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Posts Tagged ‘POV’

Make Your Own Luck

Posted in Life, tagged , , , , , , , on May 5, 2011| 7 Comments »

I read this fascinating article about luck a few weeks ago, but I’ve been saving my discussion of it until after my luck story came out because I love to be thematic.
The article talks about the research of Dr. Richard Wiseman, who conducted a study comparing “lucky” and “unlucky” people. He found that unlucky people tend to miss chance opportunities because they are so focused on specifics of precisely what they’re looking for, whereas lucky people tend to be more aware of what’s actually going on and are open to different outcomes. Basically, his research supports the idea that we make our own luck by noticing and taking advantage of whatever opportunities happen to present themselves.

We’ve all heard this advice in relation to dating. “You’ll find your future boyfriend/girlfriend when you’re least expecting it.” I don’t think the catch phrase actually covers it. Did I expect to meet my future husband at the specific housewarming party where we first talked to each other? No, of course not. (Is there ever a situation in which one does expect such a thing? Unless, of course, it’s a pre-arranged relationship of some sort.) But I also didn’t think it was impossible. I was open to meeting new people and having a new experience, and I went to that party with the hope that I might make some new friends. And I felt I was ready for a romantic relationship should one present itself to me.

Here’s the kicker. You might say I was lucky to meet my husband that night. He might have decided not to attend that housewarming party. Or he might have had a conflict, or received a phone call and left before I arrived. But because I wasn’t attending the party for the sole purpose of looking for a boyfriend, I think we might have met later on anyway. I would have become better friends with the party’s hostess (who later officiated at our wedding), and she would have held another party, or invited friends to go to a group dinner, or whatever, and I would have met my husband then instead. Or I would have become friends with other mutual acquaintances met at that party, leading to the same results.

It’s very easy to think about luck as relating to one specific outcome. What if, instead, we were to think about luck as more of a continuum that depends upon both our choices and our engagement with the world around us? We have to both notice opportunities as they arise and decide to act on them.

I’ll give you another example of how paying attention can work wonders. In college, I did my senior music recital in composition. I didn’t know any undergrads who had done such a thing, but “luckily” for me, I read the Music Major handbook carefully and learned that it was an option for me. Even better, after I received permission for my recital, I allowed other students to pursue the same opportunity because I had proven it was a possibility. Was I lucky? Sure. The composition professors could have decided they didn’t want the hassle of advising an undergrad composer (or been too busy to do so) and found a reason to reject my application. But I also proved the veracity of the quotation about diligence being the mother of good luck. I had formed positive relationships with the relevant faculty members; I had pulled together a decent proposal with a realistic timeline; I had thoroughly researched my major. I would never have been the recipient of this good luck if I hadn’t thought outside of the box (in this case, that all undergrad recitals were given by instrumentalists and vocalists, not composers).

What do you think? Do we create our own luck? Do you consider yourself to be lucky or unlucky (or neither)?

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Problem Competition: Who is Worse Off?

Posted in Life, tagged , , , , , on April 28, 2011| 22 Comments »

Jay Lake recently wrote an intriguing blog post about his theory of problems. To summarize, he states that problems cannot  be compared–that just because his problems (fighting cancer) are very serious, that doesn’t mean that other people’s “less serious” problems don’t matter too. He goes on to say that he still cares about his friends and that sometimes it can be a relief to talk about something besides cancer, even if the something else isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. (There is more interesting discussion in the comments, so you should check it out.)

 

I am in complete agreement. It is impossible to compare problems or lives, even though people try to do it all the time. It isn’t a contest with all of us competing to see who can have the biggest sob story to tell, who can be busiest and most stressed, who can have their behavior excused because gosh darn it, life hasn’t treated them well. Ultimately, we are each responsible for our own actions regardless of the problems we face. And each of us has the problems we have, and since we can’t literally be in someone else’s head (at least not yet!), we can’t know how our suffering truly compares.

