Writing and the "Real World"

You know, we writers love to complain. We love to complain how our jobs get in the way of our writing, how life gets in the way of our writing, and how our writing gets in the way of our writing.

Yeah, that last one. You ever get an idea, and that idea starts you writing, and that writing brings forth ideas that require whole new stories and whole new plot lines and whole new ...

Not that I'm talking from experience, or anything like that. But let's just say that my flagship story ("My Sister Rosalie") has gone from a one-shot to a three volume novel with three side stories of the first volume ("Rose by a Lemon Tree," "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," and (unpublished) "The Hurt Chair"). And the funny thing is the following: "My Sister Rosalie" was just an aside of my "main" idea about Lilly and Lucas in high school ... that I haven't gotten around to starting.

Ugh, I'm living a cliché: I'm a writer of a three-volume novel, just like Miss Prism in "The Importance of Being Earnest." I even write earnestly, for goodness sake!

As the French say: le Sigh!

But that pesky real world: where would we be without it? Isn't it amazing how life imitates art? For example, I write a chapter about Bella and (not-)blueberries ("Just Say It"), and come to find my cara spoza can't stand them in her oatmeal. Go figure!

Or, I write about economy and the Great Depression ("With the Depression On") and that recalls to me what my own grandfather went through during those troubled times.

Or, my meditations on what a vampire is (want), and isn't (angelic will), in an unpublished fragment that will, thankfully, never see the light of day, lead me to ruminations about, of all things, DDR.

I mean, seriously! The "real world" shows up all over the place, even in introductory snide side comments from our much put-upon vampire about gratitude.

So, writers, the next time you complain about the real world getting in the way of your writing, don't. Benjamin Franklin reminds us that he who does not have enough is silent, and he who has enough, complains (or: "It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man." This is Big Ben's reminder to me to stop complaining about writing and just get to the actual work of writing). After all, you have been given a gift. Who writes? Nearly nobody in the world writes, ... but you do. And, sometimes, even, your writing saves somebody from despair, or maybe even inspires somebody else to write. Only you can sing your song.

Sing it.

Learning from history: Efficacious Caius

The sad and beautiful thing about history, besides its existence and essence, is that 1) it repeats itself because 2) hardly anyone takes the time to study it and to learn from it. Vampires do need to study it and to learn from it, that is from the history that they themselves have not experienced, and the smart ones, like Jasper, do just that. A philosophy major vampire with his nose in a book? Those are the most dangerous kinds.

Take, for example, the Volturi. They are the most dangerous vampires in the world. Why? Because they know their history. Arguably the most dangerous one is the most ignored one: Caius. He knows how to get rid of problems: eliminate them. Period. And he follows the Rule to the letter, because he knows there's nothing more dangerous and unmanageable than a frenzied crowd. Aro could and should learn a lesson or two from Caius.

That's not saying he hasn't. Caius is one of the Three for a reason. Caius is no pawn. He knows the score: he just takes the most direct path, because he knows, from his three thousand years of experience, that most problems are most easily solved directly. Diplomacy? Pfft! Aro can play his games, but the cohesiveness of the Volturi is built from victory to victory. And behind most of those victories (besides the big public splash that Marcus made in the Carpathian suppression) is Caius with his very simple, straightforward and direct approach.

And Caius doesn't need to sing out his merits, because he knows that lack of attention isn't a bad thing at all: a lot can get done when nobody else is watching your every move (are you listening, Aro?). Vampires being out of the limelight isn't just because of the Rule (Caius: "Yes, it is!") but also because of all the other, accidental, benefits that flow from that inattention.

Mobs: unruly, undisciplined, ineffectual: dangerous because they are so chaotic.

The Volturi. Hm. Quite the opposite of a mob, aren't they! And they have been in power for more than three thousand years.

There's quite a bit people could learn from history. But then, they'd have to learn, now, wouldn't they? And that might interrupt their ESPN time.

