Should The BBC Play “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead”?

So, yes, it is cruelly amusing that Margaret Thatcher’s death has caused the song “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead” to shoot up the UK charts as people express their still-passionate dislike of her policies and her effect on Britain in the 1980s and beyond.

But also yes, I think the BBC is right to decline to play the song on the chart show.

It’s a matter of taste.

While I’m all for the Internet and self-expression and self-publishing and all that, I find myself applauding the venerable old institution for clinging to its role as arbiter of taste and keeper of the culture. There are some things that are tasteless. This is one. I’m happy that the BBC, like a fine old-fashioned gent, is quietly frowning and staying in its seat and saying “You dance if you must but no, no, I’m afraid I don’t approve and shan’t be joining you. Terribly sorry to be a stick in the mud, old fellow, but there it is.” The lady had children who are, no matter how you feel about their actions, people too. How we treat other people is a reflection on the state of our own souls, not theirs. And gleefully celebrating any death is just cruel, disturbing and unkind to a family in distress.

The BBC’s actions makes me feel like something is right with the world.

(And before anyone screams about government censorship, the Beeb runs on a government charter, yes, but it’s run to by an independent board).

So Bravo BBC.

On The Other Hand

I also read that some, perhaps more right-wing sources, were up in arms after Thatcher died, because they felt ‘one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.’

Rubbish.

She was a public figure and the media profiles of her life absolutely had to include commentary from people who were willing to speak ill of her. They are not doing it out of thoughtlessness for her family’s feelings. They are assessing her public work, her actions, not celebrating the fact that her family is now in mourning. And they have an obligation to do so.

The obituaries and media profiles after a public figure dies become part of the historical record and part of the judgement that history begins to write of that person. Without a truthful assessment of a public figure’s life in these moments, we end up with hagiography not history. By whitewashing their legacy all we do is fail our society and its future, by failing to learn from what is past.  If we only allow a public figure’s supporters to talk about them in this moment, we silence the opposition and we deny the suffering of the thousands who feel they were personally harmed by that person’s actions.

Just look at the divisions in US society caused by historians’ efforts to finally tear the halos off the Founding Fathers and look at them warts and all. It is “a liberal conspiracy”, it is “a war on America”, it is “unpatriotic”. Really? It’s unpatriotic to search for the facts about the men who founded the country? It’s a war on America to try to see them as humans rather than heroes, and from there try to figure out what shaped their opinions and actions and thereby interpret them more accurately? It’s a liberal conspiracy to seek to acknowledge the suffering of millions and millions of poor and enslaved people whose voices are largely unheeded, and to examine the contradiction that some of these collosi of US history were also slave owners? Because, to me, that’s history. That’s a search for the truth. That’s the only way we can ever learn and improve and make things better.

Don’t Burn Flags And Dance In The Streets

So yes, I’m a bad person: I laughed when I heard that “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” was rising in the charts. It’s part of the black humor which makes Brits make jokes about tragedy. We ALWAYS take it too far (remember the space shuttle jokes that would not die?) and it seems some things never change.

But no, I don’t think we should be burning flags and dancing in the street, celebrating the way that disgusted us when we saw TV coverage of people doing the same on September 11, 2001.

And yes, I do think we need to take an honest, unvarnished look at every public figure’s life, when they die. Say what you like about her (and I’m certainly no fan) but I do think Margaret Thatcher would have been the first to agree that she should be judged on her actions, not on the sentimental reminiscences of her fluttering fanboys.

Writing Advice From A Ten Year Old

Talking with my newly-minted ten year old today, he was relating a scenario that had happened at school.

As he described the characters in the scene, he assigned each of them a role: one buddy was “the crazy one”, one was “the clever one” and one was “the guy who’s not as crazy but can do anything”.

It sounded like he was describing characters from a novel. It struck me that he’s making sense of his world through the lens of stories he has read or seen or listened to.

I’m struggling a bit with defining a character in my work in progress. Maybe I can take lessons from the ten year old: is she the smart one, the funny one, the sexy one, the goofy one?1.

  1. of course she’s more than any one of these things, but if I was describing her in an elevator pitch, who would she be? ↩

The Power of Plastic

I have been living without a credit card for nine days now. And it is killing me1.

That is to say, I have been trying to not use the back up credit card from a company I’d rather not deal with, since our card from the very nice bank we belong to was stolen and someone went on a $15K spending spree in Asia2.   I still had my debit card for groceries and for getting cash out of holes in walls, but day-um! I had no idea how accustomed I had become to impulse purchases: everything from songs on my phone to books on my Kindle, to random household goods and birthday presents from Amazon. Nine days and I was really feeling the pinch.

