tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33795188584749868572024-03-16T00:08:27.758-07:00Renaissance OafA lifelong writer and artist talks about his struggles and rewards on the road to becoming a professional. "When the going gets weird the weird turn pro." -- Hunter S. ThompsonSean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.comBlogger639125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-42723815788339364512015-09-11T06:32:00.001-07:002015-09-11T06:33:03.508-07:00Miserable Bastard Syndrome<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>The sky is bothering me on this one. I can't tell whether to keep it, replace it with a flat gray, or use a smooth gradient. I hate it when a creative problem boils down to, "Try and be less tacky."</i></span></div>
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So it's time for the blog to come back. While I used it primarily as an outlet for casual writing, its real worth to me has been therapeutic -- for instance, when I'm going through a crisis period, it can be useful to see if I was going through a similar crisis around the same date in previous years.<br />
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And I'm going through a crisis right now, and it might be good for me to write about it.<br />
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A while back -- and if I'd kept up on my blog, I'd be able to put a date to it -- it became clear that drinking was becoming a problem in my life, so I made the transition from drunk to alcoholic. By which I mean I started going to meetings. Not AA, it's a secular group called Lifering. And since then, I've mostly stopped drinking.<br />
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But I've gotten drunk twice in the last three days. Once I could call a slip, but twice so close together is obviously an act of self destruction. I'd like to publicly apologize to the missus. She puts up with a lot from me, and I genuinely regret that she has to be around me when I'm wresttling with my demons.<br />
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And that is what I am facing right now. My deepest and most abiding problems have been forced out of hiding, and when exposed to the light, they seem obvious to the point of cliche. I drink when in crisis because that is how all the adults in my life coped when I was a child, and I am self-destructive because people told me I was bad. Given the history of mental illness in my heritage, I'd be a little screwy no matter what, but what I'm dealing with right now actually is that simple.<br />
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Right now, my life is really good. And that is why I am not in a position to ignore my issues anymore. I do not have the option of blaming the world at this point. There have been times when I have suffered real misfortunes, but that isn't going on right now.<br />
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So the fact that I have been dealing with one of the bleakest periods of extended depression in my life is something I have to really own. As I told my shrink, "It used to be that when I fell off the tightrope, I went down into the dirt and was mangled and I had to heal up before I could get back on the rope. Then in my mid-twenties I was able to get a safety net put in. And once I started getting some recognition as an artist, it was like getting a safety tether. Now when I fall, I only drop about six feet and I can climb right back up. The thing is, for the first time I can actually see the drop and it's intimidating the <i>fuck</i> out of me."<br />
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I am looking square at the fact that on a certain level I do not believe I have the right to be alive, that I see my existence as an objectively bad thing. (The ability to maintain that belief is definively subjective. I KNOW.) What makes this fun to contemplate is that one of the main roots of this attitude is a response to the reaction of the adults in my life to my childhood depression.<br />
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We had a friend named Aggie who was very fond of telling this joke when I was in earshot. "If you took Duncan (my brother, deceased) and put him into a barn filled with horseshit, you'd come back six hours later and he'd be digging away, saying, 'There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!' And if you put Sean in a room full of presents, you'd come back six hours later and he'd be sitting in the middle of the floor crying, and if you asked him why he'd say, 'if I open one of these presents I'll break it and then I'll be in trouble.'"<br />
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See the cat? See the cradle?<br />
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When I was a kid, I wished more than anything else that I lived in Berkeley, that I had a cute chubby girlfriend, that I was big and tough and smart and talented and nice, that I was good at stuff, that people liked me, and so on and so forth and I've got everything I wanted as a child at this point. I really do. While I am always on the lookout for more compliments and attention, I've actually gotten enough of both to last me the rest of my life if I use them conservatively. I have heard everything I want to hear said about myself by exactly the right person.<br />
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And part of me does not want to be happy because I do not deserve it.<br />
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Because my mom was a narcissist, so I was the best thing in the world when I was performing and the worst when I was not. Because the crucial time when there actually was contempt and hatred for white men in popular culture coincided with a key developmental phase, and I lived in a predominantly black community at that time. (Honestly, my mental image of 'regular regular' has black hair and brown skin.) Because neither my mother or my grandmother actually liked men, and my maturation was a source of real and visible pain to both of them. Because even if I hadn't been picked on for being white, being smart, weird, and awkward would have been enough to get the job done. It is not complicated. Well, it is, but it isn't hard to understand.<br />
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So right now, my next step is to let go of or ameliorate my need for self-destruction. It is an immediate and pressing problem for me and unfortunately the people in my life. I am not acting out as badly as I have in the past, but better is still not good enough.<br />
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Here is the knot.<br />
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I know from experience that effective therapy actually means feeling better.<br />
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And I don't deserve to feel better. I do not trust good feelings.<br />
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But this is not an insoluble problem. That's why I get free therapy -- I do get better, and for a shrink, it's fun to watch. Right now all I need to do is work, relax, and enjoy my life. That's it. I have a good relationship, a place to live, I get to cook with great food, my job at this point embarasses me because it feels so recreational, and I get to be this... well, whatever the hell it is I am, it's pretty damned dramatic. I have actually bitched about performing for polite audiences. Do you know how lucky you have to be when that is one of your complaints?<br />
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That all this is screwing up my self-image as a pathetic loner destined to die in the gutter.<br />
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My current period of depression actually is on the wane. This is a physical thing as much as mental (although the function of the mind seems pretty damned physical to me), but the initial triggers were the completion of my second novel followed within a week by the death of my mother-in-law, Ruth Leaf, for whom it was written and who never got to read it. And Robin Williams' death really got to me. I've never been that much of a fan, because frankly when he was being Robin Williams, he scared the crap out of me. There is a symptom of mental illness called 'compulsive witticism,' and I've got it. I'm not complaining, because I've gotten money for funny, but watching Williams perform gave me the same sick, guilty feeling I got from listening to too much Wesley Willis -- I felt complicit in the exploitation of mental illness.<br />
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But it turned out I know a lot of people who knew him personally, and their sorrow gave his death a weight for me that it wouldn't otherwise have had.<br />
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It was the actual death, the mechanics of it, that got to me. I found myself mentally reconstructing his last moments compulsively. Was it auto-erotic asphyxiation? Was the knife on the floor a sign that he'd been trying to cut himself loose?<br />
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That was the one that got to me. The idea that he'd started to kill himself, then changed his mind and died anyway? It makes me sick to think of it even now.<br />
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And again, I can't look away from my own situation. When I talk about it to people, I say that I was suicidal in my teens and early twenties. But when I say I'm not suicidal now, I mean by my standards. I think about my death a lot, and take comfort in it. I think I should not exist. For me to say I'm not suicidal is a semantic game. I am out of the danger zone. I am not going to kill myself. I'm not even going to hurt myself. So calm down. But I can't afford to keep pretending that I don't have these feelings.<br />
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So what pushed me into my immediate, current crisis? Getting a dream job (adventure novelist, and yes, I bitch about that too), and having the missus take over some responsibilities that were screwing me up. <br />
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But these are the tip of a general feeling that my life is changing for the better, that I'm going to move on to the next big stage in my life. As I said, right now my big job is just enjoying my daily life and not screwing anything up. And I'm trying to screw things up.<br />
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So that's why I'm blogging again. I need an extra therapeutic edge.<br />
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Additionally, I've been having a lot of my Facebook posts vanish, and I never think to use Twitter these days, and you know what? My casual writing has gotten pretty decent, and I'm thinking about doing it all here on the blog, then distributing choice nuggets to other social networks. Something to consider...<br />
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Anyway, I'm back.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-32912921527042962062014-04-12T09:43:00.000-07:002014-04-12T11:47:18.469-07:00Cultivating Desire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This one is going to get a little rough. But this blog is part of my therapeutic process, and I need to put this up for my own sake. So quit reading if it’s going to make you unhappy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m coming to realize that as complicated as my mental health issues are, there is one specific problem that if addressed could radically improve my quality of life. My needs and desires do not motivate me to action. This is the case to a genuinely pathological degree; it is a life-threatening condition. Anorexia, dehydration, apnea — “I guess I should breathe,” was a thought that ran through my mind early this morning — there are very real physical risks I face on a regular basis. It took me a long time to recognize this because I’ve become habituated to this kind of self-abuse…</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">… but then I noticed that the concern the missus expresses over my well-being when she’s out of town included a component of real fear. And my therapist had the same reaction. It was pointed out that when I haven’t had a woman monitoring my food intake, my hundred-and-forty-five pound steady weight was the result of chronic malnutrition. When people ask me, “What do you want?” I almost never respond in an appropriate fashion. I always find a way to defer to someone else. A few months into therapy, my shrink said, “You aren’t motivated by desire, you’re motivated by principle.” I asked the missus, my dad, my closest friends, and they all confirmed that opinion.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But it isn’t principle so much as compulsion. From time to time, I’ll run across someone who will raise a corrective forefinger when I say, “I have to —“ and then they’ll wag it at me and say, “No, you don’t <i>have</i> to. You <i>choose</i> to.”</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">People who can think that way are incapable of understanding me. Dealing with them is like dealing with someone from another planet. (Are they even people?) I only act when I feel as though my choices have been reduced to necessities. This is a big part of my cycle of extended periods of depressive passivity broken by productive phases of hypomania.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am fortunate to be achieving an interesting position as a cultural figure. And every success has had its roots in someone else’s desires. People ask me to do stuff and I try to do what I’m told.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Because I try to be a good boy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But that is not the same as having a drive to succeed. In many ways, I’m still trying to hide from the world.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The missus is out of town now, and is going out of town again. So this stuff has been a subject of discussion. And in the last couple of weeks, I’ve had a few realizations.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One is that I do not feel lonely when I work for other people, while pursuing my own ends makes me feel panicky and abandoned. Not to go into the details, but that comes from a shabby old set of Mommy issues.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The other came after a day of eating no, drinking yes. The next morning, the calm, reasonable voice in my head said, “You do understand that you’re a public concern now, and what you did yesterday was vandalism. That’s not what a good boy does.” I swear, that bastard is starting to play dirty. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And something big and hopeful has entered the picture. Over the course of this last year, I’ve had three discrete periods of real happiness that lasted for weeks or months. It seems that when I get a certain amount of what I want in life, I’m basically happy. And some of what I want is to be of service to others, and some of it is to feel pride in what I do. Sex, cooking for others, beautiful scenery, exercise, intimate conversation, the praise of knowledgable people, the exercise of mastery in my skills, the rough edge of learning a new skill, proudly displaying myself in public, the option of getting something fresh to read or look at or listen to, going out every once in a while, nice clothes, access to media gadgetry and musical instruments, the company of animals. I know what I want, and I know what’s good for me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But it just doesn’t motivate me. I can regard any level of physical and emotional discomfort with a certain cool, unsympathetic distance. I am made out of poverty consciousness and self-denial. I am entirely capable of laying down and never moving again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Which would make me a bad boy. Which is why I’m dependent on the people around me to keep me from simply winding down like a cheap toy. I’m lucky that most people in my life don’t regard this as a burden, and there are enough of ‘em so that nobody feels responsible for the burden.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I want to change this. I know I’m never going to be conventionally healthy in this sense, but when you’re nuts, it’s important to watch your margins. So I’m going to try guilting myself with the whole, “You are public property,” thing and see how that works.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I strongly suspect that if I become more widely known, the presence of an audience for my work will also give me more impetus to take care of myself. And I am working on developing something resembling real affection for myself. Things are getting better. But they’re still a long way from good.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’ll go eat something now. At least it will be a step in the right direction.</span></span>Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-78034442610098440402014-02-20T09:37:00.000-08:002014-02-20T09:37:31.512-08:00How To Be A Literary Writer or Overweening For Beginners<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">With unconvincing apologies to my friends and teachers in the worlds of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.</span></b></div>
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Once in a while I ask myself the question, "How do you get away with calling yourself a literary writer? And why bother?" The second question is easily answered. Vanity. On some level, for some reason, I regard myself as a special bunny, and I don't have enough enough of an audience to legitimize those feelings. (I hope you're satisfied.) The first is a little more involved. If you look at my ouvre, miniscule as it is, you see wall-to-wall alien torture demons, carrion landscapes, and talking chickens. My next novel will have dinosaurs and spaceships both. And yet no one has ever called me on my shit. How do I manage this grotesque imposture?<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Concern yourself primarily with style, theme, character, and the formal elements of prose, relegating plot and incident to support positions.</span></b></div>
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This is a big one. The real trick is to lack plotting skills early in your career, so you're forced to do other stuff well enough to compensate. But if you work hard enough, you can even fool the actual literati. And talk it up. Don't let people forget you regard 'story' as an awkward necessity.<br />
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The down side of this is that when you finally learn to plot, it will make you feel twice as fraudulent -- once for passing yourself off as a writer when you couldn't even tell a goddamned story, and again for transforming yourself from a genuinely interesting minor artist into a drag-ass no-talent commercial hack.<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Work visibly outside of genre.</span></b></div>
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It isn't enough to leave the zap guns out of a piece every once in a while. Make sure you point at your obviously non-genre work, make a little noise, give the impression that it is more characteristic of your inner self than the stuff with the alien invasions and so on. That way when you start dishing out bug-eyed monsters you can do so with a slight elevation of the nose. I spread my hands apologetically -- "I can't stay away from the kitsch, what can you do?"<br />
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Here's a twist on the concept -- deliver genre material to a non-genre venue. As the man once asked me, would you rather be a booger in a Dixie cup or hot snot in a champagne glass?<br />
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And now the most important part. Nothing will help you if you can't do this. <br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Say, "I regard myself primarily as a literary writer," with both a straight face and the tiniest, most tasteful hint of physical intimidation.</span></b></div>
