Ingela Bohm's Blog, page 52

Freebie M/M romance, today only

My short story Seven Thousand Minutes is free today on Amazon — to SNARE YA! At least I’m honest about it, right? ;)

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

This is something my husband has taught me, and it works like a stop sign when I obsess about the wrong things. The brain is a wonderful thing that can solve lots of problems, but sometimes it tries to solve things that are already fine, and that can create problems.

When I was in third grade, my teachers wanted to encourage us to write stories. They cut out a lot of pictures from magazines, and we were told to choose one to write about. The pictures were supposed to inspire us, but it completely blocked me. Why? Because I had my own ideas. I wrote all the time. Having someone else’s idea of inspiration shoved in my face just shut me down.

Now, I’m not blaming my teachers. They did what they thought would help. But if I’d had the words for it, I would have told them, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Those pictures probably helped a lot of other kids, but one method never works for everyone. If someone already has their own method, why meddle?

Failing the Cause

I’m all for every individual’s right to express who they are and be respected for that. I’m for inclusion, cultural openness and everything fluffy and nice.

But there is a problem.

I haven’t asked around, so I don’t know if my theory holds water at all – but isn’t the ability to navigate in a fluid social world infinitely harder for introverts/socially inept/insecure people? I know my fear of social interaction has become worse, because there’s not only the possibility of getting names wrong or messing up my small talk by stuttering – now I can also get pronouns wrong or say ‘Merry Christmas’ to someone who gets offended.

Let me say it again: I’m all for social progress. It’s just that the more complexity we acknowledge, the more risk we run of doing or saying the wrong thing – and some of us are really, really afraid of that. Say that I’ve read the advice to ask new people I meet what their pronouns are. That’s all well and good. I want to know them. But to actually ask? To step out on that high wire and risk having the person look at me like I’m from another planet, because they have no idea what the hell a pronoun even is?

Nope. Won’t happen. Horrible, I know. If I’m this rattled, imagine what it must be like for the person who uses non-traditional pronouns, who has to explain every time, and who would welcome my help. They have to live it every day. They can’t choose. I could help carry their burden by normalizing the question.

But I repeat: I have a hard time just venturing outside my door. I expect judgment at every turn: for my looks, my clothes, my posture, my way of speaking. It’s the constant elephant in the room. And I’m in no hurry to feed that elephant by talking about pronouns, especially not with people whose brains shut down if you so much as mention anything remotely connected to grammar.

Neurotic? Maybe. But in this intricate web of colourful humanity, neurosis also has a place. We all learn to live with our shortcomings, and some of us have taken refuge in some simple phrases that have served us well over the years, cultural staples that we’ve finally managed to figure out – like, you know, ‘Merry Christmas’. And it is frightening to realize that those things may not serve you anymore.

It’s even more frightening in a second language (English), because it’s even harder to know what words are acceptable and not. For example, sometimes there’s a perfectly ordinary Swedish word with an English equivalent that I think is a synonym, and then BAM, someone gets offended because no, actually it’s really derogatory.

*deep sigh*

So. I’m not arguing against social and cultural sensitivity. I’m saying that it’s not easy, and if we don’t admit that it’s not easy, we won’t convince people that it’s a good thing. We’re in the middle of a paradigm shift where gender is concerned, and not all people are wired to shout YES, LET’S DO IT! as soon as they hear about a new idea. Conservative and shy people have a role to play in society, too.

I realize that my saying this makes me a bad ally – if indeed I can call myself an ally at all. But I can’t just see one side of the argument, and if I have to sacrifice the halo to be a bridge between the different camps, then so be it. If people’s differences are to be viewed as positive, then that acceptance must be extended to the grouchy nay-sayer in the corner, too.

That said, I know that my own situation would be better if society was more accepting of differences than it is now. If you were allowed to be geeky and ugly and shy and quiet, the very difficulties I’ve described above would diminish. This means that if I summon up the courage to stand by someone else even though it’s scary, it benefits me too, in the long run.