A few days ago I cracked and entered the back-up card number into our Netflix account (we don’t have cable, so this is pretty much it if we want to watch anything on the big box), and today I cracked even further and entered the forbidden numbers into a couple of other frequently-used online sources. I rationalize it by saying “I neeeeeed to update my apps” and “I neeeeeed to buy this stuff from Amazon cos it’s more efficient than driving around trying to find this one thing in any one of several different shops.”  Recurring monthly purchases are starting to show up now (including a few I didn’t realize I was still making, which is a bonus) and I’m looking at my finances with fresh eyes.

But wow, it felt good to click ‘complete purchase’. I never thought I’d see the day.

It’s interesting. I did not grow up a shopaholic and I’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that “I don’t like to shop” and yet, and yet… Interesting insights for a future fictional character. We are not what we seem: even to ourselves.

  1. not literally ↩
  2. Yes, the credit card company refunded the money, hallelujah! ↩

Afraid – Five Minute Friday

This is a Five Minute Friday post inspired by Lisa-Jo Baker and, today, Julie Scott Jordan.

Elegant Spanish woman

Photo credit: LatinaPower2009 CC License

She is not a fearful person.

Nobody looks at her and thinks: she’s so afraid all the time. She, herself, does not credit the idea of being afraid. When she notices a fear, she thinks logically about it until it is vanquished, and she goes about her day. She is determined to live a life without regrets.

And she is strong, and unflappable, a refuge others fly to in times of trouble.

But she is afraid. She is afraid of hunger. She is afraid her children will die before her and she will regret every time she said no or made them cry. She is afraid her children will outlive her and she will regret every time she said yes just to see them smile. She is afraid her husband will leave her. She is afraid when she thinks of how much better life might be if he did. Harder, but better. She is afraid of going to hell and afraid that it’s all a big sham. She is afraid no-one will like her and afraid that someone will like her too much and she will never be able to shake them off. She is afraid of being left out, afraid of being too-much included. She is afraid of being stuck in this one-horse town for the rest of her life, and afraid that her plane might go down.

And every time she forces a fear to cower in a corner of her mind she takes a step further away from being her.

 

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
-Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

 

Resolutions

I’m not one for making resolutions. I know myself too well.

But this year I am making some writing resolutions. Not so much to do with word-counts or projects finished, but more about taking the next step out into the writing business.

I’ve been revamping my writing life for a few years now: from founding StoryADay May in 2010, to making new writing friends and a new writing routine, to this year’s bumper crop of outreach (conferences! writing group! BEA!).

Next year I’m going to step things up again. I have a few projects that I’ve been sitting on for a while that I think can make a big difference to my perception of myself as a writer, and my ability to get into this business as a long-term career. I need to set myself a few (not too many) goals and timeframes — a few things that I’ve been wanting to do for a while, that I commit to doing this year. Or at least trying for. Whether I succeed or not won’t all be up to me, of course. But if I put my work out there and give it my best shot, I’ll count that a success.

Details still being hashed out, but I have at least resolved to make some resolutions ;)

How about you?

Ugh

First of all, this:

Now.

When this happened in Dunblane I was newly-married but childless. I couldn’t bear to watch the news. Now? I’m retreating inside my shell and keeping the electronics tightly locked down. I can’t even bring myself to think about the human aspect of this. 1

As if it wasn’t bad enough, we are immediately seeing social media flooded with a debate about gun control in the US. Now, Lord knows I’m no fan of the 2nd Amendment the way it is interpreted today 2, but you don’t stop gun crime by banning guns alone.

Can we maybe talk about the fact that, as stated in that video up there, when we ‘glorify’ (or ‘notorify, if you’ll allow me to invent a word) these people, we create copycats?

Can we talk about our culture and the fact that we glorify conflict and being-an-asshole on TV, with wall-to-wall reality shows and shout-fests?

Can we talk about access to mental health services and how they really should be a priority?

Can we talk about the fact that the voracious news media lives on a moveable feast of garbage, wringing every desperate detail out of every ‘conflict’ it can find purely for its own aggrandizement (“you heard it here first!” “Stay tuned for more!”) and monetary gain? 3

Can we talk about the fact that ordinary people, all around us (you or me, perhaps?) suck from the diseased teat of the 24 hour news cycle in part for the sick, momentary thrill of being the first among their friends to “know” all about the latest cultural ‘event’, good or bad, or to be the one who has all the details at their fingertips so they can hold forth at the next gathering of friends (“Oo, look at me. Listen to me. Hear me. I have woe to spread. I am soooo empathetic. I am so sensitive. Look at me. Here! Over here!”)? I’ve been guilty of it. And I bet you have too.

