The Sparkling Words

    I'm terrible with titles. Embarrassingly terrible. I'm currently writing a series of books (in the fantasy genre, of course), and you wouldn't believe how many titles I suggested for it. Each one received a small, ambivalent nod and a quiet "hmm..." from my sister, who would rather die than say, "I'm sorry, Abbie, but that's the stupidest title I've ever heard. Get it together." I'm terrible, and my sister agrees.
    When it came to choosing a title for this blog, I was, as I've come to expect, as hopeless as ever. So I chose a title which makes no sense whatsoever out of context. Sorry 'bout that, but I am going to rectify the situation. You are welcome.
    When I started writing, I was in second or third grade. I wrote a play. It was about a princess. It was roughly eight pages..., which means it was four pages of wide ruled paper, front and back. Since then, the writing hasn't stopped, though it has evolved - and hopefully improved. I wrote mostly poetry and songs in the beginning - not good ones, mind. Then, in the year of our Lord 2001, I was introduced to the mother of all fantasy stories, the story which has been forever seared into my soul, and by which, I judge all other stories...

Can you hear the majestic theme music? Can you?

    My life was changed forever by the great, nigh incomparable, J.R.R. Tolkien. That man managed to write something that has so profoundly changed me I still can't describe it. Not many stories can compete with all that courage and cowardice, light and dark. It instilled in me the incontrovertible need to tell stories; I was possessed with the desire. I started writing a story, a story that has been growing in my mind for eleven years. Yep, eleven years. I know, you're only now beginning to realize how nerdy I am, right?
    It was going to be a screenplay originally, until I realized in 2008 that I had WAY too much story for a movie. It was just going to have to be a book. BUT who was I to think I could write a novel? Novels are hard, y'all. I mean, I don't know if you've thought about it, but earth-rockingly talented and brilliant people write novels. Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, J.K. Rowling, and Victor Hugo, just to name a few. More than that, have you ever read a good book? Have you noticed that the good ones, the excellent ones, reach into your mind and dare it to consider ideas it has never before approached, and they all seem to contain some beautiful truth, some concept that, given the right momentum, could completely transform the world? It's amazing. The phenomenon bound between the covers of certain stories, not many of them, only the select few, the ones that have actually succeeded in changing the world, can be summed up, for me, in two words: They sparkle. The words glitter off the page and jump into a person. And it is glorious. 
    Don't ask me how it happens. I didn't even know how to describe it, until one night, when I finally tried to explain it to my eternally patient sister, crying, "They're words sparkle! My words don't sparkle dang it!" I can't tell you how it works. Believe me, if I knew, I never would have been afraid to write a book, but I was, and sometimes, I am. The hope remains, however, that I will muster the skill, but part of me thinks it's something a person is born with, some magic inherent in a few superhumans. Don't get me wrong, even if I wasn't born with it, I'm going to keep writing. I'm addicted to it now. Sometimes..., when I'm all alone in front of the computer, sobbing as I type, I whisper quietly to the keyboard, "I wish I could quit you..." Haha! Just kidding!
    Or am I?
    Anyway, that's the story. Hope it clears up any confusion. 

I Am Not Jesse Spano: Feminism in Reality

    I'm a feminist.

    There was a time I was afraid to use that word in the company of some people. It has a certain connotation with my generation, because we grew up in a post-women's lib world which included a little trope known as the straw feminist. The first and most memorable straw feminist I encountered was the unreasonable alarmist Jesse Spano on Saved by the Bell. Remember her? Wasn't she annoying? And then she became addicted to caffeine pills and that was mildly disturbing yet weirdly amusing...

She was so excited, SO EXCITED!

     Anyway, she used to call Slater a pig and rant about the inequality of society, but, as I'm sure you'll recall, all of her arguments were stupid. Just stupid. Because of this type of insanity, the pervading idea of the time is that "feminists are illogical, angry, and a nuisance." I never bought into that lie, but I was afraid to align myself with the movement for fear of being painted with the same ignorant brush. 

