Chapter Three: Done; Keyboard Woes; Prepping for NaNoWriMo

Reading: Great Fool: Zen Master Ryokan: Poems, Letters, and Other Writings (Ryuichi Abe & Peter Haskel, eds. & trans.)
Listening: YUI, "It's all too much"
Redraft: Book One, Ch. 4, v.30.0 (on hiatus until after NaNoWriMo 2009)

Looking back through my redraft printouts, I came to the unpleasant realization that it took me a full (read: neither the-better-part-of-a nor even a-day-less-than-a) month to rewrite Chapter Three. Granted, I could only make this realization upon actually completing the Chapter Three redraft at roughly 12:08 a.m. this morning--an accomplishment which fills me with equally inordinate levels of pride and exhaustion--but the cold, clear fact remains that this will likely be the last chapter of Book One I shall rewrite before diverting my creative attention to my project for NaNoWriMo 2009. That I still don't know precisely which story will comprise that project only underscores the need to prepare before I type out the first word on Nov. 1st.

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Before I delve headlong into the month-long distraction that is NaNoWriMo, I thought I should pause for a somewhat elegiac note. Early last morning, I came to the sober conclusion that my Kinesis Contoured Keyboard, despite having provided what I believe was the best, most ergonomically sound typing experience of my $1000+ foray into the realm of ridiculously priced keyboards, would have to end up on the eBay chopping block. The reason, infuriatingly enough, lies in its American build quality: the tiny membrane switches at the top of the keyboard, which control hotkey essentials like the function keys and the print screen key--the latter of which I remapped to open My Computer at a key press--have either gone slightly non-responsive, or, in the case of the aforementioned print screen key, hyper-responsive, resulting in my email responses being incessantly interrupted by a never-ceasing torrent of My Computer windows. Seeing as this particular keyboard ranks among the most expensive to have ever crossed my desktop--the only 'board to top it is the Topre Realforce 91U that I'm typing on right now--its failure after a mere two years of ownership becomes particularly distressing. Coupled with the battleship-like build I've come to expect of my Japanese-made keyboards, along with my previous abortive ownership of the U.S.-made Das Keyboard Professional, my outlook on all U.S. keyboards has pretty much soured. A true shame, as no keyboard quite stacks up to the Kinesis Contoured's design. Only its implementation leaves much--too much--to be desired.

(Even as I type this entry, my RSI started to act up, and I was forced to switch to one of the Filco Tenkeyless models--ironically, the one that shares the same Cherry brown keyswitches as the Kinesis.)

(EDIT: and two hours after typing this post, I'm switching the Cherry-brown Filco for the Cherry-black. I swear, if the Kinesis Contoured came in a Cherry-black model, I'd plunk down another $300 just to give it a whirl, despite Kinesis's quality issues.)

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I'll follow up shortly with my progress in whittling down the three potential NaNoWriMo candidates this year to the one that will, with any luck, grow to 50K words (or more) by Nov. 30th. That and an updated entry on my writing desk, as soon I get it tidied up enough so that it won't break the camera when I take the picture.

Fatalistic Optimism, Bar, Writers' Rooms, NaNoWriMo

It was about a week ago that I received word through the mail that I had passed the bar exam. There have been moments this week--many, in fact--where it all felt strangely surreal. I felt confident enough in my performance, walking away from the test site on the second day, but over the course of the three months I spent waiting for the results, my confidence disintegrated like rice paper in a warm bath. I began to visualize what I would do in the wake of failing the test, steeling myself for a disappointment that, on each successive consideration, seemed increasingly inevitable.

