From an optimist, a bit of negativity. Followed by optimism.

Negativity—especially of the churlish variety—is not my scene. After a brilliant eureka moment in my early undergraduate life, I put away the majority of my haughty, ironic, suspicious-of-optimism, Judgy McJudgerson teenage legacy and moved on to a much happier existence. The idea of Bronies (which I just read about today) tickles my heart; the sheer joy and exuberance exploding from Jimmy Fallon at every turn on his late late show is my bread and butter.

Not for its cynicism did I spend six years studying Russian lit, nor do I inhabit the young adult and kidlit world in order to have a ready supply of lesser-than things to make fun of. Rather, I did both for the wit and humanism and fantastic use of language so often employed therein. Sincerity and optimism, that's my game.

So you can understand why I have mixed emotions taking time to write about a series of things I've come across thus far in 2012 that, well, I am feeling really negative and judgy about. Even though—or maybe especially because—the negativity comes from a place of optimism. But these things are so tied to what I hold near and dear to my heart that, well, I just want to say something. So I will say my something, and then I will move on. And we will make Mondays days of love and sincerity from here on out.

CASE THE FIRST
The first thing that rankled me I saw last week, and was the bizarrely visceral lit-snob reaction to the appointment of Walter Dean Myers as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I didn't take the editorial very seriously—I think it was intentionally incendiary (and willfully self-serving), and anyone even a bit clever can understand that the argument doesn't even correspond with the meaning of the actual appointment (an ambassador is not a laureate, or an instructor, or a mirror, for example).

However, I do dislike it when anyone claims that a) literature's only goal is to elevate, and b) that "to entertain, to problematize, or to instruct" cannot simultaneously elevate. I am not claiming that all —hell, I'm not even claiming that literature's only goal should be to elevate. But I do think that anytime a person chooses to read something for their own edification, they are doing themselves a service. All exercises in reading are transformative:

Psychologists from Washington University used brain scans to see what happens inside our heads when we read stories. They found that "readers mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative". The brain weaves these situations together with experiences from its own life to create a new mental synthesis. Reading a book leaves us with new neural pathways. (Washington Univ. in St. Louis, via The Guardian)

…so even if Myers' work is "insipid" (which, whatever. Opinions are opinions.), the act of reading his work can do good just as well as Homer (or any number of increasingly ill-judged bawdy Old English bits) can. Either/or paradigms are harmful, especially if the result is keeping kids from actively engaging, on their own time, with literature, whatever that may be.

In any case, the guy is zany, which comes a dime a dozen, and Myers is still the one with the prestigious appointment, so, again, whatever. Also, I recognize that cultural snobbery is the Achilles Heel that brings out my cynicism. Okay. Water under the bridge.

However, today I came across two more things, in quick succession, that bit at me, and a series of three is always stronger, so. Here we are.

CASE THE SECOND
TEDtalks! Why are you doing me wrong?

For some reason, an economist got on stage to talk about his suspicion of stories. Yes, stories. That video is sixteen long minutes of your life, and I don't necessarily recommend anyone watch it, but there it is for those interested.

The takeaway is, humankind's tendency to frame everything—memories, lives, advertising—into stories is somehow…reductive? Constricting? Bad? Honestly, I'm a clever person, able to read literary criticism in Russian, but I could barely follow his argument. It was very…personal, I think. And yes, maybe I was feeling a bit ornery, my very avocation being called to task, but. Please.

Stories are used because framing the chaos and mess (which Cowen wants us to instead embrace, yet somehow not try to frame for better understanding) is how we make sense of life, how we can find meaning and move forward from the things that happen to us. I can understand the desire to be suspicious of stories people tell when selling something—obviously. Sales is a game, and you should always look outside the pitch's box. But just being human and telling stories? Being suspicious of that just promises exhaustion.

CASE THE THIRD
Being (and using) awesome.

This was highlighted in today's Shelf Talker, and it totally caught me off-guard. A bookselling dude in California has made it his mission to cull the word "awesome" from everyday English, citing its ubiquity and utter lack of real meaning as a source of physical pain.

"Saying the word in my presence is like waving a crucifix in a vampire's face," Tottenham says. "It's boiled down to one catchall superlative that's completely meaningless."