    Not anymore.

    Here's the truth: A feminist is a person who believes that people should be treated equally regardless of gender. That's it.

This guy is my favorite.

There's nothing in there about stupidity or man-hating. Nope. I am happy to claim feminism now. My tweets and Pinterest boards are full of feminism, and for awhile, I tried to restrict myself in the number of feminist things I shared, particularly on Twitter, but not anymore. If someone doesn't agree with me, they can unfollow me. Not hard. 

    I am done apologizing for standing up for what I believe. I am done feeling like I'm somehow in the wrong for thinking this way, and I am done with believing that there's nothing I can do to change things. 

    We live in an unbalanced world. We live in a world that teaches us that to be feminine is to be weak, a world that teaches little girls that the best thing they can be is pretty, and that if they aren't "pretty" by society's standards then there's something wrong with them. We live in a world that teaches us that a girl with no sexual experience is worth more than a girl with much.

    Why do we accept this crap? I'm fed up. I'm done with it. I'm done with hearing my friends tear themselves down, because they "aren't good enough." I'm done with teenage girls telling me about their anorexia and bulimia, their binge drinking just to forget everything they feel, and their cutting themselves just to feel something. I don't want to hear about another friend who has been harassed, or assaulted, or abused (emotionally, physically, etc.), or raped. I'm done with a culture that allows this garbage. Are you?

 

This is the right time for a Doctor Who moment, right?

    Wanna know how to fix it? Wanna know something you can do? 

    First, what you have to understand is that the little traces of sexism we see are indicative of a much larger problem. We see women objectified and sexualized daily. Advertisements with a half-naked woman as the selling point, or with a damsel in distress and fictional images of women who are hot but kinda stupid, "strong" but overtly sexual, or smart but sexually fixated, like Amy Farrah Fowler on Big Bang Theory, who is terribly funny but makes me want to scream... are a huge part of the problem; these images are deeply ingrained in us both individually and as a society. When a woman is portrayed as an object, she no longer has the ability or right to make her own decisions. When a woman is seen first and foremost as sexual, as opposed to as a person with a brain and a soul, it makes it "okay" to treat her as less than human, less than a man. This is the kind of thinking that leads to sexual harassment, domestic abuse, and rape among other things, because "she was asking for it," "it's no big deal," "she's over reacting."

    Now, here's what you can do: When you see sexism, don't condone it. Yep, it's that simple. If a TV show or movie has female characters who are objectified, degraded, hyper-sexualized, etc., don't watch it. If an advertisement is denigrating or misogynistic, don't buy the product it's selling. If these advertisements appear in a magazine you read, tell the magazine to stop running that ad. And if the magazine won't..., stop buying the magazine. Call out sexism on Twitter and Facebook. Miss Representation has a wonderful #NotBuyingIt campaign designed specifically for this purpose. Get other people on board with you by starting a petition if necessary. Money talks, and if these companies know that they aren't going to be making as much of it, they change things. 

    Another thing you can do is tell people when they are being sexist. Tell a man that his catcalling isn't a compliment; it's harassment. Teach boys that you can't touch a girl without her consent and that sending her text messages asking to see her boobs is also harassment. Teach high school guys that "no" means no, drunk means no, unconscious means no, "I don't want to" means no, "please stop" means no, and any other greater or lesser indication that she might not want to do that with you means NO. 

      We can stop this. We have more power than we believe. We can change the culture in which we live, and it is high time that we did. We can make a better world for women and girls, and if the world is better for women and girls, it's better for men too.

Clara Oswin Oswald: A Theory

    I watch Doctor Who. I love Doctor Who. I've even written episodes of Doctor Who, which I would quite gladly show Steven Moffat. I created new companions, who are stellar, if I do say so myself. The companions story lines are completely drawn out, and they are sufficiently wibbly wobbly and timey wimey. You hear that, Moffat? Wibbly Wobbly! Anyway, this post is for Doctor Who fans. Not that non-fans can't read it..., but it won't make any sense to you, so feel free to skip it.

