Unsafe space

This feeling of comfort that envelops you, immobilizes your body, captures it in its soft paws that spring steel claws the moment you try to get up. Comfort, growing from a fluffy toy into a soul-devouring monster. The enchanting lullaby that permeates your thoughts, holds them still, spreads warm fog inside your mind.

Begone, the beast! Down with the fuzzy bondage! I welcome cold winds and thunderstorms. The road calls...

I think the main reason I'm secretly rooting for Trump is that he represents "fuck the system" attitude in my eyes. And the more controversially he behaves, with all the rude, racist and sexist statements, cheating on taxes, pussygate and so on, the more I sympathize with him. Because politics should be, first and foremost, FUN! ;) No one wants to see boring, polite, prim and proper good boys and girls in the news. (Well, I don't ;) Fuck the political correctness. Fuck good manners. Fuck tolerance. Let the Chaos unleash!

(Of course it helps that I don't live in USA, so I can enjoy the show from afar :P )

Anyway, my favourite candidate was John McAffee. Not only eccentric but also smart and sexy :) Well, maybe next time.

I wonder if there's some truth behind the theory that if you hate something, it means that you secretly want it.

Definitely not in every case. For example, I hate animal abuse (at least, abuse for fun, unrelated to the usage of animals in industry and food production), and there's no way I'd secretly enjoy it. (Humans abuse is a different matter... but not animals.)

But there's a lot of less extreme situations... for example, I hate to see a customer engaging in a casual conversation with a cashier, post office teller, waiter or any other worker who's supposed to service them. And it's not only because they hold up the line, so I have to wait longer to get the service; I get equally annoyed when seeing this behavior in the movies. Maybe it triggers my OCD when people behave out of context: a customer-server relationship does not involve the exchange of information unrelated to the issue. Maybe I see it as inferior, uncivilized behavior dating back from the pre-industrial society where people couldn't afford privacy and specialization.

Or maybe I'm simply envious of people who have a talent to communicate with other people, even strangers, while I'm unable to do it myself. I'd die of embarrassment/anxiety if I had to start an informal conversation out of context. If I'm scared, it means that it's my weakness. If it's a weakness, it means that the opposite quality is desirable.

I can maintain the conversation if the other person starts it; sometimes it happens, for example, in our post office, I know the tellers for years, and apparently they remember the regular customers. But it always leaves me exhausted and uncomfortable in the end. On my own, I've managed to learn to volunteer "have a nice day". It takes a bit of effort, but it's less scary because it's said in the end of the interaction, and I immediately leave and do not have to continue talking.

I don't really want to be a chatty bitch... I still see this behavior as annoying, I just want to know that I could do it myself without feeling any discomfort. (It's like with the Internet... I can actually stay for hours without using it, but I need to know that I could go online any time.)

It's funny how movies are targeting people with alien ethics. Wouldn't any normal person be happy to leave a confirmed serial killer die (fall to his death), in spite of his begging to help, and if the normal person would regret anything about it, it's only that the bastard didn't suffer enough? (ending up in coma doesn't qualify as proper suffering, sadly). Granted, he may have legal problems, at least if he works in police and is supposed to catch criminals, not kill them, but as soon as it's settled, surely he ought to be at least a little bit proud, instead of feeling guilty and keeping it a secret? And an attempt to blackmail him by telling his wife about the incident sounds completely laughable. I think it should go like this:

A. - Do you think he tried to kill him on behalf of the dead?
Z. - Hell yeah! That's my John! The fucker deserved it all right!
A. - Um... Bloody hell.
Z. - By the way, you're next. Bitch.
A. - Thank you for your time.

That would be more like it. No guilt trips and misplaced emotions. Real shows for real humans!

Free online writing courses, writing workbooks: not helpful because I've read the theory many times over, and it appears that I know everything there's to know about the basics. What I really need is practice, but doing exercises without feedback and accountability is not motivating.

It should be useful to take a course where the homework is reviewed by the instructor, not by other students who may be equally clueless. But all such courses are way too expensive for me.

NaNoWriMo: not helpful anymore, because the novelty wore off, and the skills are not "transferable". There is abundant proof that quickly writing a lot of crap is a very different skill than slowly writing a readable story, and success in the 1st task does not help in any way to succeed in the 2nd task. (That is, for me, because my creative process is apparently different from those people who manage to edit their NaNoWriMo drafts into something useful.)