Major Jasper Whitlock Hale

While we're talking about deus ex machina characters (*ahem* Alice), let us turn our attention to Jasper. I'm sorry to sound like a one-note nag, but here is another character that has been totally misinterpreted by the fan base, particularly in fan fiction.

Why? Whenever Jasper makes an appearance is (to fail) to diffuse a confrontation. "Oh, there was going to the big fight between the characters of this story, but Jasper diffused it, so everyone went home confused, because I needed to write my way out of this corner I wrote myself into."

So, why have the confrontation at all if nothing develops from it? That is, that the characters learn that they can be as irascible as they desire, because Jasper will simply eliminate animosity?

Or, worse: "Jasper tried to calm x but his power didn't seem to affect x's rage."

How many times have I read this in fan fiction? Too, too many times.

If Jasper's power has no effect, and his inability causes no change in the story or the characters, why mention it? You are trespassing on Jasper when he tries something and then you throw him back into the cobwebbed plot corner you pulled him forward from. I mean, what are Jasper's feelings when his powers fail? Have you considered that? Nobody that writes the ineffectual line in the fan fiction I've read considers how that affects Jasper, the empath.

Certainly, Jasper's ability can fail, and that failure should be written about, but only in the context that there's some price to be paid. Do not parade a super power if there is no consequence to it.

But really, so what? Jasper has a deus ex machina super power. This makes him extremely difficult to write well, but behind that super power is an entity; does anybody think about who that Jasper is?

Yes. Minisinoo's Cowboys and Indians and Mandi1's You've Kept Me Waiting.

So, you've read those stories. So you know that Jasper is a philosopher: a philosopher that thinks and that is willing to act on those thoughts.

But he's also an officer and soldier. Now in the canon, he was put into situations where he could not show forth his vast strategic knowledge. Like the following:

Did he charge at Victoria and her Newborns in Eclipse, or did he sit in Forks, waiting for them to come - long enough for SM to set up her plot lines wherein Edward and Jacob would both end up with Bella in a tent? Did he charge at the Volturi threat in BD, or did he take off and leave with Alice to go to South America in order to bring back some [lame] half vamp? And where was he in New Moon when Edward was going to sparkle himself to death? Really, I don't remember, but he sure [...] wasn't charging at any threat. Oh, but let's not forget his masterful leadership in Twilight - sitting in the hotel room while Alice drew pictures and then allowing Bella to give him the slip.

- Thanks to LiLa for the comprehensive analysis

But what if he were put into a situation where he could and should act as a soldier. Let's say Bella is kidnapped and held as a pawn to blackmail the Cullens to do or to abstain from certain acts. If they refuse, she's destroyed, and they are next. What would Jasper do?

Here's my take:

Jasper is a Major of the Confederate Army that successfully held off a more-powerful more-well-equipped with supplies, arms, and men and more-surrounding Northern Aggressor. He knows the score. You play the enemy's game for any length of time, you lose. It's as simple as that. You make your own plan that lulls the enemy into thinking they have you over a barrel, and then you strike hard.

Jasper was also the leader of an army of volatile and every changing newborns, training them very, very quickly (as they only had a year of effectiveness before their innate advantage wore off) and killing them with utter ruthlessness. His army outnumbered him at least 20 to 1, yet he still replaced every one of them every year.

Jasper, outnumbered 20 to 1, facing a powerful and better prepared enemy, is advising playing the waiting game?

No. "When the enemy attacks, charge." He's read the lessons learned from the Great War, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. He knows his own army's strength, and he already knows the strength of the enemy.

The strength of the enemy is this. They have no strength. They SAY they have strength, but this is a bluff. They can only give the illusion of strength, but behind the enemy's bluff is a force that is strained to the gills holding a prisoner. Jasper knows that as soon as the enemy starts talking is the time not to fool around with strategy and tactics, its time to lay down an all-out frontal assault with his very powerful family, route the enemy and kill every last one of them, mercilessly, as they make their hasty attempt to regroup or to retreat.

