My Twilight Confession

I have a confession to make.

I am deeply grateful to Twilight.

This might be a startling revelation to those of you who know me, but it's the truth. I don't think that I would be where I am with my own work if it were not for that series...though perhaps not in the way that you might assume.

When I started working on my fantasy novel Twilight was still everywhere. I had seen the posters, heard the fangirl squeeing (not putting the squees down because God knows that within my fandoms I have been known to), and heard a lot of griping about how “real vampires don't sparkle”. I won't pretend I didn't do my share of scoffing at sparkly vampires. I have been a fan of the horror genre since I was a little girl so the idea of vampires being portrayed in such a way was automatically sort of...upsetting to me. However, a friend rightly pointed out that I shouldn't knock something until I'd tried it so, with trepidation, I began to delve into Twilight.

I'll get this out of the way right here before anyone asks. After reading the books, watching/reading a lot of interviews with Stephenie Meyer, and seeing the movies I can say for sure that I don't like Twilight. I have a lot of issues with the series and with many of the things its creator has said, but I don't think badly of anyone who does like it. You should never have to make excuses for the things that you enjoy.

All that being said, you are probably wondering why I do feel this sense of gratitude towards Twilight. Well, it's because my reading of Twilight and its criticism sparked my realization that my book was a rampaging band of cliches led by the Dread Pirate Sue. Specifically, reading Twilight led me to reading sporkings of Twilight. If you aren't familiar with the term and haven't read my blog before, a sporking is, well, think Rifftrax or MST3K. It's criticism, often framed humorously, that follows a given story. I've read them for a lot of fanfiction, as well for books like Eragon, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games, but Twilight was my first.

I think that reading criticism, and not just of your own work, but in general, is really important. I've talked about my tendency to go and read 1-star reviews of things on Amazon, and reading sporkings like the ones I've read of Twilight is tied to that. I find sporkings to be doubly helpful, actually, because you get a better sense of what the reader is thinking as he or she reads. It can be easy to lose sight of that as a writer. You get so caught up in the story that you are telling that you can forget someone is going to be reading it. Sporkings never let you forget the presence of the Reader. You hear their comments, you see what they like and dislike in “real time”, you see when the writer does something that makes them roll their eyes. It's like having Kevin, Mike, and Bill, or the Nostalgia Critic perched on your shoulder while you read.

There are a number of sporking websites and communities out there. I think you can type “(insert fandom name) + sporking” into Google and find one for just about every fandom. I've read a number of them for books I don't enjoy like Twilight, but also some for books I love like Harry Potter. It's good to read both, it keeps you from fandom arrogance or the automatic assumption that because you like it there's nothing critique-able about it.

Dragon Touched definitely wouldn't be what it is without the time that I have spent online reading these sporkings. I'm sure a lot of people would just tell me to go and read better books instead and sure, a writer should never stop reading. But I think it's important to take a step outside the literature itself to get perspective. Reading sporkings helped me see my work from the outside and the ones that have been the influential to my own writing are Das Mervin's on This is Where the Fish Lives.

I stumbled upon this community (that aspiring writers should definitely check out) when I was close to finishing my first draft of Dragon Touched and simultaneously reading Twilight for the first time. The creator/moderator/head sporker, Mervin, caught my attention right away with her dangerously pointed wit and attention to detail. Her work is fantastic. Her writing is always well-researched, well-written, and thought-provoking.

In fact, it is so thought-provoking that when I finished reading her sporking of Eclipse I was deeply, deeply uncomfortable with my own work. Dragon Touched was always a very different story than Twilight in terms of being “Epic Fantasy” rather than Teen Paranormal Romance, but a lot of the fundamental issues with Twilight were right there in Dragon Touched. The biggest, ugliest, of which being that my main character was an obvious self-insert Mary Sue. Reading Mervin's blog gave me a lot of insight into my own work and pushed me to think long and hard about the kind of story I wanted to tell. It also shocked me out of my relative laziness regarding the mechanics of writing and the importance of editing. It was a giant kick in the ass that couldn't have come at a better time. Amelia, ever kind, told me that I probably would have realized these flaws with my work eventually and maybe she's right. But the important thing was that I hadn't realized it, or maybe I was just scared to acknowledge it. Dragon Touched had been “in progress” for years, Wren was someone I had known since high school, and it was terrifying to contemplate starting all over again. However, reading Mervin's blog showed me how necessary it was that I do just that.