A part of this progression likely stemmed from my outlook on life: hope for the best, but expect the worst. I tend to exercise a sort of fatalistic optimism, largely indistinguishable from ordinary optimism, except that I explicitly force myself to consider the worst-case scenario, and accept that fact that it may very well come to pass. It's the same way that I eventually overcame my adolescent crisis of faith, where I used spend sleepless nights pondering what would become of a human being if there truly is no soul to carry one's consciousness beyond this mortal coil, no God Almighty to guide us, and if the sum total of human life is destined to return to all-consuming nothingness. The thought of a state--if one could truly call nonexistence a "state"--of thoughtlessness, of blindness without darkness, of soundlessness without silence, frightened me unlike any other horror, waking or dreaming. However, somewhere along the way in college, studying the luminaries of Western Philosophy, I somehow managed to come to terms with the possibility, accepted it as a necessary contingency if all that I believed yet could not prove were, in the final calculation, proven to be false. Nevertheless, even as I accepted the object of my deepest-seeded fear, I chose to believe what I had grown up believing, what I've seen and interpreted to be true in every detail of this existence. This was my interpretation of the traditional Christian concept of faith: to behold the wonders and depravities of this world, and choose to recognize the spark of Providence in each of them, a jewel of the divine set in countless facets of an intricate and unfathomable setting, composed of sometimes unremarkable parts that somehow fit together to form a whole beautiful and awesome beyond all human reckoning. The evidence is plain and abundant all around us, though they require a leap of faith in reaching any genuine conclusions; where I see God in his heaven, another could envision Chaos in its entropy, or, even more simply, nothing at all. Even scientific certainties are predicated upon an implicit faith in the reliability of sense perceptions, the inherent reality of the world around us, and the immutability--and knowability--of the physical relationships that bind this existence together. If every conclusion, whether hopeful, pragmatic, or pessimistic, requires the same implicit act of faith, then why not put my faith in the one I want to be so? From this perspective, a leap of faith is perhaps the greatest volitional act an autonomous actor is capable of, the ultimate expression of free will.

Granted, failing the bar pales whiter than alabaster next to utter nothingness, but the adjustment process for me was quite the same. Seeing as my faith--or, at least, plaintive hope--proved well placed in the bar's case, I can only hope my faith in the grander dilemma proves equally true.

And hope I will.

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I've been fascinated with the writing desks--and by extension, rooms--of the professional writers I admire, ever since I first laid eyes on a photograph of the late-Robert Jordan's work desk. There is some poignant yet ethereal connection between an author's finished work and the means, process, and--yes--even locale of its creation. One concede that, much in the same way that we as people are largely shaped by the people, places, and events that ensconce our lives, so too must these artifacts, the products of human thought, toil, and rapture, be influenced in subtle but sensible ways by their author's surrounds at the time of their crafting.

I was, therefore, understandably delighted to discover a photo project called "Where I Write: Fantasy & Science Fiction Authors in Their Creative Spaces," which features several well-known authors in their workspaces. It satiates some quasi-voyeuristic urge that I think we all share, to a certain degree; yet at the same time, it also humanizes the works that, when rendered to us void of the human story of their production, can seem like godly, unwieldy things that we are doomed only to worship, an Asgardian fortress or Olympian height to which we may never aspire. It tethers them to the earth, brings them close enough for us to see the cracks, dents, and defects we might otherwise overlook, and forces us to acknowledge that the giants who built them not only were once human, but are human still.

It kindles hope where a hero worshiper and pedestal placer is apt to find an overabundance of despair.

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And, on the apt segue that "despair" provides, I should come to acknowledge that NaNoWriMo 2009 is two weeks away. I thought that I would use it to write the historical fantasy I codenamed "Wander," but as the month approaches I increasingly fear that I may still lack the confidence to tackle a story that takes place not in a fantasy world of my own imagination, largely and safely divorced from our everyday reality, but in a doppelganger milieu whose verisimilitude relies so heavily upon its resemblance to the real world. I thought about working on a story in the fantasy milieu I codenamed "The Year of Our Lord," which would be a welcome respite from science fiction, and a way to hone the skills I've gleaned from the copious fantasy novels I've read in recent years, but I fear that that story is not yet ripe enough to pluck from the aether. Lately I thought of writing the first of two "prequel" novels to Book One, which actually may be ripe enough to be written, but a part of me feels that I should focus my efforts on something that lies outside the familiar SF milieu that I've developed and dwelt in these past thirteen years.