Jasper has fought in more wars than this little hostage situation to know that sitting still and accepting enemy's terms, even for one second, is admitting defeat. Attack, and attack now, this is the only way to create the possibility of winning.

Ask the Special Forces guys. Ask the Marines. I have. I've lived with them. I've trained with them. "Let the enemy come to you" or "wait it out" ≡ "wet yourself and die."

No. "Attack." "Keep moving." "Shock, awe, confuse, kill, win."

But Edward cries: "But Bella will die!" Sorry, Edward. Bella is already dead. If we don't attack right now, we'll all be dead. If we attack now, we may recover her. If we don't, she will certainly die. This is war. People die. So sorry, but anything else is Disney fairy tale. The only way to save Bella is to kill and kill and kill until every last one of the enemy is dead.

That is the only way.

Or, like most fan depictions of our "slacker" Jasper, he could just cool his heels and let the enemy dictate the terms and pace of the unfolding events. Hm. Good advice, Jasper. Which war did you fight in again?

Jasper has read Sun Tzu, yes? And the Go Rin No Sho? Yes, he has. And he's read Rommel (he keeps up) and Patton's speeches, and philosophy in general. What does philosophy say? "Let life happen to you"? Or "the best way to predict the future is to invent it"? Are you listening, Alice?

Do you see Jasper, in this situation where he's assuming a leadership role, saying "Let it be" or "Carpe Diem"? Jasper, in the canon, advises patience and caution: wonderfully wise-sounding strategy in fiction. How does it measure up in real life: "A good plan today is better than a perfect one tomorrow."

Jasper, you are the leader: lead. The battle lines are drawn. Break through them and kill the enemy, every last one of them, left, right and center.

Or die, slowly, playing the enemy's game.

You touch one Cullen, you have Jasper to deal with, and you do not want to deal with Jasper. He, himself, has destroyed over THREE THOUSAND vampires. This is canonical. And he didn't do this by sitting back, and he's probably handled at least 10 hostage situations, and he knows paralysis is death.

Kill, Jasper, right now. Or you will get what you deserve: watching your loved ones burn, one of them being your Alice before you, and then you.

Jasper, in the canon, in his hesitancy, sounds wise and philosophical, but I argue the character here is not Jasper that his history and experience formed. Put on his ragged, deeply scarred, marble skin, put on his burning golden eyes that have seen more than three thousand destructions. Put on the major's uniform of a man who has turned defeat after defeat into decisive and all-encompassing victories by his heartless, vicious, rapid, direct action.

So, I implore you to look beyond the easy-going, slacker, image Jasper projects. Look at him with fresh eyes. Look through his eyes. You need to become, to become truly, the character in the spotlight. Who is Jasper? What is Jasper? Why is Jasper? You must answer those questions down to the spurs on his boots, his cheer in front of his men, and his absolutely winning record on ever single one of every battlefield he's ridden or run across, killing, killing, guiding his army, killing, and winning.

You must become 187 years old for Jasper.

"When the enemy attacks, charge."

Or, as Jasper shouted over the sound of muskets and the rallying bugle cry: "Charge!"

Jasper: ineffectual slacker boy?

No. He is Major Jasper Whitlock Hale. See beyond his easy-going demeanor to the true asset the Cullens have: a charismatic man, a soldier, a strategist, a philosopher.

Who has changed a habit of over one hundred years: he stopped drinking human blood to drink that blood that tastes worse than excrement. All for the love a little bubbly girl.

Jasper Whitlock 'Hale' can entirely change what he thinks he is.

Old dogs can learn new tricks. A leopard can change it spots. Jasper's shown us that.

Can you?

Yuki-Onna

What's it like to see a vampire?

Let's say you're a young Japanese man going for a mountain climb with friends for some fresh, clean air away from the city and the salaried life and your group comes across this?



She smiles, leaps on a companion, drains him, and then proceeds to kill your other friends. What do you do? Why, you escape: you run for your life, tumbling down the mountain. You somehow survive, and you live to tell the tale of the Yuki-Onna (雪女), the Snow Woman, who glides over the top of the snow, so serenely killing your friends.

