Mental Breakdowns

Pop psychology has been an interest of mine for about ten years, back when I was trying to figure myself out. Part of that analysis has been to pour strange behaviours into my characters, which I can then examine from different angles as I try to understand the causes and destructive effects of certain behavioural patterns.

Unconditional obedience is an interesting one. Traditionally, it is "pleasing" for a child to be obedient, and unquestioningly do whatever he or she is asked. "Honour thy Father" and all that. So at first, it seems irrational to suggest that this is actually a really, really bad thing to teach your child. However, rarely is the distinction made of exactly who the child should be obeying while discipline is being applied. If this distinction is not made, it seems to me, that the child may become cowed in the presence of any authority, and obey any person who is dominant in a given situation. In some cases, I think this behaviour persists into adulthood, where it annoys and confuses colleagues. What if a person is so conditioned to be obedient, that they obey any command, even if they know it will get them into trouble? What if the conditioning is so strong, that it overwhelms common sense? After the action is done, outsiders who do not understand pose idiotic questions like "If George jumped off a bridge, would you jump as well?" If George was adequately dominant, then, yes. Conditioning kicks in, and off you go. I wonder if this is how many "nice girls" end up pregnant, leaving their elders asking "How? Why?" Well, perhaps because these girls were never allowed to say "no" at home, it doesn't occur to them that they can say "no" outside of home. To some extent, this was built into the character of Alaindra, however in the end, she escapes it by stepping outside of her family. The desire to live for what she wanted, rather than what her family expected, was her catalyst to grow, since without that independence, her life was forfeit in more ways than one.

Another weird behaviour is the "silent treatment". I can see how this may work nicely on a very young person still looking for validation and approval, but why is it sometimes applied to adults? Think of the arrogance required to come to the conclusion that one's attention is so profoundly wonderful that the recipient of said "silent treatment" will be punished by not being spoken to. Wouldn't a healthy adult rejoice at not being spoken to by someone indulging in self-righteous brooding? Even though it is apparently a common enough problem with adults (office politics manuals list it as a type of bullying and recommend it not be tolerated in the workplace) I can't quite unravel this one. Whenever I try to see what effect this will have if one of my characters practices it, all the other characters just seem to say "Oh, well" and get on with other things. I can't quite capture the same dramatic effect, as when the Klingon council all turned their backs on Worf in the DS9 series. Although come to think of it, he didn't really care either. I suppose you could argue that Worf was conditioned to be honourable above all, and his refusal to dishonourably invade the Cardassian Empire was more important to him than to unquestioningly obey his peers. So either he was conditioned in a completely different way, or he had extremely healthy boundaries, or maybe he just thought Gowron was a dumbass, or maybe since he knew he had the support and therefore validation of Sisko he didn't need acceptance from Gowron . . .

Well now I'm just confusing myself.

Maybe I need to email Dr. Phil.

Judith's Reaction to Vernus and Jait

Last week when I was attending an out of town research workshop, I had a chance to visit with my former PhD supervisor, and finally told her about The Longevity Thesis. I figured it was as good a chance as any to really emphasize the point that the construction of the character Vernus was in no way based on my experience in her lab. Perhaps I'm belaboring this point, but I just keep getting asked, "So was your own grad supervisor really awful?". Judith has a pretty good sense of humour, so of course she immediately pinned me down on when the first draft of the manuscript had been written, satisfied herself that it was before I ever started in her lab, and then asked me, "So what was your Master's supervisor like?" Very funny. For the record, my MSc supervisor also did not contribute in any way to the character of Vernus, who was first construed when I was an undergrad. There, I'm done. I promise to never bring it up again. Unless I get asked again.

On reading the description of Jait as "weak-willed" on Amazon.com, Judith then teasingly asked me if I had based that character on her. What? The only similarities there are the first letter of their names. If I hadn't been thrown for a loop by that one, I would have teased her back that in my experience, she was anything but weak-willed, especially after all the intensity put into how our lab publications had to be worded just right. (She's a writer too -- birds of a feather, I guess.)

Yah. Jait. He's a weird one. Ultimately powerful, but trapped by his own disbelief. Supremely positioned to really take control of all things, but unable to overcome his own poor opinion of himself to even glimpse the possibilities of what he could do. He's quite the study in low self-esteem and how it can destroy a person, whereas Vernus just seems to be rather cookie-cutterish. Unapologetically evil, arrogant, completely self-assured and uncaring of whether or not people like him so long as they show an appropriate amount of respect. These two are distinct polar opposites, and before anyone asks, no, neither one is based on me. I just made them up.

