The lobotomy was created in the 30s and later gained popularity for patients displaying things like anxiety, among other things. This was the part that hit me hard; I’ve suffered from anxiety from a young age, and imagining being giving a lobotomy for such a minor problem in comparison to its solution is horrifying. If I had gotten one before I turned 14 (I sincerely hope they didn’t give lobotomies to children), I’d have never become a writer, because it would’ve cut me off from all kinds of creativity or even identity. Lobotomised victims even lost interest in their own lives, not surprising since they were also cut off from being itself.
Lobotomies were used for depressed patients, but it’s little wonder that the treatment didn’t make that problem worse, since both depressed and lobotomised people perceive no point in functioning. It’s likely that the times the treatment was popular in reflected attitudes of behaviour; instead of embracing individuality, it seems as though people prized good behaviour and civility. Anybody who didn’t conform had to be fixed.
This is a terrible attitude to have. I personally find it horrific that people would go to such extremes to control others. It seems to glorify ignorance (seen but not heard) and punish rather than treat those who struggle to fit into society. I personally prefer the idea of shaking the world up and promoting open-mindedness.
That’s why I’m a writer. I want people to understand people, which is the exact opposite of the effect the lobotomy had.
#1493 – Asexual Awareness Week. Today I’ve been reading up on my old favourites on wordpress, ithinkincomics and onlyfragments, when I found this.
My first impressions, the first thing I wanted to say is this:
Oh honey, you’re not ugly and unacceptable. You’re beautiful. There’s no reason to feel ashamed of yourself. And I know no words I can say, or write, will make up for that feeling if you really feel it in your chest…
I’m not asexual, or anything like that. But I feel you. Or I think I do. There was perhaps a point when I felt like that, when everyone seemed interested in that and I didn’t. I was only a teenager then, but now I know that wasn’t true. I was just repressing my interests, and I didn’t even know I was doing it. I did it for years, and when I finally woke up to myself… I felt a bit like that too.
But I don’t anymore. Even if I never say it aloud, how I feel, what I want, I am far more at ease than I was when it started. I’m at ease with myself, even if I’m not with other people to the extent that I tell no one these things. But I do feel them. I’m far more the adult now, who knows herself. At 25, you’d think I would be.
So I hope anyone who reads this who is unsure knows it can get better, whatever your personal struggles are.
Okay, so I didn’t exactly post for the first week. Brief overview: I went to lectures, and Japanese tutes (tutorials). I spent the week obsessively reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, so I could have it done by this week (btw mission accomplished). The lecture theatre for Victorians to Moderns is weird; the seats are attached to the table, and swing out, and we get actual desks instead of a little slab.
Now that’s out of the way…
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but my other classes are Wonder Worlds (an English Lit class) and Novel Ideas. I didn’t have the book for that, so I basically had to look up the short stories from it online. I found 2/3, at least. My favourite of the two was A Stone Woman. I really like the way AS Byatt constructs the stone woman; I feel I could use the same kind of techniques in fleshing out my vampires’ legends.
So basically, my Novel Idea lecture was talking about each story — two of which I hadn’t yet read — and then I went home and found A Stone Woman, and finished it just in time to make it to the Novel Ideas tute. My tutor is called Melanie, and we had to go around the room stating our name, program, and preferred genre to write.
That wasn’t nearly as bad as my Wonder Worlds or Victorians to Moderns tutes though, which are incidentally taught by the same tutor; an American called Ginna. She asked for name, program and weird fact about yourself. In Wonder Worlds, I skipped over that last one. In Victorians to Moderns, I was a bit more nervous, stumbling and pausing over my introduction and answers. I forgot if I was supposed to say my name. Luckily, I was wearing my Deathly Hallows necklace at the time, so that gave me more freedom to talk about my weird fact:
“It’s from Harry Potter. It’s the symbol of the Deathly Hallows.”
“Have you read all the books?” asked Ginna.
“Yes.”
“Have you read them again?”
“I… come back to them sometimes.” By which I meant, I only use them as references for writing fan fiction. Or going back to passages I particularly like.
“You come back to them sometimes… How about the movies? Have you seen them?”
“Yes, I’ve seen all the books and all the movies. I like wizard rock. Yeah, and… all that.”
Nobody asked me what wizard rock was. Probably, none of them noticed the out-of-the-ordinary reference. But to be fair, while the class was going on, I spotted out of the window a girl in a TARDIS hoodie climbing a flight of stairs, so maybe nerd is commonplace at Uni.
