This Is Not a Blog (and Why!)
Before this goes any further, let me share two stories.
1.
One of the most vivid memories I have of my childhood is this: I'm walking home from school. It's a warm autumn day and I'm alone. I cross the street from the playground and start passing my best friend's house. As I do, a girl approaches. I know her peripherally. She's a grade above me. We've never spoken. She's coming toward me and we briefly make eye contact, but that's it. I scoot to one side of the sidewalk, she to the other, and we pass. But just when she's out of my line of sight, she mutters "fatso" under her breath.
I don't stop. I don't look back. Maybe I run home as soon as I'm around the corner. Maybe I stand in confusion. Why would someone say that? I was definitely "pleasantly plump," as my friend Ethan used to jokingly call me, but I wasn't fat. The truth is I don't know what happened after. The clarity of the memory shuts off as soon as the word has dried her lips.
In fact, I'm not sure any of it happened. I'm pretty sure she and I passed each other on some day of my childhood. Maybe she said that. Maybe she said something else. Maybe she didn't say anything at all. I don't know and it's the not knowing that's been so definitive. How could one of the most pervasive memories of my life be the memory of something that never happened?
2.
When I was in high school, I went on an extended trip and the circumstances were such that most of my friends didn't know where I'd gone. At that point, I already wrote a lot and I'd finished much of the draft of a pretty cruddy book called the Warrior of Light. (If the name doesn't express how juvenile it was, just wait until I start posting excerpts from it here. Of course, I was a juvenile and I make no excuses for it. It led to one of the best moments in my early writing career, a letter from Terry Brooks. But all of that's beside the point.)
As any good fantasy author does, one of the first things I did in building my was create a map. It was pretty detailed, full of all the features an epic fantasy world needs. Though I grew up pre-Facebook, I wasn't shy about sharing my as-of-yet-unfinished masterpiece with my friends. I passed out binders brimming with adventure, magic, and lots and lots of violence. I spent hours during lunch explaining the deeper significance of each character, plot point, location, and tidbit of history. And then I went on this trip.
When I returned, I found that most of my friends were curious about where I'd been. Josh, however, was not.
"I knew exactly where you were," he said.
"Really?"
He nodded confidentially, then pulled out the Warrior of Light and turned to the world map.
"I just followed the story on the map. I knew exactly where you went."
It's not a blog
For one thing, I hate the word "blog." If I were the kind of person who goes in for that kind of thing, I'd say I HATE the word "blog." I try to use it as little as possible. Once at work, I managed the corporate * and I tend to rely on awkward constructions like "content site" instead of *. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. One of the great tragedies of the modern world is the fact that the naming conventions of the internet were left in the hands of developers. I'm sure they were all great people, but that's no excuse.
But that's not it. At least not really.
The truth is, I stink at writing about myself. I mean, a traditional "*" is supposed to be a journal, of sorts, right? An opportunity to get inside the head of another person, or an opportunity for the *er to espouse wisdom from on high gleaned from his or her witty, charming, life. I've tried this, but really, I'm no good at it. This is possibly for a number of reasons:
I'm the youngest in my family and so grew up with the blanket assumption that none of my ideas were worth hearing. The result is that no matter how well-written, how well-researched, or how ingenious my thoughts may be, I generally assume no one cares.
I'm a verbal processor. Yes, I'm a writer, but everything I write is very meticulously crafted. In my writing, I have to be in control of everything. I'm not good at writing stream of conscious. I've tried NaNoWriMo five times and only been successful once (and I felt dirty when that one time was over). Talking something out is an act of joyous discovery. Writing something down is an act of creative sacrifice.
I don't like talking about myself. Sure, I like talking about my ideas (but see item 1). I really don't like talking about myself. In many ways I see my life like I see my writing. I'm sort of a Wrimo draft. I've put a lot of focused time and effort into myself, I'm a great achievement, but I'm not really the kind of thing anybody else would want to read.