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't watched the first half of the 7th series, run. Run now!

    Recently we met Clara Oswin Oswald, the new and befuddling companion. Oswin, as we knew her at first, was the brilliant woman who'd been turned into a Dalek, but was in a spectacular state of denial about it. In the episode, we discover that she is a "total, screaming genius." She helps The Doctor, Amy, and Rory *tear, sniff*, escape from The Asylum of the Daleks. While assisting them, she does the unforeseeable and erases The Doctor from the Daleks collective memory, causing the race of bellowing, murderous, squids to cry in an unending cacophony, "Doctor who? Doctor who?!" Then she reappeared as Clara, the governess and barmaid, who helps save England from horrifying, carnivorous snowmen. 
    At the end of these episodes, she does two things: 1) She tells The Doctor, "Run, clever boy, and remember!" 2) She dies. Yes, it's very sad, but you get over it, because the intrigue caused by this character is understandably greater than normal. As a result of this intrigue there have been an outrageous number of theories. Most of which, I have to say, sort of suck. Yep, I said it. I'm sorry. I happen to have a theory, a theory I am loath to share by any other mode, because if it turns out I'm right, I want concrete evidence that I, Abbie Karlish, the unlikely genius, with the help of my sister Jessie and my dear friend Shalyn, wove together this theory. So, here goes...

The Theory:

    Clara Oswin Oswald is The Master or possibly a tool devised by him.

The Evidence:

1. Memory
    In the 5th series, the 11th Doctor's first season, we encounter a crack in the universe which devours everything it comes in contact with, effectively erasing them from time. The cracks wipe out Rory, and The Doctor says something - not for the last time, "If something can be remembered, it can be brought back." This comes into play when The Doctor himself is erased from time, and Amelia Pond, wonderful Amelia Pond, remembers him and brings him back.
    In the 6th series, we are introduced to The Silence, a religious order, which hinges on one fundamental belief: Silence will fall when The Question is asked. The Question being, "Doctor who?" Clara gave us The Question. Interesting. 
    The Silence is also what we call a species of melty-faced, impeccably dressed, electricity-bending aliens, which one is unable to remember once one has looked away from them. We don't know why, but it is terrifying! 
    Memory has played a gigantic role in 11's plot lines. Why? Why is memory always the focus? Even with Clara Oswin Oswald, who is constantly saying, "Run...and remember?"

2.  The Silence
    The Silence seems hellbent on destroying The Doctor. The Silence even created the perfect assassin to ice him: River Song. Unfortunately for them, that backfired. But The Silence still wants The Doctor dead, and The Question, which will apparently be asked at "the fall of the eleventh" has yet to be asked at said "fall." At first, I thought, "Huh..., I'll bet Clara's the backup plan," because doesn't it make sense that The Silence would have a backup plan? Of course, it does! But that's too simple; this woman clearly is in some sort of weird time loop, where she keeps living over and over but with no apparent memory of her past lives. She'd have to be more than that.
    There is something fishy about her. She seems weirdly obsessed with The Doctor, much like one River Song. She's not regenerating; she's just on repeat. She's too clever, too keen, too much of an anomaly, so what if she isn't merely the backup and the cause of The Question? What if she is the originator of The Silence? What if she somehow is the one who started this whole thing? But why? What could possibly be her motivation? Who would benefit from the fall of The Doctor, and who would benefit from The Doctor, with that remarkable brain of his, remembering?