Given a choice though, I'm not sure which one I'd rather be . . .

How odd . . .

I'm off to a workshop on translational research, and I haven't the brain power left to write something quasi-interesting this week. As I wrack the inside of my skull for said interesting things, this keeps coming up:

Japanese Bookweb Link

Seeing that really threw me for a loop, but I have to say I also find it extremely cool, even if I can't read it.

Speaking of strange things, I leave you with a cartoon I drew when I was in high school. It originally appeared in ETC Magazine, which was published by one of the school's English teachers. Yes, I was just learning French. That's why the grammar is most likely horrifying. Gives you an insight into my mental state as a teenager, doesn't it?

Why Linux Programs are so COOL!!!

Well, perhaps against better judgment, I'm going to nerd out. I've been spending some time learning to use the Linux-based program, The GIMP. There are sooooo many good things about this program. First of all, it's free. Secondly, it packs a phenomenal punch. Thirdly, the online help is extensive. Fourthly, well, it's just so much fun! I first started using it to put together the promo bookmarks for The Longevity Thesis, which have been appearing randomly throughout my blog entries, and will continue to do so. I've also made some bookmarks for Nina Munteanu (on the left), and am in the process of doing the same for Connie Ward. (She hasn't approved hers yet, so I won't post any here.)

Anyway, as I go along, I'm finding out how to do more and more neat tricks with The GIMP. Check out this title thingy!

And this little longevity symbol that I've been playing around with:


It's amazing what this program lets me do. It's no slouch, that's for sure. The more I learn about Linux, the more tempted I am to make the leap over to Linux completely, instead of just toying with my Ubuntu live CD.

But . . . I'm still hopelessly addicted to Microsoft.

*Sigh*. Computers are almost as bad as anime. Just can't stop . . .

The Value of a Good Critique

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to someone very special, J.D. Williams, who is listed on the acknowledgments page of The Longevity Thesis as Antronos' godfather. He is the author of several manuscripts, including Remote Eyes, The Thulean Vanguard (my favorite), and Ten Spirits, and is currently shopping around for just the right publisher.

As strange as it may seem, J.D. and I have never met, not face to face anyway. We are both former members of the online Critter's Group, which introduced us to each other, and fatefully placed the first nascent chapters of The Longevity Thesis into J.D.'s hands.

Back then, the novel was called The Divine Prerogative, and it was dreck. Drivel. Doggiedoo. A complete waste of pixels and hard drive space. Despite this, J.D. plowed through the entire manuscript, more than once and suggested some very radical changes, which I am very glad I made, since it undeniably whipped the manuscript into shape. After J.D. was done, I no longer cringed when I read my own writing, but rather felt a profound satisfaction that the story was finally as it was meant to be.

J.D. recommended that I delete two entire plot threads and about half the characters. He also suggested one very significant change that drastically altered the novel and snapped it into focus: the amalgamation of two characters, Opalena and Ranull, into one. Opalena was initially pure, cardboard-cut-out evil and Ranull was fluffy saccharine sweetness. The result was a much more well rounded, believable character who ended up being far more integral to the story than ever intended. He wouldn't let me get away with a single hanging plot element, and constantly reminded me to watch my horrific propensity to indulgently add several unnecessary and ineloquent adverbs/adjectives. (Does that last sentence bring back memories, J.D.?) These, he told me, were "Vampire Adjectives". They break into your home, mess up your cupboards and eat all your potato chips. Not to mention leach the meaning from your sentences. It was not until these changes were made that I could even begin to see what needed to be done to shape what was until then only a series of events, into an actual novel.

The moral of the story is, when you get walloped over the head with a good critique, don't resist it. The result is definitely worth the pain.

Was The Longevity Thesis Inspired or Constructed?

I've been asked a few times where the inspiration for The Longevity Thesis came from, and since I'm from an academic background, it seems natural that I may have derived my stories from the workplace. I was even asked once if the mistakes that the character Opalena makes were from my own personal experience. I was a bit startled by that one, since as much as I love her, she's really made some doozies. I suppose I should be flattered that I wrote Opalena realistically enough that such an impression would have been made, however, I can assure everyone that I've never been in as deep as she gets in the novel.