I don't consider myself an authority on anything except my own ideas. *s these days are all about becoming a "though-leader." I am not a thought leader. I am a thinker, though, and I like to believe that I may occasionally have a thought that's worthy of analysis, and then perhaps agreement.
If you don't believe me is all this, consider the fact that I've spent the last 900 words telling you 1) random stories from my childhood and 2) neurotic confessions about my insecurities.
Every time I've legitimately tried to record my thoughts or my history, the results haven't been pretty. Consider a third story.
3.
Recently, I moved. As you probably know, moving is a great time to take an inventory of your life, to look at things you haven't looked at in years and bask in the glory of all that's come before. For me, this came mainly in the form of revisiting each of my books as I put them in my library. I'd remove them from their boxes and look carefully through their many pages. I'd let my touch convert the texture of their pulp and their dust into a smell and a memory and a reaffirmation of my existence. They weren't all favorites. I haven't even read them all. But I have a relationship with them all.
During this process, I ran across some of my old journals. I've never been a good journal-keeper, but there've been a few times when I gave it a real go. I had a vague memory of the kinds of things I used to write, so I eagerly sat back and opened one. It was formal, 8.5x11 and bound in faux-leather, with an inscription in it from the man who gave it to me for my high school graduation. On the title page, I found my name, along with a symbol I'd devised for myself (a la Gandalf's "G") and a fake name I often used as a sort of "true name" in those days to bolster my morale and sense of self: Gilcryst ra'Aradnor. (Gilcryst, incidentally, was also one of the main characters of the cycle of stories I was working on in those days.) Beneath these was inscribed: "In the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and XX."
The entries themselves were a treasure trove of highfalutin hijinks:
Knight's Personal Log, First Entry, Stardate: XXXX.XX...Thus I begin my history, a story of struggle, love, pain, and adventure. I write this missive both to myself, years down the long road of life, and to my posterity and kin so that they may know their ancestor. So that they will understand their heritage and the Glory and Honor and Duty that they carry in their name. As a scribe and scholar, it is a ventilation system to my creative juices, a place to analyze my actions, my dreams, my past, and what is to come. For those who wonder at my heading, it stems from my passion for Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek...
...I remember a lot of joy as a child, mingled with childish conflict that, while it is foolish to me now, was very real to me then. The fact that my scientific devices, dreamt up in the vastness of my cobwebbed brain, but with little basis in reality, were not allowed in our spaceship battles, while G's, which were much more grounded in actual theories, would decimate me and were very much allowed...
...In the eighth grade of my involvement in the public education system, the decision was made to switch from a junior high (three year high school system: 7-9/10-12) to a middle school (four year high school system: 7-8/9-12). Thus, I was deprived the chance to be a "9th-grader" and was going to become a "freshman." This was very much to my disappointment and later satisfaction.
And so on. There were many "farewells" and commands to "attend:," etc.
Stories
Now, if you're still with me and if you've managed to wade through this meandering whatever-it-is, then you may have noticed a theme: I have what some might consider to be an unhealthy relationship with storytelling. I have faulty memories. My experiences bleed into my worldbuilding. Even in what would otherwise be a totally private venue, I write about my life like it's a story, if badly. Why? Because that's really the way my brain works. I think in terms of stories. I've tried over and over again to talk about my life and my experiences in straightforward, normal ways, and it always becomes stressed and fake and full of sentences that begin with "attend:". In the old days, that was weird and made me feel even more insecure. Today, as an adult, I'm okay with it. I genuinely believe in the value of creativity to explore the truth of our existence, both as a species and as an individual.
So are these all lies? Am I just making stuff up here?
Does it matter?
I want to talk about the power of creativity in every aspect of my life, so maybe sometimes I'll have to talk about my life through creativity. Maybe not. We'll see.
In the end, this isn't a blog simply because it's not. It's a night at the fire, a sit around the table, a conversation with the unknown. A letter to the Otherworld, so to speak, the glass through which we see darkly. Or in other words, a personal magazine. If you're willing to put up with that, then I'm happy to have you along.