On Chicken Shits
If you ever frequent my other blog, Always Off Book, you will find my thoughts and adventures and observations on the world of theatre. To be precise, amateur productions in which I find myself. It’s often like a journal to share with curious readers how my acting is going in any particular show. I offer advice sometimes as well. (One of my early posts is actually one of the top three google response for the phrase, “first on-stage kiss”.)
Last week I concluded a theatre project not as an actor, but as a director. I didn’t include many updates on that adventure, since it wasn’t acting-oriented, but I did post one or two updates on the progress. I also published a little post-mortem on the experience, both the ups and downs of it, once the show was over. You can read it here if you like.
You can also read the nasty comment I got from someone. Someone anonymous, of course, because instead of the cream, the chicken shit tends to rise to the top on the internet. You can also see my reply to said comment on the link I gave.
Sometimes I post anonymous comments on line, to things like a youtube video i think is funny, or to a forum talking about salsa. Mainly because it isn’t always worth it to go through the steps to identify myself on a place that really will not be a platform on which to base the rest of my life. But unlike the half-wit that posted this comment on Always Off Book, I am not one to post angry, semi-threatening comments on someone’s blog, and not put my name to it. After all if I don’t like somebody’s blog, I don’t visit it. (Something “Anonymous” lacks the sense to conclude.)
I don’t often reply to such posts. Truth be told, I don’t usually even print such comments. Always Off Book, which is not a blog I promote endlessly, doesn’t tend to get many comments of any kind. It never has. I’d be happy if it did, but it doesn’t. Except these one off nasty comments, which as I said I usually deleted without publishing. I get a few every other month or so, I’m thinking from the same exact person, though I can’t prove that.
I guess I published this one because the coward who wrote it was so blatant in their mention of, “I know you won’t post this.” Daring me to post it? I don’t know. Calling some kind of bluff, hoping to not be posted, but wanting to look tough anyway? Perhaps. Either way, it’s posted. Probably the only time I will ever post such a comment.
Why now? And why dedicate an entire blog post to this issue here on my homepage? I wish I had a better, more complex answer for you than simply, “because I felt like it”. Yet the more I think on it, the more I think that applies. I don’t usually reply to people who are jealous of my abilities, (and let’s face it, this poster clearly is), but today I felt like it. I felt like replying to it on behalf of everyone that has to deal with it.
I imagine you get them if you have a blog, or publish articles on a regular basis. Somebody who for whatever reason can’t stand what you have to say, but is so lacking in their own platform, and so insecure in their own meager knowledge on the subject that they have to say something. Or barely something, as such comments as the one I received this morning have little substance.
Yeah, I know some of you think it gives people like that power by talking about them. Maybe it does and maybe it does not. I’d be less likely to say anything about it at all if they had put their name where their mouth it. But they didn’t. Such people never do. It could be anybody.
One of a million people or more who simply cannot stand that I am more knowledgeable about the world of acting and theatre than they are. To be blunt about it, I feel good that by merely expressing my knowledge I can both piss off someone of lesser mind so much, yet intimidate them so thoroughly that they can’t even sign their name to their vitriol. Perhaps it’s perverse, but I enjoy knowing that whoever they are and whatever they are doing, it isn’t enough to keep them from lashing out at what I’m able to accomplish in my life.
I won’t pretend I’m so magnanimous that I feel sorry for them. I rarely feel sorry for assholes, really. They tend to be what they are by choice, and not by some random decision of the gods. I suppose there are a few Scrooge stories out there wherein a bad life turns an otherwise good person foul. I therefore believe that once in a while such a person can be redeemed. Yet on the whole, once a jealous sniveling child, always a jealous sniveling child.
Which is why I have no problem keeping their messy diapers off of my blog, usually. The lack of mental development and emotional accountability is tantamount to a child that is just a few months beyond the normal potty-training age, but still in diapers. They mess themselves, knowing somehow that this should no longer be happening, and proceed to get angry and cry about it. Yet they just can’t put on the big boy pants, and finish the job. In a child, it’s sad. In an adult who acts like a child, it’s just pathetic, and I almost always keep it to myself.
But today, my friends? Today I posted the whine that “Anonymous” has smeared all over Always Off Book as an example of the type of people all columnists, bloggers, writers, or indeed anyone with the confidence to express their knowledge to the world have to face from time to time. And the reply I make to it today is on behalf of all such people that have had to face the angry faceless undeveloped mind that is screaming at having shit itself in front of company.
