Patrice Sarath's Blog, page 18

Science and astronauts — not a rant

Astronaut Alan Bean talks at the University of Texas campus.

Last week author Nicky Drayden and I went to the University of Texas campus to hear astronaut Alan Bean talk about his life and work as a test pilot and astronaut and painter. (As Nicky pointed out, these opportunities are slipping away, to meet astronauts who walked on the moon)*.  It was incredibly inspiring. He was speaking primarily to students about following dreams but in a pragmatic kind of way — of doing good work, being a good leader and team member, finding a mentor and being a mentor. In looking back at his life, he was rather hard on himself, as he told stories about not always being a good team member or mentor, and I found that very brave. I think it’s helpful to look back at your life and, not necessarily castigate oneself, but take stock. Most of us do that, privately, but Bean laid it all out there.

What a grand adventure is space exploration. It takes knowledge and fortitude, determination, a willingness to work with a team of individuals who all share the same goal, a deep desire to understand and apply the laws of nature, to take on danger, to make mistakes and keep going.

And the current distrust and politicization surrounding all scientific disciplines, coming from politicians who want to make election-day hay, religious charlatans who claim that science is counter to God’s law, and the current crop of science fiction writers who write dystopic fiction based on science gone bad, is putting our real future in jeopardy.

Science is an easy scapegoat. It’s hard, it has rules, it requires math, and not everybody gets it. When climate-change deniers or proponents of creationism demand equal time for their viewpoints, they automatically corrupt scientific disciplines by association. By setting up a false equivalent — aided by sloppy journalism, which states that every side should be given their say — they give their own specious argument legitimacy and suck it away from science.

Climate change is happening, and it is accelerating, and it is caused by human-made dumping of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, which began in earnest at the turn of the last century.
Evolutionary theory is true, it is fact, and it is proven day after day, and there is overwhelming evidence supporting it.
Creationism is a belief system, and is not science. Calling it intelligent design doesn’t make it true.
Plenty of scientists believe in God and draw comfort and strength from their religion. Science and religion are not incompatible. **

Alan Bean said something interesting about that: Walking on the moon had this effect: the astronauts who believed in God (see! Astronauts! Scientists! with religious faith) found their faith strengthened. Astronauts who were atheists found their atheism confirmed. Astronauts who were ambivalent remained ambivalent.

For decades the US has been coasting on its reputation for scientific research and development. Not anymore. Science and technology are in a fight for their lives against the forces of ignorance (how’s that for a dystopic future? Are you having fun now?) Part of this is because we’ve lost ground in our schools, and part of it is that the US has splintered into affinity groups so that we no longer share a sense of community.

And part of it is that the insatiable need to fill news channels means that the outlying cults and conspiracy theorists who used to stay on the outside have now been moved to the forefront of our consciousness. We know more about other people’s weird shit because CNN and its ilk have to fill 24 hours with programming.

So what’s the solution? Well, we could all stop with the kitten videos maybe and read a damn nonfiction book about science. *** Or history. Or something. We might even read a newspaper, a real one, that talks about hard stuff.****

Will we do this? Probably not. Will we continue to forward each other stories about the other side which shows so clearly how insane and irrational “those people” are? Probably.

But it’s good to at least think a bit more critically about these issues, and try to do your best to stem the tide. *****

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* I think probably we or some other nation will go back to the moon in 20 years or so, but for now, this is it.

** I’m not saying that there will be no conflict — there is a need to have a conversation about ethics in science, just as we should have conversations about ethics in everything, but these conversations should be respectful and based on a willingness to find common ground, not to sow fear and loathing.

*** Watching Nova or Through the Wormhole don’t count. No. They don’t. Especially the latter which is utter fantasy wrapped in pseudoscientific tech-speak.

**** Hint: HuffPo and Fox News are equal parts crap. As is The Daily Mail. Rawstory, or any other blog — same thing. Crap. Say what you like about big major media companies like Wall Street Journal and New York Times, despite it all, they still have journalistic standards.