I am all for linguistic flexibility and creative oral latitude, but MAN OH MAN can you be a bigger Grinch? Hating people who use and believe in the word awesome is like hating puppies for tugging on each other's ears. Nerdfighteria's DFTBA mantra is the precise opposite of a cliché, and the precise example of people loving language and creativity and intelligence to BE BETTER. Or, as Tottenham would hate to hear it, more awesome.

This guy is a bookseller. I don't even. I hope he learns to spend more of his time enjoying things.

ANYWAY
There ends my wind of negativity. I just didn't like seeing 2012 get off to such a cynical start. Because 2012 is going to be a year of AWESOME. STORIES. And optimism.

You know how I know? Because today, right after being bombarded by cases the second and the third, I opened a birthday package from a dear college friend, and found THIS:

Yes, that IS Minnesota running at you with HUGS.

So. 2012. Be awesome. Tell stories. Hug people. Be optimistic.

GO.

It's October! Let's review some scary sh*t.

Look: I never thought this would be me. I was always that girl literally welling up with tears of fright at the intimation of the realness of ghosts. I was that toddler who, before I should have had the logical capacity for such a construction, paused in the middle of a game played in my Grandma's basement to peer around the dark corners beyond the room, and to tell my uncle, "I'm not scared now, but I think I will be soon."

So, yeah. I never thought I would be the one curling up in the dark, happily watching the Winchester boys get thrown from here to hell and back in darker and darker ways; I never thought I would put an album like Dead Man's Bones—complete with children's choir and eerie clapping—on loop every day, every October, even IF Ryan Gosling is the mastermind; I never thought I'd be devouring, and easily, spooktastic books like ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD and THE REPLACEMENT, books which give heft to the fears of the dark I grew up with.

But apparently that is me. So, in honor of my bloody, mercurial heart, and in anticipation of Neil Gaiman's All Hallow's Read, let's do October right. I haven't used this blog for reviews before, but this month that is the name of the game: Creepy, spooky, chilling reviews.

But Seriously

You want to talk inspiration?

THIS:

I mean, right?

This is our property on Casper Mountain, in Wyoming. IN JULY. People, Wyoming is that green like, once a year. One single day. In MAY. But July?

Leaving this behind for the East Coast, even knowing we will always own it and can forever return, was hard.

Luckily, I have my WIP. Which is like all *makes wobbly hand motions* THAT, all the time. In my head.

Also, this (Black Dub's Tiny Desk Concert at NPR, which I may have already posted, but COME ON):

So that is a peek into my brain as I'm doing revisions.

What's in all yours?

RTW: Writer's Block as Decision Fatigue, or How to Build a Better Bulldozer

This week's Road Trip Wednesday prompt is the very open-ended 
How do you get past writer's block?

and I wasn't sure if I was going to participate because

a) I am, at the moment, in the middle of the ice-fragile stage right AFTER writer's block wherein any iota of attention paid to the prospect of not being able to move forward might paralyze me, and

b) I don't really know how I got there, except for just saying to my brain, "welp, time to move on."

But then I was reading that fascinating article in the NYT about decision fatigue, and it occurred to me, that is EXACTLY what writer's block is. Because what is writing, if not a series of decision after decision after decision?

The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice.

So yes. We're not real-life judges choosing which prisoners get paroled or don't, but we are doing the same things for our characters, our worlds, our words. I mean, last night it took me a good five minutes to get from this:

Did she believe her now that this hungover Brandi had been forced out by the petite blonde?

to this:

Did she believe her now, now that this hungover Brandi had been forced out by the petite blonde?

to this:

Did she believe her now, now that this hungover Brandi had evidently been forced out by the petite blonde?

Tiny changes, and ones that today I'm not even sure I approve of. Which makes sense, since they were the last things I managed to accomplish before I had to give in to exhaustion and sleep, or risk feeling too overwhelmed by minutiae to go on (the second, full-stop, side-effect of decision fatigue). And that's not even considering the larger, major structural changes I was trying to work through before nit-picking that last page.

So if writing is all decision making, and writer's block is decision fatigue, then according to the article, the best way to solve it is by…

(wait for it)

…EATING! 

Glucose, specifically, and while I could make a joke about all that Bonnaroo Buzz I've been into lately, or about the average writer's penchant for chocolate anything*, the real advice being given by the scientists is to Just. Eat. Better. All the time. More proteins, more whole foods with natural glucose (thank goodness for peach season). 