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I never claimed this game was for everyone.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-30584652963658663812014-01-17T05:10:00.000-08:002014-02-14T15:09:44.361-08:00Spoiler Alert: Plot of Wonder Woman Movie Revealed!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Oh, it's Wonder Woman all right. You just can't see the Golden Lasso.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You may or may not know this about me, but I first wrote professionally for an animated movie review show. There was another animated movie review show with a similar underworld-meets-Siskel-and-Ebert schtick going around, and we had contrasting approaches to the movie review process. One show would watch the movies, write the scripts, record the sound, animate the show, and then review the movie six months after it came out when nobody cared. The other show would make use of shadowy media contacts and gossip columns and so on, prejudicially guess at what the movie was going to be like, usually with some measure of juvenile spite, and then release the review slightly in advance of the movie so as to take advantage of the collateral publicity, which, along with the employment practices, made it an amazingly amoral job. I had the chance to write with a number of respectable comedians, but you notice how I don’t name them or the show?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Anyway, I stand by the reviews I wrote. Seriously, the way movies are made? If you can’t tell pretty much what you’re getting six months in advance, people haven’t been doing their jobs.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So I have maintained, as they say, shadowy media contacts. And in the public interest, I am going to let you in on a little secret. I have some pals who will be salivating over this information.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I know the storyline of the upcoming Wonder Woman movie.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And I am going to take a chance and share it with you.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The basic origin story, what with old Steve Trevor crashing on Amazon Island and all that, takes place over the opening credits. The actual story starts with Steve and Diana on their first date. Steve is telling Diana – who is Wonder Woman, I think it’s Diana Prince or Price or something, but when she’s dressed in real lady clothes she’s Diana – he’s telling her how much he loves planes, and how he loved planes so much when he was a kid it turned him into a pilot. He’s in love with planes so much it sounds like a medical condition, which turns out to be the case.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So Diana says, “I’ve got a plane!”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Steve Trevor says, “Can I see it?”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And Diana says, “No, it’s invisible,” and unconsciously folds her butter knife. There is sweat on her forehead so you can tell she’s nervous.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Steve says, “Well, can I touch it then?”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Diana gulps visibly, and says, “You can’t because I brought it from Amazon Island and it’s a girl plane so if a boy touches it, it goes away.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And Steve goes, “Aw, man. Well, can I see you fly it?”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Diana gulps and sweats and just balls her butter knife up like it was aluminum foil. “Sure!” she says. “I’ll show you my invisible plane next Friday!” And if the actress does her job, you can tell she gets calm all of a sudden. “Probably next Friday, if my plane’s still okay. If it isn’t, I might have to do it later.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And now Steve is the one that’s worried. He says, “I really hope your plane’s okay. If a plane gets hurt, it makes me feel the way a normal person feels if a pony gets hurt, and the pills the doctor gave me for it totally, utterly, and completely kill my sex drive so I don’t take them all the time and I like you so much I haven’t been taking them. Honest, I like you a whole lot, but I just don’t know what my doctor will prescribe if anything happens to that plane.”</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What a pickle!</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Wonder Woman calls up her friend Etta Candy and asks for advice. Etta says, “I’m a sidekick so I don’t know much about boys. If Steve has the initials L.L. you should ask Batman for advice, but otherwise Superman is the romance expert.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Cut to Antarctica, which is the continent of romance because the cold encourages snuggling. We are at the Fortress of Solitude, so-named to get a reaction out of Lois Lane. (This isn’t in the movie, I just know a lot of Superman stuff.) Superman and Wonder Woman are standing outside in the wind and snow screaming at each other in their supervoices while wearing their skimpy, revealing uniforms. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“… and now he thinks I’ve got an invisible plane,” Wonder Woman says. Screams, actually. According to my friend they show ice cracking and stuff like that whenever they say anything, and their mouths are open really wide the whole time. “Oh, Superman, what am I going to do?”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“That’s quite a pickle,” Superman hollers. “But if you’re willing to base a lifelong commitment to another person on a falsehood, I think I can see a basis to proceed.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Wonder Woman bellows, “Okay, I can do that! Anything but the truth!”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Superman embraces her. Even though they are possessed of hypersexualized bodies and the only thing between them are two layers of Spandex and a nasty wind-chill factor, it is totally platonic. Superman puts his lips to Wonder Woman’s ear, and whispers – screams, actually – “</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Welcome to the life of the lie!”</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> You can tell it’s a real moment for both of them.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Then Superman teaches Wonder Woman to fly in a montage. It’s a serious Antarctic helicopter shot festival that seems to go on forever. At one point it looks like she’s going to give up, but not on Superman’s watch! Wonder Woman says, “Why are you making me do this?” but he just keeps driving her on with his relentless Kryptonian will.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Finally, just as she starts tentatively lifting off and hovering over the snowdrifts, Superman says, “Not like that.” And he squats as though he’s sitting in an invisible chair, and reaches out his hands as though adjusting invisible controls, and then he lifts off!</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He’s flying an invisible plane!</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You can see the dawning comprehension and relief in Wonder Woman’s face. She’s </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">not</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> in a pickle. Etta was right, as usual. No wonder they call him Superman!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So cut to Toronto or wherever it is that Steve Trevor lives. I think it’s supposed to be New York and my friend said they were filming in Toronto. That stuff always mixes me up. Anyway, it’s outside in a park with tall buildings, and there’s a big field, and Steve Trevor is looking up at the sky.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There’s a speck in the distance, and it gets closer and closer, and you can see it’s the butt and legs of a woman in a Wonder Woman swimsuit and go-go boots, and when she gets close enough it turns out that it </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">is</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> Wonder Woman and it’s not a swimsuit, it’s her uniform. She cruises in and hovers about fifteen feet off the ground, and then pretends to walk down a flight of invisible stairs. You can tell she’s been practicing, but there’s an endearingly awkward quality to her motions that will charm you, the viewer, or so I am told. When she gets to the bottom, she waves at the sky, and pretends to watch as something lifts and flies away.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Then Wonder Woman walks over to Steve Trevor, ready to lie like her pants – which she is not wearing – are on fire. She says to him, “My plane lives in the sky.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And he melts. He just melts. “Wow,” he says. “I loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you, but until just now I never knew how it felt to love a woman with the coolest plane in the world when you’ve got a condition like mine. I am so glad I’m not on my pills.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And they kiss. The End!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In the credits you see Etta Candy in a warehouse working a forklift. And on the forklift is a huge yellow egg with a prehensile Fu Manchu mustache. He’s a Wonder Woman villain from the comics, and his name is so racist I won’t type it and so obvious I don’t have to. She moves him, as he protests in a cringe-inducing accent, through the warehouse, eventually setting him down in an open space. After the credits, she gets a hatchet and cracks him open as if he were an ostrich egg, working her way around the top as the pitch of terror in his screams builds unbearably.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I promised I wouldn’t tell you what’s in the racist caricature, but believe me. It’ll be worth the ticket all by itself. Superhero movies are the best.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>(Update -- since they aren't going to use this script, I can reveal that it was intended to be the introduction to a Marvel/DC crossover, and the creepy egg dude turned out to be harboring a tiny little MODOK. Damned shame -- I'll miss this movie the way I miss the John Sayles Jurassic Park sequel.)</i></span></div>
Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-75131959530086495742013-12-30T08:28:00.000-08:002013-12-30T08:34:28.490-08:00How I Happened: Ancestry and Infancy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1RsBYH7ibDRQAClfwPlyvP1803tpOyEPf-TNSRntdsDFjl_6aK2sNJgWkyfVN_u5HC6TsL-Kn53AKgCcSxXhcQwDEH2LJe6cE6NXcPjj5y0YUOeLHfx3qyNxX8em437EycU3V5Hg3ybk/s1600/IMG_4399.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1RsBYH7ibDRQAClfwPlyvP1803tpOyEPf-TNSRntdsDFjl_6aK2sNJgWkyfVN_u5HC6TsL-Kn53AKgCcSxXhcQwDEH2LJe6cE6NXcPjj5y0YUOeLHfx3qyNxX8em437EycU3V5Hg3ybk/s320/IMG_4399.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Photo once again courtesy of dedicated oaf wrangler Deborah Kuchar.</b></div>
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<i>(So in conversation with my shrink, I realized that she didn't have a clear map of my life, especially in relation to my state of mental health. I think I'm going to try and construct some kind of therapeutic autobiography here...)</i><br />
<br />
When the missus met my paternal grandmother for the first time, she turned to me on the drive home, and said, "So you don't have any sane grandparents."<br />
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"Pretty much," I said. Things tend to get diagnosed more often on my dad's side of the family, but both of my grandfathers were alcoholics, as were both of my parents. My paternal grandfather died of heart failure in a psychiatric institution. He had grown obese while institutionalized, probably a result of his medication. Of course, he had been locked up for getting naked and saying he was Jesus, so there's that side of it. My other grandfather had been reported dead by my grandmother, who told me dozens of different stories about the alcohol-related incident that had taken him when they lived in the Philippines. My cousin has since found evidence that he actually moved to Japan and had another family, who does not wish contact with us. A friend of my mother's spotted a photo of her father with his best friend. My mother's friend had been an MP in the Pacific theater during World War II; he pointed at my grandfather's best friend, and said, "That son-of-a-bitch was the biggest diamond smuggler in Southeast Asia."<br />
<br />
I have always felt as if I were a cross between my two grandfathers. They are nameless and faceless to me, and they will never go away.<br />
<br />
My grandmother would certainly have been diagnosed with OCD and depression if she'd been diagnosed. I have been told that from time to time she would tell third parties, in an ominous tone, that she was the only one who really understood me. This suggests to me that people knew there was something up before I did, and that she may have had more dramatic symptoms than she let people know about. She maintained a reputation as eccentric rather than crazy. Her most visible oddity was her devotion to Christian Science, which, sorry, Monitor, is a cult, and is just as whacky as all get-out. Lots of religious fanaticism on both sides of the family, and I think religion disguises a lot of nuts, don't you?<br />
<br />
My mother also suffered from depression, which she treated with alcohol and denial. She began drinking heavily in her early teens, and stopped just before her death when it became impossible for her to hold a beer can. From time to time during my childhood, she would erupt into a self-righteous speech about how she would never drink or smoke during pregnancy.<br />
<br />
I have been diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome.<br />
<br />
My mother feared her mother. When I was engendered, she kept the news to herself for a while. She was nineteen then, and had no real direction, and wasn't married. So for the first part of the pregnancy -- I know the next statement is true, though I have no evidence for it aside from myself -- she sat in her room, smoking and drinking. At first she didn't know, and then she was in denial.<br />
<br />
Finally, she told my dad. They fled the state, they married, they travelled cross-country in the company of a working con artist, and my mom had me in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, because that's where you go when it's fucking February. She claimed to have been too broke to eat during the weeks prior to my birth.<br />
<br />
People who are red-headed tend to be sensitive to stress. All my gray hairs were once red. People who are left-handed tend to be sensitive to stress. I've got some weird issues from having been switched from left- to right-handed.<br />
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There's a theory that left-handedness results from stress experienced by the mother during pregnancy. It sounds silly to me, but I have an affection for that theory.<br />
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My family moved back to the Bay Area. I lived in San Francisco for a couple of years, and then we settled in Richmond. I was a precocious child, talking at an adult conversational level by the time I was nine months old. So if you were in San Francisco during the Summer of Love and you had an encounter with a talking baby?<br />
<br />
That wasn't acid. That was me. I toilet-trained myself -- my parents would find me naked under my crib every morning. Finally my dad found me crouching on the toilet bowl in the middle of the night when he got up to pee. He tells that anecdote as a horror story. It's pretty good.<br />
<br />
My current therapist has suggested that my early development may have been a reaction to my environment.<br />
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My parents were too young to have kids, and too drunk to have kids, but thankfully they had three of us, so I had a reason to keep my shit together. It has only been in recent years that I've come to realize that I was damned close to being a feral child. I was not raised at all. I just happened. My parents provided for my needs, but as for education and guidance? Nada.<br />
<br />
Or, rather, jokes and non-sequiturs. My mother could get herself interested in teaching us imaginary words, or learning to pick up oranges with our feet (I'm actually grateful for that one, monkey feet are useful), but as for training in everything from grooming and manners to maintenance of health?<br />
<br />
Especially the latter. Because of her Christian Science background, my mom thought the thing to do with a sick kid is make them feel guilty.<br />
<br />
I had to go to a writer's workshop to learn that you're supposed to keep something in your stomach if you know you're going to throw up. I tore a hole in my stomach because I didn't know that. I could have stayed out of the hospital if I'd known that. That is the level of ignorance I face in myself. I do not know how to operate my damned body, let alone negotiate the world. I may as well be from Mars.<br />
<br />
But since I was so clever and articulate? Nobody noticed. When a small child is fucking with your head because they've become prematurely existential, you don't notice that they think butter is a food or bullies can be reasoned with or that they read while walking.<br />
<br />
So at this point, I've got some heredity going on, I've got a terrible prenatal situation, and I'm being raised by negligent, drunken parents. And yeah, I got beat some.<br />
<br />
But all that was okay. I was happy, functional, regarded as a tiny wonder by the adults in my life.<br />
<br />
It was public education that screwed me up.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-55180368693873279652013-12-18T10:00:00.001-08:002013-12-18T10:00:32.165-08:00What's Going On<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Too tacky to use as art, but how often am I holding a camera when a pelican launches itself?</b></span></div>
<br />
When I started this blog, it was intended more for self-amusement than anything else. After a while, I noticed that it was a very handy means of tracking my moods and mental states. But as I've gotten more in the public eye, I've been reluctant to simply hop on the blog and put up a post that says, "I'm feeling crappy because I'm an inferior specimen."<br />
<br />
And that's why I haven't been posting much in the past months.<br />
<br />
In 2010, I reached a crisis point. I was hospitalized after vomiting blood for three days. This was a stress reaction rather than a gastrointestinal issue, and I was inserted into the public health apparatus. It was disastrous; I was given powerful, addictive, inappropriate medications for just long enough to develop dependency, and then denied them without warning or preparation. They crapped me out of the system without ever telling me what they were doing.<br />
<br />
At that point, dealing with my psychiatric issues became my number-one priority in life. Not to go into the (infinitely fascinating) clinical details at this point, but while I am a gentle, peaceful man, I am drawn from the pool that produces killers and suicides, and when I turn that will on myself, blood flows. On one hand I am a bit of a hypochondriac, always wondering if any particular symptom has come to stay or is indicative of further unpleasantness to come. However, there is such a thing as pscychogenic disease, and I get psychogenic diseases like crazy. If I am sufficiently unhappy, my body falls apart, and that is less of an exaggeration than anyone likes.<br />
<br />
But, as I said, dealing with this became my primary occupation at the end of 2010. The missus very generously arranged for me to consult with a good therapist who has taken me on for free. Because she's a generous and committed person, of course, but also because I'm a fun client. We have a very relaxed, unconventional therapeutic relationship, and it's worked out very well for me. She isn't responsible for my therapy, but she keeps me focused and in touch with reality, and there have been times when her guidance has proven invaluable..<br />
<br />
Up until last spring, the course of my work went very well indeed. My shrink says she's never seen improvement like that before, and I reply that I'm turning my artistic skills on the medium of myself. But there's a concept called 'the healing crisis.' This can take a lot of forms, but what I'm dealing with is perspective. I've made a lot of serious progress, tackled issues I'd thought unconquerable. I'm not scared of gatherings of people anymore, I'm not overwhelmed by crowds. I'm developing some real affection for myself, and have reached a point with my self-care where the missus is no longer worried about leaving me at home alone for extended periods of time.<br />
<br />
<br />
And that's been the problem right there. I've gotten well enough to get a clearer view of how I look from the outside, and <i>Jesus</i>. It isn't as simple as just being messed up. Every psychiatric issue I have is connected to some unusual mental or spiritual gift. This isn't typical, it's something out of a story rather than a textbook, but there it is.<br />
<br />
Last spring I was finally facing the idea that I might have to apply for SSI and Social Security and so on. And it started getting to me. It wasn't the only thing, but it was the extra thing that was getting to me. I have had people telling me to do this for years, I had even been contacted by a homeless outreach program and began the process at that point, but I'd let it go.<br />
<br />
Among other things, my shrink spent a long time working for Social Security, evaluating cases. She was one of the people who decide who deserves a check and who doesn't. So when she told me, very seriously, that I needed and deserved disability income, I had to take her seriously.<br />
<br />
That was when I started losing weight. By early summer, I was down to about 180, which is light for someone my size. Anything less than that is clinically underweight. That was when I got into a dipsy-doo when an old friend of mine decided to perform class realignment surgery on me, and move me from the bottom one percent to the top.<br />
<br />
And I found out that I do not belong there. I had the privilege of doing some interesting, challenging work there, but work turns out to be the least important thing when it comes to fitting into the world.<br />
<br />
I had never understood that before. I always assumed that the work -- whatever it was -- was the most important thing, when actually getting along is the most important part of getting along.<br />
<br />
I don't get along, and I don't go along, and that is how it is. I cannot act effectively except under the dictates of my will and principles. Not a goddamned thing to be done about it. It is a matter of both nature and nurture, and it has determined the course of my life through infancy, and now I'm nearly fifty years old and it's just dawning on me why I never was able to fit in, and it is a problem that will not be resolved.<br />
<br />
Assuming it's a problem. When I explained to my dad the nature of my dilemma, he said, "Well, I'll take the blame for everything else, but I take the credit for that."<br />
<br />
And I have been told by a number of people that a big part of my problem is that I live in the US, or even just in the wrong part of the US. In a country with either a more progressive educational system, or a comprehensive health care system that might have picked up on my psychiatric conditions in high school or even elementary school, things might have been different. As it is, I got PTSD instead of an education, and I didn't get that diagnosed until it almost killed me. On the other hand, I might have been born under conditions where I couldn't get glasses, and that might have croaked me in childhood. Woulda coulda shoulda, but <i>shit.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
So the stress is currently settled in my neck and shoulders. If the pain is bad, I can't sleep, and I sit up, and my neck gets better. When my neck gets better, I can sleep, which makes it get worse. The pain was located in my right side for a few months there. It got better. I got the pukes, and was up all night. The next night I slept like a baby, and woke up with the pain back again, only this time on the left side.<br />
<br />
And that's where I'm at right now. Chronic pain that hasn't been looked at by a doctor, irritability, loss of appetite, loss of interest in activities, etc, etc. I have begun the process of applying for disability, and that's one of the sources of my current malaise. It's forced me to actually recognize that my condition isn't something I'm going to just shrug off one day, and that my life of semi-poverty is growing more and more difficult for me.<br />