***** This isn’t a rant. It’s commentary. A rant is a wild-eyed screed shouted out by a crazy man standing on a soapbox on a street corner. If you want your words taken seriously, don’t call them rants.

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Obituary for a man who never lived

Obituary. Mike Cole

Mike Cole was a jack-of-all-trades turned successful businessman, who turned a small moving and hauling company started with one truck into a publicly traded behemoth, Mike Cole Shipping. He loved his friends, his fiends, and good food, and resembled a half-Irish, half-Italian James Gandolfini. He was proudest of his Italian meatballs and cheesies, and would foist them off on perfect strangers at the slightest provocation.

After suffering years of pain from a debilitating car crash, which exacerbated back pain caused by being a one-man shipping and moving business in his early years, Mike Cole shot himself yesterday. He was 57.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At Mike’s ex-wife’s apartment after the funeral, a handful of us sat around and remembered Mike. Nancy, his ex-wife, and I hugged. She was a short, slightly plump woman in her 50s like me, and her short hair was frosted and highlighted and stood out from her head like a slightly madder Annie Lennox. Even though she’d been crying, her eye makeup was still intact. We’d met a few times before, but we didn’t know each other well. Mike had never re-married, and it was just like him to stay good friends with his ex. And I guess it was just like her, too.

“Did I ever tell you how Mike and I met?” I told her, sniffling. We’d been trading Mike stories all night. “We were at Other Nancy’s place, and finding out how much we had in common. ‘Oh, you’re half-Italian too? Here’s my recipe for cheesies.’ I thought mine was the only family that made cheesies. It was like finding a long-lost cousin.”

Other Nancy was Nancy Hightower, the writer and poet and teacher. See, Mike knew everybody.

“Mike loved to make those things. His were so good,” Nancy said. “Every time I tried to make them by myself, they were never as good.”

I resisted the urge to tell her that mine were better. You have to use dried basil. I’m sorry, the fresh is for pesto, but dried basil is for cheesies.

Pieta (Peeta) plopped down next to us.

“What’s going to happen to the company?” she said. “Is it going to close down?”

Pieta was in her 20s, still pretty unworldly. She looked unworldly too. Not as much as the gargoyle, who was her boyfriend, because she was human, but she looked elfish. Or Gelfin, maybe, with a neotonic face — big dark eyes, small nose, sweet mouth — and tousled dark hair. Like all of us, Mike had given her stock in his company when it went public.

“No, it’s public now. The board will find another CEO, and it will go on.”

“But how? Mike was that company.”

That was true. I’d have to keep better track of how the company did, and think about selling if it looked like it wasn’t going to recover from. Mike’s death.

Eventually the party broke up. Some of us went outside to the open biergarten,but it was still drizzling, and the tables were wet. The downspouts were making fools of themselves, opening their big mouths and blurping water all over each other. This made the gargoyle laugh like a little kid, but it just depressed me, and I wanted to go home.

Pieta had to go to work, and so the gargoyle got a ride with me, so we walked across the biergarten, which was huge, and half of it was covered, to the parking garage. It was dark now, twilight turning to night, which was just as well, because the gargoyle, well, he’s a gargoyle.

The gargoyle isn’t like a demon. He’s actually more of a ghastly cherub. In his human form, he looks like a mean little kid, with blond-brown curls. He walks funny with bowlegs, and when he talks it’s like a mean little kid talking. In human form he affects a jean jacket and cowboy boots.

I carry him, because it’s hard for him to keep up, so it looks like I’m carrying a toddler between the tables, and people smile at us. The gargoyle smiles back and people stare in shock.

A lady with a bunch of kids and a stack of pizza boxes accosts us just before I reach the car.

“We’re selling pizza,” the kids say. “You can buy some and won’t have to cook tonight.”

“No thanks,” I say. I shift the gargoyle to the other hip.

“We should get some,” the gargoyle says.

“No. Dude, you ate and drank at Nancy’s.”