The villager who rescued you at the foot of the mountain doesn't believe you, of course … that is, until a rescue party returns with stories of men frozen in the snow, their throats ripped out, drained of their blood, and of the woman who came among them, untouched and untouchable, grabbing one of their party, flying away to the peak.

And all the while, Irina sits atop an abandoned ærie, listening … pleased with the legend she's created.

Of course, this all happened (that is, it may or may not have happened) hundreds of years ago, perhaps more than four hundred years ago? So perhaps the Volturi's attention may have been caught not by an immortal child, nor by the noises in some quarters of the legends of succubi, but perhaps by the extravagant vanity of one legend-making vampire?

Perhaps Irina has that on her conscience? Perhaps she blames herself for her mother-creator's destruction? Perhaps, thereafter she swore to do right, always, to toe the line and make sure all others did? Perhaps Irina's motivation for going to the Volturi was out of a sense of justice, correcting her wrong with her right, as well as the other reasons?

Perhaps. But, … perhaps not.

What's it like to be a vampire?

Gee, it'd be awfully neat to be a vampire and stuff, with all that beauty, strength and speed. And you get to live forever, too. As they said in the movie Lost Boys:

Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire.

No downside to that, right?

Both Edward and Rosalie would beg to differ. Edward's ruminations on this topic populate Midnight Sun, and Rosalie is dead-set against our Bella becoming a vampire, but why? She articulates her reasons in the series, but wasn't very specific. What if she was? What would she say? What if Rosalie had a "conversation" with Bella about this very topic? I imagine it would go something like this:

"Amazing — isn't it? — what a vampire can do. Makes you wish you could be one, doesn't it! Makes you wish you could be strong and powerful and fast and cold and dead and consumed by want, doesn't it!" Her quiet, angry speech grew and grew in volume until she was shouting in my face.

"Watching everything change and grow and live around you as you are trapped, frozen and unchanging, in this cursed eternity," she continued more thoughtfully, that is if spiteful could be considered thoughtful. "Watching everything whither and die around you, and all you can do is watch, helplessly. Why? Because everything you touch dies." She stared at me with jealous, hate-filled eyes.

"I..." I began, but I didn't get to complete that thought, and my attempt only set her off like an explosive.

"So tempting, being a vampire, isn't it!" she screamed at me, dropping all pretense of civility. "Isn't it!"

I stared at her, stunned into silence.

"Well, it isn't. Don't you ever forget that." she stated forcefully, ...

Another author, Rhiann put forward her own diatribe by Rosalie to Bella on being a vampire.

Certainly, fundamental to both arguments is the question of satiation. How can you ever be satisfied when there's always more of this Nowness to face. And I believe that this is the crux. Vampires are eternal but are also trapped in time. This brings up a paradox that more than a few address.

Okay, fine, but how does it feel like? Always in the Present, but always trapped in time. Let's ask someone (Rosalie, in this case) who experiences it first hand:

If you, dear reader, are a human, I have to beg of you one simple thing: enjoy each second that passes you, as far as you are able. For you, swimming in the sea of time, each second comes and then goes, never to return to you. For me, trapped in the eternal Now, but also a prisoner of Time, each second never leaves me. Each second is a new link forging the chains of my punishment. Human, enjoy your time, and enjoy its passing ... as I cannot.

Rose by a Lemon Tree, ch 3

Edward expresses similar views in Midnight Sun in the chapter entitled "Purgatory."

So, what's it like, being a vampire? Rosalie, again:

I know exactly what I am.

I'm not a damned soul in Hell, because it has the benefit of eternity, the eternal and ever-present Now, without the endless second-by-second dragging out of this temporal existence. At least, also, a damned soul has the pleasure of feeling a just punishment for an unjust life.

I am not even a demon meting out torture and agony. At least the demons have the pleasure of immateriality, and felt pleasure, pure selfish pleasure, unrestricted by this unending want that my material nature forces upon my being.

