I love to write. Here's the problem: There are so many other things I need to do. Check out the latest amusing videos on Youtube, read something political and become suitably outraged, refresh icanhascheezburger.com over and over until my clicking finger goes numb. You know, important things.

When one works a full-time job and one is the parent of a (wonderful, wonderful) toddler, this is somewhat unhelpful in one's quest to become a full-time professional author. One must sometimes step back and go, "One, what are you doing? You've already seen that lolcat. Go do something productive, and stop talking about yourself in the third person." This usually results in some desultory poking and prodding at a story, accompanied by a dash of self-loathing, at which point one might return to Digg for another revitalizing dose of top ten lists and cute animal pictures.

I've tried banning these things from my life, or at least reducing their presence, but that's only effective temporarily. So I'm trying something new.

First off, I'm giving myself full permission to surf the web aimlessly. No more fighting myself on it, since that doesn't work. Secondly, I'm giving myself full permission to shirk on writing... so long as I write at least one sentence of new prose every day. That's all I'm required to do. One sentence. Not even a full paragraph. I'm good if I've had a character answer another in the negative. Quote-capital-n-lowercase-o-period-endquote. I've done my sentence for the day.

But a funny thing happens when I open a story with the express goal of adding a single sentence to it. The pressure comes off. I write my sentence, and it feels good, so I invariably think, "Heck, why not another?" So I polish off another sentence. And then, because I'm on a roll, I add a little more icing to this delicious cake, happy in the knowledge that I've already accomplished my writing goal for the day. A remarkably short time later, I'm looking at two new pages of solid prose. I put it away, astonished that I found time to be that productive, and later I put together another page and a half, just because I feel like it. Or I don't. The point is that the pressure is off. My goal doesn't require that I even look at another story for the rest of the day.

It's only been a week so far, but it's really working. I've written more -- and more satisfyingly -- during this week than I did for the entire previous month. And that's including the day I really did just write a few sentences. You know what? That felt wonderful, too, because I didn't feel any guilt for it.

I have no idea how well this will work long term. But for the moment, it seems like I've broken the guilt cycle.

One sentence. Every day. Anyone else care to give it a try?

I write science fiction, so bear with me for a moment as I imagine a possible future.

In this future, anti-choice activists have come a long way towards achieving their goal of nearly eliminating abortion in the United States. Abortion has become so rare, it has ceased to be a political issue. The dark, bloody years of abortion clinic bombings and murdered abortion providers is over, a distant memory. Abortion clinics are quiet -- and nearly empty -- facilities in this ideal future.

This isn't science fiction. This could be real, and it's within your power, anti-choice activists, to make it happen. You can make it happen by supporting science-based, comprehensive sex education. You can make it happen by accepting the reality that teenagers -- including your own -- will have sex. You can make it happen by becoming fervent supporters of the widespread availability of condoms and detailed instruction on their use. Banish from the minds of your children the myths that standing on your head afterward, or withdrawing before ejaculation, or douching, or only having sex standing up, or inducing a sneeze, will prevent an unwanted pregnancy. Banish from your own mind the myth that you can somehow make your children avoid sex before marriage. (Hint: it didn't work for you, and it won't work for them).

You must recognize the hypocrisy of simultaneously opposing abortion and opposing sex education in order to make this future happen. The two are mutually exclusive.

Right now, you are taking a lot of heat for the murder of Dr. George R. Tiller by one of your own. It is heat you deserve, until you purge yourselves of the idea that you can somehow force the world to abstain from sex until marriage, and then only for the purposes of procreating. You can't. Accept that, and define your actions by what you truly want to achieve, a reduction in abortions. Sex education will get you there. Murder will not.

It doesn't take a science fiction writer to figure this stuff out. This isn't some gee-whiz Star Trek future I'm suggesting. This is the world you could have tomorrow.

The core of what I was trying to say, in my absurd, cleverer-than-thou bullshit way was that people who fundamentally agree with each other are being needlessly unkind to one another. I didn't say it well.

The Internet is an amazing communications medium, and possibly the best one we have for sensitive topics such as race in speculative fiction. I still think it works best when all parties involved keep in mind its inherent weaknesses, such as the lack of verbal nuance. I stand by that assertion, and continue to believe the flamewar that erupted around the discussion was a result of those weaknesses in the medium.

But I didn't see past the flamewar. I didn't see the genuine and genuinely helpful conversations that also took place. I responded as if nothing substantive had been discussed at all. So I guess that means I fell prey to a weakness in Internet communication myself.

I'm going to leave my previous post up, mostly as a warning to myself to look before I leap, but also because I refuse to pretend I didn't just act like a flippant jerk.

Dear Reader,

In this post, I make blanket assumptions about the nature of the RaceFail arguments. I thought it was nothing but stupid flamewar, but I was wrong. There's plenty of stupid and plenty of flamewar, but I was throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and for that, I apologize. I'm leaving the original text unedited below (after the ***s) for three reasons:

1. As a reminder to look before I leap
2. Because I don't believe in revisionist history, even when it's a little personally embarrassing.
3. Because my basic beliefs -- that it's best to remember the inherent flaws of Internet-based communication, and that the writers in this debate largely agree with each other -- still stand.