“We have a special. Buy five boxes and get the sixth free,” says the lady.

“Who needs six boxes of pizza?!” I say. This is getting ridiculous.

“It’s a great deal,” says the gargoyle.

“No it’s not. It’s too much. No one can eat that much pizza.”

Why am I trying to reason with a gargoyle? We keep going without saying anything to the pizza dealers, and go and find my car.

It’s really dim. I’m waking up now, aware that it’s all been a dream. I can always tell when I’m dreaming. I guess because my eyes are closed, or something, but I never dream about daylight. I’m always walking in my dreams in twilight.

There’s no car. There’s no gargoyle. There’s no pizza.

There’s no Mike Cole.

RIP, Mike Cole. I would have liked to have been friends with you.

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Ten Books

 

I’m just now getting around to this. These are the ten books I read when I was young. I’m going to do this a bit differently, and limit my list to books that influenced my writing as well as my tastes.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien

I grew up near these amazing woods. They were my woods, and with their remnants of stone walls, giant oak trees, and a small pond surrounded by hills, it was as close to Middle Earth as this New England kid was going to get. I spent a lot of time in those woods, and I kept wishing that a door would open up and take me to Middle Earth.

This is why I wrote my portal stories.

The Black Stallion. Walter Farley.

The entire series was catnip to a horse-crazy girl. The cool thing is that Farley wrote these books about a horse-crazy boy. Why don’t more boys like horses? It’s too bad — they are missing out. I started reading these books in the first grade (yes, precocious) and it kicked off my undying love of horses.

The Black Stallion series is why I write about horses.

Kidnapped. Robert Louis Stevenson.

Even more than Treasure Island and The Black Arrow, Kidnapped was my first foray into adventure tales. And the roguish rebel Alan Breck was my first literary crush. I can still read Kidnapped and a part of me wishes I was Davy. This is why I write adventure stories.

The Three Musketeers. Alexandre Dumas.

The best adventure story ever told. Still readable, as are all the sequels. And my second literary crush was Athos, but that was just a stage.  I wanted to be a musketeer when I grew up.

Dragonflight. Anne McCaffrey.

I know, I know — problematic rape fantasy. But telepathic dragons! I read and re-read til my books fell apart.

Kirkland Revels. Victoria Holt. One of the many mid-century modern gothics that engendered a love of the genre in me that continues to this day. There is a faint echo of Victoria Holt in The Crow God’s Girl, in which our Kate is a girl in a very unwelcoming house.

Madam Will You Talk. Mary Stewart.

The gothic, updated for the modern girl. Stewart put her girls in peril, but they were smart and no-nonsense and got out of it. Lynn Romano is my version of a Stewart heroine.

Cotillion. Georgette Heyer.

The Grand Sophy was my first Heyer, and I will always love it, but Cotillion has my heart. Cotillion is one of the funniest, smartest romances around, with an unlikely hero who is the exact opposite of the strong, manly, roguish, unreliable type. You see, Freddy knew to get a special license. Alan Breck would never do that. Athos might, but he’d be all broody about it. Freddy is exactly the man that a Regency girl needs. Mr. Aikens is my homage to Freddy. (He’d probably forget the special license too, come to think of it).

If anyone needs me, I’m going to be in my bunk — reading Cotillion.

One of the best books of my childhood.

The Wolf King. Ann Turnbull. This is a little-known Bronze Age YA that for years I thought had been written by Rosemary Sutcliff until I actually looked at my old Scholastic edition. Heroic Fantasy Quarterly editor Adrian Simmons and I have both discussed our fondness for The Wolf King, especially for the pivotal sword-making scene. I almost wore my copy out, but it is still on the shelf.

Eagle of the Ninth. Rosemary Sutcliff. Speak of the devil.  I’ve been on a re-collection binge of Heyer and Sutcliffe, and my local Half-Price Books has come through like a champ on both. Her books are so good.

