Is Walk Up not Out Victim Blaming?

The Origin Story:

On February 14th of this year, 14 students and 3 teachers were gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.  In response, the survivors of the attack issued a call to action for the one month anniversary of the tragedy.  They called for students across the country to walk out of their classrooms on March 14th, stand in solidarity, and demand change in our nation's gun laws and gun culture.  This is where the story begins.

In the days leading up to the Walk Out, there was a new movement beginning to take shape on the internet.  It was a call on students to Walk Up Not Out.  It issued a challenge to students to seek out and befriend other students who were lonely or bullied and befriend them.  It was a call to be nice.  And what is wrong with being nice?

What Is Wrong with Being Nice?

So let's all be clear here:  There is nothing wrong with being kind.  There is nothing wrong with being respectful.  There is nothing wrong with reaching out to those who are hurting and offering a shoulder to them.  There is nothing wrong with seeking to spread positive energy.

A friend suggested that the Walk Out vs Walk Up Not Out has become just another division in our culture, another battle line that we didn't need.  That reasonable people have staked positions and that it's a silly thing to be fighting over.  Can't we all just get along, already?

So before we delve any deeper, dear reader, let's put that particular issue to bed here and now.  There is no reasonable objection to a call to civility in our communities.  There is no reasonable objection to a call to end bullying.

None.

Being respectful, being civil, being welcoming and being kind are core values we should all strive for in all of our communities.

There.

But before starting up the next sub-title, let us take note that being a thoughtful partner is a wonderful goal in a marriage.  There is nothing at all objectionable to asking people to share labor, share affection and support each other.  Who can argue that when two people are together, that they are strongest when they share responsibilities?  This will come up again.

What is Victim Blaming?

If we're going to talk about victim blaming we need a working definition.  While there are many definitions out there, let us consider this one:

Victim Blaming is the act of attributing the cause of an assault to the victim of such instead of the perpetrator.  It also is the act of assigning responsibility for the prevention of the assault to the would-be victim rather than the would-be perpetrator.

For example, a woman does not have dinner on the table when her husband comes home from happy hour.  Angered, he hits her and blackens her eye.  When her friend sees her the next day her friend says, "Well what did you expect?  You didn't have dinner ready."

A second example could be the same friend saying to the woman in the afternoon, "Don't you want to get home and get dinner on the table?  You know he'll hit you again if dinner is not ready on time."  In this case the woman is not yet a victim, but it is still her responsibility to act in a way so as to avoid being assaulted.

And most important in this responsibility, is that it requires her to take special action to avoid this assault.  She must act to avoid being hurt by another.

The Issue of Timing

One of the first major challenges in this new "debate" is the timing of the call to kindness.  The memes most circulated on the web do not show a suggestion that kids simply be kinder but they present an either/or choice.  The message is "Instead of Walking Out, Walk Up!"  The goal of these posts is, apparently, to present an alternative to action against guns and gun culture.  And it is cleverly designed because the act of being kind cannot possibly raise objection.  If a student is forced to choose between being kind or marching out to protest guns, and they still elect to walk out, doesn't that mean they are rejecting being kind?

Of course not, yet that is the argument implied when Walk Up Not Out is presented as the alternative.  It is a well crafted message that permits some to vilify students who walked by labeling them as unkind.  They have rejected the "alternative" of Walking Up by Walking Out, so they must reject being kind as well.

It is impossible to separate this new push to kindness from the timing.  The implication is clear:  If you walk out, we will all say that you do not support being kind because we are presenting it as a choice.

If Walk Up Not Out were truly about being kind, it would have come at any other time than to be presented as the alternative on the day of action called for by the survivors of the Stoneman-Douglas shooting.  It would have come after any other act of school mass murder.  It would have come immediately after the Parkland Shooting.  It would have come as anything but an alternative action on March 14.

But is it Victim Blaming?

In a video of one of the Walk Outs, a young lady addresses the crowd and asks challenging questions.

“These shootings are happening from these kids that you’re cornering out, that you’re bullying...because you think it’s funny. And it’s not funny,” she said. “All of these kids just want to be themselves, they want to be who they wanna be in their own schools.” (Source Link)

This is a thought provoking challenge but it is also dangerous in its implication.

