justine_graykin

I took the month of April off from writing. It seemed more important to take long walks in the woods, listening to music, sometimes jogging, sometimes running, letting the beat in my head govern my gait. Most trails around here pass by beaver ponds and marshes. Good places to stop and sit in silence, or at least, in the ambiance of the surroundings. Locating myself. I am here, on this ledge, looking down into the water, where there are salamanders and water beetles and lumbering, debris-coated larvae. Then, I am not there anymore; I am standing in a different place, the sun at a different angle, the water opaque. Time is like beads on a string, a succession of moments. I imagine looking across the marsh and seeing the ghost of myself where I was at a different moment. But I see nothing. There are no such things as ghosts. That past moment is gone, and all that exists is me, in this spot. The moment passes into extinction, and I am now a person walking on a hemlock-shaded path, noticing tiny white flowers and patches of sunlight on brown needles.

And now I am the person at the keyboard, typing.  This is where I am now.  And it occurs to me that the most important question to ask is not why.  Why is a function of relationships.  Because of this, that.  The purpose of this is that.  Why seems nonsensical.   It is each successive where that places me, lays out my purpose, orients me and defines me.  I am the me which is here.  Now is here.

I'm pleased that my website has been steadily growing in the number of hits, likes, comments and followers.  But recently, something strange has been going on.  And it seems I'm not the only one who has noticed it.

New followers, every day, in growing numbers.  Many of them have websites totally unrelated to anything in mine; many don't even seem to speak English.  What is going on?  A good number of these "followers" don't even have websites at all.  They are phantoms who descend on my website long enough to click the "follow" button, then disappear again.  What's up with that?  Of what possible benefit to them is this bizarre behavior?

It doesn't seem to be causing me any harm.  Some of my new followers are definitely legit; my hit count has gone up, and I'm getting more genuine comments (as opposed to the spam comments that WordPress blocks--a few get through, and are pretty obvious, so I just trash them).  This seems to be a WordPress phenomenon, and from the chat in other blogs and forums, a pretty recent one.  One blogger pegged it as having started around April 5.  That seems about right to me.  Graduation day from a spammer's class in India?  (I picked India only because a lot of these fakes seem to be coming from that region of the world.)

If any of you out there are experiencing a similar phenomenon, and have some clue why this is happening, I'd be grateful if you'd share your insights.  At the moment, this merely seems to be a puzzling annoyance.  But perhaps I ought to be more worried than I am. 

It's a rare person who puts pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and pours forth a masterpiece the first time around.  Most of us mere mortals, in an ecstasy of inspiration, furiously pound out a first draft.  That is the beginning.  Then we return to it, again and again, rewriting, revising, tweaking, sometimes throwing out whole sections and cuisinarting the plot.  It's all part of the search for what it is one is trying to say, and then saying it in the best way possible.  Finally, you get it the way you want it, you sit back and say, "Ah!  Brilliant!" and you share it with your crit group or with an editor.  And they proceed to rip it to shreds.

I've been working on Elder Light for, I think, something like twenty years.  In the meantime I wrote some other stuff, some short stories that got published, and a novel that is coming out in the fall, and innumerable essays, blogs and articles published in assorted venues.  But I always go back to Elder Light, rereading, adding, revising, expanding.  It has settled itself into nine novels which range in length from 142K to 75K.  Of course, that could always change.  Nothing is set in stone until it is published, and even then, new editions do come out.  There always seems to be something that occurs to the dedicated author that would improve the work.  You're finally done when you are dead.

As I wait for Archimedes Nesselrode to go through the slow process of incubation and birth (my publisher says November -- a small eternity) I continue to crank out my essays, blogs and articles, the latter of which are my regular source of writing income.  But I also continue to work on Elder Light, laboriously taking notes, because my aging brain can no longer keep all the details of the saga straight in my head, doing research on various aspects to boost realism, or conversely, reading some article and realizing that it has direct relevance to some aspect of the story, so I go back and apply the new knowledge.  And when you are dealing with nine volumes of story, even a small tweak in the middle has repercussions through the whole work.

Periodically, I post updates on this ongoing project on my website.  Today I published some excerpts from Nicodamien, the eighth book in the series.  Yes, I'm nearly all the way through it again.  However the last book is still only in rough draft form.  I expect I'll stall out there for awhile, beating it into final draft shape.  By then, no doubt, I'll have the endured the exhausting trial of a book release, and the good or bad news from the reviews and sales thereof.  And I will once again tackle the misery of querying, searching for a publisher for Elder Light.  I can only hope that Archimedes Nesselrode is sufficiently successful to generate interest in my other work.  Alas, Elder Light is very different from Archimedes Nesselrode.  If I am successful with AN, will they fuss about EL, wanting more AN instead?  And if AN is not successful, will they refuse to even consider EL as a result?

