Author: Kai Raine

Redefining “Which Quarantine House” Memes

Posted on by Kai Raine

I’ve been seeing a lot of “which quarantine house would you choose?” memes. If you enjoy these, then great! I’m not here to rain on your parade. Nothing to see here.

Speaking for myself, these memes are a little underwhelming. Just because a house contains your favorite dog/character/books/etc. does not mean you will enjoy being stuck there for weeks on end. In general, I would want more information and context.

So, on this night plagued by insomnia, I decided to take one such meme and make up a flash fiction about each one.

 

  1. Sherlock makes a bunch of derogatory comments about women in general, applying them to the two specific women he is trapped with. Hermione is irritated at Sherlock’s attitude toward her and Elizabeth, but also can’t help but want him to acknowledge her intellect, because she grudgingly admires his. Elizabeth Bennet locks herself in her room with a book and some instant ramen and reminds herself that murdering her housemates is inadvisable. When the quarantine ends, every one of them hopes fervently to never meet either of the others ever again.
  2. Jane and Harry are shy about interacting, but Scout’s restlessness awaken Jane’s governessly instincts, and they bond. Harry is slower to open up, feeling a little out of place for a while, but eventually Scout explodes an egg in the microwave, and in the ensuing hilarity, the ice is broken. They settle into a comfortable companionship that becomes a lasting friendship.
  3. Jo and Snape get off on the wrong foot, and spend the first week constantly at each other’s throats. Eventually, sometime in the second week, they realize that their energy is much more useful put into bedroom activities. Gandalf steals all the blankets and couch cushions and builds a pillow fort that is magically soundproof. They all go their separate ways after the quarantine, relieved to be free.
  4. Initially, Jon and Gatsby hit it off. Gatsby and Anne get off on the wrong foot from the start, so Anne spends most of her time avoiding the both of them. Into the second week, Jon and Gatsby’s quick friendship is already fraying, as they realize they don’t have as much in common as they thought. In this tension, Jon finds Anne sulking in a corner, and she reminds him of Arya, so he talks to her. They bond, and while Jon does not want to alienate Gatsby, Gatsby ends up feeling like the odd one out anyway. Jon remains in touch with both after the quarantine, more often with Anne at first, though their correspondence fizzles out. His correspondence with Gatsby is more constant, but never stops being distantly polite.
  5. Khal Drogo attempts to kill Edward Cullen out of boredom, and is alarmed when his target proves to have superhuman powers. Clearly Cullen is a witch, and war must be waged. Bellatrix passes the time by playing double agent for both sides, pitting them against each other until her conniving proves no match for Drogo’s bloodlust.
  6. I have no idea what happened here as the only member of this group I am familiar with is Tintin. I suppose they have adventures. Sounds fun!
  7. Hazel, isolated from her family for no good reason, dies in accordance with Murphy’s law. Louisa is traumatized. Margo blocks the whole experience from her memory.
  8. Draco attempts to recruit Quentin and Gus as his cronies. When this fails, he tries to turn them against each other. When this fails too, he sulks in his room while Quentin and Gus become friends, bonding mostly over their mutual distaste for Draco.
  9. Neither Lord Voldemort nor Khaleesi submit to a measly quarantine, given that Voldy is immortal and Khaleesi can throw herself into an autoclave if necessary. They immediately identify each other as a formidable foe and set about building armies for their imminent war. Frodo’s survival instincts kick in immediately upon glimpsing them, and he hides in the cellar and goes undiscovered.

I hope this gives somebody entertainment. It certainly gave me some.

If anyone else has turned these memes into stories, please send me the link! Or if you want to do so now, send me the link or share your stories in the comments!

Stay safe, everyone!

The TLTLBU Sequel Woes

Posted on by Kai Raine

I’ve had a number of people approach me about when I’ll be releasing the sequel to TLTLBU.

The truth is…I have no idea. I’m in a PhD program right now, nothing to do with fiction writing, and that really should take precedence.

That said, I’m a firm believer that nothing should be prioritized above personal happiness. (And it’s much easier said than done. I cannot articulate how much I want to qualify the statement even as I type it.)

And for a long time, writing has made me happy. Writing. Not editing.

But these days I don’t stick to writing very long. Even on a day I decide to dedicate to writing, I’ll spend a meager amount of time writing, then to a book, or a walk in the park, or a recipe I’ve been wanting to try, or some yoga.

And that’s okay. I spend a lot of the time I’m doing other things thinking about the book, and that’s an important part of my process, too. The writing part goes faster after I’ve marinated my mind in the characters for a long time.

But I have this gnawing sense of guilt, about everything: too slow producing a paper for my PhD, too slow producing this sequel to a book I published 2 years ago.

Today, I was sorting through my files, and realized I couldn’t find the draft of Remind Us of the Truth that I started after releasing TLTLBU. Instead, I found a draft that I haven’t touched in 7 years: different title, slightly different plot points, but it’s a complete draft, prologue to epilogue.

And I’m presented with a dilemma.

Because I could just edit this draft into a serviceable sequel.

But it feels like cheating. I gave it a quick skim—it’s been so long I don’t even remember what’s in it anymore—and it’s much what I remember. The plot points need refining.

I know the way I edit. “Editing” this draft will mean I will in practice be rewriting the whole thing. But the skeleton of the existing outline will still be there, even if no one else ever sees it.

It’s not the same as the outline I had planned on in more recent years. There are 3 storylines—Gwen, Esther and a new character. Gwen’s storyline in this draft is obsolete, but I did have a storyline for her in the newer outline. The plan of the newer outline was that Esther and the new character’s storylines were musts for this book. Then there were three other storylines that I would write, and decide later how many, if any, of them belong in this book rather than in a later one.

If you’re wondering if this approach is how I came to have a complete draft of book 2 five years prior to publishing book 1…yes, that’s exactly right. I’m much more comfortable playing around at the editing stage if I know for sure that the progression will carry on into the next book.

But now, my time is finite. Editing this draft for the 2 storylines I’m keeping, plus rewriting Gwen’s storyline, and the 2 others from scratch, could work. It would definitely cut the time between now and the beta reader stage.

And yet.

I can’t help but fear that something would be missing from the story if I did it that way. With Esther’s storyline as the backbone of this next novel, I want that to be as polished as I can make it.

And can I do that with this draft as my jumping off point?

I have no idea.

Thank you, if you’re one of the people awaiting the sequel. It means a lot to me that there’s anyone out there other than myself who’s interested in following Esther and Gwen and Deric in their adventures to come.

