TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE October/04 - I should ask more questions.
The world certainly needs less answers from me.
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2021 -- beyond.
Slowing down, and asking questions.
These are two things I’m doing lately, because of writing, and because of the world right now.
I’m usually pretty headstrong, I know what I'm doing, why, how, and when. But I’m wanting to start to branch out from that as my base platform.
In writing, this means I’ve been slowing down this past fortnight and really trying to construct what I’m doing moving forward. I’ve never been good at a 5 year plan, but I can at least look at what’s reasonable for the next 3 months and see this year out with clear goals and timelines. Taking the other day to map everything out helped immensely as my mornings have had more focus rather than me looking at a dozen, or more, active projects and floundering mentally between them all - and drowning in that divide.
I get up, my Bullet Journal is more concise and clear, and I work through short goals, and then my day begins. Huzzah.
I’m mostly asking questions of myself in regards to all of this writing - what do I expect? What is reasonable? What will the timeframe look like?
This is all helping me get it sorted and get/keep me moving.
Outside of that, I still exist in the hellscape of life in 2021, so I’m doing my best to navigate that. Recently, I’ve noticed I am doing that by slowing down and asking questions.
Covid is a big one. It’s fairly hard to escape on the east coast of Australia right now, and I’m currently in a citywide lockdown, and personally in another week or so of quarantine, so it’s definitely impacting my daily thoughts. As such, I want to know information about it, and I’m definitely forming opinions about it.
Now, this seems to be an issue for some people across the nation [globe] as there are a multitude of ways/places to get your info. I’m firmly in the camp of: get vaxxed, wear a mask, stay home. I also know I’m in a privileged position of being able to maintain my job through all of this, so money is no concern, and everything else allows me to feel like I can ride this out: lovely family, big backyard, good mates to message, etc.
I could blindly allow myself to just hibernate and ride this out and hope it’ll be fine, but I’d rather know a little bit more. So as I think about Covid, and the related news of it all [especially in light of recent protests we’ve seen here], I find myself trying to read a little broadly, as much as is possible while not losing my days to it, and I find myself doing my best to be critically thinking about it all.
I listen to podcasts, I read a few different news sources, and more often than not in the case of an interesting piece of news about Covid I will do a little online searching to see what the facts around it all. It’s so insanely easy to debunk the vast majority of scaremongering social media posts claiming a wild array of theories. But it’s only possible if you ever believe what you read on the internet [which you would think would cause a recursive brain loop because if you don’t believe your own government’s Health website because it’s internet rubbish, wouldn’t you also not believe the meme shared by your Uncle Frank, but apparently it doesn’t work like that].
I try not to jump two feet into any one thing I hear, I try to do a little research, even just a skim to see what’s up. But I also don’t “research” this stuff because I’m happy to select the people whose actual research I’ll allow into my brain. If you’re a scientist then I think your interpretation of Covid data is better than mine, and better than some angry guy in his 50s who has learnt how to monetise livestreaming. I’m always happy to listen to experts, on the whole.
I will also say, I live with a nurse, so I’m blessed to be able to ask many health related questions to help support the beliefs I’m forming. And I try my best to ask questions as much as I can, though I could do more.
But it’s all got me asking questions, like why are people not listening to the experts? Why are people spinning in these vortexes of hate and misinformation online? Why are people protesting? I can’t resolve these issues, but I want to try and understand them. If nothing else, they’ll make my writing better as I strive to understand my characters more, too. Knowing why people do things is a powerful piece of insight. It can be used to affect change, and sometimes there’s no change you can make.
In writing, I can generally generate any and all change I want. I try to listen to the characters, and they get wild sometimes, but usually I can grip the reins enough to steer the ship. But I want to do so in a way that makes sense to the characters, so the better I know them then the better I know which way to lean.
I think, ultimately, I find it really disheartening to see the state of things at the moment where people can be so selfish and aggressively misinformed, but it does help me personally to dig into the why of it. Ultimately, it usually comes down to ‘fear’ or something I’ll label as ‘selfish’ but it’s often a form of entitlement or a mindset built upon personal anecdotes instead of data. But even that usually funnels back into fear.
The way we respond to fear is interesting. People rise up, they crumble, they lash out, they hide. Everyone has a response to fear, and everyone has different fears. Losing your job is one, dying as you gasp for breath is another. Looking stupid is one, feeling lost is another. If you can dig into why someone is afraid, and what they response is, you are a step closer to understanding them, which is a step closer to helping them.