No, I am a vampire: wanting, torturing, murdering, drinking, lusting, wanting ... wanting! I am a vampire cursed with a soul! I am lower than the lowest damned soul in Hell; I am lower than even Lucifer himself in the ice cold ninth circle of Hell. I am even colder than that, and I am here present on this Earth. And in my unending walk through this temporality, I feel the shame and the regret burn me — burn me worst than the fires of Hell ever could!

No downside to that, right?

Hm.

P.S. This is told from the perspective of Twilight vampires. Nosferatu junkies, please check your criticisms at the door.

Yes, I Read Twilight

So, what is a guy-y guy doing reading Twilight, anyway?

Well, 'cause I'm actually a 19-year-old girl named Mary Anne Evans (see, 'geophf' is now my tech-savvy pen-name: 'George Eliot' is just so out of fashion these days) going to Dartmouth and all my GFs were reading it, see? And I was like, SQUEE, OME! Bite me! And he was, like, rly? And I was, like, yeah! And he was, like, coo! And, so we were, like, you know, like, all that? 'Cause Edward's such a playah, until he met me, the character named Mary Sue introduced into the story that solves all the cataclysms because everybody listens to like my non-sequiturs because it all like makes sense because I'm the main character, not Bella, because she like needs me and realizes that Edward loves me and he was just like playin' her so she falls in love with Angela or Mike or somebody, doesn't matter, because like the story ended happily with Edward like falling so hard for me but I had to like leave him to solve world hunger in india and he like understood even though he was sad and then I returned to my space alien world the end? So, I, like, started, like, writing fan-fiction pretending to be like, this, like, twilight-dad so I could get more page views? 'Cause, like, a guy reading Twilight? NW. It's, like, 0.01% of the buyers of the book and, like, 0.000000000001100701% of the fan-fiction writers? So, like, I was, like, "gimme some of dat niche-market mind-share, baybee!" 'cause it's all about the buzz?

*cough*

Totally.

No, RLY: why did I keep reading Twilight? 'cause I'm, like, this 19-year-old girl from ... *AHEM*

I kept reading Twilight because it was adolescent. Adolescence is a very important transitional time of life. It's when people can ask questions boldly, because society says it's okay to ask those questions, to rebel, to live. As a child, one is not allowed to live: one is fenced in by parents. As an adult, one is not allowed to live: one must be a responsible member of society (well, except me and my bud Hannibal). Adolescence? Everything is undefined, so everything must be defined.

I kept reading Twilight because it was honest. Superpowers weren't added as the series went on. Endings weren't deus ex machina like Harry Potter ("Gryffindor wins because I'm Dumbledore, and I say so" "Oh, we use this super magic spell to make everything okay, even though two books ago we couldn't"). Characters didn't know what they weren't supposed to know.

To you Harry Potter fans: I'm sorry! I'm sorry! And geroff this Twilight blog!

I kept reading Twilight because it had depth. Every character deserves their own 4 book trilogy (What? Douglas Adams could have a 6-book trilogy!). Every conversation was motivated by a character history that was solid and consistent and true. This was true for the main characters, this was true for the minor characters, this was true for the characters that showed up for a total of a half a page.

I kept reading Twilight because it was complete, but not patronising. There is so much not said in the books, so much not revealed, so much left alone, so much left to explore, ... and so much room to explore. Other books, you cannot wander in the canon because the house of glass is too brittle, and it shatters when you reach out your hand in curiosity. Twilight doesn't allow MSR (well, really RLT), it encourages it! It demands it! Rosalie! The richest character in the series and she has just one chapter to say her piece. It probably took a lot from Steph just to leave her alone, but she did. She left her alone for me.