Dragon Touched still isn't perfect, but it also isn't the hot mess that it used to be. And while I hope that Amelia is right and that I would have figured out the issues eventually, I'm glad I got the wake-up call that I needed when I did. So I raise a glass to sporkers everywhere, but especially inimitable Das Mervin, without whom Dragon Touched wouldn't be what it is.

Thank you again, Mervin!

Well, Dear Reader, I should probably get going. Husband just called to remind me to eat, which I haven't yet today, and I need to get some stuff done around the house. I hope that you are having a wonderful holiday season and are staying safe. Take care during your New Years celebrations and don't do anything I wouldn't do.

…;)

Happy Holidays!

"Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

Good morning, Dear Reader.

So, I wanted to share something with you. As you may have noticed, I have been slow about posting this month. This is not without a cause. You see, during the past few weeks I have been going through a really bad depressive spell. Those of you who are familiar with the disease know that it often happens this way. There are ups and downs, or cycles. Well lately I have been in a really dark place. Things in my life are fine, which (again, this will sound familiar to you other depressives out there) is one of the most frustrating things. My husband, my friends, my life, they are good. I have every reason to be happy but lately I haven't been.

I've moved through a lot of the “stages” that are familiar to me after years of dealing with this mental illness: anger, hopelessness, constant crying, and most recently apathy. Strangely, this hasn't applied to my work; I've been more productive in the past few weeks than I have been in awhile. But apart from that...it takes a lot of self-control to get up, brush my teeth, shower, eat, run, all those things. Hell, a lot of days I can barely talk to anyone who isn't a lagomorph or a feline.

It's also hard because with these feelings come the old impulses to self-harm that are just wired into my depression. Some people can have this disease without the desire to self-harm, but I think because that was my coping strategy before I ever got help it is just always going to be something that comes up when it gets bad. I won't pretend that I haven't had thoughts of taking my own life as well, though those are truly just thoughts. I am grateful for my past suicide attempt, as strange as it may sound, because it ultimately has taught me how much I do want to live. I know that I don't want to die, or even hurt myself; what I want is for the pain caused by my depression to stop. Cutting was a coping mechanism before I knew any other way to "handle" my depression. I'm proud to say that it's been four years since the last time I hurt myself in any way and I am a stubborn woman and that stubbornness has given me the strength to find better, healthier ways of managing my depression. But it is a constant battle with myself and it is exhausting. That said, please know that I am just sharing what my headspace has been. I want you to know, Dear Reader, that I have no intention of hurting myself. That isn't what this post is about. I'm sharing this with you to provide some context for the rest of what I wanted to write about.

Anyway, yesterday I called my therapist's office to make an appointment. Now, since my depression has been as “under control” as it ever could be in the past few months it has been quite awhile since I last saw my therapist. His office is fantastic and I couldn't be happier with the care that I have received from them, but it will be a month before I can get in to see him (unless someone cancels). This is no one's fault except mine, but I have a lot of trouble seeing my therapist when I am feeling basically ok. I hate to take an hour from someone who might really need it, if that makes any sense. But the fact that it is going to take me a month to get in got me thinking about the tragedy in Connecticut this past Friday.

It is going to take me a month to get in to see my therapist, but you know what? I consider myself lucky. I have insurance that will cover me seeing him and cover my meds should I ever choose to go back on them. I have bipolar depression and depression, but I've been diagnosed. I am aware of the problem, of the triggers, I've gone through rounds of therapy and have been taught healthy coping mechanisms. It may take me a month to see him but I have a therapist who I trust and feel comfortable talking to. He's someone who knows my history and my patterns and is capable of calling me out on my bullshit when necessary. My husband, friends, and family all know about my depression. It isn't something that I am trying to hide or deal with alone. I'm lucky that when it got out of hand when I was in high school my friends and teachers rallied around me. My parents found me a great therapist back in Virginia. It was still hard and before all that I dealt with it alone for years, but when I needed it most I got help. I had access to help. I had a support system.

Being a depressive sucks. There's no other way to say it. It is isolating and miserable and it's hard enough to feel like crap for “no reason” without even factoring in that society's responses tend to be along the lines of: “what do you have to be sad about?” or “you just need to buck up”. It still isn't treated as a real thing by a lot of people so depressives are often left feeling like outsiders with something “wrong” with them. Even for me, with the incredible network of love and support I have, I still have trouble allowing people to see how bad it gets. It makes me feel weak, even though I know better.