I didn’t always understand this essential fact. I had a tough childhood and adolescence; my mom dying while I was fairly young was just the tip of the iceberg. It was easy to compare myself to others and minimize their problems in my head. “So his parents divorced years ago. That’s not a big deal. Why can’t he just get over it?” I know, I know, I wince to recall it. It’s embarrassing, and my only comfort is that at least I don’t remember usually saying such things out loud. Everyone is deserving of compassion for the hardships in their lives, and problems hit different people in different ways. What may be, for one person, a relatively insignificant event, may be a life-changing catastrophe for someone else.

And honestly, even if it were a competition for who has the worst life, why would you ever want to win such a contest?

Speaking as someone who, for many years, had “worse” problems than many of those around me, I never wanted to shut people down. (Perhaps this is why I had the minimal wisdom to try to keep my mouth shut during my occasional uncharitable moments.) I rarely discussed most of my problems, partly because I dreaded the initial reaction and partly because I didn’t want my experiences to change the way people related to me. I was already isolated enough; I didn’t want further barriers between me and the rest of the world. I wanted whatever normalcy I could get.

It’s a tricky business, because when we know someone is struggling with major problems, we don’t want to burden them with our own concerns, which in comparison seem to middle away into insignificance. But when we aren’t honest about what’s going on with us, when we choose to protect someone instead of share with them, what we’re really doing is pushing them away.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t strive to be tactful and considerate. If a friend is retching in the toilet, that probably isn’t a great time to start bemoaning an inability to find the perfect juice squeezer. Someone who is ill might very well lack the energy to do certain activities with you. And sometimes there are subjects better left alone for a while. Raving about an amazing romantic relationship to someone who is going through a bitter divorce? Well, maybe not so much. But if you talk to that same friend about problems with your aging parents, it might not burden them so much as build the mutual connection between you. It may give your friend a break from dwelling on her own problems. It may make her feel less alone. Or she may tell you it’s not a good time to talk, and that’s okay too.

In my experience, everyone has problems, even those people who look like they have perfect lives. We all have bad days mixed in with the good, we all have setbacks, we all make mistakes, and we all have to live with the hard parts of being human. But ideally the people with whom we move through life can make the hard parts more bearable and the good times sweeter.

What do you think? Do you find yourself comparing problems? If someone has a really big problem, does that make you feel that you can’t speak freely to them?

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How Writing Has Changed My Brain

Posted in Life, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on March 24, 2011| 16 Comments »

On Tuesday night my husband and I went on a date night to see The Adjustment Bureau. During the car ride home, I proceeded to tear the movie apart: partly its plot (especially the end, ouch) and partly its portrayal of women. My direct quote: “Was this movie written by people who hate women?” Yeah, not pretty. (Also, just for the record, this movie is urban fantasy, not science fiction.)

Well, at least the poster is pretty.

While I could easily spend an entire blog post critiquing this movie (and wouldn’t my snark be amusing?), I’m going to restrain myself and instead point out something else. If I had watched this movie three years ago, I would have thought it was mildly entertaining and left it at that (except the end. I still would have thought the end was stupid.) I wouldn’t have noticed the negative depiction of women, and I definitely wouldn’t have noticed the issues I had with the plot.

Becoming a writer has changed me in many ways, not the least of which is the way that I engage with entertainment. I read differently, and I watch TV series and movies differently. If I still played video games, I’d probably experience them differently too. Even when I force my mind out of critique mode (which I can usually do if the errors in front of me aren’t super egregious), I notice aspects of the narrative that I never saw before. I think about conflict, I think about stakes, and I think about character motivations. And I notice when women are being portrayed as playing pieces instead of fully realized characters.

When I’m not enjoying a novel, instead of just putting it aside, I start to analyze why it isn’t working for me. Are there too many info dumps, or is the beginning too slow? Do I not understand or buy into the world building ? Does a character’s voice not ring true? Or is it merely a personal preference issue? (I tend to bounce off fairly dense prose with large amounts of description. Sometimes I can objectively see that this is good, but it doesn’t matter. I’m still bored out of my mind.)

