As if you were reading

There is a song I heard somewhere that has a line, "he prays like someone hears him."  I feel a correlation between that line and with this blog.  I write like someone reads it.  Now I know I have a few followers.  And that's grand, really it is.  I love you.  All three of you.  I'm mean I write like there are dozens, hundreds even.  Who knows maybe there are.  People who read but don't follow or comment.  They call them lurkers.  I hear there's some sort of a "come out of the closet day" for lurkers.  I'm not sure when that is or whether it is conscionable to call people out of the closet like that.

I lurk.

I'm happy lurking.

That's how God made me.

And wow, I'm getting off topic here.  Alright lets straighten out this sub text. (I know I'm getting kind of bad with all the gay wordplay but I just couldn't help myself.)

Ahem.

Anyway.  So any of you out there.  Not that I'm calling you out.  I feel awkward calling out lurkers.  I once saw this really weird teddy bear stop motion animation thing on TV when I was a kid.  But it was like a stop motion animation thing made for adults, not naughty adult, just mature humor adult.  I could tell it was meant for grown ups because the show was making jokes but I wasn't laughing.  It was like watching MASH.  So... anyway this teddy bear was lonely and before he went to sleep he lit a candle and looking under his bed he called out "Any ladies under there."

I had to ask my Mom what the heck he was talking about.  Why on earth would he be looking for women under his bed.  She could only guess that is was a play on an old notion that women sometimes checked under their beds at night for men.  Where this crazy and creepy social tradition sprang from I have no idea.  In the times before I was alive was it common for women to be assaulted by men who were hiding under their beds?  Well I suppose it serves them right for not checking.

 Latter I saw a cartoon (The still drawn kind) of a young girl with a candle looking under her bed only to find a sign that read "Back in five minuets"  Now that was funny.  Creepy, but funny.  The bear, not so much.  With him it was just pathetic really.  This was a really crummy show I was watching.  It was like a grown up melancholy situational comedy without the humor and marketed for kids.  They were really missing every mark you could miss.  Both the lame attempt at the joke and how pathetic the bear himself was.  All in all it was really sad and pathetic.  The bear was so lonely for females he grasped at the false hope that there might be some hiding under his bed.

And so asking if there's anyone out there lurking feels just as bad.  By doing so it's like asking for more readers.  Now why do I think that asking for more readers on a blog with only three followers will help get more?  Beats me.  Might as will holler under the bed for attention.  I have tried to refrain from doing so mostly because I don't want to whine nor do I want to be pathetic like the bear.  Yet by writing all this I sort of am the bear now... nuts.  Well at least I'm self aware unlike the bear.  Well as long as I don't make a habit out of it.  (Although maybe whining works.  I watched Julie & Julia, the Julie chick whined on her blog and they made it into a movie with Merl Streep and Amy Adams.  So maybe if I whine they'll turn my blog into a movie with Harrison Ford and Shia Lebuff.)

Instead of whining I have written as though someone reads this.  (Again the dozens or hundreds of someones, I don't want to belittle the wonderful three I have now.  Your like my Trinity, (nothing but love)).  I explain this in case there are lurkers out there wondering why this guy writes as though he had a vast audience.  Near as I can tell it's just me, a lurker myself, and three others (three brave others with the guts to follow).  So to lurkers I explain.  I explain as though you cared, just as some pray as though someone listens, or write as though someone read.

In the movie Matilda there is a powerful line about what authors do.  "So Matilda's strong young mind continued to grow nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships onto the sea.  These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message "You Are Not Alone.""  That is how I feel about what I write.  Its like a ship.  I know not where it goes or if it ever arrives at it's destination.  I only know it carries a message, my message.  A message that I think will hearten those who hear it.

Ted from "How I Met Your Mother" says that Karaoke is Japanese for empty orchestra.  He thinks that is hauntingly beautiful.  I feel like that sometimes, like a performer lit up on a stage.   I peer out into the darkness, to the audience, but I can't see if anyone is watching.  I preform not knowing if there will be applause of silence when the curtain falls.

Snap that band

The world is full of characters dealing with sexual or romantic tension.  It seems to be more prevalent in TV; and TV like a taint, like the best taints, touches everything.  It influences the young minds who become writers.  There are too many bad habits that one can pick up from TV to list here.  So I will focus on this one for now.  The extending of sexual tension to impossible lengths.  It stems from a inherent flaw in TV series. 

A series in order to be a series need to keep the story going indefinitely.  They do this by treading water, the same water, over and over.  Once they stumble on a combination that works, one that strikes a cord with the viewing audience, they keep recycling the same formula.

 One such formula is the pair that just can't make it into relationship status.  One or the other is already dating, married, mourning, or there's some other more elaborate reason why the two can't be together.  And this sexual tension builds and builds between them.  If the show lasts long enough the tension is maintained so long that I no longer care if the two get the hook up or not.  Or if they do it feels like they are betraying the characters somehow.

Now it is not the use of sexual or romantic tension that I dislike, it's the misuse of it.  As mentioned it seems to show up the most in television, or maybe it's just that much more noticeable in that medium.  But I've seen it in books too.

Sexual, or romantic tension is like an elastic band.  The longer it stays taut the more strength it loses.  But including it in a story is a way to keep people interested in your characters and keep vibrancy in your plot.  The trick is to keep the right balance, it is a delicate tight rope dance.  Too much and a reader will be strained waiting for the charters to get the hook up but never getting that release which they (and we the readers) oh so desperately want and need.

Come on, snap it.  You know you want to.

The Distinction

I prefer to write Fantasy but I enjoy Sci Fi as well.  Now Sci Fi is not the same thing as Fantasy.  The distinction is small, and in some stories it's blurred but it's there.

The best and most succinct explanation of the difference that I've ever heard is this:

"Sci Fi is what could be but isn't.  
Fantasy is what can't be but is."

I believe it was Orson Scott Card who said this but I can't prove it.  If anyone knows if it was indeed Mr. Card, or if you know who did say it, please let me know.  If I happen to be lucky enough to have made it up without realizing it then I claim it as mine, but I doubt I did.

The difference is Sci Fi uses science to explain its impossibilities and Fantasy uses magic. The two genres have more in common then not.  And yet I've heard of infighting amongst the geeks and nerd ranks.  Contention rages about the validity of Sci Fi over Fantasy or vice versa.  Arguments that one is better than the other abound.

Brothers and sisters (assuming there are any girl geeks out there, I've yet to find any) please put this bad blood which runs between our two great genres aside.  They are both capable of greatness and culpable of ... ungreatness.  But there are those who would deride us all of our place in the world.  Those who view both genres as dross.  The enemy is out there, let us not do their work for them.  Besides if Sci Fi and Fantasy really were to clash one with the other I think we all know who would win.

Huh... I didn't expect that.  Although it may look bad now, this knight is totally gonna kick this space ranger's butt.  Trust me,  because in Fantasy we got the magic.

Hope Fulfilled

So a while ago I bought the Dragon Naturally Speaking program. I must say that I am rather happy with it. In fact I am using it right now to write this post. It has made transferring my handwriting into the computer much quicker.

It does seem to have problems with proper names. Also it messes up when you mean to say "two" instead it comes out "to." But all those problems are not insurmountable. Working with the Naturally Speaking program and a keyboard I am able to write several paragraphs in a matter of minutes.

Where before it would take me hours to get a single page of a handwritten story on to the computer it now only takes me an hour to get three pages. So all in all was a good buy for me.