Traveller's Tales

I’m editing.  I like what the results look like, and I think I’ll be very, very pleased with the end result.

But I am fighting a pitched battle with one of my lead characters, and he’s not giving an inch without inflicting pain or drawing blood.

This is the guy I had originally written in first person, present tense, as a way to make his thinking more accessible to the reader   (this was my theory, and my thought experiment has officially backfired and gone horribly wrong; lesson learned, mea culpa, see my other post about that).  Now I’m wrangling him into third person past, like the rest of the narrative.  What’s coming out, I like — but Oh My Freaking God he’s taking For Bloody Ever to make the transformation.

I keep re-reading the chapters I think I’ve just wrangled, only to find massive errors in tense and in person, even in the brand new stuff that’s gone in to replace the first-person ruminations.  Beyond that, I have to write, put it away, and re-read it fresh the next day because I’m not sure it’s reading true until well after I’ve written it.  The shift in POV is so jarring to me, after living with this character for so long in first person, that it’s even tough to be certain I’m writing well, and that’s not something I usually worry too much about.

I’m finding myself very interested in this phenomenon.  I’m fascinated that a mental construct like a character can associate itself so strongly with linguistic concepts (tense, point of view) that the process of revising those concepts can so thoroughly screw with my head.  It’s a serious crash course in pragmatics (not pragmatism), which I may have to dig into a bit deeper after this edit is done.

Wacky stuff.

This life thing we all do sure has some weird side trips.  Keeps things interesting, but I’m not sure I’d recommend some of them.

The one I was just on, for instance — the ‘go to the doctor for chest pains and let him tell you that your blood pressure is so high your head is about to explode’ adventure really isn’t all it’s hyped up to be.  Sure, you get some time away from work, that’s nice in theory, but it’s hardly quality vacation time.  I mean, you can’t enjoy it because you’re constantly going to some doctor or other to get poked and prodded, to get your blood sucked and your chest x-rayed and your heart stress-tested and electronically scrutinized and to get a wide variety of drug cocktails introduced to your system (“Hello, system, we’re Hydrochlorothorazide and Irbesartan, and we’re about to spend a lot of time together.”), and all the while the tour guides don’t tell you whether this is the end of the ride or just another turn.  Really dodgy design for a ride if you ask me.

Anyway, in my case it wound up being just another turn and I’m back from the trip, rowing along with the current with everyone else again, but wow does shit like that change things.  Like what you eat, how much you drink, how often and how hard you exercise, how long you sleep, how hard you can work — you know, pretty much every aspect of the crap you do every day goes through a big ol’ WTF loop and comes out the other end looking like, well, the opposite of what it did going in.  Overall, I find myself enjoying the changes I’m having to make quite a bit — almost as though I needed some sort of excuse, which is dumb, but which would not be the first time I was accused of that fault.  But those old bad habits sure do lurk.

Still no idea how this will affect my working life over the long haul, but at least there’s still a working life for me to consider and no immediate plans for doom and/or gloom.  Certainly doesn’t affect the writing, but I’ll save the updates on that for next time.

Good to be back.  Now pass the tomato slices.

I’m noticing something odd:  ever since I got my new little netbook and started writing on the bus, my job has gotten easier to stomach.

Now, maybe it’s a coincidence, which is entirely possible given it hasn’t been all that long since I started using it, but I’ve got this weird feeling that giving myself more time to do my own writing is resulting in me being better able to deal with the massive piles of bullshit that tend to get flung around at work.

So now I’m wondering if there’s a direct correlation between one’s personal artistic frustrations and one’s ability to do the “day job.”

Let me elaborate a little.

With all my time consumed by work during the week, I’ve grown resentful of all the time the paycheck steals from me, and the rigors of the job itself, combined with a not-negligible commute, have resulted in me often coming home too tired to write, or waking up too late to steal half an hour before the last bus shows up.

Enter the netbook.  While I can’t write for part of the ride (yes, I do get mildly motion sick, and the twisty windy rural roads near my house are way too twisty and windy for me to keep my lunch down if I’m trying to write), the latter part is smooth sailing, and I can get a good 30-45 minutes of writing in before we pull into NYC or leave the highways.