Like anyone who’s been asked to do this thing, I could keep going, and in fact a quick glance at my bookshelves shows a few dozen more, plus the ones I’ve read in the library and don’t have. But the rules said, the first books that come to mind. (Can I just sneak in a quick mention of Heinlein and C.L. Moore? Thanks.)

Note that there’s no Austen. I didn’t come to appreciate Austen until I was in my early twenties. So I left her out, but have certainly made up for lost time.

So that’s my list. What’s yours?

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Wayfaring Stranger and The Wanderer

We’ve been writing this song for a long time.

Often the solitary one

finds grace for himself

the mercy of the Lord,

Although he, sorry-hearted,

must for a long time

row by long strokes

along the waterways,

along the ice-cold sea,

tread the paths of exile.

I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger

I’m traveling through this world of woe

Yet there’s no sickness, toil nor danger

In that bright land to which I go

I’m going there to see my father

I’m going there no more to roam

I’m just a-going over Jordan

I’m just a-going over home

the path of exile holds him,

not at all twisted gold,

a frozen spirit,

not the bounty of the earth.

He remembers hall-warriors

and the giving of treasure

How in youth his gold-giving friend

accustomed him

to the feasting.

All the joy has died!

I know dark clouds will gather ’round me

I know my way is rough and steep

Yet golden fields lie just before me

Where God’s redeemed shall ever sleep

I’m going there to see my father

He said he’d meet me when I come

I’m only going over Jordan

I’m only going over home

I want to wear a crown of glory

When I get home to that good land

I want to shout salvation’s story

In concert with the blood-washed band

Where is the horse gone? Where the rider?

Where the giver of treasure?

Where are the seats at the feast?

Where are the revels in the hall?

Alas for the bright cup!

Alas for the mailed warrior!

Alas for the splendour of the prince!

How that time has passed away,

dark under the cover of night,

as if it had never been!

I’m going there to meet my Saviour

To sing his praise forever more

I’m just a-going over Jordan

I’m just a-going over home

Good is he who keeps his faith,

And a warrior must never speak

his grief of his breast too quickly,

unless he already knows the remedy -

a hero must act with courage.

It is better for the one that seeks mercy,

consolation from the father in the heavens,

where, for us, all permanence rests.

Verses from Wayfaring Stranger, a traditional American folksong, written in the 19th century, and The Wanderer, an Anglo-Saxon poem written around the 9th or 10th century.

I’ve been fascinated with emotion and sadness of The Wanderer since college, when I translated the poem in my Old English class (thank you, Dr. Sommer!). It wasn’t until I moved to Austin and became interested in American folk music and the modern singer-songwriter genre that I became aware of Wayfaring Stranger, and was likewise captivated by the familiar themes. How is it that a song written barely two centuries ago echoes the same themes and emotional heaviness of a poem written a thousand years before?

Both songs drip with sorrow in a way that transcends the superficial differences. They are both clearly influenced by Christianity, even as the ethos of the Anglo-Saxon warrior class comes through more in The Wanderer. Even Beowulf is a Christian poem; it’s written about the Geats and Danes from a pagan era, but the poem itself has Christian elements. So like Beowulf, the Wanderer is a poem written about a past people through a cultural lens that incorporates Norse and Christian elements. Essentially, historical fiction.

I am partial to Emmylou Harris’s version of Wayfaring Stranger; Johnny Cash’s is a close second. I can only imagine what he could have done with a recitation of The Wanderer.

I love that the narrator in The Wanderer is remembering the halls of glory of his past, while in Wayfaring Stranger, the narrator takes joy in know that the kingdom of heaven awaits him or her. Yet even though The Wanderer is remembering past glory and his past king (gold-giver), he is still convinced that heaven awaits him.

There’s a lot more to The Wanderer than I’ve put here. Some of the most beautifully evocative lines describe an apocalyptic end:

A wise hero must realize

how terrible it will be,

when all the wealth of this world

lies waste,

as now in various places

throughout this middle-earth

walls stand,

blown by the wind,

covered with frost,

storm-swept the buildings.

