Embracing Freaky Fridays: Heathcliff Heathcliff

Before agreeing to participate in a Freaky Friday, I poked around on this blog. The emphasis everyone here seems to place on choice intrigues me. Never before have I seen such a concentrated amount of optimism in one place. And it is optimism that has this group thinking that people, fictional or otherwise, have free will. There is no "choice" in life; people simply comfort themselves with the illusion of options.

From birth, each person is set on a path—one path—that leads only to his or her final destination. Along that path, there appear to be forks, but just the one path exists. 

Imagine a traveler reaches the his final destination and reflects back on his life's journey. Though he may want to believe it, our traveler was never going anywhere other than where he went. As he passed each fork, making a "choice" about his path, he only reinforced the next "choice" he would make, until his life reached its end.

I, for instance, was always going to become Heathcliff Heathcliff. I remember my mother reading WUTHERING HEIGHTS to me around Christmastime every year when I was a child. I never forgot the fascination she had with the character I abhorred, or the words she used to describe him. She said, "Poor Heathcliff. If only he had been able to give up the life he imagined was supposed to be his..."

That vague sentiment came back to me clearly the day I joined the ranks of the Undead. What other name would I have "chosen" for my new life when Miss Xavier asked me to supply one?

Think about it, and you'll realize that all the things you've convinced yourself were choices in your life weren't. You wouldn't be you if you had chosen anything other than what you did.

Your life, your path, already stretches out in front of you. The best you can hope for is that you like it even part of the time.

Embracing Freaky Fridays: Ilyra

Despite the fact that Sam almost forgot about me... I have agreed to pop by here and share whatever I want with you. 

So I've decided to talk about advice—more specifically, knowing when to listen to the good advice of others, who obviously have more common sense than you, and knowing when to show a little spine and make up your own mind. If you were wondering, no, I'm not directing this at any one in particular, Aryli.

Let's take Sam for example. 

She just entered the first 250 words of Aryli's story into some contest for something. If you don't know what I'm talking about check a couple of posts ago, because, frankly, the whole publishing thing confuses me. Besides, I'm still not sure how exactly Sam got her hands on that story in the first place. I mean, don't you people have rules about using other people's lives without their permission to tell stories? And don't think I don't see through that whole calling it "a novel" thing. Please.

Where was I? Oh, right... Sam as an example. She's gotten all this feedback on the opening, and she's printed it out. Now what? 

On the one hand, books are written for readers. These commenters are readers. But, just because some anonymous Internet reader thinks she's an authority on all things pertaining to first pages, does that mean Sam should start changing everything blogposter1 didn't like?

(By the way, Sam, obviously the answer is no. I'm not sure how well my sarcasm comes through on this thing, but I was rolling my eyes. This is why in-person conversation is SO much better. Ugh.)

On the other hand, clearly these people don't know what Aryli's story is about, and they don't know were it's headed—like Sam does. Does that means she should just laugh at their ignorance, call them fools, and burn their comments in a trash can?

(Okay, Sam, not only is that dangerous, but I've never heard you mention winning any of those fancy writing awards you people crave. It's not like you're so much better than other writers that you get to sneer down at them from your ivory tower. Plus, this is Aryli's story. You damn well better make it the best it can be, especially the parts with me. Speaking of which, I've got a bone to pick. See me after, young lady.)

Anyway...where does that leave Sam and her helpful (or not) comments? Should she just continue staring at them and ANJIDIA hoping they magically address themselves?

...

No, really, that was a question. If I told you the answer, then this wouldn't be a post about advice. It'd be one about answers. Obviously.

Fine, I will say this: If a majority of readers are saying the same things, then it's no longer "one person's opinion"; it's crossed over into public opinion territory. I'll let Aryli or Miqqal tackle a conversation about public opinion some other day. But even I know that you can't ignore public opinion if your goal requires it to succeed. And you can't argue with it. All you can do is locate its source and start making changes, which will always take time.

Have fun with that.

Embracing Apologies

So sorry about that. 

Vituya is... Well, Vituya was not meant for the blogosphere. Perhaps we'll have more luck with another of the dragon species. Or, maybe I'll see if someone socially inclined will take the reins next Friday.

For the record (and since Vituya was too rude to introduce itself), Vituya is the dragon who saves Aryli when she arrives in Anjidia at the beginning of the novel. Vituya only refers to itself in the third person (as is dragon custom). And, Vituya doesn't have any social skills.

Yeah... choosing it as my first character blogger was really not an inspired choice...

Embracing Freaky Fridays: Vituya

Vituya does not understand the purpose or utility of blogs and will, therefore, not be participating in this experiment. 

The need for humans to be so completely connected to one another completely defies reason. Then again, humans are highly unreasonable, and Vituya has long be unable to make sense of their follies.