So now that I’ve done that for a week, I’m suddenly finding a bit more energy available for the job, find myself willing to make a bit more effort to keep things rolling along.  Which in a way doesn’t make sense, because I’m doing more than I was, but in a way it does, because I’ve recovered some great opportunities to do what I love to do.

So I guess I do think there’s some sort of correlation between having time for artistic expression and being able to deal with the mundane crap we all do to bring home the paycheck.  Don’t get me wrong, if I win the lottery I’m still outta there — but for now, this is a nice little discovery, and it’ll do nicely.

Finally, by way of backhanded review: my Acer netbook is the best money I’ve spent on myself in a long time.

(And no, I still haven’t installed World of Warcraft on it!)

I should really pay more attention to the weather.  Dad warned me a week ago this was coming, and Shelly still had to remind me last night.  Although I’m a bit pissy about not having been able to take actual vacation time this week, I admit today I’m feeling at least a little thankful that I don’t have to take the bus in today.

Also, I’m thankful that my driveway is little more than a slightly elongated square between my house and the teeny little windy road that connects me to the rest of the world; if I had Mom’s driveway to shovel with a six to ten inch snow forecast, I’d…

…well, I’d do what I’m going to do anyway, which is have a nice hot coffee with a shot of Baileys, write a bit in a comfy chair and watch the snow fall.

Gee, I really hope the cable is sound against the weather.  Would be a real crime if it, you know, got disconnected or something, and I had to spend the day unavailable.  Man, that’d really, um, suck…

The last few months have been hell on my creative drive.

As much as I like to bitch (check the size of the ‘bitching’ tag on the left), this actually isn’t one; it’s an observation, and perhaps a diagnostic, but not a bitch.

I’ve always been fond of saying that the job is a paycheck, not Art, which is code for giving myself an excuse for not getting incredibly stressed out to the point of going bug-eyed and wondering where the sharp cutlery is when I deal with the inevitable brats, idiots and egotists at work.  I’m in advertising, so not only do I get those separately, they often come in cunning combinations of the three — which is why it’s so important I maintain that distinction.

Lately I’ve come under the guidance of a Man of Business.  I am not categorizing him in this in this way to mock him, nor am I engaging in the art of sarcasm in any way when I say that.  I say it, because this is a man for whom his job IS his art.  Having made this observation, it’s actually profound to watch him in action, and proof positive to me that for every medium, there is an Artist.  Subtle nuances of human interaction are the clearest indicators to him; shifts in process alert him to emergencies buried deeply in complex projects, and for one of the very few times in my life I find myself constantly learning.

It has, however, been my great misfortune to join forces with this fellow at precisely the moment the business decides to collapse in upon itself with all the fury of an obsessive-compulsive chasing after a white whale.  As a result, the Artist has gone manic in an attempt to save said business from consuming itself in a cannibalistic orgy the likes of which even the Donner Party would have balked at, and my life, as a result of that association, has gone from the casual contemplation of a paycheck to furious reactionary firefighting.  Given the current economy, and the fact that my first manuscript sale is unlikely to make me independently wealthy (sure, I can dream, but I can buy lottery tickets and not win, too), this is probably a good thing long-term… but with the aforementioned Artist demanding so much of my energy, as well as demanding ever-higher levels of performance and observation from me as we go, it’s a full-on brain screw when it comes to the imaginary world in my head.

Acknowledging that the work situation is not going to change any time soon, the simple truth is that business will never be my Art — there’s never been any question about that, and if that’s a self-imposed limitation, I can live with it.  With that established, then, the key to reclaiming my own Artistry has to be regaining control of my own time, and the only way I can think of to do that under the pressures of work is by adopting and maintaining a strict schedule.  With regular 12-hour days sapping my energy, nights are lost except for mindless media consumption, so I have to claim the mornings as my own.  This means resisting the siren song of online gaming for overly late evenings, it means not throwing the alarm clock at the wall during the early mornings, and somehow working out how not to get wretchedly motion-sick while writing on the bus (something I’ll gladly take hints regarding, if anyone has any).

…of course, it’ll be much harder to establish these habits this holiday season, as I fully expect to engage in some bad behavior (and, by the way, have thoroughly earned the opportunity to misbehave over the last year!).  But when the New Year comes and the feces begin to impact the rotating oscillator yet again, at least I know I have a plan.