When I am enjoying a novel, I try to pay attention to why I’m loving it so much. What combination of techniques is the author using to give me such a reader happy? How is that Guy Gavriel Kay switches POVs and tenses as much as he does without making me hate the book? How is it that Suzanne Collins keeps the pace so breathless in The Hunger Games?

I don’t usually mind this interference. It sounds awful, and if I had known about it ahead of time, it might have given me pause. But in reality, it’s kind of like a nerdy, intellectual game. It’s fun to be able to have solid reasons to put behind my opinions. It’s even entertaining to have debates on the relative merits and drawbacks of a certain work.

But perhaps most importantly, I haven’t merely learned how to read or view media differently. Becoming a writer has changed how I see and understand the world and its history, present, and future. It has changed how I see the people in that world. And I wouldn’t give that up for anything.

If you’re a writer, how has it changed how you read or experience the world? If you’re not a writer, have you encountered something else that has had a similar effect on you?

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Inaccurate Information, or Knowing When to Listen

Posted in Life, Society, tagged , , , , , , on March 15, 2011| 9 Comments »

I still remember the first time I realized that people who sound perfectly confident about what they’re saying are not always correct. It was sometime in my mid-20s (apparently I was a slow learner?) when I was in conversation with a friend of mine, and he said something about Yosemite National Park that I knew was incorrect. Mind you, it wasn’t something I thought I might have gotten wrong or was otherwise unsure about. I’d been going to Yosemite every year since I was born, so I was ninety-nine percent certain that my friend was stating something factually inaccurate.

However, when I offered my expertise on the subject, he didn’t admit to not being sure himself. To every outward appearance he was just as confident about his correctness as he had ever been. And at that moment I had an epiphany: People could be telling me inaccurate information all the time, and unless it was a subject in which I had personal expertise, I would never know the difference.

Dinosaurs and humans coexisted … um, right? No, but 41% of American adults think they did.

We hear a lot about how information on the internet may or may not be very reliable, but the internet is merely boosting the signal of an older problem. How do we know, not when people are maliciously lying to us (that’s another problem, but thankfully a much rarer one for me personally), but when they are misrepresenting their knowledge? And worse still, how can we avoid passing this ignorant knowledge onwards ourselves? (Incidentally, Wikipedia has an entire list of common misconceptions. Of course, you have to ask yourself: how much of this list is accurate? And the nature of the beast is revealed in all of its pernicious twistings.)

Another aspect of the problem is oversimplification. It seems to me that while my life can be very complicated, that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of complications in the greater world. And yet it’s so easy to think about an issue or subject for only a minute or two and pronounce upon it, failing to delve into the deeper implications, the bigger picture, the history, or what-have-you.

I’ll give an example that I see a fair amount. I happen to know something about the geopolitics of the Middle East. Do I have a complete understanding? No. Am I an expert? No again. Why not? Because the situation is complicated, and because it’s difficult to find reliable sources of information, and because I live far away and therefore can’t rely on firsthand experience. Also because I come from a different country and bring my own cultural expectations into my reasoning, and in spite of my best efforts, I’m sure some of that leaks through to color my opinions and observations.

However, I do know enough to be able to tell when others know what they’re talking about (and when they don’t). I also know enough to notice when people seem to have formed opinions about situations in the Middle East even though they lack the background information necessary to develop a deep understanding. I don’t mind so much when I speak to people who have different opinions from me on this topic (on the contrary, it’s such a complicated topic that I welcome the chance to learn more, especially from those who are more personally involved and/or affected).  However, when it becomes obvious that they’re not likewise trying to educate themselves even when they lack information (which is easy to lack when you live half-way around the world), well, then once again ignorance has won. And it will spread.