The halls decay,

their lords lie

deprived of joy,

the whole troop has fallen,

the proud ones, by the wall.

War took off some,

carried them on their way,

one, the bird took off

across the deep sea,

one, the gray wolf

shared one with death,

one, the dreary-faced

man buried

in a grave.

And so He destroyed this city,

He, the Creator of Men,

until deprived of the noise

of the citizens,

the ancient work of giants

stood empty.

This is the end of the world as destroyed by God and the giants. This is a beautiful amalgam of the Christian and the pagan, and it makes me wonder: Who is this Wayfarer? What happened to his lord, who he says he buried? What happened to his fellow thanes, and the community he was bound to? He rows along by himself — and we can see him on the water, his hands calloused by the oars, barely making headway against the waves that crash on the shore. The seabirds croak harshly above him, and he is the most sorrowful of men — a man whose identity depended on his relationship to his lord and his lord is dead. And the end of his city — I wonder what happened?

The Wayfaring Stranger knows that he or she will be reunited his father, his mother, and his Savior, when he goes to heaven. The Wanderer only knows that he can seek consolation and mercy, but he may not find it.

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Drafted in the Amazon-Hachette war

I’ve been drafted in the Amazon-Hachette war. But I’ve decided to be a conscientious objector to Amazon’s attempts to put me on the front lines. Here is my response to the Amazon [this link goes to the company's Investor Relations page] letter that arrived in my in-box:

Dear Kindle Support team,

In a word: No.

While you have a lot of convincing arguments — the paperback argument, the “books compete with other forms of media” argument, and your “price elasticity” argument, ultimately, Amazon is wrong on this one.

Books are not widgets, and authors are not widget factories. Yes, some authors turn out far more widgets than others, of uniform quality and temper, but the fact remains that quality ultimately wins out. And you don’t price quality like it’s a commodity. You say the book buyer should have a say over how much they want to pay for an e-book; well, if buyers vote with their wallets that Hachette books are too expensive, Hachette will lower their prices, without your bullying.

Do you pressure all booksellers to lower their book prices or only the publishing companies? Are you in fact mistaking publisher for bookseller? We all know that book prices by secondhand sellers are a vast and illogical minefield. There are some crazy prices out there. But that’s just the algorithm. Why don’t you make your secondhand sellers only sell their books for 99 cents? Book buyers would buy more of them!

If publishers are booksellers, why can’t they set their prices?

If publishers are book providers for you to resell, then this isn’t about the prices they charge readers. This is about Amazon’s cut.

So no, I’m not going to pressure Hachette. I am going to continue buying ebooks and reading them, and if one is more expensive than another, that’s the price I pay for something I want. My decision, not yours.

Signed,

one of those authors with a different opinion than some other authors

 

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Tag! The writing process blog tour

I was tagged by Jessica Reisman for the Writing Process blog tour. So here’s about me and my process.

What Am I Working On?

Having finished Book 1 of the proposed new series (working title Bandit Girls), I’m currently writing Book 2. This doesn’t have a working title yet, at least not one that has stuck. It does have an aphorism: It’s not cheating if there aren’t any rules. — Attr. Butch Cassidy

He probably didn’t say that, but that’s okay: 1, Butch Cassidy doesn’t exist in my secondary fantasy world, and 2. That’s based on the movie Butch anyway. BG2, as it’s cleverly called, is about two sisters who, having regained the family’s status and vanquished their enemies, now find things are, if anything, even more complicated than they were in the previous book.

I’ve also written two new short stories, a tiny screenplay, several scraps of new things, and bits and bobs of other stuff. I just reworked one of those scraps from two years ago into a new short story that I’m very happy with. Don’t throw anything out, kids!

How Does My Work Differ From Others In Its Genre?