The World Wide Web (No, the Other One)

Posted on by Kai Raine

The other day, my sister and I were having lunch and talking. I used the word “Iranian”, pronouncing it “I-ray-nian.”

“I-rah-nian,” my sister corrected.

I stared at her. She stared back with a slight smile, which turned to a frown as I just continued to stare.

“What?” she asked. “You correct my English.”

I do. It’s true. I try not to unless I’m having to put effort into comprehending her words, but I definitely end up sometimes needlessly “correcting” her.

Neither of us grew up in English-speaking environments. If I had an advantage in the language, I would guess that it was that I was often on my own. If I made a mistake, there was no one to shield me from the fallout: the laughter, mockery, condescension, and confusion of my peers and family were mine alone to bear.

So, here we were in a situation where my sister was convinced that this word was pronounced one way, and I was pronouncing it in another way. My instinct was to believe her, because I had no specific memory of being told how to pronounce the word “Iranian”.

But I’ve been training myself out of automatically believing things just because the speaker sounds confident and I’m not confident in my own knowledge. So instead, my sister and I cycled through words that we knew how to pronounce. “Canada” vs “Canadian”. “Arab” vs “Arabian”.

By the end, I was convinced that my pronunciation had not been wrong.

The point I’m making here is not one about pronunciation. I’m not a stickler for pronunciation or grammar in conversation. I think if you can make yourself understood, that’s all that matters. (My non-native English speaking friends can probably attest to how useless I am as an English-speaking practice partner.)

The point I’m making here is one of how knowledge comes to be.

Knowledge is Not Something One Person Has

Something that’s dominated my thinking a lot these past months is the psychology of knowledge.

A few years ago, I started taking more care paying attention to how much I believe of what people say to me.

At some point, I became aware that my natural tendency is to overwhelmingly believe the words that are said to me, even if they aren’t substantiated by anything…except maybe that I like the person who is saying them, or they sound more confident than I feel.

Once I started doing this, questioning everything that is said to me, I started to notice that a lot of people don’t seem to have any idea what they’re talking about. And all my life, I’ve been absorbing these pieces of “information” that are substantiated by nothing.

If I were to go through all the “knowledge” I think I have and dissect it, trying to figure out where I acquired it and how reliable a source that was, I would mentally cripple myself.

It’s not a flaw or a failing to not have fact-checked everything. I do this too: I simply repeat information or opinions that I’ve absorbed from my friends or environment, and don’t give much thought to their accuracy. In some circles, this is a hot topic about the cycle of misinformation. But it’s amazing how much this happens with little, pointless things–the way that everyday decisions can be swayed by words based on information based on nothing.

I read The Knowledge Illusion by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach–a book I highly recommend, by the way. Early on, this book highlights the fact that it’s impossible for one person alone to hold all relevant information about a given topic, and see the bigger picture. The bigger picture only comes together when several people come together, each with a different facet of knowledge.

I’ve found that it’s a difficult thing to do, always acknowledging that my viewpoints and opinions are only a tiny slice of the bigger picture–that I will likely never have a full grasp on the bigger picture. It’s a state of uncertainty, and while I can hold my mind there for a time, it often wants to slip into places of certainty.

Sometimes, I’ll notice in the middle of a conversation that all the words I’m saying, and all the words the other person is saying to me, are all pointless. We’re just knocking 2 opinions against each other, both unsubstantiated by anything other than a sense of “this feels right”.

It’s an adventure, and it’s also a realization that makes it harder to get upset or offended when someone says something “ignorant” that might otherwise have cut into my sense of self. It helps me to remember, in moments when I might otherwise be hurt, that this person has no idea what they’re saying—and neither do I.

But it’s not always about accuracy. There are meanings behind the (sometimes inaccurate) words, and that’s the important part.

Hello, Blog Readers…

Posted on by Kai Raine

Hello, there. How are you? It’s been forever since I blogged.

More accurately, it’s been 4 solid months.

Not that I was that reliable with my updates before then, but still.

I’ve been thinking, lately.

When did blogging become a chore? It used to be fun, but these days the thought of blogging is such a stress inducer. What’s my topic? Is it in keeping with the image I’ve been cultivating, the topics I committed to writing about? And then, as I start to write something more in the vein of an article, I wonder, “Should I post this on my blog? Shouldn’t I submit it as an article somewhere else, instead?”

Publicity is a funny thing. I forget when or where it was, but awhile ago, I came across this piece of advice in a writers forum: “Agents and publishers will want you to have a blog, a Facebook page, an Instagram, a Twitter, a Tumblr, a Snapchat and a YouTube channel, all updated several times a week. Most people can’t handle this and also write, much less anything else in life. You should pick the one or two things that you know you can stick with.”

This advice has stuck with me, because I was struggling. Instagram and Twitter are the easiest for me, I think–Instagram because I don’t bother posting for any reason but for fun, and Twitter because I know most people I know IRL aren’t watching, so I’m not so self-conscious. I’ve let myself lean on those two, but even then, I haven’t been updating much.

So we circle back to submitting work to journals and websites and magazines. I try to always have at least 1 work under consideration somewhere. But there are downsides to this, too. I maybe get some legitimacy out of being able to say that I had stories or articles accepted somewhere, but as far as I can see, those stories and articles don’t get any eyes on them.

Early last year, I submitted 2 articles to The Constitute Voice. One of them–an article about colonialism, which made use of an example using an alien invasion to explain its effects on the world centuries later, which I’ve been desperately wanting to turn into a proper sci fi novel–I was particularly proud of.

A mere few months later, it had been taken down. No explanation. No communication of any kind. I didn’t see any negative comments. I don’t know what happened, and I could work myself into a hole imagining all sorts of things–when really, if you take away the crisis, it’s as simple as saying, “Okay, fine,” and publishing the same thing on my blog instead.

There’s so much pressure on trying to be an author. There are all these rules, and dos and don’ts. There are so many how-tos, and so many things you’re supposed to be doing. It’s impossible to do them all, and when putting yourself out there turns into a chore, what’s the point?

Which is why I’m doing what I should have done months ago: declaring an end to the rules.

Will this result in more blogging? Only time will tell.

A Quick Guide for Writing Diverse Characters (Whose Backgrounds You Don’t Share)

Posted on by Kai Raine

It’s come to my attention that I take for granted that a lot of aspects of this subject—writing characters with backgrounds other than your own—are “common sense.”

My bad.