We’re all on to you, “Anonymous”. And as much as you hope to put some kind of crack in the esteem readers may hold for us on any given moment, you’ve only achieved in us, or at least me, a temporary willingness to toy around with you before discarding your lack of intellect and experience into the garbage heap of cyber space. Thanks for the laughs. Not just on my blog, but on every blog of every colleague known and unknown to me that has had to read such trash from you.
Here’s hoping you can always find pull-ups in your size.
Nanowrimo Update II
Today begins the second full week of Nanowrimo. How am I doing?
I’m happy to report that last night I broke the 20,000 word mark. That may not be a lot by the standards of many who do Nano, but a few things to consider:
1) I am on track, according to projections, to get to 50,000 words before the end of the month.
2) I am, as of a few hours ago, ahead of all of my writing buddies. I don’t win anything for that, it’s just a small source of pride. Having mentioned it to the public now, I wouldn’t be shocked if by the end of today they were all ahead of me.
In the last two or three days I’ve run into a bit of mud along the way, though. I’m working from an outline for the first time this year, and while I have deviated from it when it seems appropriate, I’m finding that in some ways my outline was so well thought out that there is no reason to deviate from it at all. Which means as I get to those sections, I have a road map that needs to be followed. Let’s just say in the last few days I have reached a part of my journey that is not as scenic as previous parts.
When I pantsed it the last few times I did it, I’d reach these sections too. But back then I could simply wing something and get past the less interesting sections quicker. Or I could just skip that section and jump right into a later part of the narrative that I found more interesting to write. Everything was on the table. But that kind of approach won’t work this year, because this Nano is to become one of my “official” novels some day. I need to keep a certain degree of organization and discipline in mind as I write this one that perhaps I didn’t have to consider the previous times I did Nano.
Don’t worry. I have kept true to my self imposed “no editing as I write” rule. Just as with my first novel, the first draft will be completed and set aside for a while before I so much as review the first page of it. I’ve held firm in that, I’m happy to say. I just have a few more things to consider as I write this novel during the Nano time. (I won’t finish the narrative in just 50,000. This much I know.)
Even with the slow down, I’m averaging about 1,900 words per day. (Though I have had to skip a day here and there so far.) It’s a smaller word count than a lot of people I talk to. But consistently above the daily requirement to reach 50,000 by the 30th.
That’s always been my key to Nano. Get to the 1,667 daily quota, even if it means plucking it off an hour before midnight. Keep the computer projecting me to finish on time, and I will feel like I’m in good shape. When I skip a day, I try to do a session when I wake up, and then another session in the evening before midnight, so I feel I have written in two different days, but the projection still lists me as on track.
Again, I won’t go back and read anything I’ve written. But having done Nano twice before, and gotten to the fifth draft of my first non-Nano novel I believe I sense a tighter narrative emerging from this Nano first draft. It’s still a first draft and therefore by definition will still be lousy. But lousy in fewer ways than my last first draft. Part of that is due to having completed a first draft before. Part is due to the research and observation I have made about writing over the last few years. And part is due perhaps to starting this draft via Nano. I will keep my promise to myself, but I look forward to reading this first draft in a few months.
I have I think a few more days of the slightly drier stuff to write before getting into what (I hope) are the fun sections to write again. Is this a sign what I’m writing is too long or lacks focus? I don’t know. This is Nano, and there’s no time for that now. But unlike my previous Nanos, it is something I will have to consider eventually, since this one is “for keeps”. But for now, it’s only the 12th. Time remains to just enjoy getting the words out there. And now that the play I was directing is concluded, I won’t be so rushed any given day to get the quota down.
How’s everyone else coming with Nano so far?
Obligatory Election Post
I intend to vote for President Obama. I don’t know if he will win. Most polling seems to indicate that in the final week or so things are trending his way, especially in the crucial Ohio. (No Republican so far has ever been elected president without winning Ohio. Ever.) Still, I am not sure who is going to end up on top.
I believe in my heart that Mitt Romney is a duplicitous fake with questionable morals. A sleaze who will clearly say anything at any time in order to get elected. Before he was the candidate, a great many Republicans felt exactly the same way. Go review the primary election season if you don’t believe me. (Not that any of the others seeking the nomination were in any way better people.)