<br />
So that's the bad news. But there is good news.<br />
<br />
First off, even though I'm at a low point in my personal cycle, I'm still a lot better off than I would have been even a year or two ago. I've accumulated enough of a sense of self not to be completely overwhelmed by this.<br />
<br />
But that is weak good news, "Well, you still have your thumb," good news. I have real good news.<br />
<br />
My years of stewing at a slow simmer seem to be paying off. The fact of the matter is that I haven't heard of anyone with my fucking career arc. Every time I have received any notice regarding my work, my response has been to freak out and go back to practicing even harder. And my work is getting out into the world anyway.<br />
<br />
Who gets approached by a gallery owner for their first show? Who else has a publisher come up to them and say, "Hey! You! Start writing!" I mean, I went from "I should try to push this novel on agents," to, "I'm not going to read your outline because you had me with the proposal," with absolutely no effort on my own behalf. My first professional sale? The editor found me at a workshop. (Viable Paradise, and it was WONDERFUL.) The only thing I've done on-purpose was start reading (my own work out-loud to audiences), and that has taken on a life of its own. Basically, my 'career' has been a string of benevolent muggings induced by friendship as much as anything else.<br />
<br />
Right now, if I do something, and I like it, it gets produced on a professional level. Sometimes I do it myself, sometimes I work at the Big Fancy Corporate level. Right now, I am operating within sniffing distance of public broadcasting, which is as close to a respectable cultural institution as our sorry nation currently features. I've gotten the kind of approval from the kind of people that I really wanted, and I don't need to prove to myself that I'm a real artist anymore. I ain't the best in the world, but I"m good enough and I'm getting better.<br />
<br />
And right now I am working on three projects that have me engaged, excited, and hopeful.<br />
<br />
My second novel, Helping Henry, is a development of my stories published in November of 2012 as part of the collection We Are Now, currently available from your ebook retailer. It's a consciously commercial volume, intended to please and enrich an audience rather than perform surgery on myself. I'm just about done with it, and the response from my writer's groups has been more positive than for anything I've ever written. And it was written at the request of a publisher, so it is coming out. I even get to do the cover, which I did before I started writing the book. That, folks, is the kind of creative freedom you don't get every day.<br />
<br />
In the visual arts, my new series started as a response to a crashed computer and desperate deadlines. It's heavily processed photographs of East Bay urban landscapes -- the picture up-top was taken on a shooting expedition -- rendered in gray tones, intended to be reproduced at a small size. The goal is to have somewhere over a hundred of them before I start thinking about doing a show. It's funny -- they have the same feel I was trying for with my last series, but using straight photography seems elegant rather than lazy, as if the effort I was putting into constructing the images was just me getting in my own way.<br />
<br />
And they're going to be part of a book. The way my last series of prints grew out of my first novel, these have their roots in project number three.<br />
<br />
This one is a doozy.<br />
<br />
When I had my gallery show in Montana, a jazz band played at the opening. They were incredible, but so avant-garde I was just barely able to appreciate them. They were great, but they were extremely challenging, operating at a genuinely high level. At the end of the evening I performed with two members of the band, and it was an amazing experience. I came back to the Bay Area knowing that I had to do more work like that, and wishing that I could do it with those particular musicians.<br />
<br />
Well, I wasn't the only one who thought something special happened that night. They got in touch with me. We're going to do a studio project, and we are going to do a full-length live show based on my three readings on the subject of violence that I did for Lip Service West. And that will be assembled as a chapbook with a selection of photos from my East Bay Gray series. I'll be writing about all this in more detail and with links.<br />
<br />
But there you have it. Essentially, I am very good at a few things that may or may not ever make me a living, and I am terrible at conducting my life, so terrible I actually require supervision, and thrive or fail greatly in response to the care I'm given by my friends and loved ones, or 'oaf wranglers,' as I call them. I don't fit in to conventional society at all, yet silly as it sounds I am slowly becoming a rather interesting cultural figure.<br />
<br />
I am simultaneously at what I regard as the bottom and the top of society. My best chance at not being a bum is being a celebrity. I am in debt and applying for benefits, but if I walk out of the house in a good mood perfect strangers treat me as if I'm hot shit. After a lifetime of being the token creepy dude, I am now a magnetic personality. And this is all warping my brain. And that, folks, is why I haven't been posting much. I'll try and be better in the future.<br />
<br />
<br />Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-17593747711594875832013-11-23T09:27:00.000-08:002013-11-23T09:27:43.569-08:00Why I Sinned, And How<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/index.php">Click Here For Free Flash Fiction!</a></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/authors.php?authorID=1#stories">My run at this year's Flash Fiction Fest is now up.</a> Eight short-short stories (which was what we called flash fiction back in the pre-Cambrian), all for free. And in addition, there are works from <a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/authors.php?authorID=2#stories">P.T. Dilloway</a> and <a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/authors.php?authorID=3#stories">Neil Vogler</a>, who brought me in to participate in last year's<a href="http://www.decemberhouse.net/books.php"> We Are Now</a>. New <a href="http://www.decemberhouse.net/index.php">December House</a> writers <a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/authors.php?authorID=4#stories">Daryn Guarino</a>, <a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/authors.php?authorID=5#stories">Jess Leather</a>, <a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/authors.php?authorID=8#stories">J Freese</a>, <a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/authors.php?authorID=6#stories">Philip Leslie</a>, and Simon Kewin. (Sorry, Simon, the link clicked to Philip.)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Last year, I did a serial that turned out to be the seed of a novel. The reviews were... kind, but unimpressed. I had a hard time arguing. I wanted better than that this time around, so I made each story stand alone, and I tried to do a little fancy footwork here and there, a little showy technique for the sake of skylarking. I had a good time with these. I wouldn't mind the opportunity to give them an extra layer of varnish, but what the hell.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/viewstory.php?postID=37">At The Eden</a></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(Lust)</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">At The Eden came first, before I'd considered the notion of the seven deadly sins. I've always had a fondness for goofy bar stories -- the Drone's club, the White Hart, Jorkens, Gavagan's Bar, and so on. I work a lot with Rob Pierce, and bars crop up in his work regularly. I'm not a bar drinker. I don't like the noise, the difficulty in holding a conversation, the expense.... but I love bar stories.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This one started with the voice, and the setting. I lived through the seventies, and there were certain public spaces that were like being drowned in rainbow sherbet while choking on cigarette smoke. And I didn't much like church back then, either.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/viewstory.php?postID=9">The Language Of Women</a></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(Pride)</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Language Of Women grows out of my interest in gender, and specifically the times when culture diverges so far as to result in gender-specific languages. I'm by no means a scholar on the subject, but from time to time I run across something interesting, and the factoids have been accreting over the years, and here we are.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This story is derived from a specific quirk of history. In Japan, during the time immediately before the Warring States period (sic, probably, I have no idea what the real nomenclature is), there was a period where the Chinese script was the written language of scholars, and there was a separate script for women. If you don't believe my story is true, go to a bookstore, and look for, say, The Tale Of Genji or The Pillow Book Of Sei Shonagon. Then try and find works by male writers who were their contemporaries.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On the first round through, it was all written in the style of the passages dealing with women's language, and all the readers reacted with wary suspicion. So I pulled out my utility-grade poetry and got to work. (You wouldn't want to read a whole fucking book of my poetry, but I can slide a little in here and there without feeling like too much of a jackass.)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/viewstory.php?postID=29">Alternatives</a></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>(Malice)</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I had an ongoing mental argument with an imaginary Jennie McCarthy for a long time. The missus plays video poker, I fight in my head, we all need hobbies. Anyway, it blows me away that someone can torment, mutilate, and kill children with nothing more than trick boobs and hubris, and never, ever be held responsible for the toll of human suffering on her slate.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I'd been turning this one over in my mind when I was presented with the Seven Deadly sins. I thought to myself, "The Eden story will do for Lust, Language works for Pride, and this will be Malice."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But Malice is not a deadly sin. December House took it anyway, but this is one of the reasons I was bushwhacked at the last moment. I"d forgotten all about Pride.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But go read A Leaven Of Malice, by Robertson Davies. It's real good if you're in a mood for Canadian bacon.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/viewstory.php?postID=15">A Poor Man's Prayer</a></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>(Greed)</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Right now, I am in a very odd socioeconomic position. I've been financially dependent for about a year now, and am applying for SSI and Social Security. But my daily life is one of relative comfort and prosperity. I am closely connected to people who have it a lot better than I do, and people who have it a lot worse. So I get to see the intimate differences between the way life is conducted among the rich and among the poor, and to be regarded variously as one or the other when I feel as if I'm floating in the middle. Closer to the bottom, but not that close.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I have come to view human industrial and economic behavior as a parasitic para-lifeform composed of an interlocking web of technology and a nervous system whose synapses are quanta of human desire. If you called it a god, I wouldn't argue. I do not like the organism, I do not trust the organism, I would kill the organism if I could.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But I'm not likely to get a real opportunity, and in the meantime I"m trying to broker some kind of temporary truce.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And that was when the ideas ran out, and I had no more fiction to offer, and I had to settle for the more energetic if less convincing real life for inspiration. Thankfully, I sin regularly and with great regret.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/viewstory.php?postID=5">Something Sweet</a></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>(Gluttony, but this one isn't a one-sin story)</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Oh, I was worried about the reaction to this one. But when I read it live at the Ain't No Fun When The Rabbit's Got The Gun reading (I did violence in the form of the fight scene from my novel in progress, then sex with this), people got pulled right into it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I've gotten in the habit of dealing with my darkest secrets by anatomizing them in front of a crowd composed mostly of strangers, but with enough friends and relatives mixed in to guarantee regular judgment for the remainder of my life.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It works okay.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/viewstory.php?postID=18">Slow Drift</a></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>(Sloth)</b></span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"How do you write a story about sloth?" I thought. "I never..." and then I remembered. Now, do I want to reveal in public that I am a sheltered house-pet incapable of refilling his own water dish?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Beats blowing the assignment. Yes, this really happened. No, it is not likely to happen again. I am in therapy specifically to address issues like this. The missus is no longer frightened by the idea of leaving me at home alone.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Now, that, I probably shouldn't have said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/viewstory.php?postID=33">A Little Fresh Air</a></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>(Wrath)</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Oaf: So you know that thing I do where I get upset, and I"m compelled to patrol my neighborhood, and the more upset I am, the more territory I cover? Well, I found out who else does that.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Shrink: Yes, it's typical of disorganized pattern killers.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Oaf: I keep forgetting you study this stuff.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Shrink: Nah, I just read too many thrillers.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(The therapeutic relationship in brief. And for the record, I take Wrath and Sloth quite seriously. How are your sins coming along?)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/viewstory.php?postID=39">Hierarchy Of Slumber</a></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(Envy)</span></b></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My first shot at Envy was one of those things I do where people go, "Yeah, it's nice, but what is it?" It was an attempt at an elegant fantasy -- I was aiming for Lord Dunsany and Clarke Ashton Smith, but I think I hit Moorcock-flavored Lin Carter by mistake -- and despite being chock-full of envy, it wasn't publishable. Only running up against one of those was a relief. It has been returned to the compost heap, and may return at some point. I now know what happens next, but I don't know if it has an ending.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So this little slice-of-life was called forth to fill in the gap. The fun for me was writing a technical document. It's nothing, but those with a fondness for animals might find it amusing. For the record, I am now up to nine pillows.</span></div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-58513285981573143312013-10-29T07:12:00.000-07:002013-10-29T10:03:54.301-07:00Deadly Sins<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Sign Up Here To Get Free Fiction Throughout November!</b></span></a></div>
<br />
So! Starting on Friday, my (oh, my goodness) publisher, December House, is releasing this year's<a href="http://www.flashfictionfest.com/"> Flash Fiction Festival</a> -- Deadly Sins, a collection of stories on the subject of Lovecraftian themes in a Steampunk setting. My character is a vampire bounty-hunter working for Azathoth, but despite the love they share, she's starting to think there's something wrong with his agenda -- lethally wrong for the human race. Unless she wants to live off of ichor for the rest of eternity, she's got to face down not only her lover, but all the other horrors out of space and time. I guess with all the tentacle stuff it's kind of anime too. What do they call it? Hentai? Yeah, like that.<br />
<br />
It was Harry Potter when I wrote it the first time, but they made me fix it better except I had to take out the pictures because you could tell who everyone was, because they were very realistic and very canon both.<br />
<br />
<br />
Okay, just to be clear? I'm joking. This is a collection of short-short stories on the theme of the Seven Deadly Sins. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/P.T.-Dilloway/e/B00CTQ36XG">P.T. Dilloway</a> and <a href="http://awriterhemuttered.blogspot.com/">Neil Vogler.</a> the original team from last year, are in there along with a number of new writers.<br />
<br />
So here's the release schedule for my stories, along with a sample. Forgive the typographical issues; I cut & paste from Word.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Sunday, November 3</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Gluttony</b></span></div>
<br />
<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Her request bothered him.
It was as much about getting him to do something as what he was going to do.
Aaron and Caroline hadn’t been together long, but he could already sense the
lines of contest in the relationship, and he wasn’t quite at ease with them.</span><!--EndFragment--><br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Tuesday, November 5</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Pride</b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
<!--StartFragment-->
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<!--StartFragment-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The words of men were strong as iron, bright as brass, when</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a brush stroked paper it rang like a</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
hammer striking sparks from a new sword.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Each spark a word, each word a picture, each picture</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
held its thousand words.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was spring between wars, they were</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
drunk on peace, and kept their beautiful</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
words within a drunk man’s reach.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Friday, November 8</i></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Greed</b></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
<!--StartFragment-->
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
You, who are beautiful as a green
river with golden banks, you who are as mighty as a dragon scaled in coins, you
who are kingdom itself, industry at your right hand and the wrath of war at
your left, enthroned on the church and cushioned in pleasures;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Forgive me.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times;"></span><br />
<!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Monday, November 11</i></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Sloth</b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I might make it. I might
not. Either way, my wife was going to come home to my emaciated body stretched
out in bed. She would ask, “What happened to him?” and she would be informed,
“Sometimes they just stop working.”</span><!--EndFragment-->
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Thursday, November 14</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Lust</b></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
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“I don’t know,” Eve said, “It’s
just that everything is beautiful, you know? It’s all beautiful. It’s like there are atoms and everything is made out of atoms, and what the atoms are
made out of is beautiful.” She stroked the orange vinyl bench, and it was as if
she’d run a fingernail along the staples closing the incision in Adam’s side, <i>zzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">“Do you know what’s beautiful?” the snake said.
Adam cringed and thought, <i>oh, for Christ’s sake.</i></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> “You’re beautiful,” the snake said. “Those atoms must be made out of <i>you</i></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Saturday, November 16</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Bonus Sin --</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Malice!</b></span></span></div>
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<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Would this make Carol one of
those Munchausen’s people? Probably not: they wanted attention, and Carol just
wanted five minutes of quiet.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Tuesday, November 19</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Wrath</b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></span></div>
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Christ, and will you look at that. <i>That </i><span style="font-style: normal;">dude might be the most stunning world-class worthless
piece of egregious shit you have ever seen. Texting while riding a bike
no-handed on the sidewalk, flip-flops and no shirt, blonde dreads halfway down
his back, sporting a fucking NO FEAR tattoo that needs to be rendered ironic.