Remember our earlier agreement about being partners in a marriage?   Let's reframe this girl's words in that context:

"That black eye happened because you didn't have dinner on the table.  You didn't care and you should have.  All your husband wanted was to have dinner on his table."

Can there be any doubt that this is victim blaming?  In the re-written statement, the blame falls squarely on the woman. She did not perform as she should have in order to avoid being hit.  She should have done something different.  She should have been more aware of her husband's wants.  And for that she was beaten.

Many of us know what it is like to be bullied, marginalized and "cornered out".  We lived that torture daily.  We were picked on, hazed and harassed.  We looked out into the crowd for a kind eye, or a hand to pick us back up.  We wanted to be respected.  The call to be kind resonates.

But look again at the words of the young woman. "These shootings are happening from kids that you're bullying."  In other words:  Your bullying is causing these; if you stop bullying and start being nice, the shootings will end.

In other words: You didn't have dinner on the table, what did you expect him to do?  Of course he beat you.

You didn't reach out and befriend him.  So, of course he murdered your classmates and teachers.

Does This Mean Bullying is Okay?

We as a culture absolutely need to address bullying.  Bullying is not okay.  In the information age, it has become frightfully easy for bullies to predate though social media and private messages.  As our world becomes ever more connected, it is easier for those who want to abuse and harass to do so.  And that is not okay.  That is not acceptable.

Bullying is not okay.

When a Call to Kindness Becomes Victim Blaming

If we are to suggest that being kind will end these school shootings, then on who's shoulders have we placed the responsibility?

If, when called to action to end gun violence and address gun culture, we instead send our students out to be kind to each other instead, what have we said about our own beliefs about the causes and who should repair the damage?

When students have cried out for action, the Walk Up Not Out movement answers with "stop being bullies".  When the actual kids who ran past the bodies of their friends asked us to stand with them, many schools instead said "We hear you, but today we want to spread positive energy because that's more important to us."

What is consistent in all of this, from the memes calling on students to Walk Up Not Out to schools sponsoring school-wide act of kindness is this:  students are being forced to take the responsibility to end gun violence in the school.  They are being told, just as the woman was with dinner and her subsequent black eye, that it is up to them to prevent this.

Rather than hiring more counselors to address troubled kids, students are given the responsibility to be nicer and reach out instead.

Rather than reducing class sizes so teachers, who can use their experience to get to know their kids and reach out, students themselves are given the responsibility to be nice and all will be fine.

Rather than addressing the ease with which a trouble kid can get a powerful gun to bring and use, students are give the responsibility to be nice to him, and hope he won't want to fire it.

Rather than moving reasonable and sensible legislation forward, students are told that their acts of kindness will be the only real fix.

And rather than telling the survivors of the Stoneman Douglas shooting that their loss will be the last, they are told that they brought this upon themselves with their bullying ways.

 "These shootings are happening from kids that you're bullying."

We Cannot Force our Children to Fix This

It is not up to our children to be counselors.  No student should feel compelled to eat lunch with a kid they don't like because they are afraid of becoming a victim.  No girl should have to smile at a boy she doesn't like out of fear he will bring a gun to school.  It is not up to our children to make this right by being there for everyone else, regardless of their own wishes and desires.

By reacting to the March for our Lives Movement, the #NeverAgain Movement and others with commentary about bullying and about being kind, we are effectively laying the responsibility for fixing this at the feet of our children.

That is victim blaming.

And it's wrong.

It is not the responsibility of our youth to address gun violence in their schools by simply being kinder.  Should they be?  Of course.  Everyone should be kind.

But that is where the responsibility ends.  Not with befriending the neo Nazi.  Not with taking taking a date with the stalker so that he will be appeased.  Not with smiling at the boy who calls girls he dislikes dykes and boys he dislikes faggots.  None of these are the responsibility of our youth.

And it is sad that our refusal to lead, as adults, has forced us to the point it even needs to be said.

An Open Letter to Modest Mom

Dear Modest Mom,

I read your recent post about your choice to cancel your family trip to Disney.  I have to say that I feel bad about your choice firstly on the principle that a trip to a Disney park is an amazing experience.  Even when my wife and I traveled there without children it was exciting; with our kids it was down right magical.

I am also saddened by the nature of the response you've received.  Bullies are an ever-present problem and no one deserves to be demeaned in the manner you've shared on your blog.  My heart fell for you and your family.