I’m just saying. It’s hard.

The power of art

Today I watched the movie Pride again. Fourth time in a month, and it still has the power to punch me in the gut. To others, it may just be a run-of-the-mill British feel-good film about miners, but for me it pushes all the buttons and then some.

To begin with, Wales. *sigh* I can’t begin to express the beauty of that country. As a child, I was dragged back and forth across the Black Mountains year after year, and it remains my secret second home.

There’s no feeling like standing on top of the world, looking down at that patchwork of hedges and fields while the sheep graze around you and your skin shines with something which is neither mist nor drizzle, but something in between.

I love Wales. Love it. The cherry pies, the pretty villages, the welcoming people, the bracken and the foxgloves, the sheep and the rabbits, the castles and the churches. And you know what they say: if Wales was flattened out, it would be bigger than England.

I’m sad to say I haven’t been to Onllwyn, but I’ve sort of skirted it. The dotted line on this map shows some of the roads I cycled as an eleven-year-old who didn’t have a clue what had gone on here just two years before.

Onllwyn is at the bottom of the image, just above Seven Sisters.

I could go on about Wales all day, but I’ll move on to Gethin. He has all of 1% of the storyline, but that’s what really stays with me. I know all about coming from a small village and getting the hell out of there because you’re the local weirdo. When Hefina wishes him Nadolig Llawen over the phone… oh Lord. I get misty just thinking about it.

And then there’s Bill Nighy. Christ, he’s good in this film. His scenes don’t feel like a movie at all, but like a documentary. When he speaks about the “dark artery”, it feels like listening to a real person, telling their own story. Actually, that’s another of this movie’s strong points, that it does such an amazing job of telling several people’s story in just a few brush strokes. They don’t spell it out, they rely on the audience to get it, and it’s extremely effective.

Like Maureen’s son who objects to the “gay invasion”, but you can see him fidget and fret about it. Like the god-awful scene at the nightclub between Tim and Mark. Perfect, understated, beautiful. A stab in the heart. Or like the first time the van arrives in Onllwyn, and they look out to see the children with their bikes, standing around in the street because there’s nothing else to do. It’s so real. I see it around me today.

What else? Oh, Bread and Roses, the song/poem that speaks about how you don’t just need to survive physically, but that you need something else, too – dignity, culture, love. Because without that, what are you fighting for? I cry every time. In fact, all the music is spot on and almost another character in the film. Not to mention the perfect blend of 70’s and 80’s fashion that sets the tone.

This is not the last time I watch this movie. Maybe in a while it’ll only be once a month, but it’s shot straight up there to my top ten of all time, and it won’t budge for less than a miracle. But more importantly, it has told me something about my own life: I need a Cause.

So that’s my vague almost-resolution for 2016: to find something to believe in and fight for. I have no idea where to start. I’m sure people around me have lots of suggestions, but I need to find it for myself. If I don’t feel it, it won’t happen. But I know I want it, and hopefully my brain will catch on when the opportunity comes.

Because I have heard the message of Pride: while we’ve been gathering our iPads and shoes and knick-knacks, and while my own damn country is building a fucking fence against the rest of the world, something important has been lost. And I, the most individualistic of all individualists, intend to find it again.

What’s real life, and who decides?

Quite a few years ago, I finally stopped writing about myself in my novels — a sure sign that I was ready to publish. However, there is one scene in Rival Poet where Will’s thoughts directly echo mine, and that is in the pub after his success with Henry VI. The news that Spain has been beaten reaches them, and everyone celebrates – everyone except Will, because he’s already thinking about how to turn the whole thing into a play. The eternal observer, he has a moment of self-observation, where he wonders why he can’t participate in the carousing like the others do.

This is me. That’s my identity as a writer, even as a human being. I observe from my corner, and then I write. Most of the time I’m happy to be that person, but sometimes I, like Will, stop to wonder why I’m always on the outside, documenting life rather than taking part in it.

