Last week, I was thinking how I sort of missed writing fiction. I’ve been trying to write a little each day, but mostly it’s been blog or private journal entries. Which are still good exercise, as it were, but not in the same way that writing fiction is. What I should have done, I suppose, was work on Nia, but that’s in the planning stages of an edit and I kind of wanted to put words to the page.

So on Thursday I just sort of sat down with a blank Word document and started typing. All I had in my head when I started was a phrase: “I wake”. I didn’t know where it was going.

I stopped over a thousand words later because I was out of time for writing. I glanced at it again today, had a thought, and added another five hundred words or so.

I know something about the situation now. I know that my main character is named Judith, that she’s been told she’s been in an accident that damaged her eyes and something’s wrong with her throat. To her, her eyes feel fine, and they aren’t bandaged or anything; they seem normal. She can’t see anything, though, which has been acknowledged as the room being dark rather than a defect in her vision. Her mental processes are still a bit cloudy and confused. She’s talked (somewhat; her throat really does hurt badly) to two people, who seem to be her parents but aren’t quite right. I know, though Judith doesn’t, that they don’t seem quite right because they aren’t actually her parents. (I think her father may actually be dead, but she’s still so confused she hasn’t realized that he shouldn’t be talking to her.) I think the mental confusion might be lingering aftereffects of a sedative or some other kind of drug, but I’m not sure. (Hell, I don’t even know if that’s a reasonable assumption. What do I know about sedatives? I’m not getting too hung up on it for the moment.)

That’s all I know. I don’t know where Judith’s at, or why, or who the “they” that are assessing her condition are, or who/what her alleged parents are. I’m only half a step ahead of her, really.

It’s turning out to be sort of fun, just exploring this with no plan and no pressure to go anywhere with it. I think I’ll keep on with it and see where I go. If it turns into a finished story, great. If it doesn’t… that’s fine too.

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Writing about Sunshine prompted some unfortunate thoughts about a certain vampire series:
I Want My Time Back

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Over on the reading journal, Robin McKinley isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean she’s not damned good:
Sunshine

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In middle and high school, I hung out with a reasonably-sized group of people. At school. The number of people I’d, say, invite to a sleepover or go to a movie with or whatever was generally about one or two. Maybe three. After high school, I made a few casual acquaintances at college, but still only had a couple of friends I’d actually do stuff with. Tim and I got married, and I sort of acquired a few of his friends in the process. We moved out into the country, and he started hanging out with them more and more while I stayed at home for the most part because, after all, they were his friends. When we moved back to town, I joined the group, and that was great for a while. Then Natalie was born, and I wound up back at home again.

I’m not complaining, not really. This is a choice I’ve made; I’ve never asked Tim to try to accommodate my hanging out with the group sometimes. I haven’t really asked him to watch Natalie while I go do stuff with other people much, either, though he’s indicated that he could. That’s on me, and I’ll own it and whatever comes of it.

I have, though, sometimes wondered if there isn’t something a little wrong with that. What I’m saying here is that I essentially have no social life. I go to work, and I go home, and I run errands. Sometimes I go to a show with Tim (and sometimes other people, like Jen or my family). I have friends, technically, but I don’t see most of them much. I’ve wondered if I’m not a little too much of a hermit, if it wouldn’t be healthy to get out sometimes.

I tried. Sort of. I halfheartedly looked around for classes, thinking that they would help me develop some sort of skill while also connecting with like-minded people, but the idea of classes with people I don’t know makes me anxious. So I didn’t really make a big effort. Eventually I found a once-monthly Meetup group which included two people I sort-of knew from online. I gave it a try. I had fun at the first meeting, but at the second I started to feel sort of alone-in-the-crowd. I wasn’t able to go to two meetings after that, got out of the habit of going before I’d even really established it, and… well, here I am, back at Square One.

Here’s the thing. It isn’t true that I have absolutely no social life outside our household and my family. It’s just that I don’t have one offline. I have several good friends online, and I’m a part of at least one active community and in regular touch with people outside that community. Some of these close online friendships predate pretty much any offline friendship still active in my life; at least one even predates Tim. (As do some more casual connections.) I’ve got a bustling social life — online. It isn’t quite the same as having one offline, and it can’t substitute for an offline social life, but it’s interaction with people, it’s support, it’s meaningful connections to others.

