I haven’t had a week like this one in quite a long time.
I mean that in both good terms and in bad ones. Over the last few weeks, my life has been in a state of relative upheaval. I’ve had a lot of struggles, mostly internal ones, and I’ve pulled back from the things and people I love to get things sorted out. I’m coming out of the tunnel, now, and I’m very relieved to see that the light I was struggling towards isn’t an oncoming semi.
So what’s been sorted? And what’s next?
My work and living situations have been in flux, but have taken on more stability, especially in the past week. True, it’s not in the form of a solid, routine, commuting, 9-to-5 sort of stability at the moment, but honestly, with the way my living situation has changed, that might be for the best. Redoubling my efforts to do more remote freelancing to support my writing feels more true to my nature than hunting down the elusive corporate gig that really plays to my strengths and lets me feel like more than a cog in a capitalist machine.
This all boils down to the internal struggles I’ve been having on a personal level. As much as I would like to think that I am an intelligent primate with a well-ordered and focused mind, the truth is that things can and often are a lot more chaotic than I’d like to admit. Especially when my mood swings in ways that are barely under my control, if at all, or my subconscious mind latches onto an emotion or concept that runs counter to what I consciously know is counter-productive, my mental landscape goes through changes in weather rather than remaining calm and placid. Hell, there have been earthquakes in there lately.
Recovering from rough periods like this one is never easy. I’ve taken some time in relative isolation to get things under control before they became even more problematic for everyone involved. And I need to make this clear: nobody outside of my own head has done anything objectively wrong. I’m very thankful for everyone who’s chosen to stay in my life, even if communication has been disrupted. Those disruptions don’t last forever, though.
Sometimes, all you can do is fight for your own mind as hard as you can, and pray that those who’ve stood with you are still standing when the smoke clears.
I trust my friends, my closest ones, more than I do my own brain sometimes. They wouldn’t be so willing to work with me, even in waiting, if they did not feel I was trustworthy in return. Now more than ever, I’ll do my utmost to vindicate that trust. I’ll take the time necessary to do right by the people I care about, and who care about me. I will do the things that make me come alive.
I have a responsibility to the people I love. I won’t ever forget that.
I can’t think of a time when I’ve had a longer dry spell in terms of writing. I’m not quite at the shaking-hands staring-eyes push-food-towards-me-with-a-stick-lest-I-bite-your-fingers-off phase of writing withdrawal… but I think I’ve approached it. And, thankfully, I’m taking steps to get myself out of it.
They’re slow, much slower than I’d like, but they’re happening. Case in point: this blog post! I certainly have a great deal to talk about, outside of the choking miasma that occasionally drifts through my headspace, and I need to get back in the habit of making words, my words, happen every day. And while I correspond with friends and write out internal experiences and sort out feelings, that isn’t the same as informing the world, shedding light on Truth, or telling the stories that need telling.
My goal, in all of the things I do and every choice I make, is to reduce cruelty in the world while increasing love. I’ve made some blunders along the way, had impulses and emotions blindside my conscious mind, and even come close to breaking down on an occasion or two. But I still haven’t given up. I’m still committed to doing everything I can for the people I care about. And I’m working just as hard as I ever have to get out of my rut and take the path less traveled, the one walked by troubadours and truth-tellers, the one paved in paperback covers of those who inspire me to join their ranks.
Deserts are vast. They are unforgiving. They are punishing, desolate, silent, and lonely places.
But they are not the entirety of the world. Nor do they last forever.
And I am finally, finally, coming to the end of this one.
In light of Star Wars Celebration and the new teaser for the upcoming film, I thought I’d revisit my thoughts on the first Dark Lord of the Sith to which audiences were introduced. When this post first went up, there were some wonderful comments regarding how this character got railroaded, what the Clone Wars series did to address that, and a powerful aspect of Return of the Jedi. It’s clear we’re ready for a Star Wars film that does its characters and universe true justice. I suppose we’ll find out in December if that’s what we’re actually getting.
My good friend Rick over at Word Asylum brought up some classic villains. What stuck out in his pretty comprehensive top ten list was the presence of one Darth Vader. I was reminded of what he, and Star Wars in general, were like when it was first introduced. I discussed him briefly back when I talked about villainy in general. Let’s go back a bit, however, and examine one of the most iconic bad guys of the big screen a bit more closely.
Star Wars
Rooted as it was in the adventure serials that people like Lucas grew up with, having good and evil somewhat diametrically opposed was par for the course. Good guys were good, bad guys were bad. And they didn’t come badder than Darth Vader. We are introduced to Vader when his stormtroopers blast their way through a Rebel spacecraft, his motivations are clear when he strangles one of the ship’s officers and he’s more than willing to turn his significant strength and wrath against his own people if they question his faith or their orders. You don’t need a manual or novelization to understand Darth Vader. It’s laid out for you on the screen and, surprisingly enough considering later entries in the Star Wars series, it’s shown instead of told. When someone does try to tell instead of show, Vader chokes the bitch. “I find your lack of faith disturbing” is all that need be said.