There is ample proof that he doesn’t know what position he will hold on an issue until he wakes up and reads polling along with his breakfast. The rare positions that he holds which are consistent generally have to do with subjecting women to archaic laws, denying civil rights to homosexuals, and displaying not even the slightest understanding of what it means to be any thing but super rich in this country. His election would be quite bad for many people in this country, including, sadly, most that intend to vote for him.
The only reason I have heard even up to this very day to vote for Mitt Romney is that you hate Barack Obama. I’m an intelligent man, folks, and I have not heard one Republican mouthpiece express a single reason why they want Mitt Romney other than he is not Obama. (Maybe a few because he is, allegedly “pro-life”, which is humerous in its own right.)
So unlike in years gone by, there is no intelligent reason to vote for the other candidate. Sorry if that is being unilateral. So is half of what Mitt Romney says. That’s the way the game is played in a world where the Republican machine allowed biggots and lunatics like Sarah Palin to hijack their party in order to get more press. Maybe the party will return one day to merely being the opposition. But for now, they are the party of hate, ignorance, (intentional or otherwise) and laziness.
So, Barack Obama is a decent man, a far better man than Mitt Romney and whose presidency would mean the most good for the most people, (even most of those who will vote for Romney.)
With that established, I’m not as excited to vote as previously in my life. Even if it were not a close election, I believe I’d feel the same way. I believe it is clear that even if the only decent man in this race, and the only intelligent choice (President Obama) wins tomorrow, the nasty, hate-riddled violence in this nation’s discourse will continue. Probably get worse as calls for armed revolution against the government by those who will have lost the election start to make the news. (Think that’s fiction? Take a look at some of the rallies held by “mainstream” Republican candidates during the 2010 midterm elections and see if you feel the same way.) Blame whoever you want for that, it is clearly the new, tea-infused Republicans responsible for 95% of it. And it will flare up worse in the event of an Obama victory.
In a way I’d love to see all those types get really pissed off. So smug, so sure of themselves, so angry and hateful, and yet…so gun-toting. Scary.
The point is, that will continue, even if better policies for our nation are in place. (Which with President Obama they will be, as they have been so far.)
That is reason number one why I am not as on fire for voting as I once was.
Another is that in the last few months, several people I know personally have experienced tragedy. A few others have had close calls. No election will change any of that, of course. Ever. I realize that in and of itself the fact that people I know have experienced bad things is not a reason to stop voting, and I’m not going to stop voting. Too many people have risked too much to protect my right to do so for me to stop.
But in the wake of certain kinds of pain and suffering and fear,( the kind that I have grown increasingly anxious about in the last few years), I can’t get excited about who wins an election. I can get sickened and scared of the prospect of a bad man winning, but even in that unfortunate event, what changes regarding that to which I am referring? The best economic policy on earth (which Romney obviously does not have) won’t change those things. I’ve said before that I suspect I may have the symptoms of clinical anxiety, so some of this may hit me harder than it should right now. But whatever the case, I confess to feeling a bit of detachment from the whole process now.
I will vote, and so should you. But I ask myself, on a policy or a spiritual level, does an election change anything? I confess, when I think about particular lives, I am saying “no” more and more with every subsequent election…even as I make my informed choice every time.
Of Weddings and Playing Your Part
Yesterday afternoon for the first time, I officiated a wedding. It was that of my niece, Severa. (I have many nieces.)
She first approached me about doing it early this year. She doesn’t belong to a church, and in her view she thought the wedding would be more special if someone in her family conducted it, instead of a cleric or a justice of the peace that knew nothing about her.
I’m ordained in a non-denominational ministry that I discovered online. I filled out the online paper work, sent some processing fees, and bingo I became an ordained minister. In Maryland, you need no further license, so the marriage I conducted here was legal and binding.
It was a good experience. The script, (which the bride provided for me, so I didn’t write any of this) was secular, but poetic. The weather, though overcast and a bit chilly, was dry for the outside ceremony. (We beat Hurricane Sandy’s arrival, thankfully.)
I pride myself on being a clear and expressive public speaker, and I can say I achieved that for this wedding. But for more important for an officiant, I was presenting an attitude. I felt it was my duty to create an atmosphere of joy and celebration for this important event in my niece’s life. I’m happy to report that I also feel I achieved this goal.
Various branches of my family don’t get along with one another, and while I didn’t feel there would be any open warfare at the ceremony, I was, I confess, somewhat apprehensive about the possible tension filling the air. I can’t say this never happened throughout the day, but for the 25 or so minutes of the ceremony over which I was officiating, it was not the case. That, if nothing else, is a gift I was happy to provide my niece.