In the meantime, this weekend is, once again, to be sacrificed on the altar that is Chapter Three. I'm hoping it will be done before the weekend is; and if it is, then perhaps I can turn greater attention toward deciding which story most deserves to be told next.

NaNoWriMo 2008: CotF (50,012 words)

Kinda says it all, doesn't it? ^___^

Mood: Utterly Exhausted

Oct. 31st, NaNoWriMo, Exile, "Marriage"

Reading: Ender in Exile, Orson Scott Card

Yes, Oct. 31st came and went, and I still don't have a 2nd draft of Book One. But I sucked it up, and started on Book Two promptly on Nov. 1st. I was making good time, too, until the proverbial shit hit the fan in one of my clinic courses, and I was forced to take a week's hiatus from noveling.

So I find myself behind the eight ball yet again.

I'm going to try to get as much as I can done this weekend--if I can coax a good 9000 words or so per day, I'll be back on track for the full 50K by Nov. 30. Gambaru!

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The recent protests regarding the 52% to 48% passage of California's Prop 8 have pushed me to step up onto my soap box. I usually avoid venting my political views, but it seems that the distinctions that I find to be key to the issue are often overlooked or trodden upon by pundits on both sides.

To begin with, I side with the gay and lesbian viewpoints in that their civil unions should be granted the same rights under the law as traditional married couples. Simply put, it is constitutionally required under the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause, and, even without the Constitution, the time-honored principles of equity, I think, would vindicate their request for equal standing.

Nevertheless, I believe the passage of Prop 8 was a good thing.

The key battleline that most people tend to overlook is one of semantics. The institution of "marriage" extends back into antiquity; it is a cultural touchstone that has shaped human society since the dawn of time, and will likely continue to do so indefinitely. At the same time, inextricably bound up in its cultural significance is its religious meaning--it's no coincidence that the vast majority of marriages take place in churches, and are conducted by religious officials. For a great segment of the multitude of religious perspectives out there, there is spiritual and theological significance bound up in the union of a man and a woman. In this way, the term "marriage" itself is, at its core, a religious one.

Therein lies the danger in the gay and lesbian activists who clamber for their "right" to "gay marriage." They couch their demands in arguments for equal protection, but in demanding that the government sanction their expansive conception of marriage, they seek to have the government impose their view of this quintessentially religious concept upon those whose religious views endorse the traditional viewpoint. That goes beyond the rights ensured by the 14th Amendment; it trods upon the 1st Amendment right to freedom of religion, by demanding that the government impose their conception of marriage upon the masses, or, at least, endorsing it over the traditional conception. Either way, the government finds itself in a position of intermingling matters of church with matters of state, something the founding fathers would find scandalous, and antithetical to the core values of our democracy.

Thus, I find myself in the position of affording gay civil unions equal status under the law as married couples, but insisting that any government recognition of the status of those civil unions restrict itself from treading upon the religious conception of marriage. Some may warn that drawing a distinction between "civil unions" and "marriages" is analogous to the "separate but equal" fallacy of the civil rights era. But I disagree. The inherent weakness of the "separate but equal" doctrine was that the separate institutions provided to whites and blacks simply were not equal--the problem, essentially, was logistical in nature. Here, the separation of the terms "civil union" and "marriage" is semantic: it allows the government to grant equal rights to gay and lesbian unions--rights they are constitutionally due--without taking the extra and unconstitutional step of endorsing the religious viewpoint underlying those unions at the expense of those who favor the traditional conception of marriage. It ensures that neither side of the debate has their constitutional rights abased.

This distinction between "civil union" and "marriage" need only be legal in nature. If U.S. culture grows to include gay and lesbian couples within the popular purview of "marriage," that is something for our culture itself to decide. But the legal distinction must be drawn, lest we, in our zeal to uphold the rights afforded by one amendment, despoil the rights espoused by another.

Wii, Mistborn, Revisions, NaNoWriMo

Read: Mistborn & The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson
Playing: No More Heroes (Nintendo Wii)
Redrafting: Chapter 3 of 32

In the latest demonstration of the fact that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, the luckiest member of my family, my mom won a Nintendo Wii at a school raffle last week. And, in a demonstration of the fact that it is good to have said luckier family members, that Wii is now a fixture in my room. (The living room TV has no AV ports to spare. Mine, as luck would have it, does.)