And she left ALL the characters alone. ALL of them. What's Bella's history? There's a fan-fiction story. What's Edward's story? There's a fan-fiction piece (it's called Midnight Sun, but what about his existence before that? It's called "Green, Red, Gold"). What's Alice's and Jasper's story? There's a story there (Mandi1 wrote it). What's Esmé's history? There's a story (that I AM WAITING FOR ... ANYBODY??!?!??!?!?!11!!112322##*@%#). Emmett? God! The strongest character in Twilight and everybody thinks he's a dumb jock. Idiots! He was the big brother of the McCarty family with many brothers and sisters during the Great Depression. He had to make do and love them and be the father to them all (except his mom who could, and did, take him by the ear by-and-bye), and hunt for supper, and drink, and gamble, and make moonshine, and fall, hard, for Rosalie, ... because only Emmett has the strength of character to put up with her.

So, why do I read Twilight? Real people and vampires ... and, BONUS, real werewolves (GOD! Leah! Read "Cowboys and Indians" by Minisoo)! Real stories. Yes, they are derivative. No, they are not esoteric; no, they are not erudite, nor complex, nor befuddling, nor pretentious. But, compelling? Yes. Heartbreaking? Yes. Hopeful? Yes. Real? Yes.

What would you rather me be reading? Salinger? I love him, too, love him to death (Franny and Zooey, and Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters (that inspired the Drambuie moment with Buddy and the Tom Collinses), and, OMG, Seymour: an Introduction, and OMR, Nine Stories, a.k.a. For Esmé — with Love & Squalor (every single one of them I cry my eyes out ... every single one — dunno, sometimes Franny and Zooey is my favorite; Franny is Bella's predecessor, and Zooey is as ruthlessly loving, and as lovingly ruthless, as Rosalie is to Bella)). Helen DeWitt? GOD! Helen DeWitt! I just want to go into the Last Samurai and give every one of those genius and geniune characters a big "it'll be okay, Rosalie" hug! Milan Kundera? Salman Rushdie? Robert Zelazny? Neil Gaiman? Chuck Palahniuk? Robert Pirsig? Robert Frost? Billy the Shake? J.R.R. Tolkien? C.S. Lewis? A.A. Milne? Douglas Hofstadter? Ray Smullyan? David Moon? Bashoh? e.e. cummings? Wallace Stevens? William Carlos Williams? God?

I read them all. I keep adding to that list. I love them all. Even Mr. Big-Juju (He's put out quite a bit of varied literature over the ages).

... and I like Twilight.

... and, so far, Twilight has liked me.

Happy 19th Birthday, Bella Cullen!

You will recall that the Cullen family, spearheaded by Alice, of course, decided to celebrate Bella's first day as a vampire with a birthday party. It was September 13th, her birthday, so let's celebrate!

Bella, of course, vehemently objected, but this time the objection wasn't because she's party-shy ... well, it wasn't only because she's party shy. No, it was because Edward's eternally seventeen, and if she celebrated her birthday, that would mean she's nineteen.

*Gasp* She'd be a whole two years older than her hubby. That'd make her a cradle-robber. A cougarin', cradle-robbin', May-December romancin' despoiler of little boys.

In that case, she must have joined the wrong family: she should just pack up her things and move in with the succubi in Denali.

"Hey, Tanya, it's Bella ... do you guys have a spare room I can move into?"

And the three Russians would respond in unison: "We're not guys!"

So, Bella claims that she's not eternally nineteen. Oh, no! She's eternally 18.99726 years old. It's the principle of the thing, you see.

But Bella is wrong-wrong-wrong, or at least very, very, very misinformed to think she didn't turn nineteen, and here's why, and Dr. Cullen will back me up on this. Reread BD, reread her transformation. What was the last thing to change? When did she become a vampire?

When her heart stopped beating.

When did her heart stop beating? September 13th, and no, not in the early pre-dawn. It was full light out (well, full light for Forks, WA, USA). Her heart was beating for at least eight, and more likely more than eight hours of the day of September 13th, her birthday.

Bella Cullen was alive in a very real and a very medical sense on her birthday.

Happy 19th Birthday, Bella.

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This post is dedicated to my beta-reader Lion_in_the_Land who celebrated her 19th birthday, again, today. Happy Birthday, LiLa