Joel Arnold's Blog, page 17

"All War is Deception" - Sun Tzu

Finished reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War last night, written in the 6th century BC. Interesting book, and lots of strategy for dealing with different types of conditions, whether conditions of terrain or conditions of soldiers. There was a lot of interesting psychology regarding esprit de corps; how soldiers grow more united the farther they are in enemy territory, while the closer to home they are, the more likely are desertions. I found the most interesting chapter to be the last chapter, which talks about spies; he divides them in to five types - local spies, inward spies, converted spies, doomed spies and surviving spies. He talks about how all these different types should work in tandem without knowing who's doing what. He talks about how they should be fed misinformation, and how you must be on guard against misinformation. One of the footnotes talks about spies being like water to a boat - it can carry the boat or it can sink it. Lots of juggling - reminded me of Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches.

Amazing how relevant much of the text still seems to be. The book starts out with the importance of avoiding long, drawn-out wars at all costs, how it is foolish of an invading army to engage in this type of conflict - how it depletes the invading army of human and material resources, how it drains the energy of the populace (not to mention the effects it has on the country being invaded.) Bush and Cheney, I think you've just been served!
 

Tragedy - now with 50% more pathos!

One of the "benefits" of being a writer is the ability to put personal tragedy to use in creative ways. Of course, this counts for other types of art as well. I mean, what would the blues be without, you know, people having experienced the blues? For example, encountering some asshole who treats me like crap; after my initial anger subsides, I later think 'This person would make a great character in a story' or 'the mechanics/feelings/maneuverings/emotional jockeying of that incident would be really useful in this scene I'm writing.'

Pretty much all the really dumb things I did when younger are great sources of fodder for my writing (and believe me, that's a lot of fodder!) When I hear of the tragedies that have happened with others I know (and I don't mean fresh tragedy - I mean after a good deal of time and emotional distance has passed) I often think what great story material!

I know that may sound cold, like I'm getting off on the tragedy and drama of others, but I feel many of these very personal stories are important to share - either in a biographical-yet-fictional context (w/ the person's permission and/or 'the names have been changed, etc') or fictionalized to the point where it's mainly the emotional resonance I'm trying to get at. I think the more we learn that others have survived through tragedy, or at least experienced these tragedies, then that's more reason for people to not worry so much about being 'burdened with terrible secrets' - or at least realize that they're not the only ones to have gone through such tragedy - perhaps relieving them of some of the loneliness, the self-loathing by having characters they can relate to in their own way.

Does that make sense?

 

Perspective

Before we had kids, Melissa and I drove down to Rochester to visit my parents and attend a Christmas concert at the local community college. I was the one behind the wheel. It was early evening - the sun had already set, there was snow in the fields, but not on the roads - and at one point two eyes appeared in front of us reflecting our headlights back in a greenish-yellow glow. It was a doe, standing right there on Hwy 52. I slammed on the brakes, spat out the word 'Deer!' and braced for impact. The poor thing didn't have a chance.

Time slowed down drastically. I remember so many vivid details; the deer bending at an impossible angle, its head veering toward me, mucus flying from its eyes, nose and mouth onto the windshield. It rolled off the hood, and then there were headlights in our rear-view mirror and I braced myself again, thinking we might be rear-ended. I remember sitting there for a moment in the SUV on the highway, realizing I'd better pull over, and then Melissa and I talking about what we were supposed to do. Where had the deer gone? Did we need to drag it off the road? Were we supposed to call somebody?

I got out of the truck, and couldn't find the doe at first, but then there it was, back a ways, having rolled off the highway's shoulder and down a shallow embankment.

It wasn't until I walked back around the front of the truck to leave, that I noticed the damage. We were lucky, I suppose, that the airbags hadn't deployed, because the front of the SUV was pushed in a good half-foot, the hood bent up in the middle, the radiator badly dented.

Later, I found this to be kind of strange - that I hadn't noticed the damage being done to the vehicle at the moment of impact. A lot of force had been in play to push in the frame that much, to cause that much damage, but all that I had focused on at the time was the deer in slo-motion, head lolling toward me, mucus exiting its eyes, nose and mouth, spraying onto the windshield.

Here is what I've taken from this; a good lesson for writing about perspective.

What parts of a scene should our writerly lens focus on? What parts should be slowed down and examined in detail? What parts should be glossed over, or perhaps revealed in hindsight? Perhaps revealed at a later critical time?

The damage to the truck was not as important as the way the deer died, or at least how its death affected me in the moment of impact. The damage to the truck was more of an afterthought - an annoyance, sure, but not the focus of that particular scene in my life. It was, instead, the slow motion death of a sentient creature and the vivid detail of the mucus springing from parts I did not expect it to spring from.