3. The Master
    When The Master disappeared, he was sucked back into the time lock with all of Gallifrey, unable to ever again darken the door of the TARDIS..., OR WAS HE? 
   A. - We know that The Master is a genius, just like Oswin.
   B. - We know that The Master has made himself human before - and Oswin, at least, appears human, because he has a highly developed sense of self-preservation.
   C. - We know Time Lord's can regenerate as men or women (The Corsair), so it is possible The Master became a woman. I think he would enjoy it. I also think she would find herself inexplicably attracted to The Doctor - it's that whole love and hate, two sides of the same coin thing.
   D. - We know that "if something can be remembered, it can be brought back...," brought back, say, out of a time lock?
   Perhaps The Master is trying to liberate himself? I can see it. I can also see him formulating an exceedingly convoluted plan to make The Doctor the enemy of the universe, and thus, end him. Maybe he's found away to throw himself into The Doctor's timeline, but there's a glitch? But maybe just enough of his plan is bleeding through that he keeps telling The Doctor to remember? Or maybe he has complete control, and Oswin's just a pawn or big, fat liar? Maybe he's causing The Doctor to grow attached to this human girl, so that in the end, the damage is worse? Long story short, The Master has nothing to lose and everything to gain from a plan like this.

    It does have its flaws, of this I am well aware. But I can see it. I don't really trust Oswin - I hate to say it, but it's true. We haven't seen The Master in awhile. It's fairly unexpected, as I haven't seen anyone else thinking of it. Also, Oswin is the one who brought him out of his slummocky retirement, wallowing in his own self-loathing, like Scrooge McDuck in a swimming pool full of doubloons..., which I found worrisome rather than comforting, considering that she'd died already and knew to say the word "Pond." What was that? That was weird... I digress... The point is that you should think it over, and get back to me. 

P.S. - Steven Moffat, whenever you wanna see those episodes, you just give me a holler, pal.

Elijah Wood and the Value of You

    I like quotes. I can waste a good two hours just reading quotes online. There are entire websites dedicated to quotes! You can search for ones on specific topics or said by specific people, and you're all set. Sometimes the internet is stupendous.
    The other day, whilst conducting one of these searches, I needed to find some words regarding the value of human life. I read, and searched again, and read, and searched again, and read, but in the end, I only found two quotes that dealt with the worth of humanity. There were dozens of lines spoken or written by many brilliant people concerning the value of faith, or love, or perseverance, or humor, or hard work, but only two, two which spoke of the intrinsic worth of every human being. This is a problem.
    I have come to the conclusion that most people would say that human beings matter. Unfortunately, I have also come to the conclusion that most people do not live their lives according to that truth. In fact, I think, if you pursued the issue, most people would say that some people matter more than others. They might not say it quite like that, but that is what most of us think. I used to think it too. 

    As a teenager, I believed that some people were very valuable, particularly those I loved or admired, like Mother Teresa or Elijah Wood (whom I fully intended to marry until I was 18), but I never would have thought that their value was nonnegotiable. And I certainly never would have applied that concept to myself or to those I considered unworthy: criminals, jerks, people who wore Birkenstocks, etc. I prescribed to the opinion that value hinged on attributes. Beauty was valuable. Intelligence was valuable. If one was a hard worker, considerate, funny, and well-liked, one had much worth, but the removal of any of those virtues, or the addition of any flaws, resulted in the lessening of one's value.
    I was wrong.
    The truth needs to be said, and I'm going to say it, and you might not agree with me, but I submit that, whether we like it or not, people matter. 
    Every single human being has a value which is inherent, a quintessential worth from which we cannot be severed. Every human being is precious, priceless, in worth. Period. No qualifiers. No quantifiers. No ifs, ands, or buts. People are valuable simply because they are human.
    You may be clever, or pretty, or hilarious, or brave, but you are also valuable. You may be poor, or broken, or alone, but you are also valuable. You may be coarse, or stupid, or cold, or malicious, but, guess what, you are also valuable. It is not because of your qualities; it is one of your qualities. 

Who needs the ring, when I have you?

    Now, you may also be pretty and talented and outrageously wonderful, like Elijah Wood (whom I would still marry if he asked me), but your worth is not reliant upon or even augmented by these things. Pretty people aren't better than ugly people. Smart people are not better than stupid people. Nope. People are people are people, and everyone is worthwhile, and everyone is worth the same.