So now, without further ado, here's some fail of my own:

***

I just had to say something, after doing a little reading on the RaceFail '09 discussions (no, I won't link to any of them, on any of the forums/journals they appear in, for reasons you'll understand shortly).

Everyone. Cut it out. You. And you. Yes, you too, you in the back row. Quit it. This is stupid.

Remember, this is the Internet. We can't hear tone of voice through this series of tubes. We can't get conversational context. We can -- and do -- misinterpret all kinds of things without having a clue what was really meant. Perfectly intelligent and articulate people take offense at the inoffensive, or inadvertently offend others. That's not anyone's fault; the medium itself is to blame. The Internet had opened the door to a wonderful new era of miscommunication.

The voice you're hearing in your head when you read what someone writes is never the voice they wrote it in. Most of you are genre writers, so you're already aware of that fact when it comes to fiction. Well, it applies to stupid Internet arguments, too. Even the seemingly omnipotent emoticon is incapable of providing the subtle tonal cues necessary to know whether a given comment is sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, or even completely serious. :) See?

So everyone -- and yes, I'm still including you in the back row -- knock it off. No more accusations, no more perceived slights. The world needs more serious discussions about race, and this isn't one of them.

ETA: I make no specific judgments on who is "right" and who is "wrong" in RaceFail '09. I contend that no one is either. I contend that those involved in the argument have been victims of the Internet itself, and its current inability to provide verbal and contextual nuance. I'm sure Google, Microsoft, or Linus Torvalds will have that solved shortly.

Addendum the second: There's more to these arguments than just the poisonous atmosphere they engendered. As sherrold rightly points out, I missed some real and important dialog that happened amidst all the acrimony, dialog I devalued by calling it all "stupid." I was flippant, and I apologize for that. Perhaps I should use myself as a textbook example of failing to properly assess how one's words may be perceived over this here series of tubes.

Dear Republicans,

We live in a democratic republic, and in the last election, the Senate, House, and Presidential contests were decided in a (small d) democratic contest the culmination of which resulted in the government we have today. So I sincerely hope the revolutionary "teabagging" rhetoric going around right now is just that -- rhetoric -- and in no way indicates a preference against democracy and for violent revolution.

Sincerely,
The Majority

P.S. Please don't bring up the American revolutionary war. It followed years of monarchical oppression, not an orderly and legal election.

Electric Velocipede has posted the cover for their upcoming double issue. I dig the art-deco/papier-mache look. And the names on the back make me feel all warm and squishy.

P.S. Hi, LiveJournal. I admit I've kinda missed you.

So I've been seeing a different social networking site. I'm sorry, it's not you, it's me. I'm finding it easier to keep in touch with people on Facebook, because I have, quite frankly, very limited time. The sort of time best suited to quick updates and blurbs about what I've been up to. Not the sort of time best suited to blogging. Hey, I want you to know that I still like blogging, and respect people who have the time for it. That doesn't currently include me. Not to say I won't go back to you, LJ, when I do get more time. Which isn't now.

So don't think of this as "goodbye." Think of it as "see you later."

It's done.

ETA: Gotta say a little more here. The man can make a damn good speech. I hope his presidency lives up to his rhetoric, but I find myself strangely optimistic about that. I can't remember the last time a politician made me optimistic.

Vampires. Werewolves. Space federations. Ray guns. Adam & Eve retellings. Elves and dragons. What if Hitler/The South won? What if you went back in time and became your own grandfather? Some tropes of science fiction and fantasy appear over and over. Regardless of how many times its been done, countless stories will be published this year with a clichéd, hackneyed plot or setting or both.

But there's a good reason for that. These are plots and story elements that resonate culturally and emotionally. Adam & Eve science fiction stories, for instance, have been done absolutely to death... because the idea of being the first people on Earth (or an Earth analog) intrigues the mind.

On the other hand, a cliché done without adding a new voice or perspective results on a story that has such a strong resemblance to its forebears that there's nothing new to be gained from reading it. So if you're going to write a story with such elements, it behooves you to bring something unexpected to the table. Don't give your reader (or editor) a reason to put the story down dismissively.

I generally recommend avoiding the most overused tropes of science fiction and fantasy as much as possible. I'm talking about them now because, much to my surprise, I'm writing a werewolf story.

In my defense, I didn't know it was a werewolf story when I started it, more than two years ago. It has since languished in the obscurity of my trunk folder until I figured out what it was missing. I mean, I already had the main character, and knew she was a strange creature, but I didn't know specifically that she was a werewolf.

And I love this story. I love the main character. She's no shape-shifter, my werewolf; the wolf is entirely internal, a force of nature contained in her mind. She's elderly, no lithe (yech!) and buxom (bleah!) beauty. And the story has benefited so much from taking those two over-used elements away from her, allowing me to explore a character whose ancestry might explain the more standard legends of werewolves and vampires, without her entirely resembling either.

I hope I'm doing it right, but I know at the very least I'm doing it in a way I haven't seen a hundred times before.

It was the video driver. I have fixed it. And now I go to bed.