It’s melodrama at its most voyeuristic. It’s Victorian freakshow, the elephant man, the Roman circus with people killing themselves for glory and my entertainment and I refuse to feed the beast.

No More Melodrama

I am not going to watch coverage of this tragedy. I am going to turn off the radio if I hear it mentioned. I am going to lock down Twitter and Facebook and my blogs feed, so I’m only seeing info from my closest friends and family if and when I go on.

I am going to pray for those families affected. I am going to sit down and think about how I can make my community a better place for people who are suffering. I am going to love my neighbor and try to love my enemy, and more than that: act upon it. 4

  1. No! See? my brain tried to go there and I had to stop it. ↩
  2. By the way, “Amendment”? That means we’re happy to admit that the Constitution is wrong or incomplete at times. But if you happen to suggest that we’re interpreting something about the 2nd Amendment differently from the way you do, all of a sudden we’re violating some kind of sacred document? We can’t have a conversation about how life is a bit different and might have different needs now that we’re not long an insecure new country beseiged on all sides by monarchies who would love to overrun us and claim our abundant resources? Or now that population density was, like one guy and his cow per square mile when the 2nd Amendment was written and is now 33.4 people per square mile as a national average (including all those bits that nobody at all lives in) and 394 per square mile in Newtown, CT where this thing happened. Population density is 8000+ people in the most populous city in that state. Life is a bit different from 1791. Can we at least talk about that? ↩
  3. What good does it do anyone to know the name of the mass-murderers in these cases? What good does it do me to watch cell-phone footage of the crime? What good does it do my children to hear about this over and over and over again until they think this is how the world is? ↩
  4. It’s almost Christmas. This morning I was stressing out about gifts. This afternoon I’m remembering about the real gift. ↩

Monday Morning Roundup

Well I spent the month of November writing and logging my wordcount and wrote 25,000 on a new project. Resolved not to race to the NaNoWriMo 50,000 wordcount goal but to instead focus on my bigger challenge of finishing the work (when you’ve had it from the mouth of a horse like Elizabeth Peters that it’s the most important advice she can give to other writers, then finishing suddenly seems like a ridiculously important part of the process. Self-evident? Perhaps. But easy to ignore. I’m already feeling the siren song of a new project now that I’m in the middle of this one).

The plan: have the first draft of this one finished by Jan 31. 2,000 words today.

I’ve also spent the past week tracking my eating and exercise. As always Mon-Wed went spectacularly well, Thu-Sun less so. I’m not going to fret about it. Simply learn my lesson. And I have kept up the exercise part, even if the caloric intake went up a bit. Sad to say I’m confirming the already-learned lesson that carbs and I are not friends. We can stay in touch by Twitter, but long afternoons by the fire together are right out.

The plan here:get to the grocery store today and stock up on lots of protein and veggies and interesting herbs and spices.

Other thing 1: I am slowing chipping away at the surface good manners of America and finding an increasing number of snarky people whose idea of a good time is to lob insults at each other across the room. Not the mean-spirited one-upmanship I sometimes got too much of in my native land, but the kind that says “I like you enough to be merciless”. My heart swells when I think of them.

The plan: waste less time worrying about fitting in with people who seem incapable of insulting me to my face (with a few exceptions for the shy and genuinely sweet). Addendum: each comment about shopping and/or coupons in any social situation is a serious indicator of our incompatibility. Heed it.

Other thing 2: fire is cool. Specifically bonfires in the shape of Phoenixes, torched to the rhythm of a rag-tag drum chorus and watched as part of a big heaving crowd.

The plan: next year, take drums.

Thing 3: I can’t do that ‘cozy cottage’ thing, so stop envying people with lovely homes full of tasteful decor and nicknacks. It’s their hobby. I have enough hobbies.

The plan: cut the clutter, stick to my own style, and enjoy other people’s houses when I get the chance.

Thing 4: apparently I have lots of crazy dreams when I haven’t written anything for a few days.

The plan: post this and get back to the novel.

Back On Track – Almost

Well, that was rough.

I got off to such a good start with this novel, routinely beating my 2,000 word a day limit. And then I ran out of road. I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t seem to get myself there.