As a fellow Christian I want to talk to you, frankly, about what I see as a disconnect in your words and your deeds.

This tea-pot-tempest began when you posted your reasons for not wanting to take your family to Disney and spend $6000 to support a company that promoted an agenda you disagreed with. This agenda is, at its most basic, the normalization of homosexuality.

So let's sit down and talk, okay?

Answered and Asked

As most of you know I went to DragonCon this past weekend.  It's what's caused another delay in Bastion, has kept me from writing any more of Mind the Thorns and has been eating up what little spare time I can squeeze out of life now that school has resumed.

But I did have an amazing time there, much of it good, some of it bad, and a little of it frustrating.  I'm going to start with one of the more frustrating moments.

The name of the panel was "Vampires and the Women who Write Them".  It featured an array of women authors of Urban Fantasy ranging from those who had just started writing to those who had been writing about vampires since the 1960's.  It was quite the collection and what I saw as an opportunity to get to the ins and outs of writing good, solid urban fantasy.

It was also a chance to be talked down to by none other than the wonderful Laurell K Hamilton.

Facts, Figures, Fat-shaming and Cosplay

So the TV Show Heroes of Cosplay is taking the Cosplay/ Costuming Community by storm and often not in a good way.  Among it's many missteps have been copyright violations committed by using photographs without permission.  Then two of the stars opted to do a full head cast when they only needed the forehead, taking on massive risk and danger, apparently, just to do it.

But what really seemed to steal the spot light was an exchange in Episode 2 regarding who could and could not cosplay.  This seemed to take the show into a dark direction of what was "Permitted" and what was not.

Now this was further complicated by Becky's obsession with her figure in Episode 1.  A great deal was made about her quick return to the gym to try to slip down to play the part of Merida from Brave as well as snippets of her trying to squeeze into a corset to get the fit right and really look the part.  Since we watched the episodes back to back we saw a solid two hours of weight issues and "looking the part" being front and center.

Really, much of this is quite likely the result of the show's editing staff trying to create an engaging and provocative narrative.  This is not hard to do when you use some creative cuts, slip a few comments around out of context and then remove the chance for someone to respond to something to try to better establish context.

Since Episode 2 has aired, many efforts have been made to defend Yaya Han, the "Ambassador of Cosplay" as being very open to "cosplay for all" despite the fact that her words on the show implied quite the opposite.

So this brings us to now, today, and my own collected thoughts and observations.

Weekly Omens - 8-24-13

This week I discovered Heroes of Cosplay and the train wreck of drama and cattiness that it is.  I'm not going to pull punches.  The editors of that show make the Cosplayers look like mean spirited wicked elitists.  The repeated commentary on, for example, Yaya Han's history in the hobby only seems further drive home that idea that Cosplay is for the select few.

It hit a fever pitch in Episode 2 when it was explained to newcomer Chloe (@skydart) that there are certain things you don't do, such as be 300 pounds and try to cosplay Superman.  I believe, possibly, that the other veteran Cosplayers were trying to say that the internet is a mean spirited place where people who are not within "the ideal" are mercilessly mocked and that being of a fuller figure means also being prepared for the fat-shaming and abuse that will follow.  I want to give them a break but I can't.

I won't.

And I'm going to leave it there for now because really my fuller thoughts on this should be in their own blog post and that's going to come next week, possibly after I see Episode 3.  Maybe.

So here's the rest of your weekly wrap up:

In Bastion:  The Last Stand

Hiatus week.  Time for me to prepare for Dragon Con.  Also it may not be until after Labor Day that my life find the normalcy necessary to return to a regular schedule of updates.  I'm hoping to be able to keep to a piece of prose every 3 weeks but I might be too optimistic with that.

On Fictional Omens

A woman posed for a picture with the sign, "This is what a Feminist Looks like".  Internet Trolls were as trolls are.  Facebook failed to do the right thing.  I'm still not sure about how they managed to blow this.

At Home

I'm prepping for Dragon Con!

