Books

my good idea was so good someone already did it!

Posted on By Wil

I’ve been writing this science fiction short story for a little while, now, and I think I’m about 3/4 finished with the puke draft*. I’ve been reading a lot of science fiction for fun, because that’s where my head is right now (Lightspeed Magazine and the Expanse series have been delightful companions, as was the most recent Twelve Tomorrows) but also for inspiration, because that’s where my head needs to be right now.

So when I’m not actively writing this story, or thinking about what I’m going to write next in it, my brain is kicking around lots of other ideas that I are interesting to me, like What if future humans built a ring around Earth, sort of like Ringworld but smaller, and the story was told from the point of view of the last generation to live on the planet? It turns out that this has already been done, which is both reassuring — Hey! My good idea was so good someone already did it! — and frustrating — Shit! My good idea was so good someone already did it!.

I have learned not to talk about things that are ideas, or share details of works in progress, because it’s a great way to bring the work to a screeching halt for me, but I have this idea for a short story (like, very short, just a couple thousand words) that I like so much, I have just decided right now in this very instant that I will not reveal what the idea is, and will instead write it out and make it a story.

So now this is a much shorter and less interesting post than I thought it was going to be when I started.

BORING

 

*The puke draft, as defined by my friend and mentor Amy Berg (who created both my role on Leverage and Eureka), is the draft you write first, where you just puke up everything onto the page, without stopping to fix stuff or redo stuff. I add to this the following: you go all the way through until the story is done, and then you can go back and start washing away the puke to leave behind the yummy undigested morsels of delicious story.

blog

portraits hung in empty halls

Posted on By Wil

The casting director looked over her sides at me, and waited. The casting assistant looked away from the camera’s built-in monitor, and tilted his head to one side, slightly, as he also looked at me.

What an odd detail to notice, I thought.

To the casting director’s left — my right — a handful of producers and executives sat in chairs, some with arms crossed, some with legs crossed, all looking at me, expectantly.

I tried to remember my lines, but I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t even know what project I was in this callback for. I could remember that I hadn’t adequately prepared, but I couldn’t remember why. This was an important audition, for a project that could change my life, and I hadn’t properly prepared. I felt cold, and my stomach felt weak.

I decided to improvise, to say the lines that made some sort of sense to me, based on what the casting director had said.

“I understand your concern,” I began, and there was a knock at the door.

Well, not a knock, exactly. It was more of a thump, followed by a scrape. I tried to ignore it and stick with my plan. “I understand your concern,” I began again, “but I th–” there was another thump and a scrape.

Why aren’t they stopping the audition? I thought. And that’s when I knew that they knew that I knew that I had no idea what I was doing, and they were enjoying my struggle. The problem was, I was in too deep now, and I had to stay committed. I would do such a good job with my improvisation, staying true to my interpretation of the character, that they’d have to give me a chance to go learn the lines, adequately prepare, and come back.

Thump. Scrape.

“Will you let the dogs outside?”

The cold I felt vanished, replaced by the warmth of my bed.

It was a dream. Another goddamn stress dream, but at least it was just a dream.

One of our dogs, probably Seamus, hit our bedroom door. Thump. Scrape.

“They’re fine,” I muttered. I rolled onto my side and tried to stay in sleep’s softening embrace.

Some time passed. Whether it was seconds or minutes, I couldn’t say.

Thump. Scrape.

“They need to go out,” Anne said.

Sleep released her comforting hold and I opened my eyes, expecting to see the cold grey light of dawn outside our windows. Instead, it was the deep dark of night, the blue-tinged glow of the moon barely touching the edges of our blinds.

Thump. Scrape.

I exhaled heavily, and sat up in bed. The covers fell away as I swung my feet to the floor. Seamus and Marlowe were both on the floor. Marlowe sat up, ears perked up atop her head. Seamus was near the door, settling into a Sphinx pose, his ears back. It was as if he wanted to say, “I’m sorry that I woke you up, but I gotta go.”

I got out of bed and walked toward our bedroom door. I took two steps before both dogs stood up, tails wagging. “Okay, you two. Let’s go outside.” I said, quietly.

I opened the patio door and they ran out into the yard. Air that was just above freezing rushed through me and into our house. I closed the door, leaving just enough space for me to peek through it, and watched them run up into the darkness. The sky was pitch black, a few bright stars shining with a brightness that only happens over Los Angeles in the cold, still air of our winter sky. The moon was about a quarter full, as bright as a headlight. I looked away from it, and it left an afterimage in my vision.

The dogs came back to the door, and pushed past me into the house. More frigid air spilled around me, and I imagined it like a wave, crashing through a crack in a seawall during a storm.