Since I have insomnia tonight (again), I thought I’d try to make it up by making a blog post about some of the most important aspects that I generally consider to be common sense. But then again, my own sense of what “common sense” means fluctuates wildly depending on all sorts of things. Like the culture I’m most attuned to or the language I happen to be thinking in. Or my mood at that particular moment.

To be totally honest and transparent, I’m writing this to and for myself. Because while I do think about this sort of thing a lot, it’s hard to hold everything in my head at once. So even when I say “you” in this post, I really mean me. If it helps someone else too, that’s awesome! If not, no offense is intended to anyone. (I’m looking at you, future me. I see you glaring back into the past.)

This is not a list I’m saying anybody should adhere to! It’s just a sort of guideline, for authors feeling stuck or insecure (as, at this particular moment, I do).

Here’s the standard disclaimer that I don’t state often enough: everything I say is purely my opinion. I’m not trying to say this is what’s right, or that my opinion is somehow better than someone else’s. If anything I say seems off to you, feel free to leave a comment educating me, or find someplace on the internet that’s more your speed. I’m grateful if you do the former (even if I don’t agree, I like hearing what other people are thinking), and I’m happy you’re happy if you do the latter.

The Big Question: Is it okay for me to write a character of a background not my own?

Just in case you haven’t heard me talk about this before: YES. YES YES YES YES YES!!!! My answer to this question has, so far, always been yes.

Write what you want to write. Don’t let anything hold you back.

Writing is, by definition, living lives not our own. What would the world be if we only ever wrote characters from our own backgrounds? There’s something that can be groundbreaking in a story that reflects the reality of the author, writing their truths about their own background into a character. But that’s not the only way to write.

Okay, I’m doing this! Where do I start?

Okay, let’s back up a bit. You’re writing a diverse character. I would start with the question: Why give this character this background?

Let me be clear: I’m not saying that this should be a deterrent. Not at all. What I’m saying is this: Take a good, hard look at why you’re doing what you’re doing. Know it, so you can own it.

What do I mean by this?

Step 1: Digging Up Your Motive

Whatever your motive is to include diversity among your cast, your motive will likely bring with it some strengths and some weaknesses. By knowing and owning your motive, you can balance out some potential weaknesses.

Sometimes, an author’s seeming motivations are painfully cringe-worthy—and I do say “seeming motivations” to remind us all that I can’t tell you what was actually going on in their minds. I can only say how they looked to me. Off the top of my head, I can give you several examples of these seeming motivations:

  1. Through this minority character, the non-minority protagonist learns to support minorities.
  2. I need a minority character in my book for the sake of optics.
  3. I don’t know, I just wanted a character of this background, I guess.

Let’s talk about these motivations for a second.

I’m going to say something you might not expect: nothing is wrong with you if any of the above is your motive. There are all sorts of reasons why you might decide to do something as an author.

However, if your readers can recognize that that was your initial motive, then…well. That becomes a different story. Let me walk you through a very simple rundown of how I might conclude that an author of a book I’m reading was motivated by each of these 3 compulsions.

  1. The character is going through a struggle having to do with his/her background, yet his/her emotion and struggle are for some reason almost, if not entirely, shouldered by the protagonist instead.
  2. There is a single minority character among a bunch of otherwise non-minority characters. This character is treated as a joke/stereotype/nuisance/disposable.
    • ALTERNATIVELY, if the character is from a non-visible minority, then the fact that they are of this minority is treated as irrelevant to their character or the story, but the fact that they are of this minority is treated as a BIG DEAL.
  3. The character is of a certain minority, but at certain points, there’s a certain cognitive dissonance.
    • For example: a deaf character has no trouble following and participating in a group conversation where no one’s using sign language. Now, this is not impossible. However, lipreading in a group conversation where you don’t necessarily know where to look as different people stop and start talking would be extremely difficult, and probably exhausting. If the text doesn’t reflect this challenge, it can come off as the author forgetting that this character was deaf and the limitations that come with it.

I would also advise caution if your motivation includes “championing” the cause of a minority of which you are not a part. I don’t say this because of any judgement of the motivation. But when we feel that we’re doing something “right,” we’re more inclined to be blind to what we may be doing wrong.

Step 2: Know That You Do Not Fully Know Your Character

Now that we’ve considered our motivations, we move on to the next step.

You’ve started crafting a character of this cool diverse background; maybe it’s been long enough that you already deeply love and sympathize with him/her. That’s awesome, but don’t forget—you don’t know this character. In many ways, you probably never will. This character has lived a life you can imagine, but cannot experience.

It may be impossible to turn your brain entirely back to a blank slate to try to understand this character—but that’s okay.

As part of this step, remember: you have a bunch of friends of this minority that you love? Great. That has no bearing on your ability to portray this character.

Beware especially of the thought process: I have one friend of this background, therefore I can write this character.

Sure, we can base a character on a person in our lives; but basing a character on a real life person including their background with no other frame of reference is extremely dangerous. I do not advise doing this. (In fact, even as I envision this scenario, there are at least 3 voices in my head screaming, “Abort! ABORT!!! ABORT!!!“)

Step 3: Take the Time to Research

There’s only one solid rule in my mind about writing a character from a background not your own, and that rule is this: do not rush the research!

Sure, you can write drafts even while your research is still young and shallow. But just because your story seems to be working just fine without more research, don’t stop there.

By research, I don’t just mean learn the figures and numbers and statistics about this minority.

You’re not representing the entire minority. You’re representing your character. And that character grew up with a culture or traditions or norms that you do not share. The statistics and cold hard facts only go so far to building this character. Knowing them will help you, but they aren’t enough.

Step 3a: What do you take for granted that your character doesn’t? (or vice versa)

Every minority, be it race or disability or gender or religion or anything else you can think of, has something (actually, multiple somethings) that they struggle with that the majority takes for granted.

Therefore, whether you see yourself as a member of the majority writing a minority, or a member of one minority writing another minority, or even a minority writing the majority, be on the lookout for these things that some take for granted and others cannot.

Don’t stop when you find the most obvious ones—keep looking. If it seems easy, look harder. (Or longer. Don’t stress yourself out about it. My writing tends to get measurably worse when I’m stressed.)

Step 3b: What assumptions have you been making about this minority?

Try to find the things that never occurred to you—the things that run contrary to what you might have expected.

The benefit to this is two-fold. On one hand, you gain insight into your character’s background. On the other hand, you also gain insight into what used to be a blindspot of your own.