For those going here's a short list of what I have planned:

• Friday night:
• Walking Dead Costume Group
• Saturday
• Dragon Con Parade as Dum Dum Dugan
• Panel at 1pm on "Do We Need Teachers?" as part of the Science Track
• Panel at 5pm on "Hollywoodpocalypse" as part of the Apocalypse Rising Track
• Sunday
• BSG Duty Blues costume for fun
• Star Trek Costume Group
• Panel at 7pm on Defiance: A Town without Mercy as part of the Apocalypse Rising Track
• Monday
• A long... long... drive home.

If you need any help finding me at the con, shoot a tweet to me @FictionalOmen, drop me an email or leave a comment here and I'll do my best to find you.

Your Weekly Video

I'm seriously considering making a lipsync video of "What Makes you Beautiful" by, yes I know, 1 Direction because of all the shaming and hate around Cosplay.  I'm not sure if I will or not but here's one of the best I've seen to some awesome Bon Jovi:

Rob Osterman is the author of the popular web novel Bastion: The Last Hope.  Its story follows those few who struggle to survive through the end of days and perserve what remains of humanity.  He also writes Mind the Thorns, a reader directed web novel chronicling the death and life of Regan Fairchild:  Accountant, Bachelorette and Vampire.

His first novel, Fantasti*Con follows Allison Cavanaugh on a weekend of geekery gone awry as she is stalked, followed, harassed and worse.  It is available on Amazon in print and eBook editions.

Feminism and I: It's Complicated

Recently I was advised to submit a short story to a group working on a collection of stories by female authors.  As I'm not a female this would seem out of place but the suggestion was made that I might be added as a "bonus story" because I have pretty good track record of writing strong female characters, and that a story in that vein might go well in the collection.

I wasn't called a Feminist but I like to think that I let my process of character creation run along similar lines as Jos Whedon and he has been given, if not taken, that title himself.  I've also been known to horribly misquote him but I like to think that my error is more along the lines of "correct in spirit if off in fact."

Oddly, though, I have to confess to a rather on-again-off-again relationship with the term Feminist.  Most "-ists" tend to be used as a form of pejorative.  Racist.  Sexist.  Misogynist.  Elitist.  These aren't nice words.  I even have a weird reaction when someone uses the term "Deist" even though I don't think it's intended harshly in most conversation.

Weekly Omens 8/18/13

Why is this so late?  Well here's a bit about my weekend.  I'm trying to get the wife to try out Rift, we're just now catching up on Newsroom and True Blood, this was my last week of "Summer Vacation", and today Disney Infinity was released and already it's a hit with the house (but not the pocketbook).

So let's do this round up so I can get back to building a race track in my son's Infinity Toybox.

On Bastion the Last Hope

This week was a multimedia update week and we got some insight into how it was that Felice now goes by the name Jo.  I feel, personally, like it was a little more tell than show (I know it's supposed to be the other way around, but this is a picture based storyline) but I think it worked.

Fans should note that the schedule for BLH is changing over to the following:  Prose / Media / Break.  This past week was a media week, so the coming week will be a break.  Expect the next prose, a week from Monday and expect it to be prose.  This should give me a little more time to work on things and hopefully get Mind the Thorns back into my writing rotation.

On Fictional Omens

I waxed a little angry about the fact that our language is "evolving" to allow the wrong definition of a word to, literally, be considered "a definition" of that word.  I'm, figuratively, steaming at the collar about it and, literally, ready to scream.

At Home

I continue to prepare for Dragon Con.  It's exciting and fun and I'm probably going to be taking at least 5 different costumes to change into and out for over the weekend, coupled with appropriate clothes for my panels (assuming I'm still on said panels as the schedule isn't released yet and my name does not appear in the DC app yet as a presenter).

And, for your weekly video:

If you're a fan of Lindsey Stirling you've seen this already but it's news to me and thus I am sharing it here.  Also I think someone at Dragon Con should totally Cosplay her.

Rob Osterman is the author of the popular web novel Bastion: The Last Hope.  Its story follows those few who struggle to survive through the end of days and perserve what remains of humanity.  He also writes Mind the Thorns, a reader directed web novel chronicling the death and life of Regan Fairchild:  Accountant, Bachelorette and Vampire.

His first novel, Fantasti*Con follows Allison Cavanaugh on a weekend of geekery gone awry as she is stalked, followed, harassed and worse.  It is available on Amazon in print and eBook editions.