I locked the door, and shuffled back into my bedroom. Marlowe had already claimed a spot between Anne’s pillow and mine, curled into a tiny ball that shouldn’t be possible for a 53 pound dog. Seamus was on his side, and when I got back into bed, he leaned his head over to rest it on my hip. Marlowe nuzzled at the side of my face, and exhaled. I leaned my face against hers.

The cold I’d brought into the house was scrubbed away by the warmth of my bed, and I fell back into a dreamless sleep.

Current Affairs

I’m feeling the Bern, in part because I just don’t believe Secretary Clinton.

Posted on By Wil
Not Me: Us. Bernie Sanders for President
FeelTheBern.Org

From an Ask on Tumblr:

Q: You seem to support Bernie Sanders in part because he’s held consistent opinions for longer, why is that? Is a politician who can see new evidence and hear opinions of others and change their mind not a good thing?

A: Being able to change your mind when you get access to new information is obviously a fundamental part of being a human. For example, Elizabeth Warren has recounted how she met with Hillary Clinton about some awful bankruptcy legislation that was under consideration when Hillary Clinton was first lady:

Warren had written an editorial about a piece of bankruptcy legislation that she opposed. Then-First Lady Hillary Clinton read it and asked for a meeting to discuss the bill and Warren’s research, which showed that it would disproportionately affect women and children. After the meeting, Mrs. Clinton went back to the White House and the Clinton Administration reversed its position on the bill. President Clinton eventually vetoed it, and in her autobiography, Hillary Clinton took credit for preventing the bankruptcy bill from passage.

So Hillary Clinton went from not having a position on a potential law to working with President Clinton to prevent that law from being passed, after she learned that passage of that law would hurt average Americans.

And when she became a senator, the industry that wanted that law passed gave her a ton of money, and:

ELIZABETH WARREN: She voted in favor of it.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

ELIZABETH WARREN: As Senator Clinton, the pressures are very different. It’s a well-financed industry. You know a lot of people don’t realize that the industry that gave the most money to Washington over the past few years was not the oil industry, was not pharmaceuticals. It was consumer credit products. Those are the people. The credit card companies have been giving money, and they have influence.

BILL MOYERS: And Mrs. Clinton was one of them as senator.

ELIZABETH WARREN: She has taken money from the groups, and more to the point, she worries about them as a constituency.

So I kind of cheated here to make my point: there’s hearing new evidence and new opinions that leads to someone changing their mind, and then there’s being a corrupt politician who does the bidding of his or her corporate donors.

And I saw an article yesterday that summed up my fundamental problem with Hillary Clinton. Paraphrasing, the thesis was that she lacks political courage, and won’t take a stand on something unless is politically safe for her. From marriage equality to the war in Iraq to ensuring that the poorest Americans have opportunities to have a better life, she has never supported a law or policy that was politically risky or would threaten her chances to advance her political career. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has taken principled and politically risky stances, not because they would advance his career, but because that’s what he believed in. As it turns out, his values and my values match up very well, and that’s why I can enthusiastically and passionately support him:

Hillary’s Iraq Vote Lacked Courage, Not Judgment

The decision to go to war in Iraq was a major failure of judgment by the Bush administration and the people who implemented the war. But the Democrats in the House and Senate who had to choose how to vote were not really facing a test of judgment. They were facing a test of political courage. And pretty much every single one of them who had presidential ambitions failed it miserably, including Senator Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is an extremely intelligent woman. She’s capable of understanding complex issues in great detail. I do not for one second believe that she was somehow ‘fooled’ by George W. Bush into actually believing the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do. I do not for one second believe her judgment failed her when it came time for that vote.

[…]

That’s why so many of us were drawn to Barack Obama in 2008. Because when the chips were down and you had to have enough faith in your own judgment that it would be vindicated in the end and had to have enough courage to stand up and do the right thing, they did.

Hillary Clinton didn’t.

That’s the single biggest reason I was opposed to her candidacy in 2008 and it’s still the single biggest reason I’m opposed to her candidacy today. When push comes to shove and it’s her political career at stake, Hillary Clinton doesn’t lack judgment. She lacks courage.

That’s why she stayed silent on gay marriage until 2013.

That’s why she won’t say no to Super PACs and billionaire donors.

That’s why she won’t oppose capital punishment.

That’s why she won’t push for universal health care anymore.

[…]

Does this issue [of voting for the Iraq war] still matter? Hell yes it does.It was one of those critical moments when the character and judgment of so many of our political leaders was laid bare for all to see. Bernie followed his convictions and had the courage to oppose the war. Hillary Clinton and too may other establishment Democrats did not.

This is something that I could have written myself (and I wish I had), because it sums up very clearly why I don’t believe a single thing Hillary Clinton says when she pretends to care about the things that Bernie Sanders has been fighting for his entire career.