I started crying last night while talking to Husband. I was crying because...it's going to take me a month to see my therapist but all I can feel is lucky. I have support and love and I know I'm a depressive. But how many people in this country only have the awful destructive feelings but have no idea what is “wrong”? All they know is the pain, the anger, the apathy, and the eternal sense that they are broken. After Friday a lot of the discourse has been about gun regulation and yes, gun laws need to be re-evaluated. But while the statement “guns don't kill people, people kill people” is trite and used way too frequently as an excuse to close the door on talking about gun regulation, there is some truth to it. People are creative about finding ways to do harm to one another. Just addressing the issue of guns is like putting a bandaid on a deep, festering wound. There is a large portion of the country that needs help. However, they are oftentimes brushed aside, told to “man up” and “deal with it”...and that's if they can get anyone to even acknowledge that they are not ok. A lot of people aren't ever diagnosed. Depression is certainly one mental illness that can slip through the cracks easily, but there are so many others. With health care being as prohibitively expensive as it is it's no wonder that mental illness is often left to build beneath the surface until the pressure inevitably causes an explosion.

Am I saying that mental illness is an excuse to do harm to others? Hell no. Never. My depression sometimes turns me into a real, for lack of a better word, bitch. I can get really mean and really cruel. Sometimes it's like dealing with a hurt animal. Sometimes I am just hurting and not in my right mind and I lash out. Other times I am just mean. Fortunately, I tend to be fairly inwardly directed. In other words, I attack myself and I isolate myself when it's bad just to make sure that I don't say anything hurtful to anyone. My husband ends up seeing the worst of me most of the time, closely followed by the two friends who I talk to the most. I say things to them sometimes that I don't mean, that are hurtful and unkind. And they know me, they know my depression, but they also help keep me honest. They don't walk on eggshells with me and they reinforce my sense of personal accountability. My depression isn't an excuse to hurt anyone's feelings. Does the people who I love knowing about it help? Yes, because it gives them context. They know they aren't the reason. But ultimately, I know that I have this mental illness, I'm an adult, and it's on me to do what I can to keep it under control.

But what if you don't know you are a depressive? Or that you have schizophrenia? Or depersonalization disorder? If you don't know, if the people around you don't know, how can you get help? How can you learn to manage it if you are never given the tools? And what motivation do you have if society wants to pretend that the problem isn't there? There's a huge stigma on mental illness, even one as comparatively common and “manageable” as depression. It's scary to tell anyone that you have feelings of wanting to hurt yourself or that there are days when you can't make yourself care enough to eat something. And what about the people around you? I put my parents through hell my senior year of high school and I'm sure one of the hardest things for them was that they felt alone dealing with my mental illness. If it's your child you feel responsible and that is a huge burden to bear and one that most feel they have to deal with alone.

As our society continues its shift towards being more “virtual”, with people telecommuting, skyping, facebooking, and doing most of their communication via smartphone it is going to get easier and easier for mental illnesses to go unnoticed and untreated. It is going to get easier to pretend there isn't a problem. But we have to find a way to do the opposite.

*Deep breath*

This post has gotten really long, so I'm going to wrap it up. This post is not intended to remove responsibility for Friday's tragedy from its perpetrator and I hope that's clear. However, the combination of that, what I have been going through, and making my appointment with my therapist got me thinking and I wanted to share some of those thoughts.

As Dumbledore so wisely said: “Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.” We, as a country, treat mental illness as “that-which-must-not-be-named”. It is time for us to say the names, to acknowledge them and help those for whom those “unspeakable” things are a part of their day-to-day existence. I can tell you from experience that wishing mental illness away doesn't work and pretending that it doesn't exist has the potential to be catastrophic. We are a country that has long been characterized by bravery and a certain brassy tendency to confront things head-on. It is time for us to turn that bravery inwards and make our country safer. Let's do what we do in therapy: admit there's a problem and put our energies towards dealing with it in a healthy and sustainable way.

On Tropes

Good Morning, Dear Reader!

Ok, so, I feel like from how much I poke fun at my own work you guys must think that I can't stand my book or its world. I promise that's totally not the case. While I do occasionally need to take a “Leave of Absence” from the EBR just to refresh my mind and ideas, it is a world that I do love. Most of my comments about the failings of early iterations of said world are just the result of me being honest about its flaws. And that certainly isn't to say that the current iteration is perfect. It isn't. Not even close. But I am hoping that (especially for those of you who have read Dragon Touched) you can see the ways it has changed. This blog is a lot about the journey, after all, and you can't really honestly evaluate a journey if you don't have a sense of the starting point.