For instance, take this video by Molly Burke. Despite the fact that I have a published short story featuring a blind main character, and as such have done a great deal of reading and researching about what it’s like to live without sight, much of Molly’s perspective still surprises me. I don’t see my ignorance as anything to be ashamed of—it’s a chance for me to learn something new, and in case I was getting arrogant, reaffirm that I don’t really know what it’s like.

(And yet I feel compelled to tell everyone—I wrote that piece a really long time ago. It was only published last year, but I wrote it back in 2010. It was, in fact, the first piece I ever wrote after deciding to make a go of being a “real writer”. It’s also my first short story. In a way, it’s more a reflection of what I thought literary magazines wanted than anything.

Okay, moving on!)

Step 4: Overlooked Blind Spots

This is a tricky one. “Look at your blind spot!” is an insanely unhelpful piece of advice.

As a general rule, this is probably where I would start seeking external guidance if I haven’t already been consulting with anyone. If I have been consulting with someone or someones, I might go hunting for a fresh, alternate perspective.

Again, the point is not to take this alternate perspective and weave it religiously into the character. The purpose is to possibly make you aware of anything you might not previously have thought of.

Step 5: Live Your Character for a Day (or however long feels right)

I’d probably only go over this step for a protagonist. Actually, I have a lot of stories on hiatus because I live in terror of step 5, even within my mind.

This is the step where things get really hard.

You’re writing about a refugee. Have you been to her hometown? Have you been to the sort of environment where this character would have gone to apply for asylum? Have you observed the difference between what it’s like to be going through the process of applying for asylum, versus how it is to have been granted asylum?

You’re writing about a character of a religion not your own. Have you spent any extended period of time surrounded by this religion? Have you been to religious services?

In some cases, there’s nothing you can do to try to live your character’s life. Things like skin color, gender identity, sexuality, biological sex—we’ve got what we got, and there’s no getting away from that. But that very fact can make us that much wiser when writing these characters—it makes us aware that we’re leaning heavily on the limits of our minds.

Step 6: Show Your Story to Someone

I’ve been assuming that, during this whole process, we’ve been writing and editing and going through draft after draft.

At some point, show your story to someone. It doesn’t have to be someone of the minority (or minorities) you were writing, but that probably helps.

Remember to take their opinions with a grain of salt, positive or negative. They’re just one person.

The Bottom Line

Even as we try to be conscious of all the things we might be missing, we’re not aiming for perfection. If the story feels right, and the character feels right in it, then that’s that.

It shouldn’t become a source of stress.

Write however feels best.

As I’ve written this, it’s struck me that this is probably a process that it’s good to go through with any character, not just minorities. We’re not just talking about societal majority/minority issues, after all. We authors are each 1 person trying to weave stories with dozens or hundreds of characters.

Anyway. I hope that this was useful to someone, somewhere, sometime. (Looking at you, future me.)

Isobel’s Quandary

Posted on by Kai Raine

My mother and I used to read a lot of Eva Ibbotson romances.

And by “a lot,” I mean “all of them.” It was my mother who started giving me straight-up romances, instead of my usual fantasy or mystery novels with romantic subplots. She tried this several times—I don’t know if it’s because she liked romances, or because she thought I seemed to get the most out of those romantic subplots. I suppose we’ll never know, since I never thought to ask.

Whatever her motive, she tried several times—and most times, those attempts failed miserably. She first introduced me to romance novels when I was about eleven or twelve. These were novels like teen romance movies from the ’80s, revolving around high school and cliques and peer pressure, and that one perfect boy who comes and turns the main character’s life upside down.

I wasn’t yet at the point where I could form the opinion of “disliking” a book. I don’t remember having any particular negative feelings. I merely didn’t feel like reading more things like that. I do remember not understanding why there were weird initiation rituals to cliques, and wondering why in the world anyone would bother.

I was fifteen or sixteen when my mother finally found my sweet spot: that sweet spot was Eva Ibbotson.

I’d already read and loved Journey to the River Sea, Which Witch, The Secret of Platform 13, and other such stories. One day, my mother handed me The Countess Below Stairs. I took one look at the author name and started reading.

I was hooked. I was weirdly into Russia at the time, and the historical fiction with an aggressively tame, G-rated romance was right up my alley. The countess-turned-servant angle was also pretty fun. Somehow, that book managed to push all my buttons: it gave me angst without getting dark; deep, world-rocking emotion without getting wordy or descriptive about it; and a main character whose misfortune didn’t bring her down, who seemed to go around making other people’s lives just a little bit brighter.

I have to say, I think that part of the appeal of Eva Ibbotson romances are that they aren’t merely romances. The two main characters overcoming the obstacles that keep them from being together when they first meet—that’s just the frosting on the cake that is these stories. The cake is the sheer richness of story, full of side characters with little stories in their everyday lives.

In the case of The Countess Below Stairs, it’s in the neighbors, the staff, and both families. These books are populated with characters with joys and sorrows and dreams and hopes and fears, and Ibbotson weaves them all together into a stunning tapestry that always leaves me looking at the world around me and feeling it a little brighter.

I bring this up because recently, I’ve been thinking of A Company of Swans. This is the story of Harriet, the abused daughter of a misogynistic professor, who runs away from home (and, indeed, England) to be a dancer with a ballet company that goes to Brazil. Here she meets Rom, the second son of an English noble who left home in a rage after the love of his life, Isobel, was offered a choice between Rom with his love or Rom’s brother with his title and money—and Isobel chose the latter.

My mother and I used to talk about this book, once upon a time. I was young, and the uncaring, status-obsessed Isobel didn’t seem worth much thought. She was a villain, for the purposes of the story. Obviously Rom had been mistaken in her character, I thought.

My mother disagreed. She reflected that the choice Isobel made—choosing status over love—must have changed her, because she would have had to live with that choice afterwards.

Years later, upon rereading the book, I was surprised that I’d ever thought of Isobel as a villain. She’s uncaring towards her son and clearly pursuing Rom at Harriet’s expense. Yet Rom himself points out in the text—he can only pity her. I find that I pity her, too.

Of course, there’s no way to know how Eva Ibbotson intended Isobel to be read, but as a believer of the school of thought known as Death of the Author, I don’t really think it matters. I like my mother’s interpretation, because I believe that that is a true phenomenon. We make choices that we tell ourselves are practical, because they offer us what we think is supposed to make life happier, or easier; but in reality, we’re giving up something else that we’d never have given up, had we known how much of ourselves we would lose in the process.

