Chilly Days & Temporary Insanity

The weather today is a brisk 48 degrees,  cloudy, rainy, and slightly windy out at the pilot. We are waiting for parts before we can turn on the system, but in the meantime, I am enjoying my lunch and suffering temporary insanity.

As a native Southern Californian, I have always loved the rain for a variety of reasons, primarily because it is relatively scarce in the Los Angeles area, but also because I have always been able to bundle up with a warm blanket, jacket, hot drink, etc. and go out into the rain on my terms. But now that I am a "big girl" out in the "real world," I can't just pull the blankets back over my head and snuggle in.

In LT, there is a point where one of the characters is trapped in the elements for am extended period of time, and I think I know understand exactly how this character should react. Stuck out here in the cold has made thoughts of anything but warmer things rather illusive and I would imagine hallucinations rather prevalent at a certain point. On a side note, perhaps gloves might be in order prior to the coolest winter days.

Empty Houses

As I mentioned in PTSD vs. Higher Education, we have been in search of a house.  Well, I am pleased to say, the search is over.  I am currently sitting on the floor in the front room of our brand new house in surprisingly pleasant Hemet, CA.  Truth be told, I have hated Hemet proper since I was a child riding in a painfully slow car up Florida Avenue on my way to the mountains for camping, but now that I am a Hemetite...its growing on me...like a fungus.  I can't get over the view from our front yard.  The foothills, the riverbed, the peace.  Admittedly, I am jumping at every unfamiliar sound, but in time I think I will like it here.

Unfortunately, I am supposed to be at my day-job at the moment, but instead had to take paid time-off to babysit my house.  The previous residents had a water softener system which they elected to take with them upon leaving the house.  Unfortunately for us, they simply unhooked the piping and left the water off.  Now for those of you not in the potable water industry, potable waterlines are never supposed to be left open to the air.  Apart from contaminates, critters like dark spaces with available sources of water, hence my water pipes are the ideal roosting place for spiders and the like.  Furthermore, since none of the pipes have been sealed off, turning the water back on would result in flooding in our garage and kitchen.

As part of our registered complaints upon taking possession of the house, we requested they complete the removal of the system including proper sealing of the potable water system and the removal of the filtration system upstream of the water heater.  Our agent even took pictures of the "offending" parts, however the seller is claiming they have not received the pictures, but will be stopping by the house sometime between noon and 6 p.m. to correct their improper plumbing.  Yay for me!

So I am sitting and will likely continue to sit on the floor of our house with no available facilities for six hours with nothing but my phone to keep me company while my husband and little brother hang out playing video games in Colton.  While I enjoy the peace and quiet, the flies, lack of food, restroom inaccessibility, and the loneliness are overbearing.  At least I have time to work on my synopsis for Silent Symphony.

Audience?

I must admit the main reasons I have not blogged in a while are (1) I have suffered a small case of writer's block, (2) I have been very busy working my day job, and (3) I have been rather disheartened lately about my writing in general. In the back,quiet, more rational side of my brain, I fully understand how crazy people's lives can get, but the louder side of my brain is crying out saying "look what I did!! Be proud of me and enjoy my work."

So to appease my simple-sided self, if you are reading this, do me a favor and leave a comment. I would love to know how many actually read this and how many views are just tracking sites.

Work & Pleasure

My work has been interesting lately.  I have a new project that started up on Monday and I am in the process of getting everything fully operational.  One of the most challenging parts is being completely useless in the entire process.  A bunch of guys with a lot more experience than I possess have taken over a large portion of my tasks which works out to be exceptionally beneficial in the long run for a variety of reasons, but has left me feeling rather obsolete.

On the plus side, terrifying, new challenges are cropping up which at least pose interesting puzzlers. This entire situation gives me new perspective on how my characters should react when they feel useless. Ali especially will have a hard time with this throughout the story.

I am really looking forward to working on LT this weekend and maybe working on my synopsis as well. Ms. Jackson clarified her submission requirements, so I need to drastically reduce my synopsis to 1 or 2 pages. My little brother had been reading SS in his free time so I look forward to his comments and will likely need to make substantial revisions. I'm toying with submitting first, just to see her comments before revising, but at the same time, I wouldn't want to give her an unfinished product.