Glucose, however, isn't everything.

So how else do you build yourself a better bulldozer? 

You learn not to trust yourself. Or rather, WHEN not to trust yourself: 

“Good decision making is not a trait of the person, in the sense that it’s always there,” Baumeister says. “It’s a state that fluctuates.” His studies show that people with the best self-control are the ones who structure their lives so as to conserve willpower. They don’t schedule endless back-to-back meetings. They avoid temptations like all-you-can-eat buffets, and they establish habits that eliminate the mental effort of making choices. Instead of deciding every morning whether or not to force themselves to exercise, they set up regular appointments to work out with a friend. Instead of counting on willpower to remain robust all day, they conserve it so that it’s available for emergencies and important decisions.

“Even the wisest people won’t make good choices when they’re not rested and their glucose is low,” Baumeister points out. That’s why the truly wise don’t restructure the company at 4 p.m. They don’t make major commitments during the cocktail hour. And if a decision must be made late in the day, they know not to do it on an empty stomach. “The best decision makers,” Baumeister says, “are the ones who know when not to trust themselves.”

So how do we apply this to writer's block? Because writers don't want to just avoid bad decision making (that surly troll can always be cut out of—or added back INTO—the scene later), but that other wall hit by the mentally fatigued, the one where it's easier to make NO decision than risk a bad one. I'd imagine something reasonable and familiar-sounding, like

• establishing a writing schedule, and sticking to it no matter what (even better if you have a motivation buddy/crit partner to commit to something similar with you).

• writing as early in the day as possible, and making sure not to write on an empty stomach if you can't get to it until later in the day.

• make a habit/schedule of as many other things in your life as possible, to avoid having to add those decisions to your plate on a daily basis. Make a grocery list you will STICK to before shopping; make a meal plan for the week, so you don't stress about it three times a day; embrace the romanticism of chance by just reading the first book on your TBR pile instead of digging through each day and mulling, by just letting Netflix send you whatever's next instead of obsessing over what you might feel like watching in two days, even by ordering library books for hold instead of wandering the aisles aimlessly for an hour (although the joy of finding a gem in the stacks shouldn't be avoided always—maybe just when a deadline is looming). I am sure there are plenty of other things that can be turned into habit to free up mental decision-making energy, but that's at least a start.

As with anything simple, this won't be easy. Not for me, anyway. But I think thinking about writer's block in terms of decision fatigue, and trying to solve it with approaches used FOR decision fatigue, is something that I can embrace.

Now fingers crossed it works…

*my own ambivalence towards chocolate, I realize—along with the fact I couldn't feel the earthquake in MD yesterday, and watched a driveways full of shaking cars thinking, "huh, wonder why that huge gust of wind missed me"—makes me seem something other than human. I'm just going to go with Superhuman, call myself that. That sounds better (than crazy, I mean).

Kinetic Thursdays: Terence McKenna - Reclaim Your Mind

So I am trying to give myself a weekly thing to do (that isn't RTW, fulfilling as participating in that is), and am doing so in the form of kinetic typography videos that have some bearing on reading, writing, publishing, creative thought, or just things that flat out inspire.

Bookshelves of doom posted one (well, a more pictorial than verbal one) on Wednesday, a stick figure illustration of a Read it and Weep/Smart Bitches discussion of the romance genre elements of Twilight. I'm going to go in for something a little more philosophical today, with Terence McKenna's call to arms to CREATE rather than CONSUME.

Which is what we writers do on a daily basis: create create create.

On the other hand, we also (especially in YA, I think) aim to READ the world, and to contain it and portray it and embellish and embrace and display it in the stories we create. There is a fine line in this strain of judgment, as people who move from consumer to creator end up BECOMING, to a degree, the very kinds of cultural engineers that McKenna rallies against.

Because that is the other thing we writers do: we strive to shape the world, and get others to come along for the ride.

(Warning: some NSFW language within.)

Terence McKenna - Reclaim your mind from Olivier Ferland on Vimeo.

I'm not claiming any one view is more valid than another, but I think it is a really fascinating debate to consider – where does creativity aim, if consumption is the enemy?

Thoughts?