It’s easy to look down on Isobel, I think, because we’re indoctrinated on Hollywood and Disney movies telling us to Follow Your Heart, and that True Love is the answer. It may be easy to see why giving up your true love for his brother’s status and money would cut this woman to the soul and change her fundamentally, for the worse. But despite—or maybe because of—that, I think Isobel is a beautiful lesson hidden in plain sight.

I think of Isobel a lot, these days. I say I pity her, but I don’t mean it in a condescending way, if that’s at all believable.

I have a low-paying part-time job, and have been accepted for a second part-time job starting next year. But I’m already experiencing weeks when my body simply can’t keep up with the one job plus research, plus all the other random things I decide I want to do (reading, volunteering, going out with friends, writing).

So I applied for a scholarship through my university, and they recommended me for one, which I then proceeded to fill out and complete the application.

It weighs on my mind, now. This scholarship would be from a tobacco company. The money would be good—enough to live on 2/3 and have 1/3 left over for fun, or savings. When I completed the application, I was in the mindset of, “Well, a scholarship is a scholarship.”

I spent half of this month living on meager paycheck to meager paycheck, and it was rough. So I saw the opportunity for an end to this, and I leapt at the thought.

But ever since, I’ve felt the weight of it on my mind, darkening me. I’ve found myself thinking of Isobel.

It’s practical. But if I get accepted (because I haven’t been yet, thank goodness), and I take it, what is the true cost going to be? In a physical sense, it would make life easier; but for my mind? I feel like it would cloud me up again. All the junk in my mind I’ve cleared away, the little bit of clarity I feel like I’ve finally been arriving at in this last year, or half a year—what was all that for, if I’m just going to take a scholarship from a company that I know I don’t like? Who’s actively pushing tobacco into international markets?

After all this time, sorting through all the little things that have clouded my mind and made me more a product of my environment than anything truly me—what kind of idiot am I that I think that I can accept something like this in the name of ease and time and think it won’t affect me in any bigger ways? That it can just be a paycheck and an occasional gala-type event that I have to attend? When has that type of logic ever truly worked for me? (Never. I can’t remember a single instance where it didn’t come back to haunt me.)

Practicality is only one part of the puzzle—a big part, yes, but I think I’d rather deal with the impractical solution that leaves me without such a weight on my conscience.

EDIT: I don’t think that Isobel necessarily would have been happier had she married Rom. Clearly, a penniless suitor wasn’t something that appealed to her, regardless of how much love there was between them. I do think that even if she had made that choice, they would most likely have grown apart in time and become unhappy—maybe Rom would have gone on to meet Harriet, fall for her and have an affair with her anyway, and she really would have become his mistress, just as she was convinced that was the most she could ever hope for in the story itself.

I don’t think Isobel’s mistake was not marrying Rom. I think her mistake was marrying Rom’s brother. And those are not the same thing, to me. But I also recognize that in reality, that’s probably the hardest choice to make of all. Stuck between the choice your heart yearns for and the choice your mind yearns for, saying “I pick neither” is probably the hardest thing in the world, and itself carries the risk that then you’re searching for some impossibly perfect thing to justify what you gave up for some reason you probably can’t even articulate.

Just so we’re clear.

The Irresistible Lure of Failure

Posted on by Kai Raine

Have you ever heard of the secretive, bizarre 60-hour over-100-mile race that has only been completed by 15 runners since it began 30 years ago?

If you answered no, we’re in the same boat. I’d never heard of the Barkley Marathons until this week.

When I’m tired, I often watch the Today I Found Out YouTube channel. Earlier this week, I stumbled across this video when YouTube recommended it to me.

If you don’t have the time to watch an 18-minute video, here’s the TL;DW (“too long; didn’t watch”, or a brief summation of the video): Barkley is a race that is deliberately designed to be unbeatable. From the secretive application process to the course that gets harder every time someone manages to finish, the whole thing is designed to be an Experience in Failure.

And from the moment that I watched that first YouTube video, I have been utterly hooked. It’s funny, in a way, because while I do run sometimes as a means to an end (i.e. exercise), it’s never been something I enjoy. I’m happy when I can run 5km continuously; never in a million years have I considered running a marathon, let alone one that’s 160km in the mountains.

But that’s not the point.

This race, to me, isn’t about the running. No—instead, it’s the stuff of dreams: pushing yourself to the limit for a near-impossible goal, with no reward on the horizon beyond the ability to say “I did it.”

Isn’t it glorious?

I’ve watched footage of the race taken by runners, an absolutely spectacular documentary about Gary Robbins’ attempt to complete the race, and a multitude of other sources about the race.

It brings me such joy, this race.

We as a society can be so insecure when it comes to failure.

Whether it be the validity of our own opinions, little inevitable mistakes born of carelessness or inexperience, arbitrary goals that we set for ourselves, or a wide range of other things, we can become embarrassed or ashamed in the moment or even just reliving the memory. Sometimes, we even lie or obfuscate to hide these little things.

But why?

Failure is a wondrous thing. For years, The Incomplete Book of Failures by Stephen Pile has been a staple gift item of mine. It may be out of print, but it is such a wonderful book to have around so that one can have a good laugh from time to time.

But that’s always been insufficient in and of itself, of course, because that book is more about laughing at other people’s failures than about being secure about our own.

It’s more than that, I realized recently as I read The Story of Jiro by Kojin Shimomura. This is a story of an unfortunately “monkey-faced” second son of a well-off family growing up and learning about life and the people around him. It reminded me somewhat of Anne of Green Gables, both stories being episodic stories of a particular child that expanded gradually into that character’s lifetime in stories.

The Story of Jiro and the Danger of Praise

One of Jiro’s childhood struggles is his insecurity about his position in the eyes of the adults in his family. Because Jiro’s mother was unable to produce enough milk, Jiro was raised in his early years by a wet nurse; consequently, even after he is reclaimed by his birth parents, he grows up perceiving his wet nurse as his main mother figure. Between Jiro’s paternal grandmother’s overt favoritism for both of his brothers over Jiro, and his own internal conviction that his own mother neither wants nor loves him due to poor communication between the two, Jiro finds refuge in the male adults in his family: his father and maternal grandfather. At first very rebellious, Jiro settles down after a series of events culminating in a meaningful discussion with his grandfather.

After a time during which Jiro takes care to behave himself well, including several Very Good Deeds, he is praised by everyone in his family—save his grandfather. Jiro becomes increasingly convinced that he has been shunned by his grandfather, and is just about to lash out—when his grandfather acknowledges that Jiro has done a Very Good Thing.