But it’s also not your job to help people, and some people don’t want to be helped. I say those two, but I so rarely believe them.
The world is an interesting place right now [interesting in that there’s a lot going on, I say nothing of whether these points of interest are enjoyable]. There’s a lot to learn for how we manage future generations, but there’s also a lot of story fodder to take out of this. I often think about a zombie story now where people deny the zombie virus exists, or they get bitten and refuse to accept or share this knowledge [which is actually a common trope in zombie fic], or they drink chlorine to protect themselves from the zombie virus.
None of this is actually new, but it doesn’t hurt to think about it again and again. If we don’t learn from history, we’re doomed to repeat it. Whether you think that means the Jonestown Massacre or the Thalydomide Babies is completely up to you. You and your research and your support networks.
I hope everyone gets the chance to slow down, and ask questions, and we can all get through this.
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Pesky little jobs.
This has been a week of eliminating small little jobs that just blot out my view of the horizon. The business of the business, y’know? They aren’t things I hate, but I’ve built them up in my mind as things I “just have to get done.” Which, naturally, means I try to find ways around them to do the really fun stuff I want to get to.
Consider it like I’m driving to Disneyland and I’m focused on that sweet castle spire in the distance, but I’m struggling to stay on the road as small dots pepper my windscreen. Rather than stop and clean my screen, I just keep driving, certain it’ll all feel better when i cross through the front entrance of the happiest place on Earth and sit myself down in the spinning teacups.
Except, by then, the dots will have transferred from the windscreen to my eyeballs and I’ll never relax and have fun.
Obviously, it makes sense to push the car trip back a day and tend to the dots, right?
Obviously.
So that’s kinda been this week. Lots of little business. I’ll sink into a script or some story later. I guess.
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Try some short fiction.
I’m loving writing really short fiction. Trying to establish something in the way of character, world, tone, or a moment in a short amount of space.
I recently wrote A BRIDGE and it’s under 800 words, but it was a really satisfying delivery of story. I’ve put it up for free on my patreon to give people a taste of what I’m writing over there fortnightly.
This one in particular scratched a few itches for me: I managed to build a whole world/concept out in this space, hinting at just the right amounts, and giving a few small details that hopefully hit the brain and expand like an inkblot. I think about comic artists who’ll draw a brick wall with a section of brick outlines inked, and the rest of the wall blank, but your brain fills in the rest: this is a brick wall. That’s what I’m trying to do with my shorts here.
This exercise is a great way to explore writing to suit a small purpose. And it lets my brain get creative all the time with little things.
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ASD&D.
Finished a Candlekeep Mystery with the kid the other day. It brought together a lot of elements, and he was creative and found ways to use them to his advantage. I can see him thinking ahead as he makes choices, hoping to set things up for himself, which I find very clever.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
Elsa Charretier making an OGN on Kickstarter - I’ve long loved Elsa’s work, including her current YouTube videos, and now she’s making a short prompt based graphic novel on Kickstarter, plus I am finally biting the bullet and getting the NOVEMBER process editions. Very excited for this one.
CHAOTIC NEUTRAL on Kickstarter - a comic from Mark Sable [a writer I dig] that’s a riff on D&D. Love it.
THE LAZY DM’s GUIDE on Kickstarter - a guide to putting together D&D campaigns on the fly and in easy to manage ways. Looks very good to use.
GOBLINS IN THE GRINDLEWOLD, a D&D adventure on Kickstarter - this looks really cool.
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
Been watching a whole bunch of movies, and some tv, and I have thoughts, but they’ll have to wait.
But I will say, I’ve been consciously watching things with an eye for symbolism lately, and it’s fascinating how just a few conversations around the house have meant my kids are now looking out for it, and spotting it fairly well. They can definitely tell when sound is used to deliver information about characters, but also when lighting does it.
Take this moment in CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS when the main character is being faced with an important question on which he must choose one of two sides:
You can easily see how they’ve presented that choice visually to us, right? It usually pretty easy to see, especially in kids’ flicks, but it’s been great to discuss it and make it all verbal.
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Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
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POST CREDITS SEQUENCE
Phew, this one was a bit of a rant. Or maybe just a vent. I know I need that sometimes.
Next week: I’ll talk about comics and the EVERFROST finale, and the coming trade, and more fun stuff.
For now: enjoy the little things. Send someone a nice message. Read quietly. Play a board game. Look at some flowers up close. We’re surrounded by wonder and delights and I so rarely see them in the screen of my phone, but they’re all over my backyard.