He is going to sail right through that red light, isn’t he?</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Friday, November 22</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Envy</b></span></span></div>
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My wife regrets that she has to make due with a small
quivering wire-haired animal with halitosis when there is something larger with
softer fur available just on the other side of her spouse. If she goes to bed
before I do, sometimes she will sequester both dogs on the starboard side of
the bed, and hope that when I come to bed in the dark, I will not notice that Laszlo
is missing, or, if I do, I will dismiss it as something of no concern. Her
crude ploys are of no use, and provoke pity rather than frustration.</div>
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Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-69637685375933538472013-10-27T13:10:00.000-07:002013-10-27T20:58:28.659-07:00On Becoming A Commercial Novelist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Photo by Deborah Kuchar</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Define Commercial Fiction</b></span></div>
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Fiction intended to make money. And in today's literary culture, that means conventional storytelling -- providing vicarious experience, a guided exercise in let's-pretend, characters that the reader either identifies with or finds amusing, a sense of rising action and immersion in an imaginary world, and so on. Dramatic fiction, in other words.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>The Case Against</b></span></div>
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This is a juvenile activity on the parts of both the audience and the creator. The highest forms of literary expression deal with literary issues, not those of an imagined life. This kind of work can be pure hell for those of us who can sustain ourselves on the beauty of prose separate from any other concern. The marketplace used to be a snakepit, but has since been thrown into utter chaos.</div>
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I don't read fiction for pleasure very often. Since I don't read, how do I put myself in relationship to the audience? (For those who don't know, it's not like I'm unread. I was a compulsive reader up until I learned how to write properly, and went through a minimum of a book a day ranging up to five for most of my life. Yes, sometimes I read at freak speeds. I have one of those brains.)</div>
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I hate the idea that I might write down to my audience. I feel a little woozy and hubristic at the idea of writing for an audience.</div>
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I have no audience. What the hell am I thinking? I write stuff that makes demands on the reader. Nobody wants that crap.</div>
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And these days I look down on a lot of fiction. I mean, I read people like Steinbeck and Fitzgerald (to name a couple of writers who are too dead to be offended) and get irritated and judgmental. If I've developed a distaste for the form, how can I hope to do it well?</div>
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And there is nothing about the transmission of fiction that leaves me feeling good. I love bookstores and bookstore owners, but once you've seen a dumpster full of books or a row of carts filled with shelf-damaged books returned without payment from chain bookstores. I'd always dreamed of e-books, but now that they're here, I regard them as ugly ecological and labor disasters, part of the internet company store that is helping strip the planet bare as fast as possible while impoverishing as many as possible.</div>
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And what am I going to do, go on and do the same kind of project over and over just because I can do it? What about higher artistic goals?</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>The Case For</b></span></div>
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I have wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. Everyone around me has regarded me as a nascent writer my whole life. And now I actually have the goods. I can write a deep, solid novel in less than a year, and I have a backlog of ideas that could fill my life if I never came up with anything else.</div>
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And I still love the form. I just am not in the audience anymore. The act of writing is terrific. The skill of projecting myself into another writer's work has been turned on itself, and the results are a hell of a lot of fun. I get more escapist pleasure out of writing than I ever did from reading, and the sense of being in control of the work resonates through my life, and makes me a stronger, happier, more confident person. The pleasure I take in writing imbues itself into the work. This isn't a masturbatory pleasure. It is a means of engaging with the world. I cannot give pleasure unless I experience it. The bargain we work with the world is more complex than I'll ever understand.</div>
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Reading fiction is a good hobby. It's one of those things like athletics that has a cascade of beneficial secondary effects. It is actually good for people. And the type of fiction I write -- dense, evocative, intellectually stimulating and demanding, highly emotional, rich in sensory detail -- really gives the brain a workout. I've seen enough responses to my art to know it works for the right audience. It's good for people and it makes them happy.</div>
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I do have an audience. The are personally connected with me at this point, and there aren't many of them. But the response to my work has been encouraging. It is going to take years more before I understand what the actual scope of my situation is, and it may never actually settle into a predictable pattern. But what I have seen so far is the growth of a... the visual in my mind is of a slender yellow coral that sends out branches at ninety degree angles, covered with a green mist of algae. It branches and branches.</div>
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It may form a reef.</div>
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I have a publisher. I have the skills. I enjoy the work, and I am good at it. Why fight? Why not see how far it can go?</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>The Decision</b></span></div>
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I'm going to devote myself to commercial fiction for at least three novels before I make up my mind where to go next. Being a novelist alone isn't enough of a life, but if it can be a rewarding part of my life, then yeah. Why not? I have performance and visual art as arenas for my pretension. I can afford to do some middle-brow work for a while.</div>
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So. I've got Helping Henry in the works, then my big space opera, and then the next Henry.</div>
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And then we shall see. I have a graphic novel project I want to do, and I've been feeling weird about not doing paleo-art. But for the next year or two, I'm going to be a dedicated commercial novelist.</div>
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Then we'll see. Goddamnit.</div>
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Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-80372669731412298282013-10-06T09:40:00.002-07:002013-10-06T10:47:41.969-07:00Reading And Writing Violently<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In an on-line group of genre fiction writers I'm affiliated with, there's a discussion going on about violence in writing. It's centered around t<a href="http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/warren-ellis-essay-why-we-need-violent-stories.html">his essay by Warren Ellis</a>. While Ellis is widely experienced as a scriptwriter, essayist, and novelist, he's best known as a comic book writer. He's one of the best working in the mainstream these days, or at least he was a few years back when I was current with the industry. For the record? This post may seem as if I'm arguing with him. I'm not. I'm explaining myself to my friends.</div>
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I got called on losing my temper in the discussion, or at least showing signs of tension. I was a little irked by the essay. I thought it dismissed the actual failings of Ellis's work at its worst, and failed his work at its best. Which is a polite way of saying I thought it was a bunch of self-rationalizing horseshit. HIs position is that many people are confused by the presence of violence, and it's up to works like his to help them understand.</div>
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Given my own habit of writing on violence, this would seem to be the kind of statement I'd support. But I think this is a paper tiger. I do not think people who can't understand violence have a problem or represent a problem. And if they do, I don't think violent pop fiction will help them. I'm wrestling with the issues involved in violence in the media very intimately right now, and this statement from whose work I've enjoyed and in some cases admired bothered me.</div>
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For those who are not familiar with Ellis's work, as I said, he's one of the standout writers in comics these days. He has written works that he could point to in defense of his position, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fell_(comics)">Fell</a> coming to mind immediately. There hasn't been a better historical comic than<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9cy_(comics)"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Crécy</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, which is as violent as you could ask for</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></div>
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But in the majority of his comics work, violence is used as it is most typically used in conventional adventure fiction. It is there to make the lead characters appealingly potent, to establish their value and authenticity. It is there to titillate the reader, and it is frequently executed by lightly- clad men and women intended to appeal to the shallow male gaze. Most troublesome to me, it is portrayed as a legitimate and functional first response to problematic situations, especially useful as a means of establishing and maintaining hierarchy.</div>
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I am not arguing that he needs to defend that work. I have bought much of it, read much of it, and will pick it up and read it with pleasure again.</div>
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But it's frequently <i>nasty</i> entertainment. It's not wholesome. That's why I like it. There is a certain British culture of grinning, brutal violence that appeals to me, and Ellis is a fine practitioner of the tradition. But I don't always approve of the things I enjoy. And I won't argue that they have social virtue, because I don't believe it.</div>
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When I was in high school, I worked as a teacher's aide and janitor at a day care center. This was during the late seventies, early eighties, and there was a brief Marvel Comics trend as a result of the Hulk TV show. Fights were unusual at the day care center; the kids were upper-middle class, and didn't get hit much at home, so they had to come up with their own sources for the violent impulse. T-shirts were useful in this connection. If a kid wore a Spiderman shirt, they would probably get into a fight by the end of the day. If they wore a Hulk shirt? They would fight. Every time.<br />
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I could say that it was because the Hulk TV show taught kids that losing your temper and breaking things fixed problems, but that would be bullshit. It was the image of the strong, violent man that possessed them. If you watched them, you could see them puffing and flexing as the shirt convinced them that they were the Hulk.<br />
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The shirt work the kid, and the shirt started the fights. My feeling about violence and the media is that of the old boy who was asked if he believed in baptism. "Believe in it? Hell, I've <i>seen</i> it!"<br />
<br />
During that same time, I played a lot of wargames and role-playing games. One of my friends was a former gang member. One night, he found out a friend of his had been stabbed in prison and was on the critical list. We spent that night playing the Melee programmed adventure Death Test. Melee was a game simulating hand-to-hand combat, and we spent the night engaged in slaughter, adding one wet red detail after another to dramatize the roll of the dice and the addition and subtraction of strength points.<br />
<br />
My friend was able to sleep that night. I also believe there is such thing as catharsis, and it can serve a healthy function in entertainment.<br />
<br />
I come from a history of violence. I relish much violent entertainment. In my own work, I struggle to reject using violence as a means of entertainment, and I do so with difficulty. For someone raised by the US media, violence is an element of entertainment the way hydrogen is an element of water. And that's one of the central problems.<br />
<br />
It is impossible to show someone triumphing in an act of violence without making them attractive in that moment, and that will stir a longing for that sense of triumph in some percentage of the audience.<br />
<br />
Can't be done. You can't show someone as powerful and decisive without having people fall in love with them on some level. It's one of the awful design flaws in human nature that have me wishing I belonged to a classier species. Effective people are attractive even if they are having terrible effects on the world around them. Gordon Gekko <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_(1987_film)">from the movie Wall Street </a>was intended to be an absolute takedown of a particular type, and instead he became <i>the</i> role model for people in the finance industry.<br />
<br />
Or to put it another way. In terms of actually affecting people's behavior, models always work and morals never do, and that is the moral of the story.<br />
<br />
But to say that one should always show violence in a negative light, that it is necessary to show the violent person as something the audience should not want to be, is a little pat. And not necessarily the most ethical stance. Because people do face situations of violence in their lives, and fiction provides them with models for handling it. And people's lives can be powerfully affected by their choice of models.<br />
<br />
When I first began writing seriously, I intended specifically to write action-horror novels. I was fixated on violent imagery, and I wrote with the intent of forcing the experience of violence on the reader, of making them live through real trauma. However, I found myself unable to sustain interest in violence in itself. And little of my work from that time reached completion. I had no clear idea of how to tell a story.<br />
<br />
I devoured violent material. I read a lot of true crime, for instance. After a certain point, I realized that I was actually titillating my own blood lust, reading of loathsome acts and then explicitly imagining fitting retributions. I could feel it degrading my character, so I stopped.<br />
<br />
But I still liked the stuff that could actually put scenes in my mind, generate a physical response, get my heart racing, make me break a sweat.<br />
<br />
That's because I am addicted to stress reactions, and I can use media as a trigger for an endogenous drug experience. In my case, the pathology is visible, but this dynamic underlies many relationships with fiction. It's only pathology if it goes too far.<br />
<br />
A few years back, I was hospitalized with a stress reaction and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. When I began to write and perform autobiography, I soon found myself confronting one of the classic symptoms of PTSD -- a disorganized personal story. I had to go back and look at my experiences and walk through them one step at a time, establishing the connections.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/tag:seancraven">The act of writing and reading these works proved tremendously therapeutic</a>. Not only was I confronting my social anxieties and fear of crowds, I was finding out what my story actually was. And once I knew my story?<br />
<br />
I could stop worrying about it. And because of that, violence is no longer a subject of primal interest for me. I no longer wish to deal with it as a central issue in my work. If it comes up, it comes up, but I'm not going to go looking for it at this point. I still have a taste for the old vino, but I'm more likely to reject a vicarious violent experience than accept one. I've come to recognize that they're actually hard on me, that they promote ambient levels of stress, and now prefer fairly low-key entertainment for the most part.<br />
<br />
The place of violence in my writing has changed. In my current novel, yes, there are two fight scenes, but in both instances the protagonist is a chicken, and no humans are harmed. The central plot rarely involves raised voices, let alone thrown pillows. Or punches. I'm more interested in portraying things being built than broken. I still have some adventure fiction in me, but the idea that adventure = violence is being subjected to stress tests.<br />
<br />
What I'm suggesting here is that rather than being a form of revealed reality, most violence in popular culture is a response to trauma and unprocessed rage and fear, and the more extreme the portrayal of violence, the deeper the likely wounds in both creator and audience. I'm suggesting that most portrayals of violence in popular culture reinforce the existing mental and social patterns, drawing the same graffiti over and over again, and it is only through great and painful effort that we can hope to approach works that are actually transformative, or at least have the merit of truth.<br />
<br />
Too many writers are either powered by a slowly fading inchoate adolescent rage, or engaging in vicarious fantasies of potency, and they don't usually give us useful stories. Fun stories, entertaining stories. But are they helpful? Really?<br />
<br />
What I'm saying is that if you are actually opposed to violence, don't <i>promote</i> it. Don't make the violence thrill. Blood in your eye just blurs your vision.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-13187985974695224302013-09-30T11:06:00.000-07:002013-09-30T11:15:44.154-07:00Binary Clod<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>(Photo by Deborah Kuchar)</b></span></div>
<br />
Confronting my social anxieties and sense of alienation has led me to have a much greater interest in people, and the more I find out about them, the more I understand just how weird I actually am.<br />
<br />
On one hand, I am nearly fifty years old, in debt, and conventionally unemployable. On the other hand, I am an oddly accomplished and impressive individual. "I'm worried that you might be experiencing grandiosity, but it's hard to tell," my counselor told me at one particularly ebullient point, only to qualify that statement later in the session with, "No, you're definitely not grandiose, you actually are what you look like. But we might want to keep an eye on things."<br />
<br />
I am dead broke. Have been for years. Despite this, between my hobbies and my friends, I live a middle-class teenage dream life in many ways. And I have to fight to appreciate my prosperity, while the poverty is slowly smothering me.<br />
<br />
To tell a homeless man that I can't give him money feels terrible. To do it on the way to the store with exactly enough money for a pre-decided purchase makes me feel like a turd with a cherry on top. But this guy has told at least one woman my name, and now I have to say no to her as well. And he has medical coverage and I don't.<br />
<br />
The trivialities of the pleasures which sustain us are impossible to rationalize when held against the cost to the world as a whole, and if I do not engage myself thoroughly and productively in the world of trivial pleasures, it causes hardship to those immediately around me.<br />
<br />
Again, from counseling: "The thing is, all of these mental illnesses and symptoms are actually advantages under the right circumstances. When I'm really functioning, it's all useful." My counselor said, "That's not the way it usually works, but in your case it's true."<br />
<br />
I have always regarded myself as a cipher, an invisible man, a social and sexual nonentity. Oh, brother, who was I trying to kid? The problem is that I am the exact opposite. I am a projector, I am one of the people who sets the tone of the room. The problem is that a lot of the time I am fucking miserable.<br />
<br />
But when I'm not, holy shit. Nobody warned me about this. It turns out that thing I do with animals and kids works fine on adults, I just never thought to try it. Now I have to be fucking careful not to let it get out of control. People pushing me ahead in line, cashiers giving me discounts, people starting conversations with me and then asking me if I'm an artist or writer and then asking where they can find my work. I seem to look as if I'm a big deal of some kind.<br />
<br />
It is like an on/off switch. Either I scowl at the ground, or I am socially engaged. I was never invisible. I was just refusing to respond to the people around me. Given my early years, of course I refused to respond to the people around me.<br />