    Your value is immutable, inalienable, and divine. You were created with it. It is part of you. You matter. You are important.
    Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise, including you. And the next time you start to feel like a hopeless case, or a useless lump, or a waste of space/air, or any other terrible lie you've been told, remember the truth: You are worthwhile, precious, and loved, and nothing anyone says will ever change that.

"We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving." - J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"No way to live..."

    Today I received a rejection from the Holy Grail of literary agencies. I'm going to refrain from telling you the name of this literary agency, but if you knew, oh boy, you'd be bummed for me. You might also say, "Well, I mean..., what did you expect?" Because, seriously, they're kind of a big deal. (Yes, I just referenced Anchorman. No, I will not apologize.)

    I've been rejected before. Aspiring authors get used to it. They didn't like the query letter, they didn't like the plot, they didn't like the flow, they hate you, get a life, yada, yada, yada... You have to develop this indomitable attitude. You have to convince yourself that you are talented and kind of a genius, that your story could be paradigm-shifting, that someone, somewhere is going to flip over it and you.
    I suck at all of those things, BUT I've been sticking it out. I've been taking it one agent at a time. I've been reminding myself that the emotional trauma will pay off one day. But today..., my hopes and dreams seemed to crumble before my eyes. My heart evaporated in my chest. My peace is shaken.
    I cried. I'm not much of a crier. I cry at movies and Grey's Anatomy episodes. (Yes, I watch Grey's Anatomy. No, I will not apologize.) But I had to cry today. That's the adequate response when you're questioning everything.
    I cried in front of my mother, who is hurting for me, of course - you know how moms are. And while she tried to comfort me, tried to help, tried to find the right words to say, she asked me this: Do you feel like you have a story that people need to hear?
    "I want to think that I do," I replied tearfully.
    "You know you do," she said.
    I do. I am obsessed, compelled, burdened with stories, with the need to send them out into the world. I think of Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens and J.R.R. Tolkien, and I can't help but feel the need to move the earth as they have. Stories are everything. They teach us, and shape us, and exhort us, and liberate us.
    I'm a storyteller. I've accepted this call. I'm not going to shy away from it simply because such-and-so didn't want me..., well, my story, but trust me, it feels like a rejection of me - and that's okay, as long as I don't let it tear me to shreds. I am a writer. And it is hard. And it is trying. And it is painful. And it is wonderful.
    I leave you with this Sophy Burnham quote, which perfectly sums up my feelings on the subject of storytelling:
    Not long ago, a writer friend, sunk in apathy and despair, came to visit.
    "What is it about writing?" he asked, striking his forehead with the flat of his hand. "Why is it so awful? It's no way to live! Why do we do it?"
    And then he leapt to his feet to walk unhappily around his chair. "Look at writers. I don't know a single writer who doesn't hate his work. Writers hate writing. They're always talking about how hard it is. Artist's don't hate painting. You never hear an artist talking about how much he hates his work. Sculptors don't complain all the time about how hard they find sculpting. But writers...!"
    A few weeks later I had occasion to ask an artist if she agreed. Do artists hate their work? She looked at me amused.
    "You're forgetting something," she said.
    "What?"
    "Writing is so powerful. People rarely look at a painting and weep."

Writers and Walls

    I'm not a sharer. I never have been. Don't get me wrong; I highly enjoy talking about myself, but not if that includes telling people everything. I build walls. I'm not ashamed of my walls; I built them for a reason.
    I do share some things. I share the safe stuff. I share the stuff that sounds personal but really isn't, the stuff that might touch your heart, but won't freeze my vocal cords on the way out. And every time I think I'm ready to tell someone one of the dangerous things, my voice fades away and I end up saying something else like "never mind."
    It's easier to put up walls, to surround the pain, and the fear, and the damage with stone and steel. Telling people terrifies me. Telling people makes it real, or real all over again. Telling people gives them the opportunity to downplay my suffering, or look at me like I'm a seven-foot-tall, mohawked pigeon riding a unicycle (and you are welcome for that mental image), so I have devised a way of getting it out of my head and into the world safely: I hide the wriggly, and scratchy, and scary stuff in the dialogue of my characters and in the plot lines of my stories. I know, it's not really sharing, but at least I'm putting it out there...where no one will be able to discern which aches are mine and which aches are fiction.
    All writers do this. I don't have any quotes to back that up. I don't need them. All writers do it, or all writers worth their salt do it. If a writer doesn't pour the painful pieces of her/his soul into her/his work, she/he clearly doesn't understand the gravity and intimacy of a story.