I’m worried because this isn’t an inspirational post, and I like the inspirational posts the best. But for a problem like this, I don’t have any real answers. I try to do my best to be accurate in the information I pass along, but sometimes I make honest mistakes. I try to educate myself about the issues I care about, and I try not to profess knowledge I don’t have and instead ask questions to improve my understanding. (Six years ago, I knew nothing at all about the Middle East, for example.) When I hear information I know to be incorrect, I try to speak up, even though I often don’t feel like being assertive.

But in an information-heavy world, there will always be information that is inaccurate or incomplete. And there will always be people who aren’t interested in listening.

What do you think about this problem? How do you deal with it in your daily life?

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A Woman’s Choice: Power or Popularity?

Posted in Society, Writing, tagged , , , , on March 8, 2011| 8 Comments »

If I become a successful writer someday, will you like me less? According to this TED talk, the answer might be yes. Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, talks about the negative correlation between power and likeability in women (whereas for men, power and likeability are more likely to go hand in hand). She cites a study in which two managers are presented, in which the only differences (literally) between the two are their names (Heidi and Howard). The results? While both were ranked as being equally competent at their jobs (which is some good news, at least), Howard was seen as being a great guy to work with whereas Heidi was seen as being too much out for herself, with many more reservations about working with her. The same person, described with the same language. Chilling, isn’t it?

Luckily women in the writing profession don’t face the same endemic problems as those trying to rise to the “C” level of corporations (CEO, COO, CTO, etc.). But I began to think about how this might affect female characters in the stories I write.

I use a lot of female protagonists in my work partly because I think that historically, there haven’t been enough of them in the speculative field (particularly science fiction). Hopefully things have gotten better in this regard (although I haven’t done any formal surveys for protagonist gender in recent short fiction), but I enjoy writing female characters in any case. Now I can’t help but wonder, though, whether some of these characters will be less liked and less sympathetic than their male counterparts if they’re put into positions of power.

Sometimes I’m able to sidestep this problem completely because I write a lot of teenage female protagonists who inherently lack power because of their young ages. But if I write a female president, will her anger read justified, or will it read like a mood swing? Will a discontented female read frustrated or merely whiny? And how much of this will be because of my mistakes in characterization vs. our society’s preconceptions about women in power?

It’s also easy, as a writer, to fall into one way of showing gender. For instance, I have a couple of stories about relationships in which it’s fairly obvious that the man has most of the power over the woman, and I show the women grappling with (and possibly overcoming) this imbalance. But being that I’m a science fiction writer who gets to write about the future, I don’t want to limit myself to portraying women who find ways to empower themselves while starting out unequal. What about the women who start out confident and in power, who can take over the traditional “hero” role in a story? What about the women who take for granted that they can be both powerful and likeable in a changed future society? I certainly don’t want to forget about showing those women characters.

What has your experience been as a reader or a writer? Do you find women characters in power to be sympathetic? How much do you think our society’s bias against this is reflected in our current literature?

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Reading YA as an Adult

Posted in Arts, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 1, 2011| 10 Comments »

I didn’t used to read much YA fiction (otherwise known as Young Adult, otherwise known as Teen). But once I decided that I wanted to write in the YA genre, I felt it behooved me to get to know the current marketplace a little better. So around two or two and a half years ago, I became an avid reader of YA. 

The funny thing is, I was thrilled to be reading it. I would gleefully hang out in the YA section of the bookstore and collect a stack of glossy, intriguing novels that I couldn’t wait to read. It hadn’t occurred to me to shop in the Teen section for years, except when I was checking to make sure Robin McKinley didn’t have a new book out. But now that I had a Serious Purpose, (reading YA was research after all, and research is work!) I quickly developed a YA habit.

I recently suggested to a friend of mine on Twitter that she blog about what it is she likes about speculative YA (because speculative is her thing). After reading her post, I began thinking about why I like YA, and I came to realize that really what I was thinking about was why I like YA as an adult. I’m not alone in this preference either; I keep reading how more and more adults are reading YA. Perhaps it began with Harry Potter (although technically some of Harry Potter is MG (middle grade) fiction, but I’m splitting hairs), and perhaps it continued with Twilight. But it hasn’t stopped there. (There are many articles about this subject. Here’s a sample.)