But then I wonder: who decided that observing isn’t participating? I consider my writing to be part of my life, not some kind of extracurricular activity that takes place outside time and space. I process things through the written word, and when I think or feel something, I turn to my keyboard. Is that a bad thing? Would I be better off drinking and talking?

I think it has to do with how we view reality. You often hear that school isn’t real life – even that it’s the opposite of real life – but come on. School is a part of life, a very big part. One that the majority of people in my country goes through, which makes it a culturally shared experience. So why dismiss 10+ years of people’s formative years as somehow less real than the rest? If someone dies at fifteen, did they never live at all?

In a way, it’s the same kind of attitude that views pain as more real than happiness: if someone seems rich and sheltered, they haven’t experienced Real Life. If someone had a happy childhood, they haven’t experienced Real Life. Actually, the worse your life is, the more real it is.

But the world is made up of many different things, good and bad, and nothing is inherently more real than anything else – unless you want to make some kind of weird philosophical argument. Some people have a hard life and others have more luck. Some people observe while others throw themselves from bungy lines.

It’s life. Why waste time on telling others that they’re living it wrong?

A nightmare about next Christmas

Sometimes I wonder about the relevance of dreams. Yes, they’re supposed to help our brains defragment, but when you wake up from what seems like an entire night of panicking about something that won’t happen for another twelve months… I don’t know. Is that really helpful?

Last night, I dreamed about my disputation (the defence of my thesis), and it didn’t go well. Actually, I’m not sure it occurred at all, since I just sat there entirely silent for half an hour! I sincerely hope it’s not prophetic. A lot of other stuff happened as well, mainly colleagues preparing for the party, which seemed to revolve around chocolate. A silver lining, I suppose.

But Jaysis. This is the year when I (hopefully) finish a project I started in 2011. And after that, I’ll probably be out of a job, so well done there. :D Perhaps if I blog a bit about it, my brain will stop screaming at me that I will fail…

So… what? “I promise to be a worse person?”

On this the first day of the year, I thought I’d be armed with resolutions. I had plans, grand plans, either of giving up or going all in, as the pokeresque expression is nowadays. Instead I find myself vacillating worse than ever: throw in the towel, or reach for the stars? The answer: an echoing void.

This is nothing new. Droves of people wake up too late (or worse, too early) on New Year’s Day and dread having to keep promises that feel extra ludicrous when you have a hangover and the sun is a distant memory. But I sort of thought…

No. I don’t know what I thought. I don’t even know if this is a post I should write at all, or if I should keep quiet about what’s on my mind, on the off chance that they cast a shadow on my Oeuvre (*said with the back of a weak hand on my forehead*).

The problem is, all my thoughts are very counterproductive when it comes to building a reputation as a writer, because God forbid I be myself, warts and all. The advice I read says that you should present a professional, cheerful exterior. Basically, I should post pictures of my shining white teeth and spread a neoliberal self-help generation we-can-do-it agenda that I actually think is doing more harm than good in the world.

Wow. Just writing that feels like career suicide. But that’s just the point. I’ve been toying with the idea of killing off my career, mostly because GOD IN HEAVEN I can’t be this person 24/7. I can’t. Not when I have to be her with family, friends and co-workers as well. It’s like a job I never have a vacation from — and my writing was supposed to be that vacation!

Heh.

I know just what they mean, too. I too am put off by grouchy writer types who think they’re the centre of the universe. I realize that no one wants to read about things that make me angry, or self esteem issues, or whatever, but trying to write blog posts about flowers and rainbows doesn’t really work, either. So I’m left with the exact same dilemma I have in real life: be someone you’re not, or you’ll be left by the wayside.

Damn, I’m sick of it. I get enough of parading a smile around at work and at family occasions, and now I have to do it on my blog, too? It may be fantastic advice to cultivate a cheery/smart/caring online persona in order to sell books, but my soul is shrivelling. There’s just too much to conceal. And it’s probably pointless as well, because all of those secrets come out in my books anyway.