The only time since then I stumbled on my words was when we were calling out modern social issues. I made a string of vaguely-connected sounds, before blowing a raspberry and collapsing on the desk to compose myself before trying again. “Genital mutilation,” I said. According to an opinionated atheist in the class, there are areas where the women perpetuate it, believing they wouldn’t be who they are without it.
Before the lecture for this very class, I also had a little adventure. I was sitting by myself, practising my kanji in my Japanese journal, when this girl comes along asking if she can sit. Even now, I’m not sure her name. “Sure,” I said. But I wasn’t sure whereabouts she wanted to sit, so suddenly I was afraid she meant to sit by me, and I needed to move over.
“It’s okay, I’m not one of those bitches who makes you leave. You were there first,” she assured me, and settled on the table-shaped bench, taking her shoes off and making herself at home.
We talked for a bit, when she asked about my Japanese. After I finished, I started reading Slaughterhouse Five for Novel Ideas. For a while, I settled in, laying down myself. “We’re paying too much not to,” the girl agreed.
But then, my classmate from last week came around, and I came to sit up again to read. He’s a big burly guy, with wavy long hair for a guy. Last week, he’d just started Uncle Tom’s Cabin when I was already on Chapter 8. This week, he confessed he wasn’t finished. I bragged that I was.
Slowly, mystery girl figured out the connection. “You’re in Creative Writing,” she deduced. “Oh, yeah, cause you just said it.”
From the conversations between the three of us, I learned that she was studying Social Work (which she insisted was boring, but that all three of us were creative students and thus “the cool kids”. I concurred), she was 22, her father was something of a writer, and her favourite comedians were Key and Peele. She showed us, the ignorant two, a skit they did. It was actually pretty funny; I was laughing. She was also horrified to find out neither of us does snap chat. I thought of mentioning my sister did it, but decided not to.
Mystery girl is actually the reason I wore my Deathly Hallows necklace to tute next day; she had a Deathly Hallows tattoo on her neck, and I never mentioned my matching necklace, so I wanted to at least show someone. Paul, (that was the other student’s name), did notice. Apparently we’re in the same tute class, and he’s every bit as sociable as mystery girl. Although he surely doesn’t have tatts and piercings like she does.
Eventually, she left with her own classmates, off to Building C where her lecture (at the same time as ours) was. It was only then that Paul realised neither of us caught her name. I’d been thinking of asking her before. Just another thing I held back.
#1434. To be honest, I forgot about this blog for a while. I’ve just spent this past half-year at Uni, daily writing my series, and writing fan fiction at my other site (no, you can’t read it).
To be honest, I’ve been thinking of coming back here for ages, but I didn’t know what to write. Even if I don’t write fiction here, I can always try to write about my life. For example, I could catch you up on what I’ve done at Uni.
I just recently got my results back – two passes and two distinctions for my intro classes. In about a couple of weeks, I’ll be back at Uni, but not before Open Day hosts Quidditch, music, a chai tea tent, and free food. I’ll be going to that, by the way.
So okay, just so you know, I’m going to commit myself now to write at least one post about Uni a week in the new semester, and one flash fiction.
In case you were interested, last semester I studied: Communication and Thought (a very basic course that all students have to take), Communication Theory and Practise, Introduction to Creative Writing, and Japanese A.
My two distinctions were in Intro to CW and Japanese. Next year, I need to try harder, though. There’s a GO program that I need better grades than a pass to get into (I’d be going to Japan).
Recently I was thinking about a documentary I once saw. It was about Merlin, that wizard of myth originally created by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Towards the end of that documentary, it talked about JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. It said that the two famous authors used to meet in a pub and talk about Merlin; and that characters in both their writings had a character based on him, the one Aslan, and the other Sauron.
I have since wondered whether the documentary got it wrong, and they were really talking about God. I know at least one of them was a Christian man, and by assumption, so is the other. But that thought didn’t sit well with me, so for a while, I pretended it really was Merlin.
I realise, though, that the reason Merlin sits better with me is because I know he isn’t real, and I’m also assuming other people do too. After all, I watched the documentary; I know he isn’t real. But the fact is, other people won’t have seen it. If those people suddenly started saying that Merlin really was the one who created Stonehenge — Geoffrey’s most famous tale, and one he invented to give Merlin some credibility — it would piss me off. Because I know full well (from another documentary) that Stonehenge was actually created in the late Stone Age by early man.
