What's In A Name? Sometimes Timing

We writers have to know all about words and how to use them. Meanings, definitions, usage, slang, puns, you name it, we have to know. So in a recent political discussion when my opponent used a word to try and label me, it got me thinking. Warning, what follows does contain politics (mine specifically), but pay more attention to the way the words are use

My opponent asked if I was a socialist. What the hell does that word mean? There are a lot of answers. What he meant by the word was a communist. He got that meaning from Glenn Beck. But is that what it really means? No, it isn't. It is, however, a common right wing label for those who espouse a view of government regulation, class leveling social programs, and a perceived godlessness that they feel equates someone to a communist. So in this sense, the word socialist is mean as a pejorative insult. I took it as such and responded with facts that showed they were talking nonsense.

What, then, is socialism? In the modern usage it refers to a different economic system where good are manufactured for consumption, not for sale. Companies are owned the government on behalf of the people or by the the people directly. The former in practice and the later in theory. This was true in the USSR form of Communism. In a pure form, all companies are owned in the same way. However, in general practice this system has been around since pre-history and is nothing new. In the 19th century, the thought was that the workers would take over the companies and the need for governments would vanish. In practice, the ownership always fell to the governments.

Now when I say this has been around since pre-history, what do I mean? The concept of the state (the head of state and defacto owner of everything in the state was usually a monarch) owning companies was very common. It still is. We do not live in a society were everything is done for profit. We have public services, such as water, gas, electricity, police, schools, fire-fighers, paramedics, road construction, and other public works. As you move further back into history, more and more things that we today have as independent businesses were owned an run by the government. The expeditions to the new world were all sponsored and funded by the monarchs of the day. Even going back to castles and cathedrals of Europe, the Great Wall of China, and the Pyramids, these are public works, not private. By strict definition, this is equivalent to the modern socialist ownership of companies by the government. But the thing was, this was never called socialism until the USSR took the Marx's communism and created the USSR and government ownership of everything.

It is from this that the insult arose. I didn't really connect it until I was watching a program on TV and they played a clip from the 1950's where the speaker referred to socialists. He was of course speaking of the USSR. Cut to today and Glenn Beck using it to label President Obama and accusing him of taking over healthcare. First off, for that label to be even tenuously correct, Obamacare would have to in some way take over from the private sector insurance companies. Instead, Obamacare establishes stronger regulation of the capitalistic health insurance industry and mandates that everyone over 130% of the poverty line buy health insurance and then expands Medicaid, the government health care coverage for the poor to cover everyone below 130% of the poverty line. That does not produce a government run healthcare system and does not match the definition of socialism. It is less government run than the other services I mentioned above.

And that brings me to my last definition of socialism. It was actually the first definition of the word, but least used these days. It refers to correcting capitalism for the natural imbalance of rich and poor by leveling the system while not making things equal. This is what all western capitalistic countries practice to reduce poverty. It is no longer called socialism, but things like social programs, social welfare, or, more disparagingly, entitlement programs.

So when someone uses the words socialist or socialism, which one do they mean? As you see, they are not interchangeable. And should you take offense? Probably not. If they intend to be insulting, educate them on what modern socialism means and how it is actually in use in every society in the world. Otherwise a simple yes or no works quite well.

From a writer's point of view, this discussion is important for two reasons. First, the usage for this word over time. The word means something different in 1830, 1880, and 1980. If you write period stories or have any political barbs to throw around in your story, you should know when and how to use the word. Second, this isn't the only word like this. If, like me, you write fiction that takes place in the future, you can come up with other words that might have a history like this. Or, for anything else, you need to research your terms and find out how words are used in context and how they are misused, either in honest mistake or to create a deliberate insult.

Words are crazy and powerful things. When you are talking about one that gets used as a label, you are talking about something even crazier and more powerful. Careful how you use them. Timing is everything.

