, let me address it by asking: is it any worse than saying “A blonde man asked me for the time of day”?

If the color of our skin is truly as superficial as the color of our hair or eyes, then why can’t we use those descriptors equally?

If we’re allowed to use those descriptors equally, why can’t we use those descriptors physically?  I can dye my hair a different color for Halloween, but if I use make-up to color my skin, why am I racially insensitive?

Like I stated at the beginning: I probably don’t understand.

I know that the reverse of what Julianne Hough did seems to be acceptable.  That is, The Wayans made a movie called White Chicks and I don’t recall much stink about racial insensitivity surrounding that production.

In my opinion, intention should be a part of the discussion and consideration.  If Julianne Hough truly just wanted to celebrate a character and an actress by dressing up as her for Halloween, I think that should be okay, and she shouldn’t have to apologize for it.  If, on the other hand, she put on the outfit and started trying to act out offensive stereotypes, that would be a different story.

Speaking of acting out offensive stereotypes, let me link you an upworthy video where a woman is doing her best to point out the damages of donning racially offensive costumes for Halloween.

I appreciate the idea that we should try to be considerate of the history involved.  On the other hand, her delivery of the same message by putting on a blonde wig and acting out a blonde stereotype does not serve her cause.

Bear in mind… I’m not really that offended by the blonde stereotype portrayal.  I’m more offended by the hypocrisy.

But back to racial insensitivity…

I think insensitivity is actually closer to the answer.  Let me come at this from another angle…

While writing this post, I’ve done some brief research.  I read about Ted Danson going blackface to perform with or for Whoopi Goldberg.  I remember stuff about Al Jolson, and I read an interesting article asking whether or not Al Jolson was really racist for his performances.

I keep trying to find the root of the offense, and I’m just not grasping it.  As a white man, I wouldn’t have a problem with a black man putting on makeup to portray a white character.  It just wouldn’t bother me.  Why is the reverse offensive?

Is it because issues of race are still relevant in our country?  Is it because legal inequality wasn’t that long ago in our history?

How long does it take for us to no longer be sensitive to whatever it is we find offensive in costumes and makeup?

All this blogging I’ve done this month has been an excellent exercise for getting ready for NaNoWriMo.  For those that don’t know (and that refuse to click the link I just gave you), NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month.  The idea is to write 50,000 words in the month of November.  That’s how you “win.”  This is my second year trying it.  Last year, I was not successful.

The novel I’ve been working on was started last year.  I’ve only just recently hit 30,000 words, and it’s been a year.

If I’m so abysmally slow at writing fiction, how will I possibly succeed this year?

For starters, I’m going to be doing a much simpler project.  Let’s look at some of the features of my current novel, A Clean Slate.

• It’s a “troupe” style fantasy, meaning I need to flesh out and maintain four characters right from the get-go.
• It is a somewhat involved social commentary.
• The troupe of characters have amnesia, so it’s challenging coming up with interesting dialog for them.  They can’t really talk about their past, or their families, since they don’t remember any of that.
• This troupe of characters are secretly villains.

In short, I gave myself some stipulations right from the start which makes it challenging to actually get the words on the page.  I think I’ve done a good job so far, but it’s a somewhat complicated story to tell, and I sort of have to take it slow just to keep it all straight and coherent.

This new project doesn’t have those stipulations.  In fact, I’m doing it in first person.

My main character is one that I used in a roleplaying game a few years ago.  He’s a fun character.  He’s a bit of a hedonist with a southern drawl.  He lives in the present, but he has a special ability that lets him see the past.  I love this guy’s voice, and I love his flippant attitude.

In short, torturing this character should be a lot of fun.  My goal is to make the story as fun as a Harry Dresden book.

You could say that this whole month of October has been research for my project in November.  I’ve been listening to the Dresden Files books (and loving them), and I’ve been writing this blog, which is first person.  It’s a different voice, but it’s still valid practice.  And, I’ve been writing a blog post every day, which is the same kind of dedication I’ll need to getting 50,000 words completed in a novel.

I can do it this year.  I can do it, and I’m going to have fun doing it.

Then in December, I can go back to finishing A Clean Slate.  And maybe in January or February, while trying to get A Clean Slate out, I can polish up my still unnamed work, and get it ready to sell a little while longer.

I have a really good feeling about this.