Another popular story about Stonehenge was that aliens helped. That one pisses me off even more; what does it say about how man sees himself? Do we think we’re capable of nothing? Stonehenge was a great human achievement, and far from the last. And we did it all by ourselves.
But I digress: what I’m really trying to say is that I don’t think people believe in Merlin, but they do still believe in God. And that worries me, because stories have power, especially stories people think are true but aren’t. I write stories myself, but I would never try to pass them off as the truth. And yet, at the very least, the writers of the bible have done just that, in order to persuade — manipulate — people to act and think a certain way. They use fear of hell at the very least to inform this.
What pisses me off about God is that it gives people an excuse not to think for themselves. Like those stories of Merlin or aliens, it gives people something to alleviate either responsibility or pressure, and makes them complacent. Perhaps they want to relax, and maybe that’s understandable, but it pushes down our potential, it takes away from us what we could do, it takes away from us self-belief and puts it into something else, so we become little more than sheep or cattle, following a grand master. And I’m not okay with that.
I’ll admit once I thought I was worthless, when I was a kid I even imagined a God and thus believed it. And then when I was a teenager, I continued to struggle. But the point is, I wasn’t worthless. And the fact that we have to make up ridiculous stories just to cope with ourselves or our lives is insulting to me.
Monty Python’s The Life of Brian put it best:
Brian: You’re all individuals!
Crowd: Yes, we are all individuals.
Brian: You’re all different!
Crowd: Yes, we are all different.
Crowd Member 1: I’m not.
Crowd Member 2: Ssh!
Brian: You’ve got to work it out for yourselves! Otherwise–
I have been watching the University website for updates on what to read and how to prepare for my classes. At the moment, I’ve been particularly looking at Japanese. The University has a Facebook page for students of Japan and Japanese, and sometimes people post links to cultural things.
These are particularly interesting. The last one particular grabbed me, because it’s a phrase I’ve heard before on Facebook, if in a different context: Hate Speech.
In this case, it’s a buzzword that started when anti-Korean protests in a Korean section of Tokyo happened sometime last year. Either way, it’s a particularly important phrase for a number of things, and as I’ve seen on Facebook, important to know the difference between it and Free Speech.
Here’s another Facebook link I found. I already do some of these, but there is probably a wider range of music I could listen to, and making notes on things is something I didn’t think of.
There are also tips for those living in Japan. These are things I would probably have thought of anyway, as I often eavesdrop on people when I’m bored anyway, and the same goes for reading signs. In fact, once when I still lived in the Sydney suburbs, when I used to catch the train into Parramatta, there were a few Japanese people who lived even closer to the bus stop, who came out and started to talk in Japanese. They even took the same bus!
The problem was, the only word I actually caught was ”かぞく” (kazoku), which means family. But I knew it was definitely Japanese, because one of the girls had a luggage tag that said so.
Another time on the bus, I met a girl who was studying Japanese too, because she had the same textbook as me.
I recently read this article/pep talk by Scott Westerfeld in my email. Just like his pep during NaNo, this particular one was definitely insight and memorable — he really knows how to string two words together.
But the point was it really reminded me of where I started.
Here are the most important points he made, to start your revision by answering these questions:
Which scenes flowed from your pen, and which were clunky?
Which writerly decisions embarrass you now?
Which characters were like a bad relationship, and which turned out unexpectedly compelling?
Which goals that you started with aren’t worth pursuing anymore?
And what startling new vistas opened up?
For the first point, I’m reminded of the first scenes of the first two chapter in the first book in the series I’ve been writing for these past ten years. The very beginning, in short, of my entire story of Dawn, my centre character of it all.
The first chapter details her life on the mountain, living alone with her family. The set-up is that she lives in a house in the mountains in an abusive household isolated from society and dreaming of escape. She has an adoptive sister, her only support, but that doesn’t stop Dawn from gaining a hard shell or from thinking better of the world outside. And through all this, she has no idea just how close town really is, because she’s never escaped that far.
Throughout my drafting of this first chapter, I’ve gone through many different versions. At first, I had both parents, then I had the mother flee at the start of canon, and now I have her gone by the time Dawn was three, because I needed to tie in the details from later in the series, and Dawn discovers she has a biological sister. That was the biggest change.