Well, I write books with romantic elements, but I don’t necessarily believe in an HEA. My new series has two teen sisters, but since I don’t think people that young should find their soulmates without a few miles on them first, they don’t have angsty romances. They do explore physical attraction and love of course, but it’s not the grand sturm and drang of current teen books. This may be why I can’t sell this series, but we’ll see. I also don’t have a lot of magic in my fantasy. My first series, the Books of the Gordath, has very little magic in it, which was subtle and had only a few elements yet was the driving force of the books. I don’t like flash-bang magic. I prefer the quieter stuff. Also a YMMV thing: some people like fantasy like that, other’s don’t.

I also write what I call recognizable women: strong, but realistic. They are never going to roundhouse kick someone into next week, but they will be able to handle a weapon — or horses — and are competent in their sphere. I roll my eyes at the “strong female characters” of most movies, in which the women are all supernaturally strong and “better than.” Women don’t need to be better than. They just need to be good.

Why Do I Write What I Do?

Louisa May Alcott said: “I had a hard life, and so I write jolly books.” I didn’t have a hard life in the same sense but I write adventure stories because I didn’t have a lot of adventure. I’m a very straight-and-narrow sort of person. So I write about swashbuckling and horsebackriding and great battles and yes, magic, and strong women (who are realistically competent!). Adventure is good for the soul.

How Does My Writing Process Work?

Hahahaha! I laugh. I have no idea. I used to hate the idea of outlining. Then I tried it. And it worked — a little bit — and then it derailed. So I went back to seat of the pants writing, in which I worked from a scene and an inspiration, and it worked for a while, and then it derailed. Spectacularly. So I think I’m one of those writers that pantslines, and throws a lot of stuff out (into a cut file, anyway), and has to have a lot of false starts and wrong paths before the whole thing comes together.

Lately, the short story writing has been pretty straightforward. I get an idea, develop it in my head a bit, then jot down notes in a primitive outline. Then I try to write it in one shot, going linearly. It’s worked the last couple of times in a really positive way.

Thanks for tagging me, Jessica! I hereby tag Rebecca Schwarz and J.K. Cheney for their writing process.

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ArmadilloCon wrap-up

I look forward to ArmadilloCon every year and I love taking part in my hometown convention. This year’s event was a great, intimate con, and I had the chance to hang out at the bar and visit with friends new and old a lot more than I usually do.

My panels were great. The Mars panel was amazing and wonderful. More science fiction conventions should put actual scientists on the panels. It was so much fun to be on a panel with Sigrid Close (two panels!), who is smart and funny and informative. If you attended the Mars panel on Friday and didn’t come away with at least fifteen story ideas, well, it wasn’t for lack of trying on our part.

The D&D panel, moderated by Paul Benjamin, brought back a flood of memories. I played in high school and college, and then when I spent a year in Iceland, a Canadian friend invented his own take on the game, called Vikings & Valkyries. We played at another Canadian ex-pat’s house, and it was a fun experience. I tried to remember the Icelandic incantation that I came up with, but could only remember the first line. This means there’s a trip to the storage unit to dig out the old books of poetry because I know I wrote it down. I also think that there are a set of painted lead figurines in my mom’s attic from my old D&D days.

The Gothic Novel panel was a hit, especially with the help of Jess Nevins, an expert on Victorian fantastical literature, and the rest of the panelists, Shanna Swendson, J Kathleen Cheney, and Barbara Wright. Turns out there are two strains of Gothic Novels — “a girl and a house” and the male version, in which a young man transgresses against society, and comes to a bad end.

My reading was moderately well attended, and everyone laughed in the right spots. I read from my new story “Werewolf Therapy” and from Chapter 10 of Bandit Girls, in which Jalana breaks into the headmistress’s office to find out why she seems to know some interesting things about her and her little sister.

I heard some really find readings from Mark Finn, Tex Thompson, and Adrian Simmons, among others, and I dropped in on some fantastic panels, and I bought plenty of books that I had been looking forward to buying, and all in all it was a success.

One thing I’m still chuckling about: my hotel roommate, J. Kathleen Cheney, is a stealth roommate. I got up early, and I tiptoed around the room to get ready to go downstairs, and I tried to be as silent as the grave, and I think I’ve successfully managed to shower and dress and get out of the room without waking her, only to get downstairs and see her sitting there comfortably in the hotel lobby. Turns out she had been up and out of the room since 3:30.