I suppose the background for the story ended up being at a University simply because I have practically have lived at one since the late 80's, and it seemed the most natural thing for me. Jait had to be a prince, because what kind of fantasy novel doesn't have a prince in it, and Vernus ended up being an old professor, because I was always impressed by the confidence and power old professors always seemed to have -- and no, I don't think all old professors are evil.

That brings us to Antronos, the fellow in the lower right-hand corner of my blog. Where did he come from? Well, sometimes things just pop into my head, fully formed. In my twenties, I used to have entire poems show up in my mind, and all I had to do was write them down. Antronos was like that, except when I first imagined him, he was bald, had dark green eyes, and way more scales than he does in the novel. I've softened his image somewhat. I was very glad he showed up, however, since he has become the "glue" for the story, which initially was a disjointed series of scenes in which Jait just gets himself into more and more trouble without any hope of redemption. There were also other characters, performing acts essential to the plot, who seemed to have no reasonable justification for interacting with each other until Antronos came along.

In hindsight, it now seems obvious to me that the original unconnected scenes were written as stress relief, or simple expressions of grief or rage that I scribbled down to keep myself sane as I struggled to keep my head above water with my classes. Since it would have been completely boring to write an angst-filled diatribe on the horrors of failing calculus exams, it was much more satisfying to create completely fabricated scenes in which the emotions were real, but not the events. Then at least I could get the burning feelings off my chest, and if I wanted to, I could knock about a few characters here and there if I thought they deserved it, and then get on with my day.

After joining the Critters group, I shortly realised that disorganized tripe would never be tolerated in novel form, and used the storyboarding technique described in Crawford Kilian's book to get the basic events arranged in logical order. I tried to make sure each event had a cause and a consequence. From there, the storyboard was converted into a grid, with the point-of-view characters across the top, and the chapters down the side. Story threads were colour coded and interwoven, and ultimately dealt with one by one at the end of the book. It seemed to work quite nicely, and I think I will use this method again for my other books.

It seems now that I'm older, the creativity isn't as spontaneous, and my characters are much more deliberately formed, as is my prose. I wonder if that's because the physiology of my brain has changed as I've grown up, or if my muse got fed up with my obsessive editing and has left me for more pliable clients. I hope not. The Longevity Thesis turned out to be a pretty crazy ride, and I'd like to keep the momentum going!

Here It Comes . . .

<--Mum and her tree.

In about five months, The Longevity Thesis will be printed, and long at last, that nagging question that has been bouncing around in my head ever since I seriously started writing the novel is about to be answered: What's my Mum going to say?

Mum has an aversion for fantasy novels, she has never seen the appeal of Star Trek, and she certainly would never have any use for anything of the horror genre. I don't think she has even picked up a Stephen King book, unless it was to move it aside to get to the Jean Plaidy novels. Hope flared briefly when she used to watch the X-Files, but after a few seasons, she just slept through it, while waiting for the news.

I've been reading over an editing copy of The Longevity Thesis, checking it for basic content and flow of story. I'm realizing, that when you just read it, not view it as a structured entity that must have precisely interwoven plot elements and character development sequences, it's kinda gross. During the developmental stages of the writing, one of the readers in my critiquing group sent me an irate email to tell me that she was so upset with how I had treated one of the characters that she threw the manuscript across the room and would not pick it up again. It's fair to say that the novel would fall under the category of "dark fantasy". It certainly isn't a fairy tale. Murder scenes, when you stop looking at them as "crucial to the plot" are still murder scenes, with all the blood and gore and . . . oh boy, here it comes.

Mum hasn't read it yet, and the reason for that is, I know she's going to start asking me things like, "Jey, aren't you happy? Is there something bothering you? Didn't you think you had a nice childhood?" My protests that the gory stuff is all just to make the story work will do absolutely nothing to alleviate her fears that I'm headed down a dark and horrifying path to pseudomacularschizophrenialdentulocariitis. Or something along those lines.

I didn't really worry about my Mum's opinion while I was writing, that all seemed in the distant future. Now that the publication date is looming, my subconsciousness is preparing itself for the inevitable barrage of maternal disappointment I know I'm going to have to face.

Hmm. My Dad likes Dean Koontz. "Hey, Dad! Why don't you read it first?"