So. New idea. Actually blog, like everyday people blog — you know, the ones who don’t have anything to sell. Ah, for the freedom to yap about my day in a virtual echo chamber, just to get it off my chest… But I haven’t decided yet. Maybe this will just be another blip in my haphazard Business Plan *snort*. Or maybe, just maybe it will become that longed-for outlet for all my non-housetrained thoughts. Only time will tell.

ETA: I went down to hubby in the kitchen and said, “You know what I really wish? I wish I could just be myself somewhere!”

To which he replied, “Yeah, that’s harder than baking. And that’s no piece of cake.”

Musicians don’t eat

So I’m sitting here in the middle of nowhere, and once again it’s brought home to me how low on the pecking order musicians are. I first heard the expression “musicians don’t eat” in the film Shakespeare in Love, and it’s stayed with me because it’s so typical.

The band is rabble. There’s a reason why I wrote Orphan Bats. “We are unwanted but loved”. That’s the artist’s default setting. People want entertainment, but they’d rather not deal with the smelly, long-haired nuisances who suddenly want paid.

Normally, my husband’s band does get paid for playing, but they’ve had a deal with this after-ski pub that they play for free and get to stay over with their families and have the fancy dinner instead.

So. We arrive after thirty miles of braving the ice and sleet, and there are no rooms. The cabins are overbooked with guests, you know, real people, as opposed to musicians. So we don’t know where to go, and no one tells us what the hell is going on. They’re studiously ignoring us, almost as if they’re hoping the problem will go away on its own. No one apologises or says that they’re on the case, no one asks us if we’d like something from the bar, they just shoot us looks as we’re sitting there for two hours, waiting for some kind of something.

When they do finally approach us, of course it’s someone else’s fault. They give us a key (one key, for six people) to a cabin, and when we ask where it is, they make a joke instead of telling us. One guy in the band who has a three month old child gets to stay in a basement because that’s all they have.

The restaurant is overbooked too, which means that people will be eating on the stage where the band is supposed to play. So they’ll have to push their stuff out of the way of the dinner guests after setting up and soundchecking for two hours – not the best working conditions, I think you’ll agree. Also, the dinner we were promised has suddenly flown out the window, too. Now they’re telling us we can order something from the menu (=hamburgers) at five o’clock, before the guests arrive.

Yep. Hamburgers at 5pm on New Year’s Eve. Smashing. Just what you’d take instead of payment for a gig.

Somehow the band leader renegotiates over the phone with the loser who fucked up, and they tell us we might just get to eat from the buffet, but they can’t promise anything. When we arrive at the pub, there are no tables, so once again we’re standing around in our winter jackets, looking like fools, waiting for a miserable corner to call our own. A table by the door is finally free, so we sit there, shivering in the constant draught, with a soiled napkin, quickly stuffing over-salted potatoes into our mouths before it’s time for the band to go on.

In a way, this is nothing to raise a fuss about. It’s not uncommon, and maybe it doesn’t even sound like much. It’s just that it’s par for the course for musicians. They should be glad to grace these worthless restaurants with their presence, devoting time, money for gas, instruments, cables, strings, mics, lights and amps for the sheer joy of having a rewarding hobby.

Source

They work when others are drinking. They hone their craft for decades, and then drive for miles and miles to play for a pittance, and when bookings are screwed up (and they’re always screwed up), people have the indecency to say ‘but it’s a hobby, isn’t it? I wish I could play the guitar…’ – with that stupid dreamy expression that directly translates as ‘… if I could be arsed to apply myself at something so poncy.’

 

I regret not writing about this stuff in my first Pax book, back when the boys slaved away in pubs and gymnasiums. Maybe one day I’ll write a short story about it, because it really needs to be said. Musicians are expected to work for free, late at night, fearing for their teeth as drunk idiots dance straight into their mic stands. That’s the reality Michael and Jamie came from. That’s what they soldiered through to get where they are at the end of Release.

And right now, I feel like I let them down by not acknowledging it.