It got me thinking. We all have things over which we are in charge at any given time. Often, that of which we are in charge is a mere component of something larger that is inefficient, unfair, or troublesome. We often can’t control or change that larger beast.
Sometimes we must try, of course, such as the Civil Rights Movement. But much of the time, the best we can hope to achieve is making sure our small corner of the machine is working properly. To realize that the step to our left or right may be shit, and people may not enjoy those steps, but that is no reason why they can’t enjoy, or at least tolerate the process when they are right in front of us during our moments of influence.
My niece’s wedding was by no means a disaster. It went well, as did the reception afterward, (which I was not in charge of.) I don’t mean to suggest I am the only thing that went right with the affair. I wasn’t. But I can always say, and so can my niece, that whatever didn’t work about that day, the brief time where I was the master of ceremonies went as desired for them. We all must take that lesson into our lives and know that sometimes all that we have is what is right in front of us, to make good for other people. I have always tried to do so, but something about officiating the wedding made me think about it again.
Since I am still credentialed as a secular minister I am still authorized to conduct marriages in the state of Maryland. I have thought about offering those services up on a small time basis as sort of a side business. With my freelance writing, I could also help draft vows and ceremonies and such. I haven’t given it a lot of thought, but if I decided to do a few weddings a year for a fee, I could contribute to other people what I contributed to my niece yesterday: the promise that no matter what else goes wrong at a wedding, the quality of the officiating won’t be one of those things. I’m sure to a lot of people, that would matter a great deal. Something to think about.
Are you part of a larger “machine” in the things you do in life? If so, do you take pride in making sure at least your little corner of the universe works the way it should for others?
Nanowrimo Update
I’ve decided to go ahead with it. That is to say I will begin my next “official” novel (NN2) by way of Nanowrimo.
I’ve mentioned before a few of the hesitations I had about doing this. Those hesitations still exist, but in the end I decided to go through with it for a few reasons.
To begin with, the timing. I finished two revisions of FLOWERS FOR DIONYSUS in less than a year this year. I fully intended to let a few test-readers check out the latest draft, and let it sit until the New Year. During that hiatus I had always thought it was likely I’d begin work on NN2. If Nano didn’t exist there’d be a decent chance, in other words, that I would have started writing NN2 in and around November anyway. So while I’m at it, why not join the Nano community again, maybe meet some new people online, and make a thing out of it?
Another reason? It does light a bit of a fire when one does Nano. NN2 is going to happen at some point no matter what, but with Nano I decided it would help me get on with it. Nothing wrong with an extra push. I can dither at times when it comes to starting or completing certain writing projects. I over-think when I am ready, when the piece is ready, when the planets are properly aligned and so on. This way I will have to just go.
The biggest fear I had was that NN2 wouldn’t get the attention it deserved. That it would become more gimmick and less legitimate if I started it via Nano. Not that Nano novels are not legitimate to the world at large, but my previous two attempts at Nano, though successful, were not pursued beyond that first draft. I wrote them to see if I could do it. I didn’t want NN2 to be like that. I quieted these concerns by telling myself two things:
1) I’ve put a great deal of thought already into the outline of NN2, that I didn’t put into my first Nano projects. (You’re allowed to have an outline headed into Nano, as far as I understand.) The investment has already been made in it, Nano being more of a vehicle.
2) I can pull out of Nano whenever I want to. It’s not a job. There’s no contract. There is no reward other than a certificate and my own knowledge I’ve done it. If at any time I feel NN2 is being slighted by it’s inclusion in Nano, I simply bow out of Nano. Not a big deal, right? In my mind, such things often seem like a big deal at first, only registering as the common sense that they are at a later time. The other day it reached that level. I can stop at any time. Especially since I have already proven not once, but twice, than I can write 50,000 words in 30 days.
Which leads me to another point. I know that I won’t finish NN2 during Nano. I should be able to get at least 50,000 words of a rough draft done in that time period, but by no means the entire narrative. I didn’t finish the whole narrative in my previous Nano experiences either. But in those cases, I was pantsing, and on November 1 at least the possibility of writing a whole narrative was there. This year I know going in that I won’t finish the narrative. That bugged me a bit, too. Felt like it could be cheating. I resolved this issue by saying, “to hell with that thinking.” (Sometimes it’s that easy, even for me.)
So come the first of next month, I will at least begin work on NN2. Look for updates on this adventure throughout November.
Ty Unglebower 