I recounted my social history at the beginning of all this for a reason. I wanted to remind myself that, good or bad, it’s not a new thing for me to not spend much time going out with friends. It is, in fact, not a new thing for me to have more friends online than off; that happened almost instantly when we first got a Net connection at home fourteen years ago. I make friends more easily online, and that’s just sort of the way it’s always been. I ask myself: Do I feel like it was somehow unhealthy to do that then? No? Then why would it be now?

There are answers to that question, of course. I’m not sixteen anymore. That’s as true mentally and emotionally as it is physically. A thirty-year-old will need different things than a sixteen-year-old will. I also did still get out of the house more then than I do now. There are other things, I’m sure. But… If efforts to establish an offline social life consistently fail, is it maybe time to consider the possibility that they fail because it just doesn’t work for me? Life adapts to changing technology; has my life gone and done this on me without my noticing? Am I scrabbling to get a grip on something when I really just need to let go?

(The phrase “you’re not falling, you’re flying” has been repeating in my mind over the past couple of weeks. That’s partly because it’s a phrase I’ve heard recently which I like very much, but I also wonder if I shouldn’t be paying more attention. This isn’t the same thing, but it’s the same sort of perspective shift, realizing that you’ve been looking at something upside down and once you right yourself you find that although the details have not essentially changed the interpretation of them is completely different.)

I was going to ask the questions yesterday and today, and then ramble a little about figuring out answers tomorrow. The questions feel very rhetorical to me, though. I’m not sure I need to spend a lot of time agonizing over it. I think I just need to go reset my alarm and stop worrying so much about being “normal” (which you’d think I’d be over by now, anyway) already.

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Over on the reading journal, not all writing from the early twentieth century has aged well:
The Diamond Master

And I totally forgot to plug a link for this entry a few days ago:
The Dark is Rising Sequence

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(There are only two, a couple of things that have been kicking around in my brain and I think I need to get out. The other has to do with how much of an offline social life I actually need or want. It’ll get written sometime in the next couple of days.)

So my sleep schedule, on a normal worknight, goes like this. I aim to get to bed about 10, although often it’s fifteen to thirty minutes later by the time I do. My alarm is set to 4:50am, but it’s a last resort; I try to wake up at 4:45. I feed the cats, get dressed, comb and brush my hair, use the bathroom… And then go out and lie down on the couch and doze until about 5:20. At which point I get up and go about the rest of my morning routine.

This used to make sense, really it did. There was a time when I didn’t just go back to sleep. For a long time I used that time to get a head start on daily Internet activities. Then, after schedules shifted around a bit, I started exercising in the morning. It was a great way to start the day.

Then I had a few nights of bad sleep, or getting to bed late, or etc. etc. fill-in-excuse-here. I woke up exhausted. I meant to exercise, or at least do the computer thing, but… I was just so tired. So I laid back down for a while. A few days later, I felt better, but the exercise habit was broken. I struggled with it for a while. Eventually I decided that I was doing pretty well anyway, even without regular exercise, and that this was a fight not worth fighting. I had enough other stuff to worry about. And going back to sleep on the couch became a habit.

I’ve been bothered by this at some points. I feel like I’m being lazy, using that time unproductively, like once I’m awake I should be up and doing stuff, not napping. So, every once in a while, I’ll try to just get up and stay up. Last week, I managed two days out of five. I felt like it was a good start.

I was thinking about this, though, and I started to wonder. Do I need to be awake then? Why do I feel I need to be awake then? I’ve been doing this for long enough that my morning routine has adapted to accomodate not being awake then. If you assume it’s probably 10:45 before I actually get to sleep on most nights, then I’m getting… Geez, a whole six hours of sleep if I sleep all the way through and get up at 4:45.

There are other things I can do — meaning, there are ways I can be better about getting to bed on time. But I’m wondering whether it doesn’t also make more sense for me to just stay in bed for an extra half-hour off the bat most mornings, if I’m just going to go out and sleep on the couch anyway. It’s not like I’m using that time productively anyway (which is OK; rest and sleep are important too, I must remind myself), and not interrupting my sleep as I do now might help make that extra half-hour count for more.