So here is my list of reasons I like to read YA (hooray, a list!):

1. Close POV: I love reading in close POV. I really enjoy first person, but I also like close 3rd. As a reader, I don’t tend to like head-hopping and massive numbers of POVs quite as well (although there are exceptions, if well done). Most YA these days is in close POV, and the majority in first person. (Granted, some of it is in first person present tense, of which I wasn’t such a fan, but I’ve gradually become more accustomed to it.)

2. Pacing: Generalization alert! While not always true (unfortunately), I’ve found that on the whole YA authors pay more attention to pacing issues in their novels. They’re exciting, they’re suspenseful, I want to find out what happens next, and the chapters end on a rise that makes it hard to put the book aside and go to sleep.

3. Plot Tropes: I enjoy many of the common plot tropes featured in YA. I’m also a fan of John Hughes, so there you go. I like reading about the social dynamics of high school because I still find them truly fascinating (it helps that I’ve spent a lot of time with teens in the past several years so high school doesn’t feel so far removed from my life). I am generally fond of dystopias, which are hot hot hot right now in YA. I also like love triangles, budding romance, forbidden love, and family conflict, other staples of the genre. And I haven’t yet gotten tired of coming-of-age stories.

4. Life as Discovery: I love seeing the world (whether our modern-day world, the future, or another world altogether) through the eyes of a teenager. I love watching as they experiment, question, and explore what it is to be alive. I love the ambiguities and moral dilemmas they face. I love how even the most cynical teenage character doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does. I love the potential, that this character is still at the outset of his life and so many things are possible for him. The teenage years (and early 20s) are a time of big change and discovery for most people, and I love to read about it and watch the characters unfold.

5. Kick-Ass Female Protagonists: More YA is directed towards females than males. I hear this fact bemoaned time and time again, because we want to be encouraging male teens to read too, etc. etc. And I don’t disagree. But I love the female protagonists of so many YA books. They aren’t kick ass in a way that seems really far removed from my life (see some adult urban fantasy); they’re kick ass while struggling and staying real. If they have a special talent, they usually don’t have complete mastery over it. They make bad decisions, they’re swayed by their feelings and prejudices, sometimes they’re even just plain petty. It’s such a relief to read about these flawed teenage heroines, who are brave and silly at the same time. Because I am brave and silly at the same time too.

I could probably think of several more reasons I enjoy YA, but now it’s your turn. What aspects of YA do you most enjoy?

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You are not Me

Posted in Life, Society, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on February 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

– People should travel around the world to learn more about both themselves and other cultures.
– People shouldn’t waste their time and money traveling abroad when you can learn everything that’s really important about life in your own backyard. 

– People shouldn’t write more than one book a year because the quality of their writing will suffer if they try to do more.
– People who don’t write at least two books a year don’t have a strong work ethic.

– People shouldn’t have children because studies prove that parents are less happier than people without children.
– Everybody should have children because passing on your genes and knowledge to the next generation is the most important and fulfilling work there is.

– All authors should aspire to be offered a traditional publishing contract because that is the only established way of both distributing your work and filtering for quality.
– All authors should consider going indie because not only is the market tightening, but the contract terms from big publishers are becoming less and less favorable to new (and some mid-list) writers.

– Moms shouldn’t work because you don’t want strangers raising your children.
– Moms shouldn’t stay at home because women shouldn’t give up rewarding careers and fail to reach their full potential.

Remember that just because something is true for you does not mean it’s equally true for someone else. We all live in this world together, but we’re all individuals, each with our own point of view.

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The Dangers of Advice

Posted in Arts, Life, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 13, 2011| 13 Comments »

A few days ago, I read the excellent article “Writing and Mortality” by Rachel Swirsky, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  I recommend reading it and coming back here, but since I don’t always do that myself, I’ll summarize. She talks about some advice she read about writing, how if the project you’re working on is not the project you’d be working on if you only had six weeks to live, then it’s the wrong project. Rachel calls foul on this advice, saying that if she had only six weeks, she’d be busy spending time with her loved ones. “Artists,” she says, “aren’t only real artists if they would spend their last few days creating art.” 