Dreaming of Freedom

Elsewhere in the world, people are not as lucky as we are. Here in this country is the the presidential election year and we are bickering about politics. No one is dying, being killed, being denied their freedoms that we Americans so take for granted.

That is not true elsewhere in the world. Right now, Malala Yousafzai is fighting for her life. Why? she dared to speak out for her right to education. The Taliban in Pakistan found her words a threat and tracked her down and shot her. It really makes our petty bickering seem really dumb.

I don't want to go down a rabbit hole of complaining about troubled, that goes against the point I am trying to make. As we quibble over the right to health care and religious freedoms, we need to remember people like Malala who have to stand up just to get an education.

To learn more about Malala, what she has been through, and what real oppression feels like, please watch this documentary by Adam Ellick - Class Dismiss - on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F5yeW6XFZk

Is Silence Golden?

It has been a while since I posted something. As many of you know, I write under a couple of pen names and I have taken the leap of self publishing. As part of my efforts to build that brand, I participated in a blog tour this summer. A post a week on other people's blogs and hosting a post a week on mine. Problem wasn't I didn't have my blog setup very well so I recently remade it. It looks much better now and I'd like to invite anyone who follows this blog to follow that one. It is doubtful I will very often do more than one post at a time. Though I'm going to have three posts in quick succession because I'm going to list all my posts on other blogs.

So, my silence really wasn't me being quiet, it was me rambling on elsewhere. Now, if I'd been smart, I would have done all this before participating in that blog tour, but we live and learn. It was a fun and challenging experience, and it resulted in a flash fiction that I rather like.

If you have a chance, check it out and see how not silent I was this summer. I could use the traffic.

The Movie Pinacle for 2012 - Les Miserables

What do you get when you mix one of the greatest books of the nineteenth century, fabulous music, an Academy Award winning director, and a cast of talented actors? You get Les Miserables, due in theaters December 2012.



I'm very glad that I had a chance to see Les Miserables on stage (in Denver) this last year so I have something to compare it to. I have followed this musical for many years, but aside from the music, this is adapted from one of my all time favorite books. I'm in the middle of attacking the unabridged version of Victor Hugo's novel. Not an easy thing when you are used to the spare and direct more modern writing style. But even when Hugo goes off on tangents he has a way with words that keeps me reading.

Les Miserables has been adapted many time. Many of the film adaptions have elected to end the story with Javert's suicide. I've seen those versions and they just don't cut it. The two best versions come to us from France. The 1958 version starring Jean Gabin (which I have only seen dubbed) and the 2000 version starring Gerard Depardieu. These both cover the complexity of the novel and go right to the end.

One problem with adapting this book is that a lot of the interesting story is not told directly. Jean Valjean first appears on the road as a parolee. Various different attempts have been made to integrate some of that information while omitting Hugo's many side tracks.

In the musical we have a very unique telling of the story, and the whole story. While a few characters are omitted, like Azelma and Marius's grandfather, and a few scene are gone, what it does do it drive right to the heart of the story Hugo was telling. Through the music these characters gain a dimension that it takes Hugo an epic half a million words to tell.

Some of the comments I have seen in the last day since the trailer was released are about the quality of the music. I have all the major recordings of Les Miserables. I have heard the various singers and these comments make me laugh (a sad sort of laughter at how petty and short sighted some people can be). The entire point of the songs in Les Miserables is not for the singers to belt out a performance like you would expect in a musical concert. These songs were meant to be acted with emotion. I have been less than impressed with a number of the "great" stars of Les Miserables. I have heard many better singers. But what they did do is nail the emotion. Well, I don't think there is any doubt that Anne nails the emotion. I hope the rest of the performances are so raw, so viceral, so real.

My first reaction to the trailer was to wonder how many awards this film is going to get. Just that short glimpse and I am sure that come award season early next year that this will be one of the films that will be contending for some of the most prestigious awards. The Tony's were nice, now for a few Oscars.