<br />
It was only on Friday that I finally understood the look. I frequently find people giving me a look that is all eyes and no mouth, a straight stare that always impressed me as hostile, always aroused a feeling of physical defensiveness. And a lot of the time, it comes from people I find attractive. This is one of the main reasons I've always assumed that women have a specific distaste for me. (Most of my closest friends have been women, and I usually wind up bitching to them about this, and yes. Yes, there is irony here.) You know what the look is? It's someone who's been caught staring, and who doesn't know how to respond, and can't quit.<br />
<br />
A lot of what I've experienced as hostility in life makes more sense if I assume that I'm someone capable of arousing strong emotions in people, and sometimes those emotions cannot be fully controlled, and sometimes they don't feel good. I always knew this was true of everyone else, but now I know I'm in the game. And I'm not used to it. It's intimidating.<br />
<br />
And it's playing out at home. My relationship with the missus is in some ways better than ever, but there's a roller-coaster aspect to things. We're both people who live in a permanent moment, and when I'm up, she's thrilled with me, and when I'm down, she's not. And I'm up and down. A lot. So one day I'm a hero and the next I'm a slug, and a spouse is supposed to dampen your mood swings, not accentuate them.<br />
<br />
Under other circumstances, the downs would predominate. My current anhedonia and irritability would typically indicate a paralytic depression, but I've got a lot of work to do, and it's all going to particular people. I'm too connected to the world to go into a complete depression.<br />
<br />
But I've had enough good experiences over the past few years to understand something of what it feels like to be fully engaged with life, to abandon the self-destructive impulse in favor of a joyous course of action. I know what it takes.<br />
<br />
And some of what it takes, I ain't gonna get. For instance, you know what makes me feel alive? Really alive? Risk-taking, especially if I get to feel like a tough guy. (For the record, wanting to be a tough guy makes me a member of the big baby club. I know that, you know that, everybody knows that.) You know what quality is most strongly associated with longevity? Prudence.<br />
<br />
Me. Talking about longevity. So many friends, so much to do. Perhaps it is time to begin the horrid, snivelling process of clinging to life, sucking at the last crumbs as though they were the grit in the bottom of a bag of Doritos. What if I start liking life so much I get scared of death? I've seen people that are scared of death, and it looks horrible. Rather vomit blood, thank you, and even that would be worse if I was scared of death.<br />
<br />
You can't do anything if you're scared of death!<br />
<br />
Here's a pip.<br />
<br />
I grew up in book culture. My grandmother was a librarian. Since childhood, the hunt for used and out-of-print books has been at the core of my recreation. I learned design as well as art and writing because I treasure the book as object, the unified package as a form of art. I like hanging out in bookstores, and I'm known by many local booksellers. One of my hidden drives to succeed as a writer was so that I could see MY books on THEIR shelves, that I could earn the insider feeling I get when chatting with them.<br />
<br />
But there is a lot of crookedness and ineptitude in the traditional bookselling world, and once you've seen a dumpster full of coverless paperbacks, it's hard to retain enthusiasm. It's been years since I've read much for pleasure, and my professional fiction sales have been to e-markets. If I mention a sale, I get a look of hurt, puzzled confusion from my 'real' book friends.<br />
<br />
And of course, this brings us back to the triviality of the culture in which I seek to embed myself. But who am I to bandy words like 'trivial?'<br />
<br />
Nobody's heard of me. I have no Amazon reviews. Nada. (Okay, my story in Future Lovecraft gets a mention or two.) My pro sales are pathetic. But you should hear the things they say about me! It would make you sick. It makes <i>me</i> sick, but I can't get enough of it, and I doubt I ever will.<br />
<br />
Of course, the obvious reason I'm unknown is that I have yet to present a major work to the public. If I've ever written anything with (ugh) sales potential, it is the current novel. At least a couple of respectable and respected writers have agreed to look at it, and if I can get a blurb or two, then I actually have a shot in the marketplace.<br />
<br />
But the idea of hitting it big with one book is silly. I probably won't have a clear idea of my place in the market until I've got at least three novels out. And even then, it isn't a profession that allows for stability or smooth sailing.<br />
<br />
But things are going so well for me creatively I can't concern myself with success. I'll write a post in the next day or two on my current and prospective projects.<br />
<br />
I just wanted to explain why I haven't been blogging lately. I have been busy going sane, and it's a longer, more arduous trip than I expected.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-15982190859268427042013-07-10T10:27:00.001-07:002013-07-10T10:27:38.802-07:00What's Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Dave Kirk of Aunt Dofe's Hall of Recent Memory and I confer on the hanging.</b></span></div>
<br />
So here's what's going on. For the last few years, one central metaphor for my life has been poverty and glory racing neck and neck. Well, they collided. The bad news is that I am broke, and I need all the basic accoutrements of life upgraded. New computer, new wardrobe, a phone, a card, a real website, I need to get a license and learn to drive, back taxes and student loans, the whole thing. I need to join civilization, basically. <br />
<br />
The good news is that a good friend gave me a boost, primarily in moral. It's now obvious that I am capable of earning a living, if given appropriate opportunities. I've got a couple of things going on right now in writing and editing that are getting me a bit of money, and I'm starting the process of hunting for a 'real' job. If I can get ten to twenty hours a week at twenty-five to fifty, I'll be fine. I suspect that I should be able to pull down at least a hundred an hour once I get established.<br />
<br />
Doing what is anyone's guess. The job I just lost/quit (mutual recognition of untenable situation followed by decision to retain friendship, and that's all you need to know) potentially involved everything from analysis of technical documents and writing polemics to tough guy crap, and the work I did was terrific. The demands on my time and skills really brought me to life. I want more of that. So, I'm lookin'...<br />
<br />
So this morning, I ran through my to-do list, and found myself cleaning up all the manuscripts from around my work area. I have one novel and four short stories in the works, and it's time to get moving on all. (Why am I so poorly known? Because I publish infrequently in the small press and then hide the evidence.) I've also decided to re-write the ending of Ghost Rock, extending it by a couple of full sub-plots and some forty to sixty pages. I ran the idea by the missus, she-who-was-sick-of-my-rewrites, and she agreed. So there's that as well.<br />
<br />
Next up is the problem of finding musical backing. When I performed at Aunt Dofe's with Blue and Dan of Fear Eats The Soul backing me, it was something else again. I run crude voltage; they provided a circuit. I need that to bring my performances up to their proper level, and Blue and Dan ain't here. While I'm currently leaning toward experimental jazz, art rock or even blues might be made to work. It's really going to come down to personal chemistry in the end, so I'm ambivalent about putting too many expectations on particulars. But let's put it out into the atmosphere, I'm looking for an experimental, improvisational band interested in working with a reader/performer from time to time. The first project is going to be my three best pieces from Lip Service West, all viewable here on Vimeo. I'm going to combine them, remove redundancies, trim excess tissue, and divide into sections to allow for musical interludes -- I figure that as a show it would be between forty-five minutes and an hour, depending on how the music goes.<br />
<br />
I don't know where it's going to play the second time, but I think I have an angle on where it can make a debut... <br />
<br />
And that should keep me fairly well occupied for the next two or three months, he said innocently...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-51446250797291085192013-07-05T10:45:00.000-07:002013-07-05T10:45:10.261-07:00Swill 7 Will Be Relased At Beastcrawl!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
All right! Tomorrow night, the <a href="http://beastcrawl.weebly.com/swill.html">launch for Swill 7</a> takes place at <a href="http://beastcrawl.weebly.com/02-shashamane.html">Shashamane in Oakland</a>. In the last few months, there have been three career events<br />
that have been exerting a lot of influence on my life. One was<br />
beginning my second novel for my e-publisher December House. The<br />
second was the art show at <a href="http://www.auntdofe.com/#/home/">Aunt Dofe's Hall of Recent Memory</a>, where I<br />
was able to find myself comfortable in a surprisingly elevated sphere.<br />
(And where the Swillistrations were officially pronounced worthy...)<br />
And tomorrow is the third, the introduction of both the new magazine<br />
and the new series of... I guess at this point they're photos. See<br />
samples above. Thirteen pages of interior images, folks, and all<br />
bearing a fascinatingly oblique relationship to the associated<br />
fiction, one that attempts to add an additional layer of resonance.<br />
And to be able to introduce this at <a href="http://beastcrawl.weebly.com/">Beastcrawl</a>! What a hoot.<br />
<br />
See, that makes Swill part of the establishment. Which has been our<br />
stated position from the beginning, but yeah. We're part of the<br />
system.<br />
<br />
Wheeeeeee!<br />
<br />
So here's the issue.<br />
<br />
The Lazarus Effect by Amy Yolanda Castillo features what I regard as<br />
the premier circus animal attack of the issue, and then works to a<br />
climax.<br />
<br />
Til She Fill My Mouth With Laughing by Lisa Nohealani Morton is the<br />
kind of submission I'd order out of a catalog if I had the option.<br />
Smart, literate, it's got your footnotes and your Fabre quotes and all<br />
the stuff that makes me smile. Plus, there's justifies nepotism, my<br />
favorite kind. Of course, I bear an onus for abetting an oathbreaker,<br />
but I'll take an onus for a good story any day.<br />
<br />
Oblivion, by Holly Day, is a neat slice of fantastic naturalism with<br />
real emotional tension. Think Serling, Matheson, even good King as<br />
touchstones. And it's by the author of the For Dummies books on<br />
Composition and Music Theory, which I probably will pick up at some<br />
point.<br />
<br />
Kevin Grows Up was a story written entirely out of spite, and as<br />
always, I wound up living it in real life. Okay, I don't want to point<br />
fingers and name names, because I'm a passive-aggressive shithead<br />
sometimes. But let's say there was a magazine that published genre<br />
fiction, okay? A very well-established magazine with a reputation for<br />
literary standards above those typical for genre fiction. Published<br />
Kurt Vonnegut, Shirley Jackson, Gore Vidal, a list of genuine<br />
luminaries as long as your arm, as well as a lot of the best-written<br />
fantastic fiction done inside of genre, with authors such as Ursula<br />
leGuin, Jack Vance, and Avram Davidson being featured regularly during<br />
the heights of their careers.<br />
<br />
We're talking a fairly heavy cultural artifact.<br />
<br />
When I read the current editor state that his target audience<br />
consisted of twelve-year-old boys, I lost most of my interest in<br />
publishing with them, but I suddenly needed to write a story that<br />
would make a twelve-year-old boy feel horrible. And so I wrote Kevin<br />
Grows Up.<br />
<br />
But remember, I published it in Swill. So no twelve-year-old boy will<br />
ever see it.<br />
<br />
Shana Graham's Newark has elements of romance, noir, and surrealism,<br />
and is pleasing in its resistance to being pinned-down. Too sharp for<br />
a dream, too dizzy for reality. Reading this feels like being awake<br />
for too long, and that's a compliment.<br />
<br />
There were a number of Viet Nam veterens in my life when I was growing<br />
up, and Gene Hines's Women In The River did not set off my bullshit<br />
alarm, for whatever that's worth. Because of this, the story got a<br />
little extra graphic something. Mr Hines, by the way, has published<br />
with us before.<br />
<br />
Stephan McQuiggan gives us a jolly old-fashioned bit of sadism in<br />
Susannah Quietly. I could never resist poisoned candy...<br />
<br />
Pancake Collection by Rob Pierce is 'typical' Pierce story in that it<br />
combines alcohol, failed romance, physical violence, and a devestated<br />
emotional affect ito damage the reader's equilibrium. He's pretty much<br />
the best in town at this stuff.<br />
<br />
And Tom Hoisington's Vigilant Resolve ends the issue with a<br />
surprisingly sincere and positive note. "This son of a bitch means<br />
it," I thought to myself on reading this one, and in it went.<br />
<br />
This issue's a little heavy on conventional narrative, tending<br />
strongly noirish. I think it's the best-looking issue so far, but I<br />
would, wouldn't I?<br />
<br />
So order it! Or come on down tomorrow night, and <a href="http://beastcrawl.weebly.com/swill.html">join me, Rob Pierce,Shawna Yang Ryan, and Warren Lutz for all the unwholesomeness thehuman mind can bear, plus drinks!</a><br />
<br />
I'll see you there.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-50766049551965442242013-07-04T09:36:00.001-07:002013-07-04T09:36:44.054-07:00Metropolitan Montana<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here's Dave Kirk in the gallery space at <a href="http://www.auntdofe.com/#/home/">Aunt Dofe's Hall of Recent Memory</a>. Everybody has to be nice to Dave from now on.</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So they take me out to a back road in Montana, and I figured this was my chance to do some Western art. "Here I am, doing Western art," I thought to myself, and when I was done, I showed it to people and said, "See? I'm not afraid of Western art." I drew a cow, as well. I'll let you see it later.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When I got home and looked at my 'Western' art, I laughed out loud at what happens if you go far enough west...</span></b></div>
<br />
Every day is backwards day. So of course, when I went to Montana for my show at <a href="http://www.auntdofe.com/#/home/">Aunt Dofe's Hall of Recent Memory</a>, I spent my time entirely in the company of people from the arts, academia, and broadcasting. The one civilian I listened to for any length of time turned out to write a column for a fishing magazine. And most of 'em were probably more conscientious lefties than I.<br />
<br />
So go figure.<br />
<br />
It was a ridiculously gratifying experience. I was treated as a precious object, I behaved as a humble servant, and the results were pleasing and harmonious. My pal Deborah (familiar to long-time readers) made sure I ate and walked every day, and arranged regular encounters with animals. I need a certain amount of physical affection, and without the missus and our dogs, horses, dogs, cats, cattle, and observed wild animals serve as palliative drugs. (Deborah's comment at the end of the trip -- "Animals compete for your attention, and people give you stuff. What's up with that?" -- was the last nail in the coffin of my former self-image. I am not an outcast, but rather one of those who glitters when he walks, and that boils up a whole fucking other kettle of worms. If I act like the sullen wretch I am, it comes across as arrogant or threatening rather than pathetic. I'm starting to feel that smiling and acting nice are responsibilities I've been shirking.)<br />
<br />
But the whole scene wasn't <i>about</i> me, and I liked that. I was one of the main engines of the event, but an engine isn't an aeroplane. Dave Kirk, the curator of Aunt Dofe's, had gone through a fallow period, and this had been (or at least this is the impression people gave me) a source of hardship in the creative community. "Dave/Aunt Dofe's is the best thing to happen to Montana in a long time," was a statement I heard repeated from many mouths with the regularity of a chirping cricket. So a new season of shows at Aunt Dofe's was exciting news, a sort of cultural springtime.<br />
<br />
Working on the sort of budget one gets for art produced outside the academic or commercial worlds, with access to any number of friends and colleagues who are known in the world of the arts, who have shows ready to go, who have pull and connections and collectors and so on, Dave, like an arrow straight to Hell, chose to go with an almost completely unknown artist, working in an eccentric, somewhat kitschy style, who would need complete sponsorship in order to participate.<br />
<br />
On the night of the opening, I heard two phrases repeated over and over from a lot of different people. The fishing columnist (who I'm not ribbing) wasn't there, so it was all, you know. Arts types. Real arts types. Working, academics, broadcasting, like I said.<br />
<br />
Some of them fixed me with an intense gaze, obviously meaning to drive some thought into my brain with the force of a wooden stake. "You do understand that this is one of the best gallery spaces in the world, and Dave is one of the best curators in the world, right? You do understand what that means?"<br />
<br />
Well, I'm still in the process of understanding that one, but yeah, I kind of get it.<br />
<br />
The other thing people said? "Thank you."<br />
<br />
Like I said, still processing, kind of get it.<br />
<br />
Here's the thing.<br />
<br />
I'm proud of the show. There are two booklets there, A Bad Part of Town, and Swimming Crawling Walking Flying, that have been printed in editions of thirty, available only from Aunt Dofe's. There are fourteen images accompanied by thirteen poems. I did a walk-on reading early in the show, and would have done more except the band -- Fear Eats the Soul, and I wish I could find a good link for them -- caught fire, and to interfere would have been worse than a sin. It would have been a mistake.<br />
<br />
But it was the way people swung through the event and picked up a charge that got me. That was my reward, that was my payoff. There was a buzz, there was energy, and there was a sense of harmony, of things operating in their proper sphere. People were enhanced by their interactions. And that was what I helped create with my art, and with my labor, and with my person. The essential scene, the music, food, drinks, and guests, could have happened without me.<br />
<br />
But having me there gave the scene specificity and novelty. Hey, these are some of the coins art brings to the table. Happy to oblige. Thanks for having me.<br />
<br />
I used to say that I was good at arrogance and shame, but pride and humility were incomprehensible to me. That's changed. Pride is knowing your strength, and humility is understanding that strength is responsibility rather than license, that strength is a gift others paid for.<br />
<br />
There was no point in the artistic process where I felt doubt or worry. Nerves, yes. That's how I'm built. But the sense of complete confidence I felt throughout seemed the simple and proper result of understanding the range of my abilities rather than hubris. And those abilities seem not so much a part of me but rather a public trust -- I can do what I do because people invested in me. Time, money, and tradition have been granted me. It is appropriate that I do honor to the gifts I've been given.<br />
<br />
Over the period of time, six months or so, not even a year, my life has undergone a series of changes, some startling, some the obvious outcome of the way I conduct myself in life. I have a publisher, and my next novel will be released in early 2014. <a href="http://beastcrawl.weebly.com/swill.html">This Saturday, I'll be reading and helping host a reading as part of this year's Beastcrawl.</a> I am operating at a very eccentric intersection of fine art, popular culture, and science, and whatever it is that I am is still in the early stages of emergence. I'm nearly fifty; by the time I find out what I am, I'll have fifteen, twenty years worth of career if I score big. (I won't turn down more than that, but really, let's not be greedy.) Robertson Davies went downhill for his last two novels, but Hokusai went from hack to genius in his dotage. I seek to emulate Hokusai...<br />
<br />
Man, I'm out of it. Thinking about my last-days work while doing this-days work. Processing, processing.<br />
<br />
I'll talk more about the show later. But for now, know this. Deborah Kuchar and Dave Kirk got together and gave me one of the very best weeks I've experienced in my life. They went to expense and effort, and I hope very much that they got what they wanted.<br />
<br />
Because I have been enhanced, and I hold them responsible. Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-14365391785295276862013-06-13T14:58:00.000-07:002013-06-13T14:58:43.559-07:00My First Solo Art Show<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The above two images are the covers of two pamphlet-format
publications. They will be used at my upcoming show this month at <a href="http://www.auntdofe.com/#/home/">Aunt Dofe's Hall of Recent Memory</a>.