I didnt’ write much for the past few days (nothing at all a couple of times) at all yesterday and I completely blew my word-count lead. I had to write something like 4000 words today to get back on track. So I sat down yesterday and instead of writing random words to boost the word count, I put together a scene checklist. I started with all the characters who were going to be in the scene (and it was a lot, because this is my 1/4 way through point, where I’m bringing them all together and making something happen that will change the story. It’s the point in Twister when they’re all on the road and the Dread Pirate Wesley is racing them and Bill’s on board and the storms start to hit.) Then I wrote down what every character wants (at this stage) and why they can’t have it. Once I had that down on paper, that seemed like quite a lot of material to be going on with. But I still left it and slept on it.

Today i started writing this monster scene that just keeps getting bigger and bigger and more fun (for me). I stopped part way in to hash out some details of one of the characters’ agendas, and I paused again to write down a quite visual note of what the location looks like at the end of the scene (chaos! people stampeding out the door, one person crying, another sitting alone, flaming desserts flying through the air!) and then got back to writing the bits that lead up to it.

I think this is how I work. In chunks, and half-seat-of-the-pants, half mapped out. Full of hope and trust and bloodymindedness.

3000 words later, I’m that much closer to being back on course. Wish me luck.

Pushing Through

Phew!

Struggling now.

It was so easy last week. I just sat down and fired out words, characters, situations.

This week, even though I know where I want them all to go, it’s suddenly so much harder to get started.

I ended up not adding to the word count at all yesterday, even after being inspired in the morning. I struggled through this morning the same way, making notes about what I have so far, consulting earlier plans about what’s supposed to be happening in the story at this point, where I need to go in the next quarter of the wordcount. And then I failed to write.

In the end, I had to listen to an interview with Barbara Kingsolver, take some books back to the library, settle myself down at the coffee shop, drink a massive cappuccino, fire up Carmina Burana under the headphones, read the NaNoWriMo pep talk by Karen Russell and force myself to write dry, turgid prose for half a page, before I even got remotely started.

844 words later, I’m calling it a win and going home to get ready for the boys coming home. At least I have a partial scene started so that I can pick it up later on today.

Writing doesn’t sound hard, but sometimes it ridiculously difficult to get words on the page!

NaNoWriMo 2012 check in

I’m taking a moment this morning, on Day 8 of NaNoWriMo and 13000 words into my novel, to stop and go through what I have written, not to correct or revise it, but in an attempt to capture every character and fact that I have carelessly thrown into the great stew that is my manuscript.

It’s tempting to just push on to meet today’s wordcount goal 1, but I think that I will save myself a ton of time this way. I’ve written so much and introduced so many characters (the locations are taking on characteristics that I’ll need to keep track of too) that I need this. Rather than spending time scrolling back up the document to find out the names I hastily gave one of my main characters’ co-workers, I’m capturing that now and putting it all down on paper. The aim is to put it into a Scrivener document too, but I’m working with paper just now.

How I’m Working

I really do like Scrivener with all its clever tools for managing scenes and chapters and all that, but I think it’s really going to be most useful to me later, when I’m trying to wrangle this thing into some kind of proper shape.

For now, I’m trying to minimize the decision-making.

If I have the opportunity to decide whether to start a new ‘chapter’ file, or make a note of this character’s backstory, or play with a corkboard of scenes WHILE I’m trying to write the first draft, I’ll just end up doing all that stuff. I’m not disciplined enough to stop myself clicking on enticing little menu buttons every time I reach a knotty point in the narrative.

So I’m using IAWriter which is intentionally annoyingly bare as you work. It doesn’t have a search function, or much of anything really apart from a nice font, a ‘focus’ mode and the ability to see your word count (and how long it’d take to read what you have so far2. I just have one long, scrolling document. If things get out of order or if I don’t know how to get from one scene to the next I just plough on3.

But that does mean that things are getting quite unwieldy. In order to cause myself the east distraction possible I’m doing this kind of thing for each character.

Character Sheet for NaNoWriMo 2012

The notes at the top are about the character and the column down the side is full of names of the people in his orbit. Very basic stuff but it feels like the way to blast through this first draft. I feel speed is of the essence. Having recently gone back through my abandoned 2010 NaNoWriMo effort and realised it actually has some potential, I have decided that there is definitely something to this ‘writing with abandon’ model.

Anyway, onward!

  1. 2000 words a day, instead of 1667, in order to get ahead of the fact that I’ll have at least five days in the middle where it will be very hard to add any word count at all due to certain visits from certain siblings — woo-hoo! ↩
  2. 71 minutes! ↩
  3. Last night, for example, after spending hte whole day ignorning the book because I didn’t know how to get from this scene to the next thing tha needed to happen, I just skipped over it entirely and started writing a scene that wanted to happen, even though I wasn’t sure it was in the right place. And 3000 words later I went to bed. ↩