Nevertheless, through the years, that first chapter and the one that follows is constantly being changed or fixed or edited because I just thought of something else that was wrong, or unrealistic, or that looks terrible. It’s always those two chapters. So I’d say, coming from that perspective, they must’ve been clunky, especially that first chapter. But as Scott points out in his pep talk, I was young and — maybe not so innocent, but maybe I was, if I was innocent in my ignorance.
And through those young dreams of running away (in my case, it was the reverse, though not nearly to the motivations that Dawn had), those first chapters were always, I think, my strongest. As far as first drafting goes, when I first wrote, it did feel relatively that it flowed, better than a lot of think in those early days. Maybe that’s why I’ve stuck to it for so long.
Let’s move along to the second point… embarrassing writerly mistakes.
If I could stick to those first few chapters, I’m sure that those mistakes probably still exist in my first book draft. Well, the way I wrote in those early days certainly held some common mistakes. I remember writing waking up scenes, trying to describe the characters appearance, etc.
Talking more on content, I think in that first draft, I took away from the abuse of the situation by making her escape in smaller ways. I remember a particular description of her escaping the house and going for a bush walk up the mountain, and specifically the feeling of a wall of sandstone under her fingers as she felt along the surface… Then in the dialogue scenes between her father, I don’t really think I had a grasp of what that scene would look like, or how it would feel. And describing her pain was another problem.
There were even small details when she was cleaning up on him and heard popular music on the radio, or when I would try to list the kinds of books her sister Belinda read…
Of course, none of this was as bad as chapter two, when the scenes escalated dramatically to finally escaping, only to meet a worse fate. The boys on the mountain… If I didn’t understand how her father would act, I had even less idea about the boys who wandered in from town, or what they were doing there. All I knew was what Dawn knew and felt.
All this is just the first two chapters, and although there are other things I’ve written, none of them really stick out in my head as strongly. Probably because in the very beginning of my writing, I was in the habit of editing those things over and over again instead of just pressing ahead with the writing. And of course, that’s where NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) stepped in to help me get rid of that habit, way back in 2007.
Of course, that brings me to the relationships with my characters. Well, of course there’s Dawn; me and her go way back, and I’ll always love her. She’s my favourite character to date, though Dylan takes second. Dylan was actually quite a surprise; I didn’t expect to love her as much as I do, but I managed to put more of myself than I ever expected to in her, and I love her for it.
Although she’s different from me in that she’s outspoken and determined, on the inside she has much of the same confusion and insecurities that I’ve dealt with in the past.
And then of course, there’s Seth, her brother. Another character I care a great deal about, he encompasses another side of me. That is, the side that wants to fight my reality, and all the indignities I find follows certain aspects of living. For example, sexuality in the public light. Partly oppressed by his dead adoptive father, he diminishes his public image to one of invisibility so as not to be judged unworthy, a fact that Dylan endlessly fights against. And I understand why, but I understand Seth’s point of view much better.
Now, as far as bad relationships, I do have something of and on-again-off-again relationship with Andrea. When I first invented her, it was as a match for Seth. Given a shaded past, I thought he deserved a companion, and then that relationship grew into something like love. But this was in their childhood, and even then, he had his reasons to keep distant.
But then, after years, when I finally came back to her story (after spending so long on Dawn’s), every time I tried to put them together, they somehow tore apart again. What’s definitely true is that Andrea really desperately cares for him. It’s also become clear that, in his own private way, he cares for her too. What’s unclear is how much, and what form that care takes.
Another iffy character of mine is Brenda. Sure, she shares certain traits in common with me, like her social isolation and her love of books, but Brenda’s one character that falls flat to me as her own person. I can sympathise her reasons for breaking up with her ex, but beyond that, she mostly remains a mystery to me.
Which brings me to Orion. My relationship with him is only a little better, even though I share less in common with him. What I do share in common is his sense of outrage, and his concealed defence of those he cares about. I’ve always hated his brother Alex, one of my first villains, but through his eyes I began to see him in a new light.
I’m not sure if there are goals I had at the start that aren’t worth pursuing anymore. I mean, certainly, the series that I’m writing now were once separate, as well as the characters, so maybe that. But besides that…
As far as startling new vistas… I’m going to University this year. I’ll probably post an entry on that later. And eventually, all my drafts will come together. As far as plotting, that’s something else I have to figure out, especially for the third book.
There’s still a lot to do before my first drafts of the whole series is complete. But as a writer, of course, I’m looking forward to it. Here’s hoping it’s all going to happen before the next ten years passes.