I agree with Rachel one hundred percent. Creating art is a high priority for me; in fact, I’ve structured my life around increasing my time to do so. But it’s not my highest priority, and that’s okay. This truth was brought home to me recently when I was suffering from root canal complications.  Mostly I was thinking, “My god, the pain, the pain, please make it stop, I’ll do whatever it takes to stop the pain.”  But when I could focus beyond the immediate suffering, what did I care about the most?  I wanted to spend time with my husband and my little dog, and I wanted to write long e-mails to my best friend.  I’m an ambitious person, but when it came down to it, I wasn’t thinking about my writing anymore.  What mattered to me was the people I love.

Taking a step back, this entire discussion was sparked from a piece of writing advice. I read a lot of writing advice every week.  I even occasionally write some writing advice.  It’s amazing how much helpful information about writing I can learn from the internet (although at this point, a lot of the advice I read is a reminder more than a revelation).

But this advice is not infallible, and it cannot be followed blindly.  Each piece of advice requires consideration, and if you find it doesn’t work well for you, that doesn’t mean you’re wrong or a bad writer or anything else.  It means that advice is not for you, full stop.

People try to give me advice all the time (and not just about writing, either).  Here are some examples of advice I do not take:

1. You should write every day. Yeah, I don’t write every day.  I usually take weekends off, and then I come back to the computer on Monday full of fresh ideas and vigor.  That’s what works for me, for now.
2. You should write what you know. Sorry, I don’t actually live in a world with working magic or a world set in the future, but I still write about them.  (Yes, this advice has deeper connotations that are more helpful, but its phrasing can be misleading.)
3. You should write x words every day. Unfortunately, only I know how many words I can write per day, and this number changes over time and depending on circumstances (like, for instance, a root canal or quitting the day job).
4. You should only submit to pro paying markets. I actually kind of follow this one, but the more I think about it, the more I think it’s silly.  Really I should submit to any markets I feel like submitting to, right?  If I’d be happy seeing my work at a certain publication, then I’ll submit.  If I won’t feel happy or I think the publication is shady in some way, then I won’t submit.  So this advice isn’t for me.
5. You should/shouldn’t outline. Um, really good writers go both ways on this one.  So I’ll do whatever I like, and experiment with both.  (For those wondering, yes, I outline for novels.  For short stories, it really depends.)

I could go on, but you get the idea.  Advice is in the eye of the beholder.  People give advice about what works for them as individuals.  But we are not cookie cutter people, and therefore some of this advice will not work for you.  The trick is to learn what you can, and then adapt that learning to fit your own lifestyle, your own priorities, your own artistic strengths and weaknesses, and your own voice.

I would love it if you would comment with some advice you have read or received (writing advice or otherwise) that doesn’t work for you.  It can even be something that I have said here on the blog (gasp). I can’t wait to see what you all come up with!

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A Year of Meaning

Posted in Life, Writing, tagged , , , on January 6, 2011| 2 Comments »

When I started this blog six months ago, I made a private deal with myself.  “Self,” I said, “it might be very difficult to get a blog started.  Maybe no one will read it for a long time, plus I might run out of things to write about.  Plus I won’t want to write essays when I’m having a bad day.  I’d better make a commitment so that I don’t wimp out on myself.”  I decided not to give up for at least six months.  Any less than that didn’t seem like a real attempt.

Writers are often encouraged to start blogs.  Publicity (blah blah blah) promotion (murph) building a fan base/tribe (blah blah) building discipline (blah de blah) marketing (gack).  Okay, I actually think all those things can be pretty interesting at times, but the truth is that none of them provided the motivation for starting this blog.  They’re just a whole lot of cherries on top.