New Definitions that, Literally, Need to Die

Thanks to John Scalzi, I learned last night that dictionaries are starting to add "Figuratively" to the definition of the word "Literally." Or to put it another way, because so many people are, literally, using the word in a way that is exactly opposite of what it means the dictionaries are giving up and changing the definitions.

 This has spurred me to go after a short list of "definitions" that I would happily shoot with a phasor set to "Shake and Bake."

 Gay vs Stupid, Silly or Lame

Weekly Omens 8/9/13

And we're back to weekly updates!

So here's what's happening around the various writings and whatnots:

Welcome to Dragon Con, Newbie

As the days to Dragon Con tick down, more and more first timers have been flooding the various Facebook Groups with questions, seeking advice, tips, and tricks for surviving the weekend with just slightly less sanity than they started with but without going completely nutzoid over the four days.

The call went out for the best "First Timer Guides" and so I am taking up the challenge with a set of ideas, suggestions, and observations I wish I had had for my first couple of Dragon Cons.

So in no particular order here are my thoughts:

It's been a good week for Link-age

As I wrap up my post-surgical convalescence, I've been fortunate to find my name out there in a few places recently.

First my dear friend and fellow author Janine Spendlove posted my guest post on the levels of accuracy over at her blog.  Hop over there to give it a read, then come back here and leave a comment.  Or leave one both places.

By the way, she's also part of Silence in the Library Publishing and it's not too late to get in on their Kickstarter for a lovely collection of time travel based short stories.

Second, the wonderful blog The Kill Zone has a critique of the first page of Bastion: The Last Hope posted.  It's a great read with many excellent points raised.  I'm happy with the response and plan to take it all into consideration moving forward.  Of course if you'd like to read the entire first chapter, just hop over to Bastion itself and have a look.

And lastly, I had my interview for the Local Author's program for our area cable channel.  It will be airing in July so stay tuned for more!

Oh, by the by, I came through surgery quite well, and have all four of my wisdom teeth safely removed.  Of course I scheduled an appointment only to remove two so there is still some story to be had here.  I get the stitches out tomorrow and I'll be probably telling the full tale sometime next week.

A little poll....

Things have quieted down a bit so hop over to Mind the Thorns for a little poll about vampires:

http://www.mindthethorns.com/2013/06/poll-vampires-are-real.html

If vampires ~are~ real, what kind would they be?

The Hiatus

The following is Cross Posted across all of my blogs:  Fictional Omens, Mind the Thorns, and Bastion: The Last Hope.

So much to talk about and so much to write and to do and honestly no time for it all.

This is the end I want to make a public explanation of what's going on.  As many of you know, my day job is teaching.  This time of year is always incredibly challenging as the school year comes to a close, students seek extra last minute help, papers need to be graded, and life just has to wrap up.  To this end I've just been unable to keep up with much of my writing.

Mind the Thorns has suffered a great deal from neglect of late, partly from timing, partly because of the nature of writing something reader-directed.  Bastion has completely eaten up its buffer and while I love my blog, and I have plenty to comment on, there isn't time.

Officially, all web novels will return to regular posting on or around July 1.

Now, why the wait?

For Mind the Thorns, posting will resume much sooner than later.  I just need time to sit down and write.  Thankfully there's a plan in place I just need to keep pushing on.

For Bastion, I really need time to rebuild that buffer, collect videos from my cast, plan the next dozen chapters, and then be ready to write so that if I am forced to fall a little behind your regular updates aren't disrupted.

I appreciate the patience of all my readers as I push through this period and hope you all return at the beginning of July to engage in these projects.

Weekly Update 6/1/13

You all know how this goes.

You're sitting in the cafeteria when you see that one of the popular girls of the school is looking at you.  She gets up and starts to walk towards you.  She knows you exist.  She is coming to say something to you.  You are someone she has something to say to.  Finally, the moment has come and you have a chance to tell her how beautiful she is, how much you love her laugh, and her smile and her hair and how she smells, and how she writes her sevens on the board in Algebra and how she crosses her T's in her poetry in English.  Finally, you get to tell her everything because she's coming.

To.  Talk.  To.  YOU.

Then she's there and she leans in close.  She's going to whisper to you.  OhGodsofKobal.  She has a secret. You tense.  You close your eyes.

"Your fly is open."