Tolerances

I have always taken great pride in being non-judgmental of people.  I have always found myself to be exceptionally understanding of people and their differences.  But I discovered today that I am entirely the opposite.  I am extremely judgmental, but not of the “usual” people.

Many people see someone with a disability, any disability, and don’t know how to react.  Some are outright mean and cruel, others avoid them entirely.  Me?  I see someone with a disability and I see someone who has likely been kicked, mocked, teased, and abused most of their life and I want to help them.  I want to be a friend to them, to show that not all people are cruel, to show they have worth beyond their disability.  I can quite honestly say, for people with disabilities, I make it my goal to be their best friend.

It’s everyone else I am intolerant of.  I see a blond driving and texting; my first instinct is “bobble-head bitch that is going to cut me off soon.”  I don’t know why she is texting.  I don’t know if it is an emergency and she is being pursued by mad gunman planning on selling her into slavery.  I don’t know if she is rushing to the hospital because her son cracked is skull open on the playground and is being sent for emergency surgery with limited chances of survival.  All I see is hair color, gender, and cell phone immediately assuming “bitch.”

Similarly, I see a hot guy in a classy shirt and nice fitting jeans and automatically assume he is gay.  For all I know, he is model or is on his way to a date.  Interestingly enough, I have objections to him being gay apart from not being on the menu as a hot dish.  I was thoroughly disappointed to discover Neil Patrick Harris and Matt Bomer were gay, but I didn’t think anything less of them because of it.

This entire dichotomy came to light when I was remembering a conversation I had about Peter Dinklage.  I remember hearing about a statement he made where he said something to the effect of “women don’t see me for me, they see me for my money.  When it really comes down to it, women will chase after the six foot tall guys everything time.”  I was imagining what I would say to him if I ran into him on the street (yes, I do that sometimes…very active imagination).  I would say, “You’re wrong.  You are far more than your appearance.  Any woman worth her salt would see you for what you were and fall in love with the man not the money.”  I know, a lot of girls say that, but it’s true.

I have a friend in an online game that is 28, over 6 feet tall, skinny as a rail, and has a trachea tube.  He has never had a girlfriend, and swears he has never been kissed let alone anything else.  Yet girls tell him all the time how amazing he is as a friend and will cry on his shoulder when their gorgeous boyfriends hurt them.  They friend-zone him constantly, and it makes me so angry.  I know him through a video game.  In that world, appearances don’t matter.  Personality does, actions do, words do.  There, people can be themselves and be known for who they truly are beyond their appearances.  Or alternatively, they can be their alter-ego acting out situations they would never dare to try face to face.

Regardless, I thought I was above the judgmental assumptions, but in truth, I only assume the worst about the average person…or the exceptionally wealthy (that probably stems from being lower middle class and hearing about millionaires complain about billionaires doing whatever they want).  Today, I realized that in my attempts at being completely tolerant, I became exceptionally judgmental of many people.  Maybe now that I realize my habits, I can finally find a way to break the cycle and become truly accepting of people and their individuality.

Been a While

Like Lullaby Trial, I have been struggling with what to say. I know what I want to say and where I want to go but not how to say it nor where to step on my path. I am working on chapter 3 and am trying to determine how broken, how fragile to make my characters. I know this writer's block of mine stems from my own emotional struggles at the moment. I know I am hurt by the constant reminder of my miscarriage and the ever ticking timepiece reminding me of the family I seek to start.

But I also know my time we come and patience is required. I know I will have my family soon enough and I know the timing of everything could not really be better. I know I will be published and I know I will continue to write. And in the same sense I know what to do with my characters. I must simply be patient and everything will come together.

My grandmother has been reading my book as well. She called me yesterday to let me know she started it and is about 40 nook pages in. She really encouraged me.  For a while I was hesitant about sending it to her because I was afraid she wouldn't like it and be disappointed, but yesterday she said she found it very engaging and had no trouble visualizing my scenes. She said once she read the first page she couldn't put it down until the benadryl kicked in.

I was very encouraged by the entire phone call and admittedly had a hard time sleeping last night. I am still thinking about the animation and various different plot points. I am hoping to get my submittal checked for spelling and grammar soon so I can submit it. With any luck I can get some of my college friends to help me out on that.