What I realized back in the spring, when I was first conceptualizing this blog and what I wanted it to be, was that for me, being a writer meant having something to say.  I say “for me” because I’m not sure if this is true for all writers (feel free to chime in and tell me!)   And I realized that with internet technology at the stage it’s in, not being published yet was no excuse for me to be silent.  If I was a real writer, I thought, I’d say what I felt was important to say, publishing contract or no.

Photo by Robin Ducker

Working on this blog has been a transformative experience for me.  It reminds me twice a week that, yes, I want to be the kind of person who has something to say.  It makes me stretch myself in directions I wouldn’t expect because some days I sit down to write and I have to force myself to say something, anything, and I don’t even have an inkling of where to start. And some days I get a comment from one of my readers that makes me realize what I said made a difference to someone, and I feel full to bursting.

Ultimately this blog has turned me into a writer by my definition of the word, and that’s what matters most to me.

So I will be continuing this little experiment for another six-month period.  In conversation, a few people have called this a writer’s blog, and my immediate reaction has been, “What?  No, it’s not a writer’s blog.  I don’t talk a lot about craft (only a little, I swear!) or promote my projects or give you word counts.”  But of course, I’m completely wrong.  This is a writer’s blog by definition because I am a writer, and that fact shapes the conversation here.

I’ve also spent some time worrying about writing on theme.  If you’ve ever read any blogs about blogging, you will have noticed that they always suggest finding a theme and writing to that.  For instance, I could write about creativity and the processes that surround that.  Or I could write about parenting, or I could write about training show dogs.  Or whatever.  Writing on theme gives your audience some idea what to expect from you; it also narrows down your writing options to more manageable proportions and gives you a frame for whatever you decide to talk about.

But since I’m embracing the fact that this is a writer’s blog, I can also play fast and loose with my theme.  So what is this blog about?  It’s about the things that are so important that I want to write about them.  It’s about creativity and art, sure, and it’s about how to live a dream, and it’s about optimism and how to be happier, and it’s about trying to pull together patterns to make the world coalesce in a different way.  Because this is what writers do.  We take a character’s life, full of random chance and mundane moments, and we polish it until it says something.  We create meaning.

So that is what I’m wishing: for 2011 to be, for me and for you, a year in which we can create meaning together.

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Free Spirit Tells: Pierced Ears

Posted in Life, Society, tagged , , on October 28, 2010| 10 Comments »

I don’t have pierced ears.  Where I live, it’s fairly unusual for a woman not to have pierced ears.  Plus I grew up in a time when people pierced other body parts to show their nonconformity.  (Or maybe to look sexy or funky or on the edge.  I’m not sure since I never did it.)  It’s the rare occasion when I meet another woman without basic ear piercings.

It’s not that I don’t like jewelry.  I actually have a weak spot for jewelry.  I wear necklaces, rings, the occasional bracelet or anklet.  I love shiny sparkly stuff, and I love how artistic jewelry can be.  I look at beautiful earrings in little boutiques and covet them.

People ask me if I don’t have pierced ears because I’m afraid of the pain.  While it’s true that I hate pain, that’s not really the reason.  I wasn’t allowed to get my ears pierced as a kid, but I could have done it when I was twelve or thirteen.  Only by then it was too late.  Without even knowing it, I had already grown up into a closet nonconformist.

I thought about getting holes punched in my ears, and then I thought about what a weird idea that actually was, punching holes in your body just so you could display a little more bling.  Suddenly ear piercings didn’t seem ordinary anymore.  They seemed like a barbaric custom of some foreign tribe.

Now please don’t get me wrong.  When I look at other people’s pierced ears, I don’t feel shock or horror or condescension.  I don’t actually think piercing is a barbaric custom.  It’s more that, once I thought of that point of view, I could never look on the custom the same way myself.  It’s been twenty years, and I’ve never found any reason to change my original decision.  I’ll keep my ears the way they came, at least until I have a provocative reason to do otherwise.

So what do you think?  Am I stubborn or an original thinker (or both)?  Either way, my lack of pierced ears is one of my tells, revealing that I am a free spirit.

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