The Empire Strikes Back
Rick described this as being Vader at “his lowest point, when the Dark Side firmly had him enthralled.” His loyalty and dedication to the Empire has given way this obsession with capturing Luke Skywalker. On the surface, this is a straightforward motivation – Luke humiliated Vader in battle, and Vader wants revenge. He’s willing to strangle anyone, destroy anything, sacrifice entire Star Destroyers and recruit the most insidious of bounty hunters to get what he wants. His villainy takes on a whole new dimension when it’s revealed that his pursuit of the Millenium Falcon is all a ploy to draw Luke out of hiding, and when Luke does appear, Vader goes from being a merely dark villainous presence to a deep and haunting one.
Vader, we discover, is Luke’s father. Beyond his desire to corrupt Luke and seduce him to the Dark Side, Vader wants Luke to join him, work with him and help him build a peaceful, orderly Empire. He wants to establish a true monarchy by deposing Palpatine, becoming Emperor himself and ensuring his son will succeed him and carry on his goals. It’s his way of seeking reconciliation. However, rather than trying to bridge the gap between them, Vader offers to yank Luke over to his side of things. It shows just how far Vader has fallen to the Dark Side, and what happens next is perhaps the greatest moment of storytelling in Star Wars to date.
When Luke chooses to face death rather than join his father, watch Vader closely. Without seeing his face, without saying a word, Vader conveys an emotion that pierces all his Force powers and imposing armor the way blasters never could. Luke breaks Vader’s heart. Not only is this a telling moment in the relationship between father and son, there’s a reveal here even more shocking than that of Luke’s parentage: Darth Vader, a deadly and cunning manipulative bastard of a villain, has a heart to break.
Star Wars never saw anything like this moment again. It shines as the pinnacle of the saga’s power and beyond everything that comes after, for me, it remains untouched.
Return of the Jedi
There’s a huge difference between the Vader in the first two films and the Vader in Jedi. He sounds weary. He’s still driven and loyal, but the wound he suffered on Cloud City still bleeds inside of him. Inside that dark armor wages a battle between the man he wants to be – Luke’s father, someone the boy will admire and want to be with – and the servant of the Empire he has become. When Luke reappears in Vader’s life, he makes another attempt to appeal for the young man’s favor. In response, Luke searches for the smaller side of the internal struggle he feels, the man Vader once was.
Vader as a villain is no less effective in Jedi but his motivations are now far more personal, the sort of things we see in the closing acts of a Greek tragedy. Brought low by his actions, responsible for the deaths of friends and loved ones, Vader must face his own demons and put them to rest even at the expense of his own life. In the process, he finally wins the adoration of his son. The tragedy of his adult life is left far behind as he achieves his redemption. It’s this cycle, falling into darkness only to struggle back to the light regardless of cost, that defines many of Star Wars‘ better tales, such as that of Ulic Qel-Droma.
Everything After
When the prequels were announced, fans looked forward to seeing what Anakin was like before becoming Vader, discovering the details of his fall and fully understanding the pathos beneath the armor. Instead, we got a whiny, willful, selfish and ill-conceived brat with no real charisma, no redeeming values and little to offer the precious few tangible threads of story laid out by Lucas. By focusing on spectacle and merchandising, Lucas tore out the fangs of his greatest success entirely.
When you have potential like this, you shouldn’t let it go to waste. Take some time to consider the groundwork that’s been laid before you build something new. It’snothard. I hate to keep coming back to this, but if I can throw together something in a weekend that people feel is better structured than a multi-million dollar production, the people that invest that money should be more willing to take a closer look on where their money is actually going.
But that’s just me. I’m a wide-eyed idealist and a starving artist, and for what it’s worth, I miss Darth Vader.
Since writing this post three years ago or so, I’ve discovered that the ‘little voice’ I refer to below comes from what I’ve come to call the ‘badbrain’. I will go into more detail later, perhaps in another place, but suffice it to say that, no matter what its motivation, the badbrain is a decidedly not-me portion of my thought process that I am learning to interpret, internalize, combat, and ignore. Hopefully this post will help someone with a similar affliction deal with their own ‘little voice’!
I’ve been trying to puzzle out where, exactly, the ‘little voice’ comes from. You know the one I mean. When we work, when we strain ourselves, when we step outside our comfort zones or make time for something significant, that’s when you hear it. It isn’t intrusive and it isn’t even all that whiny, but it’s always trying to discourage us.
The discouragement isn’t always malicious. At times, it can sound downright helpful. It will remind us of upcoming appointments that will keep us from reaching our projected end point. It will point out how much this set of joints is aching or how deep the burning sensation in our chest is going. It brings up mental images and passages from other works that play in the same fields we do and are already successful where we are still struggling. In the end, though, the message boils down to putting what we’re doing aside, stopping before we hurt ourselves… quitting.
It is, of course, a pack of lies.
Yes, there are only so many hours in the day. Yes, there are limits to what our bodies can do. But those limits only remain as long as they are not pushed. The hours in our day are not fixed; we can move things around to carve out the time we need to do what we want. It really is a case of mind over matter, of responding to the ‘little voice’ saying “Thanks, but no thanks, I got this.”