Spring Block

I don’t know about other writers, but there are time of the year that I find better for writing and times that are worse. For me, Spring is the worst. I don’t know why, but I find I can’t concentrate, and any story I am working on seem to drag on. And no, I don’t mean that the story is dull, but that I only get a few hundred words in at a time, when at other times of year I can get a couple thousand.

So I’ve dubbed this as Spring Block. I’m fighting it, as I’ve fought it for several years. I am determined to not stop writing. I will persevere. But it is tough going. Oddly enough, this year is going better than last year. Two years ago I wanted to write two short stories in preparation for a novel, and struggled to reach 20,000 words in five months. Last year I again barely managed to get two short stories written but I didn’t get to the second one until June (technically after spring and at the start of the more productive part of the year). This year I wrote a short story, a novella, and am in Chapter two of my next novel. Better, but still not the level of progress I want.

I can hear some people saying that every writers needs some down time. There are books to read, manuscripts to edit, that sort of thing. But it should be up to me when I take my down time. I just don’t get why during this stretch of months, January through May, everything seems to drag. Distractions are more distracting and time seems to get away from me for every little thing. In many ways I have the least going on this time of year, but I get most of my writing done during the time of year when I have so many other things going on. Last year I managed to write two novels between July and November, and get two remodel projects done, and watch a lot of movies and TV shows. Could it be that I’m not busy enough in the spring? That is about the only thing I can figure.

In any case, my Spring Block is almost over. May is almost here and after may is June, one of the best writing months outside November.

Petty Worries

Normally I devote my space here to my writing thoughts, but in a way this is related as it relates to one of my all time favorite novels, Les Miserables. Anyone who knows me knows that I am crazy about the musical based on the book and may or may not know that I am almost equally enamored of two French language adaptions of the book (the epic 1950's film that I have been unable to find in the original french with subtitles, and the 2001 version with Gerard Depardieu). I can't stand the US versions that end with Javert's death. That is not the end of the story. The Liam Neesen version was brilliant up until it ended with half an hour of story left.

Anyway, that brings me to my current topic, the impending 2012 film of the musical. I'm a big fan of hollywood musicals, but I hate it when they needlessly mess with the flow of the story. With Les Miserables, we have nearly three hours of non-stop music and little chance to change things. But from a writing perspective, I find the casting interesting and brilliant. I have been pleased with nearly every casting choice. But that is not the case elsewhere.

Taylor Swift has been offered, and I understand that she accepted the role today, and fans of Les Miserable on Broadway are up in arms. She can't sing, they say. She doesn't have the look. I have always been sensitive to quality singing and am quite picky about who I like and don't like. There are a great many supposedly great singers that I can't stand the sound of. Sarah Brightman, at least in her solo career, can't seem to enunciate a single word rendering the songs an unintelligible mush. Yuck. Colm Wilkinson, the originator of Jean Valjean, seems to have developed and strange enunciating style, as has Leah Solanga. Love her work for Disney, but her Eponine in the 10th anniversary concert and her Fantine in the 25th anniversary concert really suck. I know she can act, but I can't hear it in her voice. I recently saw the touring production in Denver, Colorado, and all the cast members were excellent, though maybe their Cossette was a bit weak. I have quite a number of the cast recordings, in three languages, and I know it can be done well.

That brings me to miss Swift and her singing and acting ability and her ability to pull off this role. For one thing, that young woman has had the heartbreak that gives her the emotional foundation for the role of Epoinine. Second, she is a damned fine singer. I am listening to her last album as I write this. The complaints I have heard is that she doesn't have the right look, that she can't hit the notes for On My Own, that she is a country singer and not fit to do a Broadway musical, and I'm sure the list will continue to grow through the end of the year. But I have to say, seriously people, you have crap recordings that are lauded as great and you have a girl who can actually sing cast in a MOVIE version of a London stage production. Not Broadway, London. Big difference. But look at who she is cast with. Sasha Baron Cohen is playing her father and is a mere 4 inches taller than she is. Her love interest, Marius, is the same 5' 11" as she is. She is tall and thin and waifish. She also has a very similar voice to the woman who originated the role in London at the Barbican. I think she will make an excellent Eponine and I can't wait to see it.