The truck remained functional. We continued on to my parents', to the community college's Christmas concert. Somehow, the music made me forget, momentarily, of that slo-mo impact, that moment of shock and disbelief and bewilderment and the too-easy acceptance.

The Daunting Dauntiness of Tweeting on Twitter

I just set up a Twitter account a couple nights ago. Yikes! It's quite an overwhelming place -- at first glance it appears to be a wasteland of random thoughts and hucksterism. But the more I'm learning about it, the more fun it's becoming. God help me! (By the way, since JoelArnold was already taken as a Twitter name (damn you, other Joel Arnold!!!), I settled for @AuthorArnold. So if you're on Twitter, let me know, and I'll follow you!)

Still making my way through MR James' Ghost Stories From an Antiquary. Wow, great stuff! Very classic writing without being too verbose. And amazingly enough, despite my thick hide when it comes to reading horror, he's one of the rare ones who can still send chills up my spine!

Off to see the Wizard

The Muller Family Theater in Lakeville was showing The Wizard of Oz this week, so I took Paige with me to see it. Very cool to see on the big screen! So much more detail visible. Like the Cowardly Lion costume -- you could tell that it was made from real lion pelts. And, for example in Munchkinland, I'd never noticed there was a little stream running through it before. Very cool. I'm still amazed how well that movie was made, especially since it was produced in 1939. And at the end of the movie, when Dorothy was clicking her heels together, chanting 'There's no place like home, there's no place like home,' I couldn't help but think that in only a couple of years, there'd be thousands upon thousands of other folks from here off to fight in WWII thinking that exact same thing.

Halloween w/ the kids

Had a nice Halloween. Paige dressed as a vampire and went with some neighborhood kids - they had a party afterward with cake and a movie and other party favors. She made quite the haul, and said immediately to me upon coming home, "You don't get any of this!" Ouch!

I took Zach trick-or-treating while Melissa handed out candy. He's been so excited this whole month about going. A few weeks ago, he dug out his Pikachu costume and put it on, wearing it while he played outside. He's asked multiple times over the course of the month if we could go trick-or-treating, and we had to keep telling him that we had to wait for Halloween night. Then Halloween day, he kept asking about going, and he had his costume on again early in the day. He was so ready! When it finally came time to take him, he was so friggin' happy. He was skipping from house to house, and more than once, I had to keep him from opening the neighbors' doors and walking in to raid the candy bowls visible from the windows. We had a little trouble with the formalities of trick-or-treating. He'd often say 'Trick or treat' before the door was opened, and I had to remind him to say thank you at most of the houses. But the joy on his face the whole time...

Melissa stayed home handing out candy while wearing a straw cowboy hat and letting Paige's rat Ginny hang out on her shoulder. We came really close to running out of candy.

After the kids and Melissa went to bed, I stayed up and read M.R. Jame's story The Mezzo-tint. Great story. Very creepy, and one that I'm tempted to do a modern take on.

But so...Halloween...fun.

Book Giveaway at Two Ends of the Pen

There giving away some books this month at the blog Two Ends of the Pen , and this week they're giving away a hard copy of my collection Bedtime Stories of the Apocalypse as well as my chapbook Tales Held Hostage. All you have to do is leave a comment and click on the 'follow this blog' thingy on that particular blog, and you'll be entered for a drawing to win!

So hop on over there and say howdy!

Red Adept Review for Snow Burn

I received a really nice review for my young adult suspense novel Snow Burn  from Red Adept Reviews  today!

No Polliwogs Here

My son Zach, 8, finally - after 4 years of swimming lessons - passed his level 1 class (polliwogs)! He loves to be in the pool, but due to his autism, doesn't take instruction all that well. So he's done lots of joyous flailing and doggy-paddling in various pools, but now he's ready for the next level. The instructor at the Y told Melissa (who had taken him to his lesson) that it was his best day ever. However, as Zach spent some free time playing in the Y's pool, he grabbed a floaty frog, and since that particular object was for another class, a lifeguard took it away from him. So Zach went to the nearest adult and started wailing on him before Melissa could stop him. Melissa apoligized profusely, and thankfully the guy was very understanding. But such are the high and lows that are my son!

Stephen King's UR

I read Stephen King's novella 'UR' last night. I loved the concept - a guy gets a Kindle, but something is a little off about it. For one thing, it's the color pink, which isn't actually available. And for another thing, it seems to bring up novels by authors that haven't actually been written - at least in this dimension. For example, he finds a Hemingway novel called Cortland's Dogs, which was written after Hemingway's death in this dimension (or universe) but on the protagonist's Kindle, Hemingway died a few years later. Basically this Kindle allows views into nearly infinite parallel universes. And then there's the experimental part of the Kindle, which allows a peek at the future of this universe.

Again, I liked the concept, and it was well written, though perhaps not as memorable as many of King's other novellas or stories, like 'The Body' or 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' for example.