Never mind, it will be what it will be, and there's no use wringing one's hands over something that hasn't happened yet.  Hell, the asteroid might hit between now and then, and it will all be moot anyway.  So, back to chipping away at revising Nicodamien, and cranking out the rest of the literary widgets.  I'd say it's a living, but it isn't.  However, it is a way of life.

Those who follow my blog and posts have heard me rant about the current trends in books, bitching about how every author seems to think they have to be dark, anguished, and/or cynical, and pile on the sex and violence with lots of gritty detail in order to be taken seriously.  In the agonizing words of one of my fellow librarians, "Happy books suck."  He was complaining because the reading group at his library was tired of the current crop of literature and was asking him to recommend something upbeat. Well, perhaps I'm not the only one who is tired of getting bitten by the books I read.

Joy, joy!  When I was at the Boskone convention in Boston, I happened to listen to a reading by Dan Kimmel, movie critic and professor of film history, of his new novel, Shh! It's a Secret. I enjoyed the reading and bought the book.  Just finished reading it, and I can't wait to recommend it to everyone out there who, like me, has been standing and staring uneasily at the racks of new books, afraid to pick any of them up for fear of getting burned again.

It's hard to find the right words to praise this book, because even the very terms have been freighted with baggage by the literary hipsters so that they seem negative.  Warm, charming, funny, delightful, uplifting ("Oh," they sneer, "you mean schlocky!" *snort*  "Right!  I get it.  Capra-corn!").  Die in a hole.

Shh! is a kind of send up of Hollywood blended with classic first contact stuff.  But instead of exploiting an alien's unfamiliarity with Earth to extract humor from humiliating mistakes, Kimmel's character rises to every conundrum by being clever, friendly, and trusting in the basic goodness of people. Abi Gezunt, the Brogardi ambassador's son, wants to be in pictures, and it turns out, has a surprising amount of natural acting talent, not to mention talents that charm his host's family as well as his leading lady.  But the problem is--just trust me that there is one, several in fact, but they are all neatly and satisfactorily dealt with.

Kimmel makes excellent use of his deep knowledge of Hollywood and the film biz.  Even though the science behind the Brogardi is a little shaky (see the Star Trek rant: How come all the aliens look like us?) it doesn't matter.  There's a nod to the remarkable similarity between the two species and how it baffles the biologists, and it's left at that.  We're off with Abi--"Abe"--as he explores Earthan culture and the Bartender's Guide.

I think I'll mention Shh! to my fellow librarian as a possibility for his book discussion group.  It's a potent antidote for book-bite.

People really ought to actually read a blog before they "like" it.  I sometimes follow up on the "likes"  and "followings" I get on my blog just out of curiosity.  I just put up one entitled "Magical Thinking Nation" in which I observe with concern how fringe thinking, fuzzy science and outright crank idiocy are taking over the public discourse.  In my first paragraph I say, "There seems to be a prevailing mindset among the people of these (dis)United States that if they believe something loudly enough, it will be true. Conversely, if they deny something passionately enough, it becomes not true."  I point out the Reality has a way of trumping all this believing, no matter how intense and fervent it may be.

Well, thomasmaxwell12 liked that.  So I thought I'd check out his blog to see if I might like what he's saying.  Imagine my surprise when I read how he had learned that, wow, everything is made of energy at the sub-atomic level, and gee, thought is energy, so quantum physics makes it possible for you to change the world just by thinking about it. Then, in the comments, they start quoting Bible passages at one another to justify this revelation.

I think I can safely assume that Tom never read past the title of my blog before "liking" it.  I rest my case.

We fell off the fiscal cliff -- that is, we are all riding a bus which Congress deliberately drove off the cliff.  And other than the usual kind of memes posted by the usual people, there seems precious little panic over it in the social media.  In the news media, we have the usual useless finger-pointing.  But I don't see people running in circles, screaming and shouting (or even sitting back with a cynical smirk making snarky comments) the way I did when the "fiscal cliff" confronted us back at the first of the year.  Could be we are all so ground down by it that we're suffering from panic fatigue.  Just what the plutocracy hoped for.  We can't summon the energy to do anything about it.  The War on Poverty changed to a War on the Poor, and victory is in sight.  And we go down with barely a whimper.

I recently was on Reddit, which can be a joy when something delightfully geeky is posted (like physicists playing with toy multiverses) or a real threat to my blood pressure when I read of some new boneheaded assault on atheists or other political lunacy.  This time it was confrontation between Colin Powell and Bill O'Reilly.  If I weren't a cynic I'd be utterly baffled by Republican Cons' obsession with voter fraud, which is a vanishingly small non-problem, as Powell vainly attempted to point out to O'Reilly.   It makes absolutely no sense that Cons are fighting to tighten security at the voting booth to prevent crimes that don't exist, while fighting just as hard to keep guns freely available to fuel the killing sprees that are hideously real.  It's like ordering your troops to battle the shadows in the corners while the enemy is breaking the door down.

