A new look

Thank the gods for free Blogger templates. No, it's not original - but it is lovely, and it saves me the trouble of making one myself.

I adore good design. I especially love design that is usable and easy on the eyes. This one in particular is delicate, fantastical, and warm, but still very readable. So here's a shout out to Ray Creations for making it; you have my gratitude, and my appreciation for your talent.

On the art of bullshit in advertising

Barry Eisler has an interesting blog post up right now, on the nature of bullshit in advertising. It's such a prevalent theme in advertising and marketing; politically correct, culturally sensitive, badly designed, emotionally appealing, and entirely illogical. I would guess that a fair number of people today don't even see conventional advertising, because it's simply too passé, too bland - or in Barry's case, it sets off their bullshit detector.

I'm almost waiting for companies to realise that advertising needs to become far more sophisticated in how it reaches consumers. Those of us who swim in the seas of the net are used to having control over our browsing experience, for example, and many will use ad blockers to strip offending elements out entirely; money well wasted, there, for the companies who pay Google for a chance to grab attention. An entire generation has grown up with the concept of downloading content on demand, and inevitably such content comes ad-free (courtesy of the pirates, naturally). How do you reach consumers with your products when they can choose to keep you from their gaze, or when they're completely uninterested in you?

Make advertising = content, as Techdirt likes to say. It applies in real life just as much as on the net. Strip out the bullshit, and give consumers a reason to come looking for you. Kulala.com have the right idea - their planes are advertising for them, obviously, but they're also funny and interesting. They draw attention honestly; this is content, after all, and you can enjoy it even if you are not a customer. There are plenty of other examples around. They all seem to be succeeding in their own way.

I hope there's a place for traditional advertising in the future, but I can't help but feel that it will have to change as the world becomes more technologically savvy. It has to be less intrusive, more intelligent, and better designed. Bullshit meters are only getting more sensitive, after all. It's something worrying and exciting at the same time, because I keep thinking about promotional ideas for the Novel - and while mine involve very few traditional avenues, I know publishers will have a whole host of ideas that are 100% focused into them. I worry about the effects of bad advertising, because I've seen it often enough.

I'm probably being pessimistic. This is something to think about after I've gotten an agent and a contract. In the meantime, I'll just have to sort out the look of the blog and see how I get on - but I will have no ads, and there will be no bullshit allowed here. Like Mr. Eisler, this will be my little contribution to the cause of keeping it real.

Time to Open up

I'm very, very nervous about this, but... I have to do it sometime. I'm opening up the blog so that it can be seen publicly.

This is an author thing, I guess. You need a presence online, something for people to connect with and enjoy and pass along to their friends. It terrifies me like nothing in the world. Up to this point, I've hidden away, too afraid of being judged for what I write.

But I got to thinking, over the last month; I'm working hard on getting the Novel finished. It's going to be real, soon, real enough to send to agents - maybe real enough to be published. I don't think my queries will be successful unless I can be sure the agents know that I am real too. That means a part of me has to be on display, whether I like it or not, whether I'll get flak for it or not.

All the posts I've entered so far will stay. It feels... dishonest, I guess, to edit or censor them for the sake of a presentable public persona. I'm not sure there's anything truly scandalous there, anyway - most of my opinions boil down to my wishing people wouldn't be so bloody mean to each other.

I'd better start as I mean to go on, then.

Hello. My name is Claire Ryan, and I'm a taleweaver. I've been telling stories since I was twelve. I've written two books, which will never see the light of day, and I'm working on one with promise right now. I can write about anything, in any medium. I've spent a long time honing my skills, and although it's been a long time coming, I know I'm good enough now to be a published author.

This is my blog. Thanks for reading it.

Time moves on

And there is drama. Excitement. Things that draw me away from my blog. The Novel, mostly; it's becoming what I originally envisioned, a whole and complete manuscript that will soon be on its way to various agents. Even as the thought of finally being published scares me, I'm happy that I'm getting closer to my ultimate goal of writing for a living.