I thought she was an awfully quiet sleeper.

 

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Jane Eyre, the first Mary Sue

Thornfield Hall, Mr. Rochester’s place.

A discussion on Facebook with Sarah Zettel about Victorian literature led to a discussion of Jane Eyre, and I was reminded once again how the iconic character is the very first Mary Sue. This much-maligned cliche, usually found in fanfiction, is the name for the process by which the author puts herself in a story as both the love interest and the hero’s redeemer/healer. We usually mock the Mary Sue character and deride the author for it, because it’s evidence of wish fulfillment, and wish fulfillment is considered weakness. But Jane Eyre shows how what has become cliche was once a powerful, emotional, classical powerhouse.

What is a Mary Sue? In its simplest sense, a Mary Sue character is the best and purest character, who captivates and redeems the true hero of the story, oftentimes by healing him, to become the hero’s sidekick/love interest. Note: There are a lot of definitions of the Mary Sue, so rather than debate various sub-clauses and addenda, here we’re going to go with this simple definition.

So Bella Swan is a Mary Sue. That red-haired elf in The Hobbit II is a Mary Sue (she even heals Fili, or was it  Kili?). Note that this is different from wish-fulfillment and strong characters in general who are very good at what they do. Buffy is not a Mary Sue. Sookie is not a Mary Sue. Despite the strong romances in these stories, these women are their own heroes — they do not exist for the purposes of the hero’s story.

Now let’s take a look at Jane Eyre, the character. As an orphan child, Jane is so perfectly persecuted by her cruel Aunt Reid and her dreadful cousins that it illustrates her strong character and passionate nature. When she is thrown into the red room as punishment, she survives the trial and comes through stronger. Even when Jane acknowledges her own wickedness, she’s the best at being wicked, just as she’s the best at being good.

Every time Jane is kicked while she is down, she just uses it to show how much better she is, in spite of, or because of, the evil, cruel, nasty, hypocritical people around her.

At Lowood School she doesn’t just survive, she thrives, becoming a teacher. She even gets a job the first time she applies for one. (I’m only partly joking, but you get the idea.)

When she meets Mr Rochester, he calls her an imp, an elf, and she heals him at their first meeting (she supports his weight so he can catch his horse after he falls off.) She captivates him with her very plainness, and guys, you all know that is the nature of a Mary Sue. That is the Adorable Flaw(TM) — we see it as the clumsy girl, the nerdy girl, the glasses-wearing girl, I can go on.

The persecution continues. Jane is an artist, a quite good artist, though untaught, and Rochester takes pains to provide critiques of her work although he reluctantly admires them. (Note: the descriptions of those drawings are absolutely gorgeous, and I often tried to recreate them. I am, though untutored, no artist, no Jane.) She revels in her plainness when she creates side-by-side portraits of herself and Blanche Ingram, her rival.

Jane is the valedictorian of noble suffering.

The hits keep coming, of course, and Saint John Rivers enters the picture. He is Jane’s self-righteous equivalent. He’s the man she should have married, and she will do it: Her immolation is not complete, and by golly, if it takes marriage to Saint John Rivers to complete it, Jane is going to do it.

Thankfully she doesn’t, because Rochester needs her tears to heal his blindness. Okay, that part comes from Rapunzel, but they do marry, and she does heal him, and redeem him.

And that is why Jane Eyre is the best Mary Sue ever and no other Mary Sues can compare. She is Jane. She does it better than anyone.

And here is the one reason — the most compelling reason — that Jane Eyre is NOT a Mary Sue.

This is Jane’s own story. Mr. Rochester just happens to be living in it. If there were no Mr. Rochester, there would still be Jane — outwardly proud, unyielding, and defiant, and inwardly emotionally tumultuous.

This, friends, is how you write a goddamn Mary Sue.

