Author: admin

cancelled

Posted on by admin

For the record, I don’t want anyone cancelled, not really.

I believe in accountability, in taking responsibility for our actions, but the idea of wholesale cancellation, of ruining people’s lives for a misstep, a poor turn of phrase, heck, even sometimes, just the perception of a poor turn of phrase…

It turns my stomach.

There are people who ought to be cancelled. Weinstein, obviously. Every motherfucker at Cornell involved in that Jane Doe shit.

Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, Vivek Ramaswamy, etc., etc., Republicans, etc.

These people have committed actual crimes, and show zero remorse for their godawful behaviour.

But in most cases, reaching out, education, is better than condemnation. Condemnation tends to make people defensive and push people into doubling down. It’s a tool to radicalize, mostly unintentionally, against the very people that condemned them in the first place.

It’s a bit like the way the Conservative Party in Canada deals with health care and education. The system’s not perfect, obviously, nothing is. But instead of looking at the problems and working with the healthcare industry or teachers to find solutions and common ground, they just break everything, and then go, see, it’s broken, damn those nurses and doctors and teachers, none of whom set the policies that created the break.

No one, and that means absolutely no one, ever, in history, is perfect.

Utopias are stupid and unreasonable.

Aim for improvement, not perfection. Aim for understanding, not condemnation. There is no joy in Whoville if they burn the Grinch at the stake.

His heart will not grow three sizes if it’s on fire.

Anyway, save the condemnation for the truly evil and the truly remorseless; their ouster from our society is key to our survival as a species. For everyone else…

Education and evolution. Understanding. Patience. Perspective.

Otherwise, all you’ve done is reveal your own myopia. Your own desire for the dehumanization of your perceived enemies.

And who really wants that? Is that going to solve our problems?

Or sow greater division?

Remember: kindness and empathy, understanding and compassion, are not some lefty plot or bleeding heart nonsense. They are not irrational.

They are the heart of logic. After all, what could be more logical that working together, helping each other, and taking the time to create greater understanding?

How could that possibly make the world a worse place?

Logically, it could only be better.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1450 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, Chris Hadfield
Comics: The Walking Dead 45-48
Music: Hell's Ditch, The Pogues

neurodivergent

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I think I’ve been pretty clear here that I’m not entirely normal. I’ve dealt with melancholy, with frustration, with anger issues and isolation.

I don’t think like other people.

My mind immediately rejects any presentation of any perspective with questions about other possible perspectives.

I’m a little bit OCD. A little bit ADD.

(a little bit of Erica by my side.)

Probably bipolar, but you know what? Fuck you.

I don’t have a single actual diagnosis. I don’t need one.

For my entire life, I’ve looked at labels with suspicions. It is very easy to reduce people to less than, to caricatures, based on a label.

Oh, she’s ADHD. He’s gay. Norm’s a Republican. Tara’s a leftie.

Depression, social anxiety, autistic, black, trans, women, disabled, these are all unfortunately convenient shorthands used to make all kinds of assumptions about people that only serve to reinforce stereotypes and tribalism, instead of opening up space to actually learn about who people actually are.

It’s too easy.

And it’s bullshit.

I refuse to get a diagnosis, because I do not want that diagnosis to define who I am. Indeed, today, I listened to two people openly mock the neurodivergent, despite the fact that at least one of them was fully aware that there was one in the room, reducing them to oddballs and weirdos. They rolled their eyes at the idea that we might take the time to recognize them, or accommodate them in any way.

It pissed me off, mightily, and my boss did nothing to push back.

That’s why I don’t get tested. Not because I don’t want to fix the problem, but the second that label is attached, you are now less than, a joke, no longer an actual person, but a diagnosis.

You are not Empty; you are (insert diagnosis).

The farther away we can move from boxing people in with labels (a favourite pasttime, it seems, of the millennial and Gen Z crowd, although Boomers are great at labels as well, though theirs tend to be a little cruder, and more bigoted), the better.

Remember how you chastise and cancel people for every little thing; when you’re no longer the youth in charge, you too, will be labelled horrible, and probably for this. Your children will reject you, and the stigma of your endless labels.

The reduction of the human is tragic; the pasting of a prefab schematic onto anyone’s life (and I’ll include our pets in this), is a fucking monstrosity.