Yep.  That was how my Saturday started when I got a lovely comment from the ever amazing Mary Janice Davidson pointing out that I'd mistyped the title of her novel Undead and Unwed.  I saw that I had gotten a comment on the blog post a few weeks back about Charlaine Harris and Vampires and I had referenced a lovely blog entry that Davidson had posted on that topic.

And blown the title.

Which still upsets me because the Queen Betsy stories are such inspirations for my own writing, that bend of quirky characters, fish out of water themes, vampires, etc.  Of course Regan didn't become obsessed with shoes until after she was a vampire but let's not quibble, shall we?

So... what's been up the last two weeks?

On Mind the Thorns

As I slide into my Summer hiatus, there has not been an update.  See below for comments.

On Bastion:  The Last Hope

Owing to the Memorial Day holiday there was no update but we did all contribute to a special thank you to our veterans, those lost in military service and their families.

On Fictional Omens

I weigh in on the new project Kindle Worlds, an licensed fanfic program by Amazon.  I really do think that it could be the end of Fan Fic as we know it.

At Home:

Well, it's that time of year.  As I mentioned above, all of my writing properties are going on a short Summer Hiatus.  Why is this, you ask, dear reader?  Because final exams are the toughest time of the year for me.  I'm absolutely swamped with papers, grading, finals, students asking for late work, extra credit, and a million other things.  I just don't have the time to sit and write in the way I write best.  So rather than kick out something half assed, I'm officially declaring all properties on hiatus until the first week of July.  Then they'll return with their usual weekly or bi-weekly updates.

Also at home, Xander has completed his first year of Kindergarten (or nearly has).  And that brings us to ...

The Weekly Video

This is a compilation of images and videos for my son over the last year as he finishes up his first year of school.  It's amazing how fast the time goes.

Who Owns the World? A reaction to Kindle Worlds

As you probably know by now, Amazon has announced that they will be launching a new Kindle Direct program called Kindle Worlds.  Fan-fic authors can submit their work in one of the official licensed worlds and if accepted will find their work for sale on Amazon.com.  Along the way, Amazon gets all kinds of benefits and perks and young fledgling authors who have been writing fan-fic for fun or for practice can now add "for profit" to their reasons for doing so.

John Scalzi, who himself is brilliant in all things writer-advocacy, has a great post up where he dissects the actual agreement.  I'm going to spring board off of that myself here.

Spring boarding off of this there is one fundamental underlying question:  Who owns a world?

Where have all the game stores gone?

So here I was all ready to blog about the latest in snarky reviews on Good Reads followed by a possibly unprofessional response on an author's blog leading to the latest internet Tea Pot Tempest when I got news of a store closing.

Let me put some context here.

When I started teaching, my room was a common place for nerds, geeks and dorks to hang out after school and have a shared space where it was okay to talk about DND characters, video games, and RPG's. 

A few years ago I got a note from one of the guys who would hang out saying he had purchased a game shop and was selling the games we had talked about after school.  

Sadly, the game shop is closing.  Amazon, Walmart, and all the other "get more for less" stores took their toll, and the profit margin wasn't enough to keep it going.

So in lieu of a post tonight, we're heading up to East Lansing for a guy's night of comics, and games and good memories.  I want my son to see a game shop, what gaming used to be, before the age of Overnight Delivery and On Demand Comics.

It's a bittersweet journey.

Weekly Update 5/11/13

The week opened with two days of inservices, followed by a day off due to a sick out by our bus drivers (long story and I'm not even sure what happened really), and then two days of work.  It was a very short week for me at the day job yet oddly tiring all the same.

On Mind the Thorns:

Sadly, no update this time out, but I can assure everyone that the next chapter is in the works.  However, as you will see below, it might be delayed just a pinch.

On Bastion: The Last Hope

Bastion came back with an update following the KC130 crew, this time from the point of view of one of the copilots.  We get a chance to see the group from a different angle, meet a different character, and find out a little bit about what exactly is happening.

On Fictional Omens

Owing to a wacky week I went back to the archives and found a great post about writing in 1st person and why its so hard.  Which is ironic because this week saw another dust up of "Authors Behaving Badly" as one tried to defend his rather casual writing style and his informal treatment of the audience.  I may write more on it, if I feel I want to take the risk, as his response to the review got him pretty slammed.