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Over on the reading journal, I’m at least nominally reviewing Anansi Boys, although in reality the post doesn’t say that much about it except in comparison to American Gods:

Anansi Boys

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In my last entry, I talked about the role of women in fictional media these days. It got me started thinking about my own writing. I haven’t paid any real attention to such things when writing, so I wondered how my work measured up. Looking at the three novels-in-progress:

• Tynan has virtually no female presence. Only one major character is female; others occur, but don’t have that much to do.
• Nia is difficult to classify, sort of. I’d say there’s a pretty strong female presence, but it’s not really overt. Janet Kathleen and the narrator are present throughout the book, but their roles are not that active and/or not consistent across the whole novel. Nia takes center stage and shares it with Jamie, who is male. I’d say it’s neutral; women don’t have a hugely significant role in it, but men don’t dominate it either.
• Alex… Oy. Who knows. Oh, it’ll pass the Bechdel test. More than two women will have names, they will talk to each other, and not about a man. I feel like in general, though, it’s very male-dominated. Alex herself might be female, but all those closest to her and her personal role models are male. There are other women in the story, but with few exceptions she just doesn’t connect with them very well. Women are present and accounted for; strong women with a significant presence in the story are a little harder to come by.

Good thing there isn’t a test on this; looks like I’d probably fail. I refuse to shoehorn in extraneous women just to increase the presence of women in anything I write. I hope that was clear from the last entry. But… At the same time, would it make sense to try to include more women in more significant roles in any of these works? I think it’s an interesting exercise to look at that possibility anyway, though you could substitute any change for “more women”. Just sort of… If I change this, what happens? Does it improve the story? Make it worse? Does it spark any other ideas?

Tynan… No. I don’t think so. It’s a kind of a small-scope story, which means there’s not a lot of room for adding more characters of any description, especially not in any significant role. I could maybe, possibly make Clarinda’s brother a sister instead. That has possibilities, actually, in its own way. I’m not sure it really adds much, though. I could increase the presence of Clarinda’s maid, but let’s be honest. They’re mostly going to be talking about Tynan. A man. I just don’t think it’s going to work.

With Alex, it’s still in progress, so to some extent it’s something I just have to work out as I go along. I will say, though, that there are reasons why things are the way they are. She defies the boundaries her society sets upon women, and naturally the good little girls at court don’t want to associate with that. Even within that setup, though, not all of the women who aren’t running around defying boundaries will be shallow brainless idiots, obviously. So I think as long as I keep it realistic I’m probably OK here anyway.

Nia. Nia, Nia, Nia. This is the one where the concept of changing intrigues me. The story’s all about women (Nia, Janet Kathleen, Betsy, Susie, and the as-yet-unnamed narrator; even two of Nia’s three interviewees are female), and yet Nia is the only one who has a big active role to play in it. Initially, my instinct was to make Nia’s best friend Jamie female. On further reflection, though, I don’t think that’s the answer. If anything, Jamie needs to stay male to keep a little balance in. The roles of the other women, though, could stand some reassessment. Making those other women a more significant presence will not just make for a better female presence, it will strengthen the whole work.

And that’s really what I was talking about, I guess. It’s worth looking at the role of women in any given work (just as it’s worth looking at the role of men, children, cats, little green apples, whatever) to see if making a change might improve the work as a whole. It’s change for the sake of change that I object to. As a writer, albeit one just about at the opposite end of the spectrum from “professional”, I have some responsibility to be aware of the message my work is sending. I just don’t think that it’s necessary or effective to artificially manipulate the work to achieve a desired message.

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Why “Mad Men” is Bad For Women
(Spoilers for those who have not seen the series at all, but not for the current season.)

I’m also increasingly disturbed by the striking difference in how men and women are portrayed — all the more curious and distressing since, although it was created by a man (Matthew Weiner), “Mad Men” is notable for the number of women on its creative staff. Even as it depicts rampant sexism, the show sides with the men. The men get off scot-free (if not scotch-free) while the women are subjected to repeated humiliation and misfortune, which is invariably attributed to their own flaws and poor choices.

This article has been sitting in my to-blog list for a while, as I try to figure out exactly what to say about it. Also relevant: Women in Movies: The Bechdel Test.