    That's the power of literature: We pick up a book, and we hold in our hands the heart of another human being, sometimes a human being who left this world centuries ago. Literature is the direct connection of one soul to another. How beautiful is that? How miraculous!
    This is the burden writers carry upon our poor shoulders. This is why writing terrifies me. I adore it, but, let's be real, it's petrifying. Through my words, through the words I have haltingly, obsessively, and lovingly tied together I am giving faceless people, who have never met me, and possibly will never meet me entry into who I am. I am giving them a sledgehammer to knock down my walls.
    When you pick up a book, if the writer has sewn her/his own soul into the pages, you'll know. You can feel it. It's a sixth sense situation. And if that is the case, if you can feel the pulsing of a heart in your hands, your hands which are so useful for crushing and grinding and wounding but which are equally good for building and comforting, try not to be too harsh. Try not to be too judge-y. Consider yourself privileged; they broke down their walls for you. They let you into their twisty brokenness in the hopes that it would help to heal yours.

Shelley Duvall, You Did This To Me.

    I was doomed to be a geek from the beginning. It wasn't a choice; it was fate. I blame Shelley Duvall. 

Here she is as Rapunzel with magical Rapunzel tears.

    See, Shelley Duvall had this wonderful television show called "Faerie Tale Theatre." She and her merry band of thespians - which, by the by, included the likes of Robin Williams, Jeff Goldblum, Eric Idle, Mick Jagger... - performed, you guessed it, fairy tales. They were wonderful, and I loved them from the start. I wanted to be in my own fairy tale as a result. 

Jeff Goldblum as the big, bad wolf. You are welcome.

    I didn't necessarily want to be the princess, although, let's be honest, being the pretty girl the hot guy couldn't get out of his head wasn't an altogether unappealing idea. I wanted to be much more than the princess. I wanted to be the princess/dragon slayer/magical being, who also happened to be hilariously funny with dazzling senses of fashion, irony, and right and wrong. Also, I wanted good hair, because I'm not demanding at all. 
   Being a geek and a girl was hard. I could read nearly perfect stories like The Chronicles of Narnia, which did, at least in this example, have clever and good female protagonists, but even then, the girls weren't usually the brave warrior characters. They were generally quite sweet and soft-spoken with long, flaxen waves and the grace of a prima ballerina. I wasn't...really...any of those things... 
    I'm loud, and random, and sort of fierce and intense. I tend to injure myself because I'm too harsh with everyday objects like can openers and pencils. I'm also blunt, sarcastic, and a enjoy a healthy dose of dark humor. I didn't read comic books, because I'm a fantasy geek. I also happen to have what I deem an "aversion" to heroines in skimpy clothing. (Not that they're bad, but do we really need to see a girl's cleavage to buy her as a butt-kicker?) Long story short, I was almost wholly without role models in nerd culture.
    Where are the stories for girls? When am I gonna get a chance to be the hero?
    It is with these questions in mind that I set out to write my own stories, and that is exactly what I am attempting to do. 
    I'm a writer. I'm a nerd. I'm a feminist. And, because it will be pertinent in the future and is the most important part of who I am, I'm a follower of Christ. I'm also wildly opinionated and tend to ramble. If you are interested in any of these points, stick around. I might say something worth reading. Maybe not, but there's always hope.