At home:

As a heads up, the next few weeks are going to be crazy at work as we end out the school year.  Final grades are due, and for the first time in a long time it looks like I'll need to clean out my classroom in case I teach somewhere else in the fall.  Finding time (and energy) to compose is going to be tough.  So everyone knows Mind the Thorns will get another chapter before Memorial Day weekend, and Bastion has three more posts before the buffer is exhausted.  After that it may go on hiatus for a few weeks to rebuild the buffer as we move into summer.  The one perk of teaching is that I will have time this summer to muse and write in and around spending time with the kids and the family.

Plus my parent's cottage now has high speed internet and Wifi so I can go work up there as well.


And.... your weekly video:

A few weeks ago Wil Weaton was asked what he might say to a woman's newborn daughter about why it was awesome to be a nerd.

Here goes:

Repost: Narrators- The Challenge of 1st Person

This is from the archives given that this week has been kinda bat-crap crazy for me.  It also reminds me that I need to get some serious work done on my next few chapters too....

The 2011 Smurf movie introduced us to a variety of unique smurfs, among them Gutsy (a kilted smurf) and Narrator (shown above).  At one point in the movie, while Narrator is describing the ongoing battle scene another smurf looks at him and shouts "Really?  Now?"  At this Narrator shrugs and says "It's what I do."

When it comes to 1st Person Past Tense writing I find that the idea of the narrator is profoundly problematic and one of the least understood or acknowledged challenges in writing, especially among young or new writers.  There is a distinctive appeal to having someone relate their accounts of events in their own words.  We, as readers, are treated to their thoughts, their statements of their feelings, and their interpretations of the story.

Weekly Update 4/4/13

Up and down and up down went the emotions of the week.  One drama led to another and then another.  Most of them were work related (not writing work the kind that pays the bills)  but all in all it was not a bad week.  Just one that kept the hits coming.

Like a jack hammer.

On Mind the Thorns:

It does seem that polls are borked so I'm going to be looking for something other than the Blogger resident poll system to keep tally week by week.  The winning vote ~appeared~ to be to rescue Emma so that's what Regan's going to do.  Of course, technically the vote was to ~try~ to save her.  I never said if she was already too far gone or not.

We'll just have to wait a week and see.

On Bastion: The Last Hope

This week was a hiatus week with no update.  I should be hearing back from my friend in the Marine Corps tonight or tomorrow so that will give me a little bit to get the chapter edited and posted and from there it looks like we're on track for a good 4 week run without break.

On Fictional Omens

Last weekend a major dust up took place for author Charlaine Harris, the woman behind the wildly popular True Blood novels also known as the Southern Vampire stories.  Long story short, spoilers to her final book in the series leaked and many "fans" were none too happy.  I took on the issue of Reader Entitlement in this week's Fictional Omen.

At home:

Okay so Amazon Prime has this thing going where you can watch pilots for original shows that they will put on the "air" next season.  We watched a few and here are our votes:

• Zombieland The Series - Green Light
• Alpha House - Yellow
• The Onion News Network - Red

We'll watch more and get back to you.

And.... your weekly video:

How am I just now finding out about this amazingly talented young woman?

Charlaine Harris, Southern Vampires, and Entitlement

This is the second take of my title.  The first was "Charlaine Harris is not your B***H".  It seems very posh to quote Mr. Gaiman these days and well, it seems to fit.  Specifically it comes, so the legend goes, from a time that Neil Gaiman was asked how a fan could ask GRR Martin to write faster because they were so anxious to see where the Game of Thrones story line went.  His answer?

You don't.

And that quote started to make the rounds again as authors weighed in on the recent debacle related to the much anticipated end to the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampires True Blood series.

But, given that ChibiNeko did that for her blog, I thought I'd write up my take on the whole thing under my own title.

The best write up of the event is here at the Blog of one Mary Janice Davidson, author of UNDead and Unwed and other stories of Vampire Queen Betsy. Edited:  I originally mistyped the title of Ms. Davidon's Queen Betsy series as "Dead and Unwed" rather than "Undead and Unwed".  For clarity here's the actual book.  In fact, I need to really apologize because so much of Mind the Thorns and my own efforts to write to a similar audience was influenced by having read the first two books in that series.