Of course, Powell pegged it.  The Cons want to do everything they can to make voting difficult for the less privileged, in other words, those most likely to vote against Republicans.  And they want to protect their loyal supporters, the Gun Lobby.  It's all about getting votes and winning elections; all about amassing and consolidating power.  It is not about doing what is best for the majority of American citizens.  And suddenly, it all makes a repulsive kind of sense.

I was doing okay -- not great, but okay -- until a major trauma kicked the supports out from under me. (details on my blog)  I was shattered into depression and fits of uncontrollable weeping.  My primary care doctor got me in as soon as I called, prescribed some short term anti-anxiety meds for immediate relief, and connected me with a reputable counseling practice.  But that's where it broke down.  (more details)  I was hoping for Counselor Troi and I got Nurse Ratched.  Even though I explicitly said I wanted counseling, maybe CBT, not drug therapy, even though I was nervous and upset because of the circumstances, not mental illness, the "therapist" instantly diagnosed a manic episode related to bipolar disorder and was ready to send me to the ER for immediate evaluation and treatment.  When I insisted that was unnecessary, I was fine to drive, and in fact had to pick up my son from school, she began trying to talk me into getting my husband to leave work and drive an hour to pick up my son so she could ship me off to the hospital.  My insistence that I didn't need medication was met with stony condescension, as if I were a paranoid  schizophrenic  refusing to take my pills. 
 
That disastrous episode nearly convinced me right there that I should give up the idea of counseling.  But I was persuaded to try again.  So I did, a different therapist in the same reputable practice (maybe I just got a bad apple, or got her on a bad day, or something).  This time I was careful.  I didn't let my guard down and kept my self-control as best as I could.  But it's hard talking about traumatic events and giving deeply personal data to a complete stranger without getting a bit shaken (at least, it is for me) especially when one has already had a bad experience in that situation.  Sure enough, although she didn't want to send me to the ER, she started talking bipolar and medication.  And again, my insistence that I didn't want to go the chemical route was met with patronizing condescension.  I suggested my social awkwardness and geekiness might be an indication that I am "on the spectrum" and perhaps ought to be tested for Asperger's Syndrome.  She dismissed that and went right for the manic/depressive option with the prescriptions to match.  I tried to demonstrate that I knew what I was talking about, that I had done the research, and in fact had had promising results with a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness/meditation, and wouldn't it be better to pursue that route before resorting to meds.  She clearly wasn't interested.  I asked if there were any other therapists in the practice qualified to do CBT, and she looked down her nose at me, saying, well of course, there were several who were qualified, clearly implying that none of them would choose that dubious option when there was a perfectly good prescription for what ailed me.

I remembered a conversation I'd had with an acquaintance of mine who had read my blogs about this, and sympathized.  "You have to remember, it's a business.  They have to answer to the bottom line.   Talk therapy and CBT take time.  It's much more efficient to get you in, sell you drugs, and then move on to the next client."   And it all made sense.  The Rewards Card from Big Pharma doesn't kick in unless they pull out the prescription pad.  And why coach a person into self-sustaining strategies when you can get them dependent on a drug they'll then take for the rest of their lives?  AS doesn't have a lovely assortment of expensive chemicals one can throw at it (no doubt they're working on it).  Bipolar is much more lucrative. 

Suddenly my doctor seems like a saint, bless his heart, for respecting and encouraging my non-pharmaceutical choices.  I'll stick with the person who has earned my trust.  It's been two months, the worst of the grief from the trauma has passed, and I'm slowly getting back to normal.  In time, with continued effort -- on my own, I guess-- I'll beat the remaining symptoms. 

Without drugs.

You might have so many questions to ask them, but they don't have to answer.  They get the last word.  They leave you behind, having to try to figure it out, trying to put together the pieces.  But they don't care.  They don't have to care.  They're dead.  They leave you, the feeling, the living, the agonizing, behind.  They go to the grave, taking their secrets, and there is no way in the world of finding out the truth.  Last laugh.  Ultimate vengeance.

I had a dream last night.  It's the zombie apocalypse.  My personal home version.  Just my own relatives, rising up, wandering around.  Looking at me.  I talk to them, try to ask them questions, but they won't answer.  Of course not.  They are dead.  They don't have to answer for anything anymore.  They've gotten their ultimate revenge.  "I told you so," carved on their gravestones.  The dead get the final word, because no matter how you shout at them, they can't hear.