Jiro is at a loss at this. If his grandfather has always been on his side, then why hasn’t he been praising Jiro along with all the other adults?

His grandfather tells him a story, then, about a young Buddhist disciple. All the young disciples are trained in reciting the sutras, but most of them do so going through the motions, only memorizing the words. This disciple, however, is different. He takes the time to meditate on the meanings; to ask the monks about what he doesn’t understand, and meditate upon their answers. Because he takes the time to understand, when he recites the sutras, it is a beautiful thing to hear.

One day, a group of visiting monks arrive, and this young disciple recites the sutras for them in a ceremony. The monks are duly impressed, and tell the disciple that they have never heard those sutras recited so wonderfully. Their praise is lavish, and the disciple is utterly delighted.

And from then on, whenever he starts to recite the sutras, what comes to mind is not the meanings of the sutras, but instead the delight he felt at being praised for reciting so well. The brilliance of his recitation fades away, until they ring dull and hollow.

At last, the boy goes to the monk presiding over his temple and asks for permission to go into the woods to train alone.

“Why do you want to do that?” asks the monk.

“I can’t focus my mind,” the disciple laments. “Ever since those visiting monks praised my recitations, my head’s been turned. I am still utterly immature.”

The monk considers the disciple solemnly. “You are wise,” he says to the boy. “For where many focus on the way that a scolding disturbs the mind, words of praise are far more dangerous—but there are few who ever notice.”

Jiro’s grandfather finishes the story, and asks Jiro if he understands. Jiro does.

I felt like I was there with Jiro, a child being enlightened on something so simple—something that I almost feel like I remember hearing as a child and then forgetting because I, unlike Jiro, didn’t understand its significance.

The Gift of Failure

I’ve been learning to practice radical self-acceptance—this is my therapist’s school of thought. In learning this, failures and mistakes have been the greatest gift.

I grew up beating myself up for every failure; recounting and reliving failures hours or days or months or years past again and again. Somehow, there was a part of me that thought that failure=bad and therefore I must punish myself.

But that’s not true, I’m finally learning. Failures are utterly valuable—I can learn from them, and not just in a don’t-do-this-again sense.

It’s in learning to apologize and change my behavior without letting shame disrupt my mind. It’s in accepting that in conversations where miscommunications prevail, I don’t have to keep talking, trying to clarify as if the misunderstanding is tantamount to a lie. It’s in accepting that I can tell people things about uncertain thoughts of the future without throwing the mantle of “unreliable” over myself when I ultimately don’t choose to do what I said I would. It’s in accepting the flaws of my mind and action as things that are, indeed, flaws, but are simply a part of me and nothing to be ashamed of.

There was a part of me that always thought that if I stopped beating myself up for each and every failure, I’d lose the ability to learn from each failure.

But that’s not what’s happened.

Instead, I’m only more clear-minded: “I didn’t like how I said that. Oh well. Next time.” And often, I do change. Maybe not immediately, but gradually and surely.

And I can do these, because they are failures. Praise and success are, as Jiro’s grandfather’s story portrayed, harder to recover from. I had no words for it before I read that book. Praise sometimes paralyzes me as I fear squandering the good will I’ve somehow built up. Other times, success makes me lazy until I am failing once again and must fight my way back up.

Circling Back to Barkley…

Is this why the idea of a failure-guaranteed race so appeals to me? Maybe. I can’t say for sure. All I know is that I love the idea of Barkley.

Something contestants are almost guaranteed to fail. But they try it anyway. They wish each other five loops with grins. They push themselves and push themselves, and many try again and again.

It’s a bizarre little event.

And I love the idea of it.

The Different and the Same

Posted on by Kai Raine

“No one is born with prejudice,” I often hear. And while that is true, it does come with some caveats. No one is born racist, but most small children do grow accustomed to a certain set of physical characteristics that they frequently see, and can become alarmed upon meeting someone with different characteristics.

For me as an infant, it was men with beards and/or deep voices. My father’s voice isn’t very deep, and he’s chosen to present himself as clean shaven consistently since before I was born. Of my parents’ friends, most were also clean shaven and with higher voices. When the few with beards or deep voices attempted to approach me, my mother recounted, I would cry.

The community where we lived when I was born was a very, very white one. So perhaps it was inevitable that one girl of my age would scream bloody murder at the sight of my dark-skinned father—an action which led her embarrassed parents to suddenly realize they had somewhere else to be, as the story was recounted to me.

I never noticed the skin color difference until I was put into preschool at four years old.

There was a state-mandated inclusivity session for preschools, called “We’re all different, we’re all the same.” In this session, the teachers sat us all down and explained to us that everybody is the same, even if our hair color or eye color or skin colors are different.

I have no doubt that this is a session that was useful to some children, who had already noticed that there was a difference and started acting upon it. However, for me, it had the opposite effect.

I looked around, and for the first time, realized that all the children but me and one boy had white skin, and most of them even had blond hair and blue eyes. I had boring brown eyes; stupidly dark hair; and shamefully dark skin. Obviously, I realized, if they were telling us that we were actually all the same, that meant that we weren’t. That day, I went home and cried to my mother, asking why I couldn’t have her skin, hair and eye color.

My mother was furious, but had no idea what to do except try to explain to me that I was perfect as I was. (Not that it mattered. I’d already firmly decided that white skin, blue eyes and blond hair were the Ideal.) My mother remained so furious that over twenty years later, she wrote a lengthy letter to one of my preschool teachers, detailing the damage that that single session did to my psyche.

As it turned out, that teacher was already aware of the damage. She had colored grandchildren, who had gone through a similar experience, and lamented the state mandate for the inclusivity session that seemed to have the unfortunate effect of making visible minority children aware that they were minorities.

I’ve often pondered this. It took the better part of a decade for me to grow out of the idea that someday I might be able to change my looks for the better with plastic surgery.

Yes: in my early teens, I actually became more secure with my looks. I attribute it partly to losing interest: after nine years of mentally beating myself up for being what I was, alternating between avoiding mirrors and staring into them detailing all the physical characteristics that were “wrong”—first because I wasn’t white, and then because I wasn’t Japanese—I finally simply grew tired of the stress and resigned myself to what I was. It helped that there were bigger things to worry about regarding my appearance, like my horrid acne outbreaks and my awful habit of scratching at them until they bled rivers in the middle of class.

What I most regret—what terrifies me to confess about this whole debacle, was the way I treated others. Because I was so convinced that being dark skinned was bad, I shunned the child—namely the one boy in my preschool—who was darker than I. Because being dark was bad, but being associated with other dark children, in my mind, would have made it even worse, as if somehow my skin color might change by association.