That's right, I'm going to be traveling to Montana, and if anyone can
guide me in the direction of some Zappa-themed novelty floss, I'd be
mighty grateful. And yes, A Bad Part of Town is going to have its spine
to the right, and will be read back to front, and the whole show is full
of that kind of crap because what the hell were you expecting from me?</span></b></div>
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<br />
Okay, folks. This may or may not be the last post for this site, but I've got a brief moment where I have the option of telling y'all what's going on.<br />
<br />
I am, among other things, in the final stages of preparing for my first solo art show. This show will bring together my writing, my visual art, and my performance in one package, and if I can pull this off, you can expect more along those lines.<br />
<br />
I had two conceptual issues to face in this project. The first is one that came to light in discussion with one of my oldest friends. (Those close to me have been startled by a recent burst of personal progress; it is the result of this friend going to great effort on my behalf, and I acknowledge this with much gratitude.) We were discussing the nature of art, and specifically the nature of printmaking. I'm a digital artist. Have been from the first time I held a Wacom stylus in my hand and I knew there was a way of communicating with a computer. I've been using Photoshop since it came on floppies, okay?<br />
<br />
But now there really is no comparison between a woodblock or an etching and the object that rolls out of a printer. I argued against it at the time, but in retrospect, the idea grew in me that simply producing a print isn't enough.<br />
<br />
I was also facing the idea that the museum, the gallery, and even the publication, for better or worse, outrank the art. They are there for the sake of the art, but they frame it, enclose it, and give the experience of art it its most essential physical qualities.<br />
<br />
This realization depressed me, until I realized that it meant I had to take responsibility for the interaction between art and publication, or, in this case, between art and the gallery. What happens in the gallery space is the art, not the individual images on the walls. The images are offered for sale as much as memorabilia of an event as artworks in themselves. My job was not to produce images for display; my job was to take years worth of my art and writing and use them to convert the space into something unified and meaningful.<br />
<br />
I could not engage directly with the gallery, although Dave Kirk, the owner, gave me some solid pointers on lighting. I did have the floorplan. At first, I used it simply as a means of referencing the measurements of the walls, but after poring over it blindly, I suddenly saw the essential shape of the space, the way it was divided, and the way people entering it as a gallery might move.<br />
<br />
The four walls resolved themselves into two facing L-shapes, separated by doors. The short arms of the Ls receive west light, which is strong and varied, and seem to be the most visible from the street. So they get saturated colors, strong contrasts, skulls, monsters, and so on.<br />
<br />
The pieces are in two parts. One is the image, and the other is a short poem functioning as a title. Most of the images are fifteen inches wide by twenty inches high; the poem/titles are on placards about nine inches by three inches. On the right side of the studio, the poems are aligned to the left of the placard, and the left edge of the placard is parallel to the left edge of the image. This unbalanced composition will lead the eye down and to the left, so that it will be natural to follow to the back door.<br />
<br />
The pieces on the left will be leading the viewer to the right, again to the back door. With any luck, this should lead to a sort of swirl in the space, with a strong possibility that the viewer will travel in a figure-8 path.<br />
<br />
In addition to the art on the walls, there were a number of pieces in this sequence that were best viewed as small black-and-white pieces. Rather than put them on the walls where they'd be overwhelmed by the large color pieces, I made two booklets combining writing and art in some odd ways. There will be two reading stations on site, one devoted to each booklet.<br />
<br />
I'm really hoping that the combination of words, pictures, and interior design will push this a little further than the ordinary art show. And since I'm going to be performing at the opening, this will pretty much represent the maximum Sean the world has seen at any one time thus far.<br />
<br />
You'll hear about it one way or another...Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-28770687326845109972013-05-03T10:53:00.001-07:002013-05-03T10:55:08.254-07:00The Next Phase Has BegunI can't tell you much about what happened over the last week. Let me put it this way.<br />
<br />
Best. Sean. Story. So far. An amazingly fictional, mythological experience just choking with extremes and intensity. Ask me in person. It's mind-bending. James Herriot meets Rupert Pupkin.<br />
<br />
But to cut to the chase.<br />
<br />
I am as a phoenix risen from the flame. I am able. I am employed as an apprentice in a fascinating and lucrative profession, and I'm getting in through a side door. I have begun training to shape my body into a beautiful weapon. I have finally begun my course of instruction at Man School. I am being prepared to take a place in the one percent.<br />
<br />
I know what I am now. There aren't any words for it these days, but there is a class of people like me. I have a fellowship, a guild, a history. Our core values are intellectualism, aesthetism, valor, honor, and excellence. I had the first two and the last, but without valor and honor I was part of a man. Now I am whole. <br />
<br />
I have started taking steps toward real, actual adulthood. I will be engaging with the world on its own terms instead of dictating my own and grinning as the world flays me in response. My purity is over. I will have to contend with my core values as obstacles as well as virtues.<br />
<br />
And I will need to access pleasures previously too -- sinful? degraded? -- for my previous self. Pride, vanity, competition, desire, all have to be embraced if I am going to be able to move in the circles into which I am being pulled. I'm going to be swimming with sharks, so this gator needs to smooth his moves and sharpen his teeth.<br />
<br />
I'll be starting a new blog with a different title. Self-deprecation isn't appropriate for my current path. And I'll be going over this blog and reducing it to a 'best-of' collection, with all references to my personal frailties excised. I no longer approach life from the perspective of a victim, and wish to distance myself from that stance. No insult to anyone else; my attitude toward others is unchanged. But I've let fear govern my life to too great a degree for too long, and now things are different.<br />
<br />
My life as an artist will continue unabated, and can only benefit from this new direction. Most of my independence has been left to me; what has been taken is the opportunity and desire for indolence.<br />
<br />
Aspects of my character that have previously been unbending laws will now have to be guidelines and preferences. The fierce purity I have maintained through my life is no longer compatible with a course of honor.<br />
<br />
And so.<br />
<br />
Don't worry about me any more. I thrive. Don't think I'm going away. I will be more in touch than I was before. I'm thrashing with my new computer set-up, but I should be fully back on-line in short order. There will be a phone, and a mailing list, and business cards, and all the happy paraphernalia of a professional approach to life.<br />
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Now I'm going to go walk around and feel something strange thrum through my body as I absorb the fact that I don't hurt and I'm not doomed and tomorrow will see me stronger than today. See y'all around, and give my best to your family.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-3672459180477841912013-04-24T15:20:00.001-07:002013-04-24T15:20:38.401-07:00My Computer's DeadHey, all.<br />
<br />
My computer has died. The missus has graciously decided to get me a low-end Mac with eight gigs of RAM, which will be a little better than the seven-year old machine it's replacing. This isn't going to happen immediately, and it does represent a financial hardship. But I'm not going away, and I will be back to work in the near future, and when I come back, I'll be able to comment on blogs and open .docx documents and so on.<br />
<br />
I will be checking my email on the missus's machine. I will be available by phone. I am not vanishing.<br />
<br />
That will be all for now.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-14563059961830505132013-04-01T08:43:00.002-07:002013-04-02T07:46:05.139-07:00How I Learned To Tell A Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Right now the </b></span><a href="http://www.taostoolbox.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Taos Toolbox writer's workshop is actively seeking applicants</b></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>. In addition to their coverage of issues specifically relating to genre fiction, they provide the finest education in the practical techniques of fiction I know of, and excellent advice and support regarding the writer's life.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>But the most useful thing I took from Taos was from Walter's casual discussion of his martial arts practice. "Most of it is about maintaining a heroic stance," he said. Ever since then, I've had the heroic stance at the back of my mind. I mean, you can't say, 'I want to be heroic,' but you can take a stance.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>And I can't tell you how grateful I am for the friends and colleagues I met there, and I suspect that some of us will be in communication for life. Hey, sometimes you get lucky.</b></span></div>
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I made my first attempt at writing when I was in elementary school, another in junior high, another two in high school, and three more times in colleges during my twenties. My last teacher summed it up when she said, "You've got everything but a story, and without that, you have nothing."<br />
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I responded by writing a Jim Thompson-influenced version of the Three Little Pigs. It was my first real story, and the only one I was able to pull off for another ten years.<br />
<br />
Story is hard, story is a bitch, story breaks more wannabe-fiction writers than anything but laziness. I spent my life bouncing off the problem of story. It felt as if there was something wrong with me that was keeping some essential secret hidden from me.<br />
<br />
This turned out to be true.<br />
<br />
Some people say storytelling is used-up, played-out, every story has been told and what's the point? Since I'm not seeing the great storytellers addressing the issues of the day, and I see lots of people reading stories, this sounds like goony talk to me. And other people say that there is nothing without story, and I think of how non-fiction outsells fiction ten-to-one, and that sounds like goony talk as well.<br />
<br />
But if you're a writer and you can't tell a story, it hampers you.<br />
<br />
In my late thirties, after I got out of rehab for my back injury, I fell into a job writing cartoon scripts for Mondo Media. I was initially hired to write and direct my own show, but my weak storytelling skills screwed that up for me. But by the time my hypothetical series had died, my story editor, Megan McDonald (who is currently a rising poet), had taught me enough basic storytelling so that I was brought on to work on a number of different shows, mainly Thugs On Film. (Incidentally, this was directed by Kamau Bell. Y'all seen Kamau recently? TV show and everything.)<br />
<br />
This was fun, and it gave me a chance to work in a format that was sufficiently limited to understand. Three and a half minutes, a movie review, one smart guy, one stupid guy, both dopes and criminals, an adventure playing off the movie, go!<br />
<br />
Creativity thrives on rules and limitations. This is important. The greatest gift I got from scriptwriting was the habit of working almost entirely in dialog and sensory information.<br />
<br />
I came out of that, and after reading an interview with Megan, I did as she did and joined a writer's group. This was when I started getting some traction. My fictional models were Saki, John Collier, Shirley Jackson, Roald Dahl's adult fiction, Fredric Brown, and so-on -- cruelly amusing moralistic entertainments, possibly featuring an element of the fantastic.<br />
<br />
But while I was working on those reasonably-successful short works, I was thrashing around with my novel like it was a fucking anaconda in the mud. I read everyone from Freytag to Frey, even that old Robert McKee and Morphology of the Fairy Tale and everything, and it was all like reading poorly-translated stereo instructions. It seemed as though it ought to make sense, but I didn't get it.<br />
<br />
So I went to the <a href="http://www.sff.net/paradise/">Viable Paradise</a> writers workshop. It was swell. They more-or-less welcomed me into the human race, and it stuck. Also, Elizabeth Bear suggested that I read Writing Fiction That Sells and study joke structure.<br />
<br />
That was very useful, but it didn't solve the real problem. The deep problem.<br />
<br />
So I went to Taos Toolbox, mentioned above. Walter Jon Williams is, for my money, the strongest long-form plotter working today. And while much of the talk of plot was over my head, there was a specific exercise that was given to us that gave me my first real clue. I'm not going to give you the specifics of the exercise, but it involves breaking a story down into scenes and examining the way they connect to one another, the way one scene leads into the next.<br />
<br />
We were told to use a short story or an episode of a television show. I used the short novel Clockwork, by Philip Pullman, a work whose plot shows great intricacy and craft. I spent all night on it, and when I was done, I'd installed a whole new structure in my brain.<br />
<br />
When Walter used my novel as the example when he taught us plot-blocking, to my excitement I could understand what was going on, I could see the big shape of the work. And when I got back home, the next draft of the novel was closer than ever to working.<br />
<br />
But there were still gaps in my storytelling skill set. And they weren't going to be addressed in a writer's workshop.<br />
<br />
The winter after I got back from Taos, I had a minor breakdown. The nausea that had given me trouble at Taos continued, and got worse. I ripped a hole in my stomach through persistent vomiting, was hospitalized, told it was a stress reaction, was sent to a mental health clinic, was given bad pills, was dropped from the system to go cold turkey. Whew.<br />
<br />
Still struggling with the novel, I signed up for <a href="http://www.writingsalons.com/tag/nick-mamatas/">a class with Nick Mamatas</a>. He found the perfect question to ask me -- "Who is the protagonist telling the story to?" It busted everything, and the final draft came within months.<br />
<br />
The missus found me a counselor, and I started to get serious about my memoir work. While researching the conditions with which I had been diagnosed, I ran across the statement that post-traumatic stress syndrome causes a disorganized personal story. I mentioned this in one of my memoir pieces, and a reader said, "Well, that's just what this reads like. It reads like a disorganized personal story."<br />
<br />
And a big light went on.<br />
<br />
In counseling, I was told -- to my great shock and surprise -- that I was motivated by principle rather than desire. I asked the missus, my dad, my friends, and they confirmed this appallingly vast and alienating statement.<br />
<br />
Desire and need are central to almost all theories of story. No wonder they didn't make any sense to me.<br />
<br />
So my personal confusion and lack of motivation were at the heart of my difficulties with storytelling. Once I had located the problems, I could figure out a means of addressing them.<br />
<br />
In the case of my PTSD, once I recognized the nature of the problem, the real issue rose up. I was not just writing down my experiences. I was transforming them into a unified personal story of the sort that a healthy person has. The sense of shattering, of confusion, of multiple viewpoints being brought to bear on every situation -- it's always Rashomon for me -- had to be eliminated in favor of something that could be understood. One singular perspective. My perspective.<br />
<br />
And as for motivation, the need-and-greed that acts as the engine in most stories? I use it when it rises naturally from my stories, but I don't regard it as a basic force in my narratives.<br />
<br />
This is my current personal theory of story. It may not work for you; it's doing fine for me.<br />
<br />
A story consists of a beginning and an end, which share a meaningful relationship, connected by an unbroken chain of consequence.<br />
<br />
That's it. But it took me years and years of study, thousands of dollars of expense, a trip to the mountain, and buckets of blood for me to get to the point where that sentence makes enough sense to be useful to me. The simple sentence above represents a solid object in my mind, a spinal column of gleaming black metal. The spine of a story. Each vertebra a scene. All the other advice on storytelling I've read becomes useful inside the context of this concept.<br />
<br />
Really understanding the obvious is hard. You can quote me on that.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-83237380059741684862013-03-20T11:53:00.001-07:002013-03-20T12:18:20.146-07:00A St. Patrick's Day In San Francisco<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0u7WBX0-3kmplCwNhNgPZn1mhL-M1Z9kyMddxkF8TKSsThrmh8k6yKQy2SEUWe7htx5AnJuAvLWWf9S3xQiFdVEiWkizCMPFQrDFp2gvtZxXuGXxEFmnnpKRsDwFAhZA1zWVbz3jJmNc/s1600/photo-1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0u7WBX0-3kmplCwNhNgPZn1mhL-M1Z9kyMddxkF8TKSsThrmh8k6yKQy2SEUWe7htx5AnJuAvLWWf9S3xQiFdVEiWkizCMPFQrDFp2gvtZxXuGXxEFmnnpKRsDwFAhZA1zWVbz3jJmNc/s320/photo-1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>The neighborhood we were in was so punk the pigeons had mohawks.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Photo courtesy of Justine Clifford. Thanks, Justine!</b></span></div>
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So I had an interesting time on Sunday. Actually, I had a great time, but in a very odd way. <a href="http://www.joeclifford.com/">Joe Clifford's</a> got a new book on the way. It's the one he wrote first, <a href="http://www.joeclifford.com/writing/novels/junkie-love/">a memoir called Junkie Love</a>, and he wanted to shoot a promotional video for it. Last week he put out a call for thuggish types, and I decided to see if he could use me. I like Joe, I like seeing myself on video, I've always thought I'd make a good movie heavy, what the hell. I figured I'd put off my haircut for a few days to keep my looks as seedy as possible, and volunteered on that basis.<br />
<br />
A year or so ago, maybe even as recently as six or eight months ago, I wouldn't have done it. But these days, I like socializing and meeting new people. My decision to really join the human race has paid off in unexpected fun. It used to be that going to any kind of real social occasion was painful for me, worse than physical violence, but things changed. Part of it is getting to be more comfortable with people, part of it is getting to be more comfortable with myself, part of it is realizing that when I feel miserably fearful and intimidated and on the verge of tearful flight, I probably come across as a stuck-up jerk, possible side-order of macho, and I'd rather be thought of as a nice guy.<br />
<br />
I'm still figuring out how to present myself in public -- for instance, I have NO FUCKING IDEA what to say when someone asks me, "So, what do you do?" My compulsion to honesty makes this one a stone bitch. No matter what I say, I'll feel as though I'm either aggrandizing myself or poor-mouthing, and either way I'm trying to draw attention to myself, which is also the impression I give when I try and dodge the question. You know what? Next time I think I'll just say 'starving artist type,' and if they need any details, they can fucking ask.<br />
<br />
So on St. Patrick's Day I took BART out, and went to look for an Alkane Hotel in the neighborhood of Sixth and Mission in San Francisco.<br />
<br />
This was a bad neighborhood. Needles underfoot if you stepped off the main street. You could see people dying as they walked by; a substantial portion of the community was visibly malnourished, most of them older people. And among the obvious poor was a sprinkling of rock-and-roll types. As the man said, a cheap holiday in other people's misery. I found a place called the Keane Hotel, and hoped this was the place. I pulled out my book, and started to wait. And then after seeing four or five tiny, emaciated, elderly black people enter and leave, a lovely young blonde woman in her late teens or early twenties swept through the door.<br />
<br />
Tall, clear skin, radiant with physical vigor, she did not belong here. She wore a punk uniform, brand new, leather and chrome and Docs. I used to have a lot of attitude about this kind of thing, but Establishment Punk serves a purpose for a lot of people, and it's actually part of my history and world, and they're nice kids. Sometimes they can tell I used to be the Only Mohawk in Town, and it's really adorable and how can you not like that? But the combination of the affluence necessary to assemble an outfit like that, to get the right tattoos, with the environment...<br />
<br />