There. Go cancel yourselves now.

You deserve it.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1479 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, Chris Hadfield
Comics: The Walking Dead 41-44
Music: Hefty Fine, Bloodhound Gang

late ideas

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I hate when the big realizations of how a scene should be written show up in the late drafts.

It helps mold the story, but it’s very late to do the little tweaks, the small things that take a story from decent (but probably slapped together for a quick buck, like a bad boy romance or cozy detective novel), and turns it into something truly epic, like whatever it is the cool kids say is high literature these days.

(I’d say Dumas or Mowat or King, probably Palahniuk, David Grann, C.J. Cherryh, Elizabeth Bear, who is definitely the better Bear in the sci-fi space.)

Anyway, it takes what it takes to get it right.

Right?

Target: 1700 words
Written: 2182 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, Chris Hadfield (phenomenal)
Comics: The Walking Dead 37-40
Music: Heavy Petting Zoo, NOFX

not terrible, i guess

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Things seemed to have calmed a bit.

Of course, that’s probably due to me getting a bit ahead of schedule, and not having as heavy a workload the last couple of days.

The bad news is, tomorrow, it’s bad to the grind.

Thousands, instead of hundreds of words.

Fun.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 508 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, Chris Hadfield
Comics: The Walking Dead 33-36
Music: Heaven On Earth, Belinda Carlisle (ooh baby do you what's that worth?  Not much, in my world)

tuesday the thirteenth

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Thanksgiving is over.

We did not do a proper Thanksgiving dinner (a mistake I will rectify in two weeks’ time).

But I took a moment to give thanks for the parts of my life where things don’t suck.

My immediate family. My cats. My dogs.

My continued existence.

The faint hope that maybe, just maybe, some sanity will prevail and the United States and Alberta will both vote in the best interests of humanity, and not their own selfish, misguided bullshit.

Thanks, hopefully not for nothing.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 432 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, Chris Hadfield
Comics: The Walking Dead 29-32
Music: Heaven & Hell, A Tribute To The Velvet Underground Volume, Screaming Trees and others

why am i always apologizing?

Posted on by admin

I know I’m Canadian but it’s a bit ridiculous, even for us.

I was thinking about my grandmother today, my dad’s mom, and all I could think was that I wish I’d been a better grandson, that I’d spent more time with them, that I’d been just… better.

I do this all the time.

I feel like a failure – as a father and a son, a husband and a writer, a person, a political entity, a human being.

I’m sorry for that, and I don’t know how to move beyond it.

I feel responsible for everything, and powerless over all.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 2524 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson (I understand the ending, but something about it seems unfinished, doesn't it?)
Comics: The Walking Dead 25-28
Music: Heaven :x: Hell, Sum 41 (better than you'd think, bit of a throwback)

your father’s life is worth $154.08 a month

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There’s a part of me that wants to write a whole poem about this, but Jesus, it kind of writes itself, doesn’t it?

It’s like the six word poem, baby shoes for sale, never worn, which says so much.

A hundred and fifty-four dollars and eight cents a month.

That’s what you’re worth, orphan.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 3074 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson
Comics: The Walking Dead 21-24 (I forgot how great this series was before the show got super repetitive and blew it.  Part of the reason I never finished it, and why I'm going back to do so now.)
Music: Heathen, David Bowie

massive rewrite

Posted on by admin

Holy mackarel, looking at this chapter, there are so many missed opportunities, so many fuckups.

Wow, amateur hour.

Total hack.

But I think I have the solution.

Stop writing, give up, never type again.

Wait.

Maybe not.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1688 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson (I'm impressed, but it does drag a little in the middle, I'm finding)
Comics: The Walking Dead 17-20
Music: Heated, Big Sugar

okay, i felt that in my gut

Posted on by admin

Do you ever have PTSD reactions, but you’ve never had the requisite trauma to go with the PTSD?

Like, a panic attack with no real reason to panic?

Apparently, I can trigger that by doing a good job writing a horrible scene (or editing it in this case).

I guess I gotta go focus on something else for a while, that’s not entrails.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 2010 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson
Comics: The Walking Dead 9-12
Music: Nirvana, Heart-Shaped Box