I don’t have a solution to this sort of situation. I’m sure there are excellent programs out there. This is simply my story.

Counterbalancing (a Tiny Bit of) Our Biases

Posted on by Kai Raine

Apparently yesterday’s (by an hour) post was more personal than I was quite ready for…

Let’s detox with something less personal!

Counterbalancing a Tiny Bit of Our Biases

An Unofficial Crash Course in Cognitive Science for Writers: Pt. 1

Have you ever reflected on a memory, and brought it up with a family member or friend who was there, only to find that they remembered it very differently?

Some of this has to do with how the brain stores and rewrites memories; some of this has to do with perspective and past experience. But it also has to do with a word I secretly hate using: bias.

We all are biased. Maybe that bias isn’t necessarily fixed for extended periods time, but at any point, our brains can only be in one state. As a general rule, I find it helpful to think of it this way: we’re made up of all our biological predispositions plus the heavily weighted events that steered us through our development, plus every millisecond of experiences since then.

Personally, it’s a little overwhelming if I dwell on it.

My father always said, there is no wasted time. In the world of neuroscience, this is true. Every thing we do or don’t do, everything we say or don’t say, everything we think or don’t think is part of the process that creates paths in our minds. For instance, if we “hate watch” things, or read articles that make us angry and worse, subsequently dwell on these things, we can end up reinforcing those anger-inducing pathways. We can end up forming a sort of pseudoidentity around something that, ostensibly, we would have been happier if we could have dismissed from the start. Love and hate use the same circuitry in the brain, after all, though hate apparently retains a semblance of rationality.

When I was learning the flute, my teacher used to talk about the “erosion” of mistakes. For every time I made a mistake, she would say, I had to play that part correctly twenty times to counterbalance the mistake. Any less, she said, and the mistake would take root in my fingers, and I would be doomed to make it again.

As I started studying cognitive science, I felt a growing marvel at the wisdom of my flute teacher. Because, we learned, while science in the past was determined to map the brain by finding the specializations of certain locations, that’s not quite how it works. Some parts of the brain are specialized, yes, but by and large, brain “mapping” is about networks. And habits—not just patterns of how we act, but the thought patterns underlying them—are networks that become engrained in our brains. Not only are they hard to break; even once we do break them, it’s incredibly easy to set off that neuronal pathway again.

Those thought habits? They’re part of what create biases.

If your first thought is that you can control your mind, adjusting for every unwelcome stray thought the same way my flute teacher taught me to adjust for mistakes—sure, by all means, if you can do that. I can’t do that, but I’m not foolish enough to believe that no one can.

For me, I had to embrace radical self-acceptance. Learning not to blame myself for anything: learning to observe, and adjust my behavior. Accepting that not everything is in my control, even in the confines of my own mind; that sometimes, I’m an asshole and that’s okay. It was radical self-acceptance that is teaching me to see my own biases and thought-habits more clearly, and—slowly, but surely—adjust them, where I want to.

Racial Bias

Since we’re talking about writing, we have to talk about some form of bias. I have to admit, I don’t usually talk about “race”-based bias, because in my experience, “racism” is too narrow, and gives a pass to a lot of similar thought patterns that would be covered if I only chose the umbrella of “tribalism”. So I do that. But that doesn’t mean that I discount racial bias—it just means that it’s one of many types of bias that I try to be aware of.

For the purposes of this post—recognizing and correcting our own biases—it must be largely irrelevant what other people are doing. The only extent to which other people’s biases matter, in this context, is how they affect us: if someone else’s tribalism is making us more tribal, for example.

But if we’re talking about studies, “tribalism” is too broad: it can be seen in nationalism, ethnocentrism, and so many other types of “ism”s. I’m opting to talk about race, here, because there is plenty of research on the subject. So, if you’re wondering if you might be racially biased, you could try taking this test. (If you want to take it, then for the sake of doing so without hearing about my experience, please take it before reading the next paragraph.)

To be honest, I’m somewhat suspicious of this test, since I felt like I knew exactly what the test was looking for, and therefore had the power to control it. I messed up on a single image the first time I took it, and that resulted in it giving me the result that I was biased; surprised that it would yield that result after a sample size of 1, I tried taking it a second time, messing up in the same way once, but then also messing up in the opposite way once. It told me that I was unbiased, that time. I admit to being slightly annoyed at that, since I could easily have made that “correction” the first time—I felt like it was a coin’s toss whether I chose to let the mistake go or try to “correct” it.

But at the end of the day, only this truth matters: race is just a social construct. Scientific research has even offered cause to question the validity of medical profiling of people by race.

Now, what this means for a member of society is very different from what this means for a writer.

As members of society, it means we must make an active effort to move past any sort of bias—which brings us back to having to recognize and counterbalance our own biases. Here, I don’t have that much advice to offer, except to read some cognitive science studies on bias and wonder how it might apply to various aspects of my life.

A personal example… For me, this involves going into the dark corners of my mind that I’d really rather leave untouched, and trying to recognize whenever I’m developing a bias; engaging in conversations that make me feel uncomfortable and upset with people who I feel don’t care about my perspective, and trying to understand theirs anyway. To me, it means leaving any preconceptions about who is worth talking with and listening to behind—trying to find a way to connect with people that I might otherwise shut out.

A scientific example… There was a study conducted in which participants would wear gloves, causing their skin to appear a different color than it was; and this showed that participants were more likely to show empathy for someone with a different skin color afterwards. This article provides an excellent rundown of the study and the background.

But as writers, our challenge is a slightly different one. Because while at our core, we may be the same, our experiences are often different. A person used to being treated fairly may not see or believe another person’s story of unfairness in the same setting, for example—a pattern all too common on the news.

An optional writing exercise

Look back on one of your experiences of an event, person and/or place you have lived through—preferably a mundane one that you have only ever considered from your own perspective. Reflect on other, very different experiences that people might have had. Perhaps this involves asking siblings or friends or relatives about their perspective of this event, person or place. Notice the differences from your own memories. Try writing a short story about that event, from someone else’s perspective—real or fictional. Then, after you’ve written it from the other person’s perspective, write it from your own.

An optional reflection: Has your perspective of your own experience changed?

(Just a note: there are no right or wrong answers, here. It’s just an exercise.)

To be continued…

I think. If anyone found this helpful and wants more, please let me know in the comments or an email or a message through the site’s contact form.