You know it’s a classy place when they don’t have pepper in the shaker, but ‘chips spice mix’ (flavoured salt).

Pride and privilege

Pride is a strange thing. Our traits are either innate or acquired, and we have no real control over either. One comes from genes and the other one from circumstances – privilege, or the lack thereof.

Yes. Privilege. The bane of my existence.

I wish I’d never heard of it. I wish I could take the blue pill and forget all about it. I wish the ring had never come to me. Because dear God, it’s bloody hard to keep your already flimsy self-worth when you’ve seen through that whole can of worms.

So. Privilege. I have it. And I want to keep it. Because without it, I’m nothing.

This is not an excuse, by the way. It’s one of those ‘look at it this way’ posts that I’m sure will be wildly popular. But the thing is, if it was easy to give up privilege, everyone would do it. There would be no fight for equality. Of course, as an oppressed group, you probably have no interest in pitying your oppressors, but that’s not the point. The point is to understand why it’s hard to give up privilege, or even to acknowledge it – because if we don’t, I have a hard time seeing how we can ever understand each other.

So this is my perspective: when you realize that a lot of the things you’ve accomplished in life have come to you because of privilege, your self-esteem does take a beating. If you’re already vulnerable, it can be hard to see any merit in yourself at all. As I write this, I have a voice in my head going “Well, boo-hoo, middle class white cis girl, suck it up”, and I don’t doubt that some who read this hear it, too. But I have spent too much time analyzing emotions to discount them. Emotions are there, whether we like them or not, and whether we view them as relevant or not. By their very nature, emotions aren’t rational. Even the privileged can be sad. Because that’s to do with feelings, not a structure that systematically hinders you in your life.

And that’s the problem: seeing the difference between privilege and happiness. It can be hard to acknowledge that you’re better off than others when you’re depressed and bullied, when you have eating disorders and cancer and no friends. Even if your privilege buys you treatment or lets you pretend to be normal, those things hurt. But to understand the difference between privilege and happiness, it can help to think, “Would this horrible situation be better for me if I was gay/black/autistic?” If the answer is no, chances are you’re more privileged than that group.

But your feelings? They couldn’t care less. Everyone is an individual, and the individual feels the individual’s feelings, not the group’s. Even if I belong to the most powerful group in the world, I can still suffer, because I’m me, and not my group. Also, people tend to compare their situation with those close to them. That’s why a person who’s rich by global standards can feel poor, because they live in a town or country where everyone else is richer.

This means that many people will cling to what they view as their meagre share, because look at the neighbor, she’s got this and that, and the guy over there has a new car, never mind the beggar on the corner. And even if social competitiveness isn’t a factor, it can be hard to admit that maybe you got into that PhD program because your siblings taught you to read when you were five, and your dad read aloud from the original English Alice In Wonderland when you were eight. Because you want to feel like you did something on your own, don’t you? You want something to be your very own precious.

Well, there is no precious, and that is a valid pain. If I strip away my middle class background, my whiteness, my educated parents, and being raised in a (ex-) socialist country that hasn’t known war for two hundred years, there is very little left that I can take pride in. I’ve had opportunities, and I’ve squandered them, and even that is a privilege that most don’t have.

But what I’m left with is this: my stubbornness. My refusal to give up on the things I really care about. It’s innate, sure, it’s genes, and nothing I have any control over. But if there’s nothing else I can take credit for, at least I can treasure my mulish insistence on writing, writing and writing, despite a school system that saw no point in developing that talent, despite career advisors who didn’t know how to advise me, and despite family who sort of supported it but (of course) couldn’t foresee the self-pub revolution that has made that world a whole lot more accessible.

At the end of the day, the only thing we can do – to paraphrase Gandalf – is to choose what to do with what we are given. And rant about the rest on our blog.

Pax demo: The Wolf and the Waif

Pax demo from their album Return of the Prince. Once again a gal sings to the best of her ability. Heh. Images trace their cycling tour through the UK.