WriYe: the novelty wore off, and the forums are not helpful, because socializing is as difficult for me as writing. Forums and groups work best in an environment which prominently features a confrontation between "us" and "them", where "we" are united by common (imposed by "them") tasks and common dissatisfaction with "them". For example, "we" are players and "they" are the game company; "we" are students and "they" are course admins who do not handle the course well. Conflict is the driving force for successful socialization, just like for storytelling. When everything goes fine, it's boring. (But it shouldn't be too bad either, because then people will be under too much stress, and start leaving.) Back to WriYe, it's too loosely organized to have conflicts - there's no administration (besides the forum mods, but they're friendly), and all the tasks are self-imposed. All the challenges are optional, unlike MOOCs' homeworks. (MOOCs with no or optional homework do not work well for me either.)

Writing prompt communities with deadlines: somewhat motivating when they are active enough, but not too active, because wading through dozens of posts every week is overwhelming. Anyway, searching by "writing" as the interest, I couldn't find any suitable communities on DW. All communities I had the patience to check are either fanfic-specific, or roleplaying, or focusing on very short fics / drabbles, or dead, or void of content (there's one when you post your word count, and other users respond with congratulations, and nothing else is going on - what's the point of that??)

Writing challenges are motivating because they alleviate the sense of inadequacy I feel about my writing. This way, I (implicitly) say, "It's not my fault that this stupid story turned out so lousy, I was just following the instructions and I was pressed with time, do not take it seriously, it's just an exercise anyway." But it's a bit difficult to cheat myself into this frame of mind when the instructions are not externally imposed.

Accountability can be faked when the guidelines are very specific, like my 52 books in 12 weeks, and 50 games in an undetermined period of time, even though nobody gives a rat's ass if I succeed or fail. But this works with easy tasks. Usually I do have to make an effort with reading and even gaming (that's why they are challenges; I wouldn't care for a challenge of taking 50 naps in 25 weeks, or eating 50 steaks...) but writing requires more leverage.

The thinking continues...

With writing, it's usually "the more the better". Word count is the main metric of success for personal writing challenges; the NaNoWriMo challenge even encourages the user to pad the novel with any stupid stuff one can think of, because reaching the target count is more important than the quality. (Yes, the novel has to be edited afterwards, but how many people actually get to this stage? ;)

I've heard that writers are paid by the word, so it's not in their interest to write concisely. Besides, profilic writers are admired more (maybe because productivity is admirable by itself, and only the end result is visible, not the efforts spent on editing).

A lot of writing books advise to avoid excessive verbosity, but seeing what kind of stuff gets published, does anybody ever take it seriously?

It's rather scary to take the course "Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World", which imposes a strict UPPER limit on the assignments (320 words!), and the professor provides an example of eliminating unnecessary words. (The art of concise writing was mentioned in English Composition I, but it was not a requirement for the assignments.)

However, concise writing is not an entirely alien concept... in PROGRAMMING, a short program is always better than a long one! (provided they have the same functionality). There is such a metric as SLOG, source lines of code, and I've heard that some software developers are paid by that. But functionality always comes first. Compact programs are considered elegant and clever; huge software projects are often perceived as bloated monstrosities.

Why so much difference? Maybe because with writing, "functionality" is difficult to define and evaluate. A writeup is supposed to cause human mind to change state, just like software causes computer to change state. But humans are more diverse; some words and structures may work on one human and not on another - better to include them all? While properly written software works on any computer running the same OS, or at any rate, the same version. If it must support different versions, or better yet, multiple platforms, it inevitably sacrifices some of the elegance and becomes more "verbose", or bloated.

So anyway, it should be easier to accept concise writing as programming, aimed to implement specific functionality. Not to fake productivity (a daily word count goal may be a way of self-sabotage...)

“Write stories you would want to read.” I wonder what kind of stories do I especially want to read?

- Wish-fulfillment (The Punisher, Dexter)
- Sci-fi comedy (H2G2, Cyberiad)
- Puzzles (Sherlock Holmes, The Da Vinci Code)
- Books about games (Dreampark, The Hunger Games)
- Dystopia (1984, Iron Dragon’s Daughter)
- Urban fantasy (Neverwhere, Harry Potter)
- Romantic horror (Hellraiser)
- Non-con romance (fanfics only)

Maybe there is something common between all of them? It's all, in a sense, wish-fulfillment... it's all about power. To figure out the rules of a world, to use/bend/break them to your advantage, to make the rules. But then, all the stories are about power. And everything else, too. Or is it my personal delusion, and other people understand it differently? Maybe for someone else everything is about sex, or love, or loyalty... One of the writing exercises is to define the core values of your characters. I guess if I were a character (and who's to say I'm not?), mine is power. Can I take a break from roleplaying and try something else for a change?