Here are some resources that I think are extremely helpful in understanding how the mind doesn’t necessarily work in the way that we might expect.

This book is about subconscious decision-making, and how we often end up rationalizing decisions that our brains have made for reasons unknown to us.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (and Other Clinical Tales) by Oliver Sacks

Phantoms in the Brain by V. S. Ramachandran

Variable Comforts

Posted on by Kai Raine

A Talk about “Writing Diverse Characters”

I gave a talk at the Japan Writers Conference about writing diverse characters. Like I said in my post leading up to the conference, I chose to go in with practically no preparation. I ended up so tense that I foolishly rehearsed talking about certain things—and those things were, predictably, the things I ended up wanting to talk about. I wanted to not prepare to avoid biasing myself in favor of certain topics, you see—but by rehearsing some things and not everything (which is of course impossible, since I couldn’t have known going in what people would want me to talk about), I biased myself in favor of talking about those things. For better or for worse.

Considering how much it stressed me out to try that format, and how I basically failed at my goal of giving a talk unbiased by my own preferences of topic, I was a little surprised that so many people seemed happy with the outcome.

The idea was that by asking people to introduce themselves early on, they would have a sense of which of each other to turn to, and I could also tailor what I talked about to what I thought it would help people to hear.

There are things I would do differently if I chose to do it again. But considering I felt like I had no idea what I was doing going in, I think it went pretty well!

There’s one thing I didn’t get to that I regret: talking a little about bias. I said that I operate by trying to understand my own biases, and the way that I think, and trying to balance that out. (Edit: I do intend to make a less personal post eventually, with links to more resources! This is not that, though if you follow the links below, some do lead to resources that may end up referenced in that post, as well.)

It’s a simplistic explanation of a complicated subject, so I’m going to write a post, now, explaining some facet of my mindset.

Discomfort in Comfort

The bottom line of what I’m about to describe is simple: I’m not comfortable being comfortable.

In essence, I suppose I try as much as possible to be aware that I’m only 1 of 8,000,000,000. I’m nearly nothing; and in fact, I aspire to be nothing—to be a blank canvas on which any story can write itself.

Obviously, that’s impossible. Complete absence of personality and preference and bias is probably unhealthy. Probably, everybody has a degree to which they’re comfortable leaving their own skin in their minds; a point beyond which things start to feel wrong.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I live in a state where almost everything feels just a little bit “wrong”. I don’t know if it’s a factor of how I grew up—always an outsider, always the Other. I don’t know if it’s because of the mind games my cognitive scientist father played with me as a child—teaching me to exercise my imagination. I don’t know if it’s a predisposition, or PTSD, or maybe even a benign temporary state that I will grow out of.

Whatever the case, nothing makes me more uncomfortable than feeling like people are trying to accept me into their “group”. It’s not that I don’t want to be in a group; it’s not even that I don’t join the group.

But I am conscious of the group thinking; of any points where it becomes us vs them; of the ways that I adapt to the group. I’m also always conscious that the very same process that brings us closer together is also driving us further away from the rest of the world.

From a more selfish perspective, I’m also aware of the fact that the group might, at some point, decide—with good reasons that my mind can easily produce—that I don’t really belong.

Flexible Opinions

Opinions, to me, are just things in a box that I carry around. Sure, there are some that I’m more attached to than others, but I see them as tools in the constant search for better ones. So I’m that annoying person who, when surrounded by people all echoing the same opinion, will ask for an explanation from another viewpoint in order to see how this opinion is expanded and defended.

I have been conscious of and highly suspicious of my “brain holes” as well as everyone else’s, to the extent that I start to simply set myself at opinions opposed to whatever I’m reading or whomever I’m talking to, if the person or writing seems too ingrained in one particular perspective. If I catch myself thinking, “This just sounds right,” I immediately go looking for data to disprove it—or, if I don’t have time for that, just find a counterpoint opinion and send my mind to time-out over there.

Often, I end up debating these opinions I’ve randomly selected on a sort of a reflex—I’ve taken this stance, and feel I must defend it.

It’s not a lie, exactly, because I believe it’s my opinion in the moment. But these come and go so quickly—in a matter of days or hours, sometimes.

This doesn’t necessarily mean I’m always out for a debate. That gets exhausting. And there are times when I want validation. But then I usually go to people whose honesty I trust, and sometimes tell them that I’m feeling vulnerable and don’t want opposition.

So there are settings where I want and maybe even need validation.

That preface is a counterpoint to my next generalization: verbal validation in particular can make me feel uncomfortable, in some settings. Maybe this is one of the reasons why I’m so at ease with the idea that some people really don’t understand or like TLTLBU; I’m more comfortable trying reading or listening to someone’s thoughts to try and understand what put them off my writing than I am simply accepting that someone really liked my writing.

So…What?

So what? What’s the point of any of this? Am I saying people should try to be like me? No. Of course not. I think the world takes all sorts of people to function, and if everyone thought like me…yikes.

I’m not sure what the point is, actually.

Someone said that good writing comes from extremes, and I should be trying less to be balanced.

Maybe that’s true. There are certainly ways to interpret those words—not necessarily how they were intended—in a way that would be productive.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention in this post that I’m a recovering codependent: I used to use my flexibility of mind to mould my thoughts as closely as possible against another person’s, whom I liked. This doesn’t mean I’d just agree blindly with everything they’d say; but I’d find an angle that worked for me that was mostly in alignment with other people I liked—or, often, in alignment with what they thought I did or should believe. I couldn’t tell you which came first—my malleable mind or my codependent tendencies.

But the keyword there is recovering. That is no longer who I am.

So who am I, really? What lies at the core of all this malleability? I’m honestly not sure. I used to think there was nothing there. I’m starting to realize that there is a person there; but right now, all I know about her is that she doesn’t like thinking in absolutes, and she likes trying to understand people on a deeper level than mere surface logic.

I only just realized a few months ago that I think in specifics but often speak in generalizations. I used to think that this was what everyone did—until I realized that some people genuinely seem to think of certain things (usually places and people and other things they’re not familiar with) in generalizations. I’m not sure what to do with that. I feel like if I were speaking in specifics, I’d come off as extremely pedantic, and be tedious. (I don’t just mean I’d be tedious to listen to—I mean I’d be tedious talking.)

I don’t know what to do with it, but it’s a new fact about me that I know am aware of—and in being aware of it, I’m also aware that this isn’t necessarily the case for others.

But not knowing who I am beyond a few things doesn’t hurt my writing—it’s a factor that can (and does) help bring it to life.