I’m not sure who the hell fired all the competent HR people I used to work with back in the day and hired smarmy buffoons in their place, but I want to find that person and turn him into a teambuilding exercise by placing him in front of a large bullseye and letting people throw things at him.

Apparently, we have somehow gone from the logical approach of ‘hey, people aren’t happy, let’s tie performance to pay so they’re motivated to excel’ to ‘hey, nobody’s happy, let’s make muffins!’ while I wasn’t looking. By which I don’t mean actual, literal muffins (though I’m sure, in some sad circumstances, this does actually happen), but figurative muffins, bizarre little activities or items intended to distract one from one’s actual work issues by creating and promoting a false sense of misdirected satisfaction via chotchkies, stupid games, and, occasionally, free booze. I don’t mind the free booze, but don’t for a second expect that it’s working as a distraction.

I’ll give you an example. The place I work just had a celebration of their re-branding. Never mind that they originally promised that everyone would have off to reflect on the brand and their business (a lovely idea that lasted an entire year before someone cut it off at the knees — naturally, because it had a chance of promoting actual good will towards the brand) and instead now we’re in for a day of business as usual. Never mind that nobody’s had a raise in as many years as I’ve worked here, and the word ‘bonus’ is used to describe hitting the urinal instead of extra money at the end of the year. Never mind all that: they gave us heavy metal cubes with clever sayings, attached to roach clips on springs. Three of them. Because suddenly management is terribly concerned about the quality of life of their employees, and motivational sayings on roach clips will surely do a better job of that than oh, I don’t know, letting people leave at a reasonable hour.

These cubes are muffins. Not as tasty or good-smelling, but with the same desired effect: they attempt to generate good-will with a minimum of financial outlay, while avoiding the core issues of employee dissatisfaction (and they wonder why places like despair.com make so much money). Sadly, their effect is similarly transient: even the most credulous consumer of these goods will find themselves over the experience in eight hours or thereabouts, and those of us who are more cynical bastards won’t even bother partaking.

Naturally, I fall into neither the group of poor credulous innocents nor into the cult of cynical bastards, but actually into an elite force of ultra-cynical subversionaries; not only do I not fall for this shit, but in fact I quite enjoy figuring out how to use these wretchedly conceived toys contrary to their intended use. Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but I do carry a hope that someday, someone else may also realize how utterly full of horseshit this crap is, and wonder aloud, “Why are the people nominally in charge wasting money on crap like this when they could be giving people things they actually want, like, you know, raises, promotions, bonuses and days off.”

I know, I’m really hoping way too much, but that’s just the kind of guy I am.

Anyway, while I do have plans for these specific muffins, the point of this rant isn’t to share those plans, but to remind anyone who might be reading this that no: muffin-making as a HR policy is not, in fact, an HR policy. There are real ways to motivate people and retain talent, and they have nothing to do with muffins. And, if you find yourself eating a muffin today, for crying out loud make sure it’s a chocolate one.

Damn, now I’m hungry.

I’m not going to post my evil plan. Silly me, I forgot the seventh rule of evil overlords:

‘When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “No.” and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him then say “No.”‘

So I’m not giving away my evil plan. Rest assured, though, that there is one, and that even though it does not involve laser beams (although it should), it will kick buttock. At least one of them, and possibly both.

I’ve just been accused by one of my more colorful, honest and direct friends of spending way too much time playing that nasty online game (World of Warcrack, in case anyone who doesn’t know me stumbles over this blog at some point) and not enough writing! Sadly, even feigned indignation was impossible in response, because at the time I was reading that email, I had just tabbed out of the game client because I was flying somewhere…

Well! The NERVE of exposing my weaknesses! The GALL, the CHUTZPAH! ZOMGLOLWTF!!!11111one.

Yeah, she’s right. So now that I’ve been properly shamed, I think I have a plan to find that lovely middle ground between playing too much and going cold turkey. The simple fact is, I do like the silly game, I enjoy the time I spend with actual, real life friends there, and will still play it… but… yeah… balance.

Off to work. Posting my evil plan when I get there.