So to bring this back to writing, as a writer, when I create a character I have an image of that character in my mind. I may or may not put down the description I have in mind, but that doesn't change what is in my mind. If I should be so lucky as to have one of my stories find its way to Hollywood to be filmed, I might have some general guidelines for the type of people who should be cast but I would never dream of putting the image before the quality of the performance. Considering the other actors cast in Les Misserables, the fit of Taylor Swift seems perfect. Yet some people have an image so ingrained in their heads of who should play the role that instead of just saying that they wanted to see some other person cast, they have to resort to calling her names. They obviously haven't listened to her songs. She has been dealing with that for years and is quite adept and defending herself.

Let the casting director do their job. Unless I am mistaken, this movie is being produced by the original producer of the musical. I have no doubt that the quality of singing and acting has been more important in their casting choices than star power. They wouldn't cast her if she couldn't do it. Everyone needs to give this cast lineup a chance. I, for one, will be planning for the best theater to go see it in and am already planning on purchasing the soundtrack and blu-ray when it comes out.

A Busy Year

2011 has been an eventful year, so much so that keeping up with this blog has been impossible.

One of the things that has kept me very busy has been writing. I have completed several short stories, edited 3 novels, and written two other novels. All in all a very profitable writing year. In particular, November was an incredible month. As a writer of speculative fiction, my manuscripts always exceed a hundred thousand words. I decided to participate in the National Novel Writing Month. Rather than stick the established goal of fifty thousand words, I decided to take the concept of writing a novel in a month and apply it to the epic fantasy genre. After much world building early in the year and writing the first volume of the series over the previous 4 months, I found I was ready. I have yet to read the result, but the rough draft topped out at just over a hundred and fifty thousand words. I have a policy of letting freshly finished manuscripts sit for at least a month or two before I look at them so I have no idea of the quality at this point.

A highlight of finishing that manuscript was that somewhere toward the end, I completed a million total words written. Well, I probably passed it a while I ago if I truly consider every bit of fiction I’ve ever written, but I’m just counting the items I’ve written with the intent to sell/publish. It was quite fun because the first thing I did after completing that manuscript was to go back to my first story, written in the early 90’s, and restore it to a format that is readable. I wrote with pen and paper back then and had a family member type it up. That was before I even owned a computer, something hard for those who know me now to imagine. It is good to be able to look back on something I wrote twenty years ago and still like it. It had some failures, but it was not a total loss. It is still fun to read.

My aims for writing have changed dramatically this year. At the beginning of the year I was continuing to try to seek a traditional agent/publisher to get my stories out there. But as I have looked at the type of stories I write and the market and what agents are looking for and how long it takes to submit to publishers, not to mention the many established writers who are turning from that old standard, I have decided that self-publishing, the modern way, is a much better fit. I won’t claim I am good enough to be the next Isaac Asimov or Terry Brooks, but from the feed back I’ve gotten, I’m no Ed Wood either. That first story was good enough to land me a screenwriting agent (and I can still see why) and I’ve only gotten better since then. Rather than continue to wait on someone to take a chance on me, I am going to take a chance on myself.

I have three novels and a short story collection ready for final proofing and publication so that is what will happen in the coming year. First the short story collection, which I think has its final title - Edge of Hyperspace. I’m working on what stories to include (I’m actually in the middle of writing one specifically for the collection) and editing them (for what seems like the tenth time in some cases) and sorting them into a cohesive unit. Once the editing is finished (with e-publishing is it ever really finished?), then it is time to format it, upload it, and make it live. It should prove to be an interesting adventure for 2012.

The business continues, but so too should the blogging. For 2012, I would like to return to writing something every month at a minimum.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.