I can’t believe Trifecta is finally ending! Well, after all the entries I’ve contributed to our community, it’s only right I should come back for just one more. I wrote this back in February, but now I’m repurposing it for this final hurrah.
—
She huddled against the cold, clinging to the one tiny pocket she had in front of her and chilled to the bone everywhere else. She had been forced into this corner, once having all the luxuries of a bed and now forced into the cold hard floor in the middle of winter. Just outside the door, she heard voices. Full of bitterness, she listened.
“Do you think there’s any hope for her?”
She could see his face, just imagine it in her mind. Her brother. She felt nothing but hate for him, something he would never understand through all his little denials of the weight of his guilt. Nothing would ever be enough, not anymore. Her hate for him was the only thing that kept her strong.
“There could be,” explained a stranger. Could he have brought her some doctor to take her away? “I mean, from what you’ve told me… that is, she won’t agree with me, but I feel like I can understand…” A shuddering breath. So maybe not a doctor.
“What she said about… hating you being her only strength. I mean, yeah. I can get that. I think right now, her family’s her only hope. She doesn’t know it now, but there can be more… if she can find the strength in hate, maybe she can find a different strength. Not in you, perhaps, she hates you far too much for that, but her family… if she can find some love in them, maybe there’s still a chance for her to one day… forgive you too.”
The very thought made her furious. Forgive him! There was nothing in all the world to make her forgive him, not if she lived for a hundred years! She would never forgive, she never could, she refused! He had taken everything from her, her entire life! And there was nothing shameful in strength from hate. She would do anything, if it meant that she would be strong; anything, if it meant she would never be weak again! It was worth it in the end…
“I hope so,” he said, and she wanted to tear him from the earth. “But even if she doesn’t… it’s okay. I just want her to be happy again.”
He had everyone else fooled, but he didn’t fool her! He had all the strength of luxury, while she suffered in the cold! And even if she suffered it all, he remained blind to what it truly felt for her. He would never understand, so she could never forgive him. Just the very thought made her stomach turn.
He could never be forgiven. Her mind was too far gone for forgiveness. It rose like bile in her throat.
She curled harder into herself, desperate from that little bit of warmth to spread just a little further. She was freezing.
“I figure I owe you this dinner. You saved my life five years ago.”
Tim grinned. “Does that make me your saviour?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Scrooge. “I was depressed, anything might have done it. All you did was give me your hand. I’m the one who pulled myself out.”
“Yeah, whatever. I saved you, just admit it,” said Tim. “Anything might have done it, but nothing might have happened, either. You could’ve died.”
“This is my thanks, this dinner,” said Scrooge. “Don’t rub it in.”
“So tell me the story,” asked his father, and for the briefest blink of the eye, Scrooge saw his own father staring back at him, that constant judging look, that never-wavering stare that caused lesser men to break down in front of him. But then it was gone in the blink of an eye, and there was Timothy’s father, smiling brightly with an odd light in his eyes.
“I was at the end of my rope,” explained Scrooge. “I hated the world around me and everyone in it. And yet, even after I tried to brush him aside, your son didn’t relent. Now, I’m not like one of these depressive kids these days out for attention, but what he did was open me up again to the world. I decided then and there that it was time to change.”
“Inspiring story,” Tim’s father agreed. “We could all learn from it.”
—
Note: This is a little late, but I got stuck without internet for about half a week. Better late than never, I say!
He had almost been a statistic; suicidal rates at Christmas skyrocket, everyone knows that. But he wouldn’t have thrown himself off a bridge or jumped in front of a car. He would’ve just walked out into a world he had grown to hate until it buried him.
It wasn’t that he had been particularly touched by the little boy who had talked to him once, or suddenly believed in the kindness of strangers. But as he thought of the sight of him walking away, something had risen in his chest. A bright little ball of hope, that he didn’t even have the spirit to damn it the way he always had.
It wasn’t just some cheesy line, no, it had been somehow real, and not anything like he’d ever assumed. Scrooge was nothing if not ambitious, and that hope turned into a new goal in his mind.
He still hated his family, but they weren’t the only ones that existed. There were people out there that might understand him. And he had found them.
“Pass the turkey,” said Scrooge, sitting at the dinner table.
Familiar old hands complied. After five years, he had met that special little boy again, after Scrooge had pulled himself out of his slump, and now he had a whole new family.
“Of course,” said Tim.
—
Note: This is a little late, but I got stuck without internet for about half a week. Better late than never, I say!
littlewonder2 