I’m still not entirely sure why we lie to ourselves in this way. We try to talk ourselves into not giving our all, not striving for our goals. We succeed in not straining ourselves, and in doing so, we set ourselves up for failure. Why any rational, sane human being would willingly do this is a mystery to me.
The best I can come up with (being a total amateur at this sort of thing) is that it’s a defense mechanism. The body and our perception of time and exterior influences generate reactions, and at times these reactions happen more quickly than our minds can fully process them. Think about it; I’m sure many a time you’ve looked back on yesterday and said, “Oh, I actually would have had time to do X if I had held off on doing Y.” We opt for the comfort and ease rather than delaying our satisfaction in order to move closer towards achieving a goal.
It’s the same sort of reaction that tries to get us to back off from physical exertion. If you’re ‘feeling the burn’ and trying to push yourself towards a goal – five more minutes, five more pounds, reaching the end of the block at a jogging pace rather than a walking one – your body will try and tell you that it’s more trouble than it’s worth. That it’s time to ratchet back a bit. Take a break. Go easier on yourself.
Since it’s inside your head, it isn’t impolite to tell that voice to fuck directly off.
Unless you’re in real danger of hurting yourself, unless you’re taking time away from truly important things like family or you’re in jeopardy if missing a deadline that could cost you a lucrative job, kick that little voice’s ass. Test your limits, to see if you can break them. Carve out the time you need, in bloody chunks if you have to. The envelope is there to be pushed – push the hell out of it.
It’s easier said than done, I know. But when you’re in the moment, when you’re on the cusp of achieving something or reaching a goal, and you start to feel that little voice tickling your mental ear, that’s when you engage your mind and simply say, “No. I will not lie to myself. I will get this done. I can rest after it’s over.”
And no matter what the cost is, you’ll feel better in the long run.
Writers have to write. Just the way that runners have to run, or smokers have to smoke, or brokers have to… broke? Break? Something involving breaking. Anyway, writers are compulsory creatures and writing is a compulsion. It’s felt under the skin. It’s an itch in the fingers, a burning behind the eyes. The fires of the creative mind of the writer are stoked continuously, and without release, the pressure builds to a fever pitch, and the next thing you know the writer is taking chunks of the desk with their teeth because they need to write, dammit!
But writers are also human beings. At least, they are until we perfect the AI that can write novels as well as our current novelists. That means they have things like hunger and depression and anger and distractions and fear and the Internet and bills and porn. A million tiny things can add up very quickly to an obstacle that the writer struggles to surmount, a wall between them and the words. Other than smashing that motherfucker down, what is the writer to do? What do you do when the words don’t come?
The advice I am about to give is, admittedly, advice I need to take myself. And it is influenced heavily by other writers. I am going to delineate it here anyway, because it is my hope that in doing so, my own walls come tumbling down and the words start flowing again. It’s getting backed up pretty bad in here. Kind of starting to stink.
Forget About Yesterday
A big part of what can get in the writer’s way is the writer themselves. Mostly, in the form of looking back over the past day or week and seeing all the words that didn’t get written. Production time is lost, due to research of legitimate related topics or ‘research’ on the optimum build for a Diablo III character or the exact taste of a new kind of beer. Some writers don’t write for a living and need to hold down dayjobs, whose work and commute and responsibilities suck time and energy away from writing the way a vacuum removes dust from lush carpeting. The dayjob also removes things like eviction notices and angry phone calls, but there’s always some good with the bad.
Regardless of circumstances, the best thing to do is to simply forget about the past.
Yes, mistakes have been made. Blunders happened. Forget about them. Leave the past in the past. You only have three temporal perspectives to consider, and I would argue that the past matters the least. Sure, it’s regretable that certain things didn’t happen certain ways. That was yesterday. Today is happening now, and there is always tomorrow.
Or is there?
Tomorrow’s An Illusion
Tomorrow isn’t here yet. You’re not in it. You won’t be for hours. It is, quite simply, not real.
It is going to be real, yes. And you can plan for what might happen or what is going to happen. Sure, no plan remains fully intact once contact is made with the enemy, and the writer’s enemies are many and varied, as mentioned above. But the fact of the matter is, time spent planning for tomorrow is time you could be spending writing today.
So, forget about the past, and fuck waiting for tomorrow. What’s that leave you?
Come on. Take a guess.
Write Today. Write Now.
If you remove the other two temporal perspectives, you’re left with the present moment. It is really the only moment over which you have direct control. Previous moments are immutable, and moments to come are illusory. NOW is the time you inhabit, NOW is the time in which you can wrest destiny away from forces outside of yourself, and NOW is the time to write.
Again, this is advice I need to take myself, and I need to keep taking it every day. I can plan for ways to make it easier for me to do so: get up earlier, get more sleep, stress less about the job, increase energy with changes in diet and exercise, and so on. But right now, in this moment, the choice is really a binary one: write, or don’t write?
It really is as simple as choosing “write” more often than not.
