Monthly Archives: November 2009

Now that I’m firmly back to blogging from my month of NaNo, I’m ready to offer a few comments in support of Adam Lambert. The scandal arising out of his performance at the AMA Awards wasn’t all that surprising, and yet, at the same time it was rather saddening.

How quickly Americans expose their inner bigots when faced with something a little bit different from what they’re used to.

Adam Lambert Kissed A Man. On National Television. After 11 o’clock on a school night. Oh my god, the children might see.

What on earth sort of parents let their children watch TV that late at night, anyway? This is a case where people are calling out for censorship as a substitute for being responsible parents who, you know, take a hand in what they allow their children to watch and, when something potentially disturbing or worrisome shows up on those shows, discusses this and the implications of it with their children. Adam Lambert was absolutely correct in placing the responsibility of what children watch firmly with the parents rather than the entertainer.

Unfortunately, these lazy parents want to let their kids watch tv long after they should’ve been in bed, without them paying proper attention to what their kids might be watching.  Needless to say, this wouldn’t have been an issue at all if the person that Adam decided to kiss was a girl.  If Adam had decided to act out a grizzly murder on the stage, complete with spurting blood, well, that would’ve been okay too.

Censorship in this country is so incredibly backwards from the way it should be. When it comes to acts of love, or even completely non-sexual brands of nudity, the censorship organizations cut and mangle and block things out, but when it comes to violence, expressions of hate, the censors look the other way.

It shouldn’t work that way. Violence should be “worse” in the considerations of ratings and censoring than nudity or sex.  A movie is more likely to get an R rating (or worse) here for nudity than it is for violence, and PG-13 movies continue to grow more and more violent as the years pass.

I’d be much more worried about my kids watching some of these violent PG-13 movies than some of the R rated movies that are tame, but for a moment of non-sexualized nudity, or, heaven forbid, gay kissing.

But then, it all goes back to the same thing. Enforcing “Morals” in this country these days tend to mean it’s okay to hate in public, but love and affection gets censored.

So, this year’s NaNo is likely to be a NoGo for me. My story, as stories are sometimes wont to do, turned out to not work very well.

Part of my problem, I think, is that I forgot that age-old rule for all writers: Write What You Know.  Except, perhaps, in this case, it should be amended to “Write What You Believe.”

I read a lot of speculative fiction. Generally, it’s my favorite broad genre, and within that genre I read pretty much every end of the spectrum, from the most realistic of hard sci-fi to the most fantastical fantasy, though my usual preference is something somewhere in the middle of those.

And here I was finding myself writing a hard sci-fi novel. Immediately I hit roadblocks with having to research things. I’m an English major, not a scientist, and my general approach to science tends to be one of awe. I appreciate science and scientists, and I believe in their work. However,  other than a grasp of the scientific process and the means used to ensure objectivity, I can’t claim to really understand science, particularly medical science (which is what my novel dealt with) very well. I’m a little better off when it comes to technology and gadgets and mechanical things, due to a gamer geek’s love  of computers, but still, this was a difficult genre for me to attempt from the onset.

However, given the time to research the material that I needed to research, this limitation could have been overcome in the editing process if not for the one unforgivable problem plaguing my novel.

I had no emotional attachment to it. The world was not one that I could find myself moving comfortably into and staying there a while, perhaps because it was too close a representation of the real one.  The characters didn’t seem to be living and breathing as they should be, especially by that point in the novel.  I didn’t care, really, what happened to them, one way or the other, and I knew that if I couldn’t care about or identify with these characters, my readers wouldn’t care either.

So I set it aside.  But I have continued to use NaNo as a tool for what I’ve always used it for: A refresher course in Discipline.  I picked up new project instead.  I’m writing 1000 words a day, at least (usually more), and plan to continue doing so.  1000 words is, I’ve found, an easily manageable daily goal, and it builds up faster than you’d think.

I won’t win NaNoWriMo this year, but I have been successful in reawakening Good Writing Habits, which was the whole point of the exercise to begin with.