Her T-shirt screwed with my head. It was a Gits shirt. My old buddy Anthony introduced me to the Gits way back when. If you want real details, look it up, but here's the story I keep in my head for ready reference. The Gits were a band from Portland or Seattle, someplace up North, and they were pretty good. Their lead singer was murdered, it was ugly, and the investigation left people unsatisfied. Joan Jett took the lead for the band when they did a benefit concert to raise money for the investigation. I think the crime is still unsolved, but right now I'd rather eat a cockroach than check a fact.<br />
<br />
So this young woman was wearing a brand-new-still-smells-like-silkscreening-T-shirt. A Gits T-shirt. And I was all, <i>What the fuck does that </i>mean? <i>If it's deliberate, she's either actually cool or so cool she's horrible, and if it's an accident, that is one fucked-up omen.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Here's one of my life concepts; the transit book. I keep a paperback in my coat and another in my knapsack, to be read only when in transit or in waiting rooms or other such situations. So a book that might take three, four hours for me to plow right through might last me a couple of months, depending on the nature of my journeys.<br />
<br />
As I loitered outside the Keane turning the yellow pages of the book from my jacket pocket, an old woman approached me and asked in a voice freighted with sad hope, "Is that the Bible?"<br />
<br />
I said, "No," with a little more intensity than I'd intended. The book I'd found in my pocket was Naked Lunch, and I intuitively felt that there was nothing I could say or do at this point that wasn't going to be bad for that poor woman's equilibrium.<br />
<br />
Since I wasn't sure I was in the right place, I got nervous, I got the jimmies, and I jumped and went looking for a payphone. On my way, I met Joe and the rest of the crew coming up the street toward me. Among others, <a href="http://www.zarinazabrisky.com/">Zarina Zabrisky</a> showed up. I figured I'd finally get a chance to introduce myself, but no luck -- her shot was first, and she left when it was done. We passed like ships in broad daylight. This was typical of the afternoon. The shoot went with the startling smoothness and ease you get when people don't fuck up or fuck around, a rare and beautiful thing.<br />
<br />
My role is dead minimal -- lead character tries to hassle me on the street and I shine him on -- and was done almost immediately, but when I went to leave, Joe asked me to stick around, so I did. I'm glad; we immediately adjourned to a dark alley, where I felt right at home. There was an older gentleman crouched in a nook formed by a wall and a rolling trash can. He was covered in coats, and his white beard hid his face, and he was eating something crunchy. Every once in a while, he'd try to say something. If it had just been me, I'd have tried to talk to him, but I didn't want to be his point of contact with the group.<br />
<br />
The scene was making people nervous. I have to admit, I wish we'd brought a broom to sweep off the ground where the actor playing Joe lay while being faux-stomped. I'm a callous bastard, but by the end of the day, I was feeling a little concerned about people's emotional conditions. The people in the crew, I mean, not the sad folks around us. I didn't have room on the boat for them.<br />
<br />
So it lightened the mood when the cops came up to us. It seems that the fake beating being lensed in the alley was disturbing some of the neighbors. Nobody said anything to us -- it seems they were standing out of sight, watching it happen, not getting involved. Our own little Kitty Genovese moment.<br />
<br />
When I noticed the crunching, mumbling guy with the beard was gone, I went to check and see if he'd left anything behind for us. He did not disappoint. Behold.<br />
<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Photo, again, courtesy of Justine Clifford.</span></b></div>
<br />
I am a wrong, bad man, because as soon as I saw this I really, truly hoped he'd picked Lucky Charms because it was St. Patrick's day, and then I tried to figure out whether I'd rather try and eat Lucky Charms on heroin or speed. ('Neither' is the correct answer. Those ain't eating drugs. Dude must have been hungry, or maybe those weren't his needles.)<br />
<br />
Afterward, gentleman Joe treated us to Vietnamese food, and I heard the line of the day from the maitre 'd. This guy had a flamboyant, entertaining manner that strongly suggested he spent some of his leisure time in women's clothes, seating us with a "Young gentlemen, sit here, and over here the young lady," hands fluttering, and he was caught up in a drama. As best as I could decipher -- I have a hard time listening in restaurants, and his accent was heavy -- there was another customer in a wheelchair who had dined and dashed on him twice before. The maitre 'd showed me the bills -- he was very excited, and wanted an audience. It seems the delinquent client's caretaker was embarrassed by the situation, and had wheeled him into a section of the restaurant far away from the door, where he wasn't going to be able to make a getaway.<br />
<br />
I take particular pleasure in English as spoken by people who are eloquent in their own language and refuse to let anything get in the way of their ability to cleverly express themselves. We were elbow-deep in our meal when the maitre 'd approached me and told me, "No trouble, no trouble," he said and smiled. "I just show him the bill and he say sorry and he pay, see?" He showed me a folded bundle of bills, then set one hand on my arm and batted his eyes at me. "<i>He</i> was a <i>young lady</i>."<br />
<br />
Luck of the Irish, people!Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-47182672247301244522013-03-08T09:28:00.001-08:002013-03-08T10:10:24.978-08:00Pursuing Disability Income<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Read my latest piece, Easy Off, at the online noir magazine The Big Click.</b></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b> For the record, the accompanying image is </b></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>perfect</b></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>. Writing and performing this was real therapy for me -- by the time I was done, I'd lost my fear of myself.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Not everyone has that reaction.</b></span></div>
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So, I've been forced to make a very difficult decision. For those unfamiliar with the story, a couple of years back, I was hospitalized after vomiting blood for three days. I was told that my problem was stress, and was sent to a public mental health clinic, where I was diagnosed with PTSD, OCD, a particularly intricate mixed-state bipolar condition, fetal alcohol syndrome, and a debated and hypothetical big brain injury of some kind. There was one point when the shrink interviewing me put her hand on my arm and gently asked, "So, can you go out at all, or do you have to stay inside?" The word 'unemployable' was repeated over and over, like a mantra.<br />
<br />
I have a back condition, and the accompanying chronic pain that I've dealt with revealed itself in the wake of this situation. I'd allowed my stomach to get into such bad shape because at its very worst, the pain in my stomach was about two-thirds of my chronic sciatica. I've been reporting that pain as threes and fours on a scale of one to ten, and it easily beats hot stomach acid on an open wound.<br />
<br />
And sometimes the pain in my back is serious. If I make bad decisions, sometimes all I can do is lay down and hurt.<br />
<br />
I have done everything I can to try and find a way to make a living that allows me to generate an income while living with the constant possibility that I might lose my ability to function at any time, and in some cases I might be out of it for months. It hasn't been wasted effort. Even with my down-time, I produce a reasonable amount of work in a year. There is a very real chance that I will make it as an artist and writer at some point. I've sold to the big-money end of the market, and have been made to feel welcome there. But while things are happening for me, money isn't a big part of it yet. And I'm the kind of artist where going after the dollar hard might screw me up.<br />
<br />
So for a while now, friends and family have been encouraging me to apply for disability.<br />
<br />
I have resisted, but things are looking a little grim around here. This week my dad flat-out told me it was time, and when I spoke to my counselor, she agreed, and told me to contact the doctor for my back and the mental health facility where I was 'treated.' (The medication they gave me screwed with my bipolar, and for a few months we were worried that I might have to be institutionalized. Their handling of the situation was thoroughly irresponsible.)<br />
<br />
This is one of the reasons I haven't been posting much lately. On one hand, my career is swell. I have exciting projects, full control over my creative life, and what seems to be a growing reputation; you would not believe the crap people say about me. It would make you vomit. That people are proud to introduce me to their friends and so on and so forth is delightful. It is bringing me to life. I'm a new man, and much happier. My counselor says she's never seen anyone make the kind of progress in therapy that I have.<br />
<br />
So I feel whiplashed between the conditions that I regard -- emotionally, not intellectually -- as the very top and bottom of the social ladder. That I actually am on a first name basis with a certain number of people in the top and bottom one per-cent, that I actually see what life is like for the very poor and the fairly rich, is a source of tension.<br />
<br />
I see two potentially serious issues with applying for disability, once you disallow the possibility that I might not qualify.<br />
<br />
First is stress. I am someone who can be reduced to a helpless, weeping ball by a tax or student-loan form. I have a very difficult time coping with adversarial institutions. Waiting rooms are physically painful, and provide a too-easy opportunity to obsessively worry. Ambiguity and uncertainty strongly affect my ambient stress levels, and once they get to a certain stage, I get sick. Maybe I vomit, maybe my skin comes off, maybe my body invents some new means of tearing itself apart.<br />
<br />
It sounds silly, but I have to take stress seriously. I do not have the luxury of 'being strong,' or 'toughing it out.' That's how I wound up in the hospital. I had to puke blood for three days before I weakened enough for a woman from Queens to be able to push me around, don't talk to me about tough. What I need is to find out how to be gentle with myself, how to take it easy. Believe me, I would not be taking that path if there wasn't blood on the line.<br />
<br />
My other worry is that by getting a disability check, I will acquire a disabled persona.<br />
<br />
Right now, people who meet me casually would never imagine that I'm facing these issues. I have discovered that rather than reading as a miserable, tortured wretch, I project a somewhat-deceptive quality of vigor, presence, and competence. (I figured this out last year when I saw myself on video. Life makes a hell of a lot more sense if I think of myself as an attractive person. Thank you for more therapy, performance.)<br />
<br />
This affects the way people view me. I have screwy boundaries, and I take on the identity people project on me. So if people see me as a heroic figure, life is great fun. If people see me as a hopeless sad-sack, behold! Thusly am I transformed. (I'm working on this.)<br />
<br />
So when I go into this disability thing, how is contact with this system going to affect the way I look at myself?<br />
<br />
Or to put another slant on it, if I am drawing a paycheck for being a crazy cripple, am I going to do what I do at every other job, and try and earn more than I'm paid:? Am I going to wind up putting effort into being <i>really</i> crazy and <i>really</i> crippled? Because I have done some really dumb shit in my life, and that would be typical.<br />
<br />
All I know for sure right now, is that I don't like the situation, and I'm in it. Oh, well.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-86195955718866241502013-02-23T08:51:00.003-08:002013-02-23T08:51:47.524-08:00Plotting, Pantsing, and the Old Cut-Up Gimmick<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Well, I guess I'm going to go back in and change the shape of the highlight in the Colonel's eye to make him seem more friendly, and then the coloring of the lettering on my name should probably be a nice medium-dark blue, and...</b></span></div>
<br />
So after years of study and contemplation, after consulting with experts at the highest levels of achievement, I seem to have developed the most complicated and arduous method of long-form storytelling possible. I'm writing it down so I don't forget it again -- I could have saved myself a month of mopey obsession if I'd remembered one of the basic rules.<br />
<br />
The traditional rift in approaching plot and story in fiction has been between those who like to sit down and write and see what comes, and those who figure it all out ahead of time and then go in and fill in the blanks. Those who fly by the seat of their pants are called 'pantsers' and those who plan in advance are called 'plotters.'<br />
<br />
(These are the kinds of things writers call themselves, so you shouldn't be surprised at what they call you.)<br />
<br />
The virtues associated with pantsing are originality, an inspirational connection between language and story, and the excitement delivered by an ongoing sense of discovery on the part of the writer. Pantsing fails when it fails to deliver a story, or when the story it delivers is a half-baked cliche unconsciously stolen by the writer from TV or the movies. And so on.<br />
<br />
The virtues associated with plotting are coherence, narrative drive, and a sense of control. The failings of plotted fiction are predictability and mundanity, and so on.<br />
<br />
The division between the two might be regarded as the difference between art and craft, but my critical perspective holds that there is no great art without great craft, and that craft pursued with sufficient diligence can transform itself to art. So of course I have to combine the most laborious parts of both methods. Because that is the kind of lever monkey the world has made me.<br />
<br />
I wrote my first novel this way, swore I would never work in that fashion again, and immediately fell backwards into the same fucking trap with Helping Henry. So here is my magic recipe for instant storytelling.<br />
<br />
1. Write a stand-alone story that doesn't quite satisfy.<br />
<br />
2. Extend it. Add crap. See how events lead into one another, find out what the characters are doing, where they're going. Get them there. Think in terms of consequences, of thought to action to reaction to response.<br />
<br />
3. Look at the pile with dismay. Realize that you're dealing with a novelistic structure, and that you have an obligation to bring it to proper fruition.<br />
<br />
4. Panic.<br />
<br />
5. Inspect the manuscript until you find a beginning and an end that have a meaningful relationship with one another.<br />
<br />
6. At this point, the manuscript is comparable to the block of marble in the old joke about the sculptor. "How do you do it?" "I just knock off everything that doesn't look like a donkey."<br />
<br />
At this step, you're looking for the donkey. You cannot regard the current manuscript as anything but raw material. Everything is disposable.<br />
<br />
Look at your beginning, and look at your ending. If you are trying to write conventional dramatic narrative -- by which I mean a story where things happen that people can understand, a story that may be read by someone who is not a fiction specialist of some kind -- the beginning and the end have to be connected by an UNBROKEN CHAIN OF CONSEQUENCE, where each event leads to the next.<br />
<br />
7. This is the hard part. This hurts. It is also the most important part. This is where the creature lives or dies.<br />
<br />
Knock off everything that doesn't look like a donkey.<br />
<br />
This is what makes this a terrible method. I wrote easily five or six times as much manuscript as I used for my first novel, and a lot of it I rewrote repeatedly. In Helping Henry, this is less painful, since it's constructed of stories that stand alone to some degree. But I had forgotten I could do this, and I devoted a lot of thought to keeping material I'd written in place. Because it was good material.<br />
<br />
This is a dead end. That is how you kill your story.<br />
<br />
So take your manuscript, and write down a brief description of each scene on a file card or Post-It note. Get yourself some wall space or a corkboard or something, and start laying the cards out in order. Put your beginning at one end, your ending at the other, and connect the two. Don't put a scene in unless it fills a specific, necessary function. Ask yourself if any scenes -- or characters -- can be combined to save space. If there is a gap in the chain of consequence, fill it in.<br />
<br />
And if there is a string of cards to one side, and they are full of terrific material, and the plot just doesn't seem to CONNECT? Those cards get left out.<br />
<br />
This isn't actually like working with marble, folks. It's more like a lost-wax process, and you're working with wax at this point. It is infinitely malleable, but it will be cast in bronze later.<br />
<br />
Then take your cards or Post-It notes, and gather them together in order. I use file cards, and I punch holes in them and bind them with a ring.<br />
<br />
The thing is? You'll probably have some file cards left over. And some of those file cards will represent the very best writing you've ever done.<br />
<br />
Just grin and cut, my friend. Grin and cut. Going to great labor to keep something that could easily go is fool's work.<br />
<br />
8. And then go back over your manuscript, and make it conform to your outline. This is where I am with Helping Henry. Moving conversations around, adding points of connection between sub-plots, all that good stuff. To me, this doesn't feel so much like revision as like the <i>real</i> first draft.<br />
<br />
9. And then you're down to line edits. I'm aiming for next week on this.<br />
<br />
I swear, though, next time I'm starting with an outline.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-83280981297882931542013-02-21T15:44:00.000-08:002013-02-21T17:11:45.181-08:00The Little Friend of My Little Friend...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhihZJdkQOyOcCtEiJwqc9aNybIPRjVLBFNczYNoxKAcuE8tYuAAVTTZNa0vX0kUovta1BOWgTGUkGkQsqOm2PQ4piqixPmEzeKoXcQ9eUUgdw3mrUBLJxKUgizGdyFbMgwFPX0eisQdU0/s1600/laszlo.bird.-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhihZJdkQOyOcCtEiJwqc9aNybIPRjVLBFNczYNoxKAcuE8tYuAAVTTZNa0vX0kUovta1BOWgTGUkGkQsqOm2PQ4piqixPmEzeKoXcQ9eUUgdw3mrUBLJxKUgizGdyFbMgwFPX0eisQdU0/s320/laszlo.bird.-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
This is the bed in our guest room. This is our dog -- my dog -- Laszlo.<br />
<br />
And that is Laszlo's little friend.<br />
<br />
When I say Laszlo is my dog, I don't mean I went out and selected him. Other way round. Here's what happened. When our Australian shepherd Amanda died, we said it would be a while before we replaced her. But our terrier (rat and Jack Russell mix) Roxxie started getting the crazies within weeks of Amanda's passing. Roxxie is one of those high-pitched individuals who doesn't get along in the world in general, and the loss of her friend really got to her.<br />
<br />
So the missus got in touch with some animal rescue people, and Laszlo was the first dog they suggested for us. We drove out to the valley one day and met the rescue worker who was handling Laszlo (unnamed at that juncture) at a park.<br />
<br />
According to what she said, Laszlo had been abandoned on the street and then rescued. "He's a dog person, not a people person," we were told, which, given the circumstances, sounded good. When we met him, he wouldn't approach me, wouldn't respond to me when I called him. I am an animal person -- not all animals love me, but if they don't, I wonder what the hell has gone wrong with the world. When this little guy wouldn't meet my gaze or let me near him, I figured something was wrong. Really wrong. This animal had been abused, and as much as I wanted to help, I didn't want a dog who didn't want me. So I started to harden myself to say we wouldn't be going home with the little mooch.<br />
<br />
I fell into conversation with the woman who was caring for Laszlo, and while we were talking, she looked past me and smiled. "He sure likes you," she said.<br />
<br />
I followed her gaze, and looked down to my right rear. The young Laszlo was sitting directly behind me. He wasn't touching me, but he was as close as he could get without making contact. His body was curved around my right calf, and he was gazing up at me with an expression on his face that said, "Please. I want this. Please, please, please..."<br />
<br />
We took him home.<br />
<br />
For the first couple of weeks, he wouldn't approach me from the front or respond to my calls, but he stayed as close to me as he could, and if I let him sneak up behind me, he'd let me pet him. The combination of love and fear was heartbreaking -- but he got over it.<br />
<br />
Roxxie the terrier has always slept in our bed. The missus uses her as a sort of hairy hot-water bottle. I'm an insomniac. If I get more than five hours of sleep a night, I'm okay. If I get less, I'm a miserable neurotic wretch. And due to my back pain, there's a limit to how long I can lay down comfortably. So I usually get up for a couple of hours in the early morning. One night after Laszlo had been with us a couple of weeks, I came back to bed and saw him curled up all by himself on our couch. I thought of the missus and Roxxie and myself warm and cozy, and I scooped the little guy up and took him back to bed with me.<br />
<br />
It was purely an act of affection influenced by pity, but it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.<br />