As always, I will keep you posted.

Character Complexity: Contradiction

The most difficult thing in the world I have found is not calculus, or stoichiometric formulas, or astrophysics.  The most difficult thing in the world I have found are people.  People are complex, ever evolving (or in some cases devolving), and nonsensical.  People are probably the last great mystery in that we will likely discover all there is to know about the universe before we fully understand people.  There is a book with the title “Everything Men Know About Women” that is completely blank.  It is meant as a gag gift and a statement on the confounding intricacies of the female gender, but I wonder how much we truly know about anyone.  Sociologists, psychologists, and a bunch of other –ologists have concocted numerous bits of “facts” regarding behaviors, psychology, brain chemistry, etc. but I would argue most of that is simply hypothesis parading as fact.

The entire concept of Freud’s “penis envy” basically states the root of women’s issues is their desire to possess penises and the scientific community at the time gobbled it up.  While I firmly believe this theory is ludicrous at best, I would argue the overall premise may be accurate.  Women in today’s society may not want the organ, but many certainly want the equality.  Or do they?

Women today want to be viewed in the same light as men in their professions.  As a female engineer, I would be insulted if I was excluded from a project solely on the bases of being female.  However, there are numerous types of projects I would hope to get out of on the same basis.  As a female, I have the potential to become pregnant while serving an engineer.  There are numerous types of projects such as construction management or chemicals testing that I feel could potentially be too dangerous for my baby.  As a result, I would avoid these projects while pregnant.  However, in the same light, what would an employer do if a man walked in and said, “My wife and I are trying to have a baby, therefore I can’t oversee this construction project?”

Women want equality when it comes to pay and treatment, but we also want the additional privilege of avoiding unpleasant or potentially dangerous circumstances.  Today, I read a Tweet arguing that an article about “Diversity” included only male authors’ opinions.  While I am under no illusions of Twitter being a certifiable source, the concept is still well demonstrated.  Women wish to be included in the narrative.  I can understand that.

Here is a concept I have a hard time understanding.  My college had a cultural center featuring suites for each major ethnicity included in campus life.  I thought it was a wonderful concept.  They had this cultural day where each suite prepared culture specific food and sold it in the quad as kind of a “Tastes of the World.”  I thought it was brilliant.  Then I noticed something.  There was an entire pseudo-continent excluded.  There were no European nations represented.  No French, no Irish, no German, no Swedish, no New Zealanders, no Ice Lander, etc.  Basically, no caucasian of any kind were represented.

Now, if you think about it, celebrating diversity means celebrating anything different.  While I am in no way claiming discrimination does not happen, I would like to point out the simple sampling conducted at the cultural center demonstrated a clearly lacking populace.  For everyone out there that would like to trumpet the causes of diversity, please take into consideration the whole picture.  As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, he hoped for a day when we“…will not be judged by the color of [our] skin, but by the content of [our] character.”  This is critical.  Color is entirely irrelevant.  Actions matter, people matter, words matter, appearance does not.

And yet despite this call for universal acceptance, humanity also wishes to proclaim their differences.  As an example, members of the homosexual community want the world to know they are homosexual.  There is nothing wrong with that.  It is an individual’s prerogative and in no way am I in a position to judge.  My only question is why is that relevant in the first place?  Because people like to be different.  We want to be known as an individual, not by a stereotype, not by a label.  We want to be known as who we are and not be lumped into some broader category so some proclaim a label.  In my example, the label was “homosexual.”  They have chosen to identify with this particular label in order to individualize themselves from a broader category.

Do you see where I am going with this?  People are so complex, so contradictory.  By declaring a label, you jump from one large pool of people into a smaller one thus becoming more of an individual recognized on a different scale.  Yet at the same time, people scream for equality wanting to be treated just like everyone else.  Equality and Diversity.  Two completely contradictory mentalities effectively saying, “I want to be treated exactly the same, but you must acknowledge my differences.”  People are so complex like that.

It is this complexity that I strive to bring forward in my characters.  It is this contradictory nature that is so critical in making a character realistic.  I know my writing ability is not there yet.  I know my characters lack this inherent complexity.  But I am young.  I have time to work on it.  And in the end, I hope to create a character that is so complex, it could pass as human.  I wonder if we will ever truly understand people.