Ah, starting points. Would you like to hear some of mine?

Quests: I love quests. I do. I'm a gamer who grew up reading Lord of the Rings and the The Belgariad. Quests are fun and you can have lots of them and frequently your characters end up getting cool stuff at the end of them. Right? And what makes for better quests than the one Ultimate Accessory of World Domination (or UAWD) that has to be either recovered or destroyed? A One Ring, or Horcruxes, or an Orb that will either dismantle the world or return it to glory.

Wren was going to go on a quest...probably with a Five Man Band. I believe there was something about reuniting lost parts of the UAWD and using it to become a sort of godlike entity.

Big Bad: One dude who is worse than everyone. He always wears all black and most likely his name has a “The” at the beginning. Lots of potential for him to “go Vader” and be a main character's biological parent.

Hm...The Overlord Rising. Like I've said, I do have some tropes in tact...maybe. I guess we'll have to see, won't we? (winky face)

Magic Object: Previously mentioned in the “Quest” section. There has to be something for the hero(es) to quest after, right? Jewelry is always a viable option, although swords do make excellent quest-objects.

*In George Takei's awesome voice* Oh my. I had these in spades. Dragon eggs, magic swords, magic jewelry, if it could be enchanted and used as a MacGuffin, it was. I think Wren herself was a MacGuffin at one point.

Dragons: This one seems obvious. What is more “fantasy” than dragons, right? They are big, they are magical, they are older than time itself, what's not to love? Also, they frequently can be found guarding quest-objects and dispensing profound wisdom to questing main characters.

I still have dragons because I love them. However, not all of my dragons fall into the typical role of dragons. This was the result of wondering what a world would be like if there were dragons that weren't wise or even sentient. I also really enjoy thinking about dragons from a biological standpoint in terms of their habitats and behaviors. Combine this with a long-standing love of dinosaurs and you can bet dragons are going to have a role to play. Besides, one can't really have a book called “Dragon Touched” without there being dragons in it. Right? Unless the dragons are MacGuffins. MacDragons? That sounds like a fantasy sandwich.

...moving right along.

Magic: How can you write a fantasy novel without magic?

That being said, the more fantasy I read the more my concept of what magic is and could be evolves. I have read a number of different ways that magic can shape the world and the more I read the more ideas I have about how I want magic to be a part of the EBR. I think for me one of the biggest realizations was that I wanted magic fully integrated. I didn't want to write about the world where magic had faded and the protagonist's journey is what brought it back. I wanted to have a world more like Harry Potter's world where magic simply is. Granted, due to the scope of Dragon Touched that element of world building isn't as fleshed out in Book I as it will be, but that is the direction I am heading.

In the beginning, however, all I knew about magic in my world was that Wren had it. Lots of it. Maybe because of a prophesy. She could do pretty much all the things and of course she'd be the odd one out in her family for it. Ultimately, her magic would probably be the result of being a “secret baby”. You know the type. The Luke Skywalkers, Garions, and Eragons. In other words, every Farm Boy trope imaginable. Or, if not that, a Cinderella story. A young girl raised by parents (or at least one parent) who are not her real parents and treated shamefully by them. Naturally, Wren would rise above such behavior and show them all becoming the grand supreme ruler of all things covered in awesomesauce.

Ok, so why am I telling you all this? Well, like I said before it is certainly not to claim that my work is without flaws. It has plenty of flaws that I work every day towards correcting. However, I don't see any reason not to be honest about where I have come from. I guess maybe I hope that reading this might help any of you who are struggling with your own stories and characters. The only limit really is your own patience and desire to improve. When you get frustrated just remember that nothing starts off perfect (and if you need a reminder, just read this post again :P). I don't think any writer worth his or her salt really ever think that his/her work is perfect, which is one of the best and most obnoxious things about this job. It means the work is never done and that you as a writer are never done growing and learning.

Speaking of learning, next time I am going to be talking about sporks and how they influenced me as a writer. Now, however, it's time to return to the EBR and Book II.

If I don't post before Christmas (depends on how crazy things get), Happy Holidays, Dear Reader. I hope that they are filled with peace and joy, and good food and drink.