AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, wait.

In a strange coincidence, within nanoseconds of reading a friend's post lamenting how judgmental people can be (and, of course, they can), I came across Judgmental Bookseller Ostrich. Here are some examples:





That ostrich, alas, is me, and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, like me. We must all be on our guards, lest the Inner Ostrich win! Defeat the Inner Ostrich! Rejoice when others rejoice! Allow them their own delights, even if these are not yours! Cherish difference — cherish it!

Acting

I never did get around to formalizing my writing plan for 2011, but one of the things I have mentally put on it has been to sharpen my skills in reading my stuff out loud. I'm not bad at it, mind you, but I'm no Rob Shearman or Richard Harland. After hearing them both read (each a master in his own way of the art of reading your own stuff), I resolved to beef up my technique. Professional development, don'tcha know.

I have a three-pronged attack strategy for this: read my stuff out loud to an audience at least four times this year, after having deliberately prepared and rehearsed; memorize a particular prose poem of mine that I (and others, I'm told) like, and prepare it for performance at a slam or slam-like event; and get some acting training. The first does not trouble me: reading my stuff out loud per se is not scary. The second and third, though....

Theoretically, I know it's possible to memorize enormous numbers of words for performance. Some of the people I love best in the world do it routinely. But I remain profoundly unconvinced that my brain is equipped to do it. The idea is that if I manage to do it once, I can do it at any time, and I don't have to be afraid anymore. How will this help me get better at reading my stuff? Watch the video I linked to Rob's name, above. Watch how he does a fair bit of that story from memory. See how powerful a connection he can make with the audience that way. That's what I want.

And acting — ah, acting. A source of great discouragement and shame for me from my youth, when the blank face and perfunctory nods that the high-school drama teacher gave me contrasted so painfully with the enthusiasm he showed for the "naturals." Ever since, I've known to the core of my soul that I was just embarrassing myself every time I attempted my clumsy, stilted, ineffectual "acting." But so much of reading your stuff out loud is acting. There are techniques that can be learned, unhelpful habits that can be broken, helpful habits that can be instilled. You can learn to observe language and vocal quality and reproduce them for your purposes. If I've learned nothing else from 25 years of karate (although I have, in fact, learned plenty), it's that for most crafts, care, diligence, and intense focus on detail can get you a lot farther than talent can. They may not entirely compensate for lack of natural talent, but they can get you a pretty long way along the road.

So, yeah, yesterday I went to an acting workshop run by Circus WOW. It was sort of a general physical-theatre workshop: some vocal awareness, some interaction and improv games, even a little clowning. It was a real challenge for me on a lot of levels. But I've stepped across the barrier: I've acted with people watching. I can keep going. I can learn.

Why Peter M. Ball is right, again and as usual

A while back, Peter M. Ball opined somewhere (perhaps Facebook, perhaps his own blog), that Edgar Rice Burroughs's opus A Princess of Mars was unspeakable, unreadable tripe.

"Huh," I thought. "I've been meaning to read that. I'll go see for myself."

It is unspeakable, unreadable tripe.

Why? Because it is the worst Mary Sue I have ever read, and that includes the ones I've written. Here's just a taste:

She had sunk into one of the golden thrones, and as I turned to her she greeted me with a wan smile.

"Was there ever such a man!" she exclaimed. "I know that Barsoom [Mars] has never before seen your like. Can it be that all Earth men are as you? Alone, a stranger, hunted, threatened, persecuted, you have done in a few short months what in all the past ages of Barsoom no man has ever done: joined together the wild hordes of the sea bottoms and brought them to fight as allies of a red Martian people."

"The answer is easy, Dejah Thoris," I replied smiling. "It was not I who did it, it was love, love for Dejah Thoris, a power that would work greater miracles than this you have seen."

A pretty flush overspread her face....

Yeah. This guy John Carter is beloved of the only hot babe in the book, idolized by dogs and horses, the object of admiration from all he encounters. He's unspeakably strong (because of Mars's lower gravity, you see), utterly sterling of character, and full of Useful Skills from his years in the Confederate Army (which only seems to make him more aristocratic and noble, rather than the mindless prop of a corrupt and dehumanizing system). Yes, ladeez! You all want him! Yes, gents! You all want to be him!

It's worth reading — not because it has any value whatsoever as literature (it doesn't), not because it's at all entertaining (it isn't), and not because it will make you think, "My God, why don't people write like that anymore?" (it won't). Read it because once you do, you will never have to worry again about whether your main character is a Mary Sue (or a Gary Stu). Is the character in any way whatsoever like John Carter? No? Then you're all good.

Download the book from here.

Test your character for Mary Sueness. Update: I just did this test for John Carter. Off — the — scale, man, off the friggin' scale.

How frustrating! There are things I want to SAY.

Facebook is playing silly buggers with me, and a blog post is the only way for me to send my thoughts to the outside world at the moment. "Whew," I hear you all say. "At least there's that."

I just wanted to let everyone know that my family and I are all in a very odd place today, because last night was the final night of Much Ado About Nothing, in which Margaret and Houston both acted. It was Margaret's first professional show, and she did fabulously! It was far from Houston's first paid acting gig, because (as he's fond of reflecting) he put himself through music school as an actor. He did fabulously, too! And the cast party (to which I was very generously invited by the director) was a ton of fun, because everyone in the cast and crew is a quality person, right along the line.

And now there is a kitchen full of pots and dishes (not clean ones), a fridge that's nearly empty, writing and editing and research (and composing and homework) that needs doing — re-entry shock, thump.

And yet our lives are not entirely returning to the mundane. Margaret has a rehearsal tonight with her band, Rocking Horse (I'd link to their Facebook page, but, well, the silly-buggers thing), and a voice lesson tomorrow after school. And Tuesday Houston and I have an opera-related meeting, and he's got a rehearsal that evening with the Sydney Male Choir (that I can link to), and I do my first afternoon helping refugee kids with their homework. Fencing has started back for the year, and that's on Thursday. And on and on.

Not a bad life, really.