1. An essential part of MySQL chain replication is log-slave-updates setting on the 1st slave that acts as a master for the 2nd slave. Without it, the replication looks like it works, but it actually DOES NOT. (*facepalm*) The 2nd slave receives only the changes made on the 1st slave, but the changes from the master do not propagate.

(Note: MySQL and BDSM are not the same thing. At least formally.)

2. Major chords sound bright/happy and minor chords sound dark/sad because music follows the same pattern as human language! A major chord is obtained from a state of harmonic tension by a decrease in pitch, and a minor chord - by an increase in pitch. Now, in human (and animal) languages decreasing vocal pitch indicates strength, assertion, confidence and social dominance (positive qualities) and increasing pitch indicates defeat, weakness, lack of confidence and social subordinance (negative qualities).

(Source: Norman D. Cook, A Psychophysical Explanation for Why Major Chords are "Bright" and Minor Chords are "Dark")

(Isn't it COOL?)

3. In The Punisher (2004) movie, the Russian was played by Kevin Nash! (a pro wrestling star I used to heart when I was into it). Two interesting facts about the production:

1) He had to cut his long hair for the role, so WWE run an angle where Nash bet his hair in a match against another wrestler, and lost.

2) While filming the knife fight scene, he was accidentally stabbed for real by Thomas Jane who played the Punisher. But Nash didn't even notice it! (Because he is TOUGH for REAL.)

For me, the best thing about The Punisher series is that they're comforting, they induce a warm fuzzy feeling of completely empathising with the main character and getting mental satisfaction from everything he does, no exception. This is missing from most of the fiction based on modern ethics. We're taught that the world is not black and white, there's something good in every person even if they appear "evil", everyone deserves a fair trial and an opportunity for redemption, killing sentient beings is wrong and can be only done as the last resort, killing in retribution is a vicious cycle that fuels itself.

I accept it with my brain, but not with my heart. I guess it's reasonable to be conflicted about it - human ethics is a sophisticated add-on to override the basic animal nature, it helps our species to survive as a whole, and it's not supposed to be pleasant or fulfilling. For example, when I watch Star Trek, it's almost physically painful to see people abstaining from killing their enemies for ethical reasons. I know I shouldn't take it close to heart, neither in fiction nor in real life. I know that if the scumbags responsible for the Boston bombing will be found and captured, they'll get a trial and will do their sentence in comfortable cells with all their needs taken care of, and then will go home to their friends and families. They have favorite music and books and games, maybe their loved ones were murdered in Iraq or Palestine, and it's their way of retaliation and fighting for freedom. There's no absolute right or wrong, it all depends which side you're on, so it's better to play it safe and respect everybody's rights...

That's why it's so awesome to come across a "wish-fulfillment" fictional universe unemcumbered with all those horrible rules that twist my mind into painful knots. How lovely it is to imagine that you can and should kill the bad guys on the spot (that is, everyone YOU consider bad, no second opinion required), no matter if they repent on their knees and swear to change their ways, no matter if they had helped you and saved your life, no matter if their kids grab you by the sleeve and cry "please don't kill my daddy". Oh and you don't get caught. At least most of the time; but even when you do, you miraculously survive all the abuse and always manage to break free in the end. I know it's a fantasy world, a fairy tale, but it's so soothing and relieving to escape into the world of dreams and fairy tales from time to time, instead of having to cope with the grim reality of "thou shalt not kill" even in fiction.

Been reading some textbooks ("Writing Active Setting Book 1: Characterization and Sensory Detail" by Mary Buckham, and "Elements of Fiction Writing - Description" by Monica Wood) and finally I understand the incentive behind "show, don't tell" ! (when not overdone.)

I've always hated reading (not to mention writing) descriptions in police dossier or design specs style. Thought it's something wrong with me (ADHD? visualization deficiency disorder?) Turns out I'm fine, it's them who suck ;) Descriptions are useful, but they shouldn't try to be complementary photo booklets, their main purpose is to provide an insight into the character's mind (or backstory etc) and/or to advance the plot (e.g. foreshadowing). This way they don't overload the reader's brain, and they're not boring.

I've seriously thought this whole subject was a ploy by the writer snobs to harass the newbies. And for the first time in my life I suddenly find it fun to try and follow these rules! It's still deviously hard and a torture and one needs to know a crapload of obscure words, but it's fun nevertheless. Weird.

Now I just need 2-3 more lifetimes to get a knack for it...