The Bechdel test — named for the cartoonist Alison Bechdel who wrote a long-running comic strip called Dykes To Watch Out For and the critically acclaimed graphic novel Fun Home — is a test to assess whether women have a meaningful presence in a movie. … Once you start thinking about it, you’ll be surprised by how many films don’t pass this test. In fact, there are entire genres (action-adventure, for example) that seem to fail the Bechdel test, by and large.

And, last but not least, a blog entry of my own from a while back.

I’ve got it pretty good as a woman living in America in the year 2010, and I’m well aware of that. But at the same time, it’s not over, and it’s important to remember that.

I had some trouble reconciling my reactions to the first two items with my stated position in the third at first. When someone starts going on about the way women are portrayed in the media these days, my standard response is to roll my eyes and think they’re getting too worked up about it. In doing that, though, am I not being dismissive of the problem? Am I not acting like there isn’t a problem and there’s no need to address it? I mean, it’s just a TV show. It’s just a movie. What does it matter? Except it does, because the culture that supports more serious abuses is shaped and supported by things like TV and movies. If women are portrayed as vapid helpless victims always waiting in their tower rooms for a knight in shining armor to rescue them, that might not be causing a culture of discrimination as such, but it’s certainly enabling it. And am I not in turn enabling the enabling if I act like it doesn’t matter?

No.

In thinking about it more, I’ve decided that it isn’t that I don’t think the problem is a problem. I recognize the influence the media carries, and I recognize that it’s important to be aware of it. I simply disagree with the specific ways in which that problem is called out in many cases, and the solutions which are implicitly or explicitly suggested.

I’m a woman who wants to be equal; I’m also a consumer of media who wants a quality product, and a sometime-writer who wants to watch and read well-written media. And frankly, most of the suggestions the Salon article gives for “fixing” Mad Men don’t strike me as good writing. Good writing does not mean sacrificing character depth and nuance in the interest of “empowerment”. Likewise, what worries me about the Bechdel test as described in the linked-to article is that it seems to push the inclusion of a strong female presence just for the sake of giving women a prominent part in the movie, without taking into consideration whether it makes sense in context or not.

I want women to be well-represented in the media, sure. I just don’t want to sacrifice quality for the sake of political correctness. Not as a writer, and not as a viewer. There must be more stories out there to be written that simply happen to be about strong women (women, plural). I want those to be written, and written well. I want women to have an equal chance at being well-represented, not for women’s role in the media to be artificially inflated because someone feels like we’re not equal enough yet. I feel like that’s almost as much of a disservice to women as the lack of media presence is. It sends the message that women require a feminist agenda in order to be interesting enough to write stories about, which is just flat-out not true.

It’s not over, and this is part of the problem. It does matter. Just writing women into stories for the sake of setting an example, however, is not the way to address it.

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We’d been talking about taking Natalie to the Zoo, or to Holiday World, or to the Children’s Museum, all summer. Her birthday seemed like a good time to do that, and since the Children’s Museum was indoors and air-conditioned and Natalie’s birthday falls at a time notorious for its heat and humidity, we thought it was probably the best choice. We rounded up the crew (both of my parents, Tim’s mom, Andrew and Tina, and of course Natalie and Tim and myself) and headed up on Sunday morning.

It had been a very long time since I’d been. Mom and Dad used to take us to the museum quite a bit; it used to be free admission, so it was something very affordable besides being fun and educational. I have fond (if fuzzy) memories of hours spent running from exhibit to exhibit, playing and learning. As far as I can tell, it’s only gotten better over the years.

We started at the bottom and worked our way up, only leaving when Natalie started showing signs of being overtired (not that she napped in the car on the way home). There’s so much to do that we didn’t get to see everything we would’ve liked, but we still managed to pack a lot in. Natalie wasn’t fond of the loud noises in the Dinosphere and All Aboard! on the lower level, but I’m sure she could’ve stayed in the Barbie exhibit or in the preschooler-focused Playscape all day if we’d been able to. I think we all could’ve spent a long time with Fireworks of Glass, the permanent Dale Chihuly installation. Especially those of us with cameras. (Interestingly enough, as art I’m sort of so-so on it — I’m not big on abstract sculpture — but I could’ve photographed it all day. BTW, you should totally go here and watch the time-lapse video of it being installed.)

And yes, cameras. Of course there are photos. I will someday blog something else again, now that photoblogging month is over. (The image of Natalie in the Barbie exhibit also got added to her public gallery.)

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