 

 

 

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Pantsing redux: or, now I’m confused

Welp, after The Great Outlining Disaster of 2014, I went back to pantsing it. Going along great, words are flowing, not sure about Chapter 4, but I keep plowing along, and then, first slowly and then with increasing speed, the further I get, the more the derailed cars pile up. Scenes go nowhere. Characters say the weirdest things. Events that should happen from one POV are muddled because they are observed by someone whose goat is definitely not being fucked. (What? It’s a thing.)

So the upshot is….(mumble)

What, Patrice? What was that? (Hand to ear)

(….)

I can’t hear you!

I’M OUTLINING, OKAY?! WHY YOU ALWAYS HASSLING ME, MAN?!

Yes. Mea culpa. I am outlining. And (big sigh). It’s not so bad. I am going a bit slowly, but I can start the rewriting fairly soon. The outlining itself is helping me see the main story arc. I’m still having trouble trying to figure out exactly what the plot is (I know, right?) but this way when I throw out a chunk that goes wrong, it’s not 20,000 words.

I am probably going to discard at least 20,000 words (well, maybe not that much. And by discard, I mean put in my cut file. Always keep a cut file, children. Even if you are one of those damn outliners.)

So. Crow pie anyone?

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My encounter with Slender Man

Beware of the Slender Man

Forty years ago, a “friend” and her gang tried to kill me. Memory is a funny thing. A lot of things could have happened that night. It could have all been made up. They could have lost their nerve. I could be remembering it all wrong. What happened was this: my mom trusted her gut, and didn’t let me go out of the house.

D was the older sister of my best friend. I crushed on my friend, which is normal at that age, but D unnerved me, even when we were younger and all played together.  I was around 11 or 12, and D must have been around 14. This is a chasm of an age difference, at those ages. D was already going off the rails, hanging with kids who were pretty delinquent. I was a nerdy tween, about to enter the worst years of my life in junior high and high school, socially inept and a natural victim, partly because I was so eager to be abused.

One winter night, D showed up at my house.

“Hi, Mrs. Sarath. Can Patrice come out and play?”

It was dark and cold. A school night. And dinner was close to being on the table. I thought it was strange that D was asking for me, but hey, it was flattering.  I wanted to go. But–

My mom hesitated and then said, “No.” And her expression was that of a mother trusting her instincts. I was relieved. It was weird anyway, that D would ask for me.

Some time later, D told me what they had planned that night. Not knives, like those girls who stabbed their friend to gain the favor of Slender Man. But rocks. They intended to stone me. We lived in a rural area with a lot of cold, wet places that were lost and swampy. They were going to lure me into the swamp and do it there. To this day I can remember the sickening lurch in the pit of my stomach when I heard how close I came to being killed.

Or not. Like I said, D was a liar and could have made it all up. Shortly after that she got pregnant and disappeared. Her sister and I remained friends, but that family exploded in a concussive bomb of mental health issues and was only able to piece things back together over years and years of unhappiness.

I saw D again in 2008. My best friend and her family, including D, came to my book signing in my hometown. I was so happy to see my friend, who was healthy and happy, and I was, despite everything, pleased to see D. She looked wonderful, still youthtful despite being in her 40s. She didn’t say much.

I have never spoken to my mother about that night. She did what mothers do; trust their gut and save their children. I hope that D, being a mother herself, looks back on that night if she even remembers it, and knows that my mother saved her too. I wonder if she read the news about the Slender Man attack and realized with a sickening lurch that it could have been her — not as victim, but as perpetrator.

But mostly the memory lies dormant within me, because who likes to dwell? It wells up each time I hear about attacks on children by children, and once again the rush of emotion came back with the news of the “Slender Man” attacks. Each time I’m reminded that I have never truly forgiven D and her buddies, and I freely admit that when I find out about the sad, often alcoholic, and used-up lives of my tormentors in their adulthood, I shrug and think, “oh well.”

My heart goes out to the little girl and her family in the Slender Man attack.

I have no feelings for the attackers.

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