I inaugurated the Wii with the one exclusive game that I've had my eye on for quite some time: No More Heroes, by Ubisoft. It's an action game with some interesting gameplay mechanics, a semi-otaku main character, and major style points for presentation. It also is one of the few games for Nintendo's hardware to sport a MA-17 rating.

Top all that off with the fact that it was on sale at Gamestop for $29.99, and you end up with quite a nice deal.

Not that I've been able to play much of it this week.

*

Instead, I picked up Mistborn from where I dropped it (read: lost it) in my room about two years ago. It was the second book by the precocious Brandon Sanderson, a new power in the Fantasy industry whose debut novel Elantris impressed me mightily. While Elantris was a stand-alone novel, Mistborn was heralded as the first in a trilogy, which I looked forward to, especially since my first novel is essentially part of what may end up as a tetralogy or quintology. Sanderson has a strong grasp of character and plot, but what impressed me the most was his ability to create a tightly woven milieu with its own internal logic and cohesion. Since the beginning, my weakest attribute as a writer has been setting, in which milieu plays an integral part, especially in speculative fiction. Studying at the feet of masters has been one of the greatest sources of improvement for me, so reading Sanderson's latest works have been a wonderful crash course on the subject.

Of course, I never read a novel for didactic quality alone.

His novels are also just plain fun. The plots are fresh and largely unpredictable (a positive aspect for me, since I can generally predict the plot of any given hour-long TV drama within the first 20 minutes), but nevertheless inevitable in a way that satisfies the reader. He can turn a phrase when he wants to, but he doesn't have quite so lyrical a grasp of language as some of the others I turn to for a good read.

In any event, I finished Mistborn over the weekend, and then, realizing from the copyright that it had been published in 2006, wondered if the second book in the series had already been released.

It had. In 2007.

So I rushed down to Borders (Barnes and Noble didn't have any copies; the paperback is due out in June 3) and grabbed a copy (when it comes to a really good book, who can wait for Amazon.com's free shipping?), and read it in just about a day. Which, in retrospect, was a bad thing, since the third and final book in the trilogy isn't due for release until October 14th.

Rationing was never my strong suit.

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But, on the bright side, a strong influx of good narrative prose often gets the creative juices flowing on my part, so I've broken through the "revising" part of my redraft and have started working on the substantive, well, redrafting--that is, throwing out crap chapters and rewriting them from scratch. In the process of writing the first draft, I knew that the initial chapters would need some serious attention in the redrafting stage, but I ignored the whinny voice in my head because my goal was to have a completed (read: crap) draft come hell or high water. Now that I've got that, it's time to get a completed (read: passable) redraft for possible first reader feedback. (Possible, because if I still feel that the redraft isn't up to snuff, then it'll face a redraft of its own.)

I've also set the tentative goal of having the redraft of the novel completed by the end of summer, or at least before November, which is the traditional NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Lunatic wordsmith that I am, I've decided to draft at least the first 50,000 words of the second novel in the series as my part of the NaNoWriMo frenzy. (There are numerous sound industry arguments against writing the sequel to a novel that has yet to--and, therefore, likely will not--be published. To those arguments, I say: I have to do what I have to do, and if that means writing out a multi-book story arc to its conclusion before moving on to another, perhaps more marketable stand-alone, then so be it. Besides, one of my goals as a writer is to never publish a novel that requires the reader to be familiar with my previous work. I seek--and only time will tell if I can be consistent on this count--to have every book in a series work as a stand-alone novel in its own right, even if some of these "stand alones" may end up with something of a cliffhanger ending.)

And yes, my NaNoWriMo participation will take place during my 3L year at law school. If nothing else, law school drills time management and multitasking into your brain like few other graduate schools, so I don't think I've bitten off more than I can chew.

Well, that's enough blogging for one week. Back to the redraft.