<br />
When I'm laying in bed in the dark, I am at the mercy of my mind. I usually go through three or four fairly serious stress reactions a night in response to compulsive fantasies of violence or other misfortunes. The missus is a lovely person, but I have made it a practice not to roll over and clutch at her, shuddering and hyperventilating, more than three or four times a year. It is not my intention to establish a hostile work environment.<br />
<br />
But get this. These days, when it's time to go to bed? Laszlo dances around me as if we're going for a walk or it's time to be fed. So far as he's concerned, keeping me company in bed is his job. Having him next to me is a constant reminder that I am in bed to rest, not to torture myself. And when I start feeling crazy? I get ahold of him, and pet him until I calm down. He likes it, and it helps me, and it is an all-around good thing.<br />
<br />
There has been a recent development.<br />
<br />
Laszlo is, as the rescue worker said, an animal person. He loves other dogs and shows a keen interest in birds and other critters. But the missus and I were taken aback a few weeks ago when he started carrying a stuffed toy around. It is a chickadee, one of those disturbingly life-like stuffed animals one runs across from time to time. Laszlo doesn't use it as a chew-toy. Rather, he treats it as though it's a...<br />
<br />
Well, a pet. My dog has a pet.<br />
<br />
He sets it down and stares at it lovingly. He cuddles with it, and sometimes rests his head on it. And up until the last couple of days, if the missus or I set a finger on it, he'd take on an entirely out-of-character air of grievance, and take the chickadee away into the yard where we couldn't see it.<br />
<br />
But a couple of days ago, when it was time for bed? Laszlo was sitting with the chickadee, and when I approached him, he picked up the toy bird and gazed at me winsomely, then set the bird down and looked away, abashed. He then repeated the gesture. It was as if he was saying, "Please, come on.. Oh, man, I'm sorry, I know it's too much, but... Please?"<br />
<br />
So I put the goddamned bird on the bed, and Laszlo spent the first half of the night staring at it in rapture. The next night was the same. And last night, the bird showed up in bed without me.<br />
<br />
This is fascinating to me. The suggestion of a much richer, more involved inner life makes a lot of sense to me, but what the hell is going on here? If he was a bitch (rather than a bastard, which is what I think we should call male dogs), I'd be able to tell myself it was a pseudo-puppy. What's really weird is the way it brings out a new emotional spectrum in Laszlo; the damned dog is <i>serious</i> about his bird. My best guess at this point is that he's emulating the relationships he knows, the relationships between the missus and I and Laszlo and Roxxie. I suspect he's decided he wants a pet. If that's the case, the genuine tenderness he shows reflects well on our relationship with him. His desire to keep that relationship independent of his relationship with the other organisms in the house, his growing acceptance of my interactions with his 'friend....'<br />
<br />
Let's get this straight. I don't sleep with a stuffed animal.<br />
<br />
But I sleep with a dog who does. There is no dignity in life, you know?Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-84749785335213015662013-02-13T11:50:00.000-08:002013-02-13T11:50:27.782-08:00Every Path Turns<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So in my last post, I wrote that all I needed to get back on my feet was either a solid accomplishment or a piece of unexpected good news... and then my computer started acting screwy. After six or seven crashes in half an hour or so, I just shut it down.<br />
<br />
That afternoon, I went to lunch with a good friend, and I was able to help her with the synopsis for her novel. So that made me feel good.<br />
<br />
And when I got home, <a href="http://www.joeclifford.com/">Joe Clifford</a> had put out an emergency call for for someone to read at <a href="http://www.lipservicewest.com/">Lip Service</a> that night. I was the first to volunteer, so I got in. When I was there, I met a number of friends, including <a href="http://www.nick-mamatas.com/">Nick Mamatas</a>, who will be publishing the piece I read over at his <a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/">Big Click</a> noir site. I was taped, which means the performance will probably be available on Vimeo at some point, along with the other two in the sequence. We had a lovely dinner afterward, with a number of literary luminaries including Nick, <a href="http://www.swillmagazine.com/">Rob Pierce</a>, newly-met <a href="http://www.jridler.com/">Jason Ridler</a>, and a couple of civilians who probably don't want their names bandied about. There actually is a scene here, and I am part of it.<br />
<br />
So that made me feel good.<br />
<br />
When I opened my computer up, it worked. And after I went and dumped a bunch of files, it worked better. I am very conscious of the machine's mortality -- it's five years old at this point -- but this scare led the missus and I to make contingency plans, so I'm no longer worried that I'll simply disappear from the internet and the world of the arts when my computer does break.<br />
<br />
So that made me feel good.<br />
<br />
My current writing project has been vexing me during my winter slough. But I was able to tap an expert for advice, the story editor who taught me scriptwriting -- the advice will probably be, "Just keep doing your thing, big guy," but sometimes I need to hear that from an authority. I think I've figured out the problem, and I think the thing that's bothering me the most can be solved very easily, with just a few lines of expository thought.<br />
<br />
So that made me feel good.<br />
<br />
The day after the missus and I had our awful breakdown fight, while I was still sick with the flu, I coped with the sick weight of guilt (since soothed by a calmly witnessed ten-point dismount from the moral high ground, and I bet your relationships are perfectly simple) by sending out a submission to an agent. (I'd gotten discouraged when Michael Chabon's agent didn't want to look at my manuscript, because I am a ridiculous person with a damaged brain.) I was expecting a reply in six-to-eight weeks.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, the reply came. I won't tell you who it came from, because it's too early, and who knows how things are going to go and all the usual precautionary hand-waving intended to propitiate the spirits. But the letter inside the envelope was on heavy linen stock, and the glaringly understated letterhead is printed in gilt, and they want to look at Ghost Rock. Regardless of how this particular encounter goes, this makes me feel a hell of a lot more confident about my ability to get my work out there at a high professional level. It's given me back the feeling that I'm a when, not an if. (Fingers crossed, wood knocked, a humble imploring glance at the sky.)<br />
<br />
And that makes me feel very good indeed.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-68772943160333604732013-02-08T10:25:00.000-08:002013-02-08T10:25:35.080-08:00The Current Shambles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So there's this guy in the neighborhood. He's homeless, from Louisiana, and for some reason, I've wound up being part of his life. I've had difficulties with him -- he's shown up on the porch at three in the morning more than once, and I assume anyone asking for money at three in the morning is going to be using it to buy the kind of drugs that require a needle or a glass pipe for full satisfaction and enjoyment. Another time, he showed me a vent in his chest, a green-tipped plastic sleeve that looked as if it should have been used to dispense soda. So there's real need, and real shiftiness, and it's an uneasy relationship. He wants me to be there for him when he's in trouble, and I don't want him to think that's cool, and we have been dancing around this for about a decade. It's made me a more guarded person. I find it mildly amusing that he has health care and I don't. We bottom-dwellers notice these things.<br />
<br />
Lately he's taken to spending the mornings laying in the driveway of the row houses on Sacramento, watching the corner of the schoolyard where his girlfriend was shot. When I heard about the shooting, I assumed that it was one of two women -- or, possibly, one woman. Because one was sober, called me Sean, and was very pleasant. She was an asset to the neighborhood. The other was kind of sleazy and called me Shane, and was always drunk or out of it on something. And they looked very much alike, and I always wondered if they were one or two people. I'd never been introduced to them; they just started addressing me by name and asking for change and I always assumed my three-in-the-morning buddy had passed on the word that I was a soft touch. That's why I stopped handing out change. It's too easy to form relationships.<br />
<br />
Well, last Friday, my music buddy and I were coming back to the studio and the sleazy Shane lady passed me. Which means it was the nice woman who got shot. And if I get up and walk down the street, my pal will be laying there in the sun pretending his eyes are closed while he stares at the spot where she died.<br />
<br />
So I know people with problems. I don't have problems, I've got issues. But this last month slammed me. Right before things got bad, I was feeling very self-congratulatory. I currently have my first major solo publication and my first solo art show in preparation. Even better, I'd managed to successfully address my most serious personal issues through performance. My counselor told me she'd never seen anyone make the kind of progress I'd made in the time we'd been working together. There's even a new issue of Swill in the works!<br />
<br />
But then winter hit me. I started to worry. Am I going to be able to make Helping Henry good enough that it would make sense to ask my old teachers for blurbs? Why aren't I trying to sell my work harder?<br />
That guy with the gallery really seems to take me seriously. Is this some kind of trick? So my insomnia kicked in -- my insomnia is the result of obsessive patterns of thought that induce stress reactions. If I can get more than five hours of sleep a night, I'm sane. I wasn't getting my five hours in. So after a few days of this, I took a dose of melatonin. I slept, but I woke up with my back out.<br />
<br />
Some months back, I was laying in bed thinking about pain. I had the usual dull pain in my stomach, and I realized that I'd been dismissing that pain because it never approached the levels of chronic pain I get from my back. I asked myself how I'd respond to the pain in my stomach if I experienced it on its own, without comparing it to my back pain. Simply posing the question was like flipping a switch. I immediately began vomiting blood. The ache in my stomach was digestive juices on an open wound.<br />
<br />
So I started treating my stomach better, and things improved. But it got me thinking about my back. Every doctor I dealt with after my operation had a pre-supposed image of me, and I was never really able to break through and get them to actually try and figure out what was going on. Everybody already knows what they intend to believe about condition. So none of their ideas lined up, and none of them were useful.<br />
<br />
I started to pay close attention to my back pain. And my current belief is that my operation was not a complete success, and there still is some cartilage or disc debris in there where it can make contact with my sciatic nerve. The pain responds directly and predictably to pressure, and there is also a tendency for minor stresses to build up and develop that suggests inflammation also plays a role. I was diagnosed with one disc ruptured and one compressed; I wonder if the spectacular rupture might not have hidden a more modest one protruding from the 'compressed' disc.<br />
<br />
Well. The morning after I took the melatonin, I experienced the worst pain I'd had in distinct memory. The kind of thing where rolling over in bed requires planning and fortitude. I had my second conscious experience of synaesthesia -- the pain emitted horrible metallic noises that reminded me of those submarine movies my dad loves. They exhibited the Doppler effect as the waves passed up and down my leg. The missus offered to do some bodywork on me, and I reluctantly took her up on it. When I was dealing with the situation before my operation, she'd never been able to help with my low back pain and sciatica.<br />
<br />
But she's learned a lot since then, and now she knew exactly what to do. She was able to get my lower back and pelvis aligned, and I was on the mend from that point on.<br />
<br />
However, I was an idiot. The pain kept me from eating, and after a day or two, I broke down and got drunk in order to kick-start my appetite and got into a fight and was a general ass. What I didn't know at that point was that the flu was starting to take root.<br />
<br />
There is great and plentiful drama going on in my circle at this time. None of your business, but full-on Greek drama crap. Life and death issues. As I said, I know people with problems. And I worry.<br />
<br />
Because of the season and the circumstances, I've been spending too much time alone, and I stopped enjoying my own company. No music, no writer's groups, no walks with the dad, the missus going out of town... And it was getting to me. And I picked a fight with the missus. She'd been cruising for trouble, and I'd been ducking, and I felt justified in acting like a dick. But as I said, what we didn't understand was that we were both coming down with the flu, and it seems as if our new comforter was outgassing fiercely enough to screw with us as well. We managed to patch things together after I apologized, but the combination of the flu and the fight was utterly demoralizing.<br />
<br />
I did have one of those moments, though. People talk about how 'movie moments' aren't real, but they happen to me all the time. When being me is fun, they're a big part of it. I stormed out of our house in a rage, and when I crossed into the territory of the murder of crows a couple of blocks over, one of the crows saw me and followed me, calling out to the other crows, and as I walked down the street more and more crows followed me until there were seven of them, cawing and wheeling overhead. Some of 'em had probably been by the tree outside my studio for a concert -- sometimes my crows have guests. If I hadn't been running a fever, the overstatement of the moment would have snapped me out of my mood... it was really cheesy.<br />
<br />
I don't know if it was three or four days that I wasn't able to eat, but as soon as the flu started to lift, I had one of my bouts of stress-puking. I was able to get over it in the course of one night, and there was no blood. If I can go for three days without eating and not puke blood, my ulcer is gone.<br />
<br />
Wahoo! And now that we've gone back to our old comforter, the missus isn't coughing and I don't have night sweats.<br />
<br />
So, over the past month I have had every one of my ailments come up one after another, each one laying me full-out. I'm not torturing myself about it, but I made a few decisions that I'm ashamed of. I have to make allowances for real duress, though. I lost fifteen or twenty pounds, and they were not extra pounds. I was using those. I'm still prone to dizziness and moments of weakness. I was on top of the world and now I'm a wreck.<br />
<br />
I've been looking back and wondering how things could have gone better. I do know that by not paying attention to my round of eating, sleeping, and exercising, I did lay the groundwork for what came afterward. I know better than to drink in order to jump-start my appetite. And I know better than to pick fights with the missus.<br />
<br />
But the fact is that I am vulnerable, and there are times when I will be taken out of the game, and I know that something happens every winter. And I have been more productive than usual. "Don't give me that total paralysis crap," my counselor said yesterday. "I've been watching you."<br />
<br />
"Okay," I said. "I'm not doing the work I want to do as fast as I want to do it, and I'm extremely unsatisfied with the situation."<br />
<br />
And that's where I am right now. I'm out from under the shadow, but I am vexed and uncomfortable. I'm being good even if I feel crummy. So at this point, really all I need is a good solid achievement or piece of unexpected good news and I'll be back on my feet.<br />
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I'm certain something's coming, because I am fucking due.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379518858474986857.post-32104910450295055872013-01-14T10:33:00.001-08:002013-01-14T10:33:16.452-08:00Why I Haven't Been Posting Lately<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7RuTsmeuY7ZV0nTeTzDDJjzAsyAI9yl1t1rXWMFrQsrDqcqksF3HV1u7oGYc9HCuBkoIcsB_IlAg9y9BWaDq8-ieiuliuZRXuk9f5jOykSGmsDeehBunoWzCSgQ94pvTczZSShhyG7Zs/s1600/east.bay.view.-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7RuTsmeuY7ZV0nTeTzDDJjzAsyAI9yl1t1rXWMFrQsrDqcqksF3HV1u7oGYc9HCuBkoIcsB_IlAg9y9BWaDq8-ieiuliuZRXuk9f5jOykSGmsDeehBunoWzCSgQ94pvTczZSShhyG7Zs/s320/east.bay.view.-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>When the missus and I walk in the morning, this is the view we see from the top of the trail. It really does limit how much bitching I'm actually allowed to do.</b></span></div>
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1. My winter depression is making me prone to unfortunate negative comments.<br />
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2. Despite this, it's been the best year of my life, and it's hard for me to talk about it without feeling as if I'm trying to incite envy or admiration.<br />
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3. I do have some very real difficulties in my life, and it's hard for me to talk about them without feeling as if I'm begging for assistance or wallowing in self-pity.<br />
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4. A lot of this stuff is too personal for me to be willing to go into it in public, out of respect for the privacy of others. My personal life is intertwined with my creative work, but there are other people in my life, and it is impossible to write on some of these subjects without dragging their trash out into the yard. Oh, well.<br />
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5. My personal identity is currently in a state of flux. This is always true, but over the last few years most of my identifying characteristics have reversed polarity or vanished like boojums. The ugly duckling experience is fantastic fun, let me tell you, but nobody really prepares you for it.<br />
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6. And talk about things they don't prepare you for. Now that the dust is clearing and I'm starting to get a view of the story I'm telling myself about myself? It turns out I might be the kind of person who really doesn't get to talk about himself. That if I say, "Look at me, I am this," it will turn out that what I am is a grandiose asshole. Other people are already using the words, and I should keep my mouth shut about myself and just do my work.<br />
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7. A lot of what I'm facing involved mental illness and its relationship to violence, and right now there are things going on bim, bam, boom, that tie into my personal experiences in a way that would make any discussion seemed timed to associate my personal journey with any number of public and private tragedies. And if you will excuse me, fuck that noise.<br />
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8. My performance work has become my preferred outlet for my personal writing, and while I have taken at least one piece from a blog post, I kind of feel as if I'm working with a limited pool of material, and I know what I want to do with it at this point.<br />
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9. And that has me wondering what the purpose of the blog is in the long run. Right now it would be very good for me to post regularly, and I have a few thoughts as to where I should go with it. But right now, the 'personal blog' just doesn't seem to be working for me. This sounds dopey. But right now, I am finding out that a lot of my personality and the way I present myself is rooted in both defensiveness and a need for recognition. I don't think it's something awful, but it turns out that as I've become more secure, my motivations for interacting with the world are changing. If my needs are being met, I'm less interested in using the blog toward those ends, and more interested in finding ways of advancing my cultural ends and comrades. But how to do that?<br />
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10. It's become kind of obvious to me over the past few months that there is a real split in my presentation here, and my presentation in real life. Here on the blog? It is the real me, but you wouldn't get this tone from me unless you were a good friend and we were getting a buzz on.<br />
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Now that I'm getting to be known a little more, there are people reading the blog who have not met me, and it might not be a bad idea to present the side of me that people like rather than the side that makes me feel like a tough guy.<br />
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But that would mean either writing the blog as presentation rather than recreation, or changing the tone of my internal voice, he groused.<br />
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11. I keep starting posts similar to this one, and I never get around to finishing them, partially due to the old SAD, but mostly because I can't think of a clever ending for them.<br />
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Like that one.Sean Cravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13763869499494698057noreply@blogger.com2