It will not be in Ireland, though. I made my choice, and started arrangements to emigrate. Canada is the destination, if they will have me. I hope they will, because I have a lot to offer.

It's been hammered home recently just how different I am to most people. Pointless introspection aside, I can' t help but notice that there is a high price to being a genius - however clichéd that may sound. And a Mensa test when I was much younger confirmed that; I am what people call a genius, and more than that, I'm on a par with Einstein or Hawking.

No one knows, apart from the people who are closest to me. Everyone else can see that I am quite smart, and occasionally I act in a strange way, and it goes no further. It is so hard to explain to anyone that the reason I seem odd is because, from my point of view, everyone else is thinking in slow motion. I've spent my life learning how to fake normalcy, but sometimes all I really want is to know what it's like inside someone else's head.

Being intelligent has its perks, but it's mostly made my life harder. It's put a gulf between me and the people I care about, made me dissatisfied with jobs. It broke my religious faith a long time ago. It's embarrassed me or made me seem foolish or stupid, when I do something that makes sense to me but no one else. And it's made me hurt, deeply, that whatever perks I get from it are only for me. My understanding, my quickness of thought; a normal person can never know what it's like, and although you might question whether they're really missing anything, consider this: from where I stand, it's as if they are all blind, and I'm the only one who can see the sun.

I don't want to be elitist about being smart. I don't want to be ostracised either, though, and that has happened a few times. I'd settle for people being willing to accept that I'm strange, and let it go at that.

This doesn't really have much to do with Canada, but if they won't take me for my qualifications or experience, I might suggest they take me for my intelligence. Adding a genius to their gene pool would be a smart (hah) move.

The Land of Saints and Scholars

There are many wonderful things about Ireland. This is a land of rolling green fields, ancient history, friendly people. It's a country where people can be so passionate, so giving, that you could almost believe it to be a second Eden. It has music and art in its soul, fire in its blood, love in its hand.

This is my Ireland. This is my home and my heart. This is the place my ancestors died for. And it is not for me any more.

I have no faith left in the government. I have long since lost faith in the Church. Everywhere I look, people are either being ruined by the incompetance or malice of others, or they are the ones wreaking the destruction. And no one seems willing to try to mend, rebuild, sacrifice, and finally lift us all out of this abyss of despair. We have no Barack Obama here to give us back our hope for a better future.

I've nothing left to look to here except a long spiral of corruption and decay, where there is one rule for the people, another for the cronies in power, and yet another for those who are rich or influential. The most recent scandal of Willie O' Dea is just another in a long line of scandals, all of which show that the government only cares for power and wealth, and the church only cares for its own - and the people of Ireland are only there to be used, abused, ordered about as needed, and ignored otherwise.

Almost a hundred years ago, the Republic won its independence from Britain. Since then it seems we have simply rolled over and accepted whatever injustice is inflicted on us by the politicians we elect. I would have hoped that the reports of the truly horrific clerical child abuse would finally have made a difference, but now, not even a year later, they are forgotten. There was no outcry. There was only mute, indifferent, despicable acceptance.

There was a rape trial in Kilkenny. A man convicted of dragging a drugged woman behind a dumpster and raping her. Video footage of the act. An undeniable, inhumane act.

The woman was made a pariah for daring to speak. A priest, and fifty supporters, walked into the courtroom and shook the rapist's hand.

I will not forget these things, and so I have made my choice.

Ireland is beyond redemption. I will not stay here and subject myself to this any further. I will not allow my children to grow up here, and let them be tainted by what my country is becoming. I am not even thirty years old, and all that I have seen in my life tells me that Ireland is not fit to govern itself, and it is not worthy of my citizenship. Like so many others, I am leaving, and I don't mean to return.

And yet! The pain of being torn from my country is almost too much to bear. It is the hardest choice to make, to leave one's friends, family, all that you know, and all for the sake of hope. That's all it boils down to, really. I have no hope, here. I might have hope elsewhere. Consider, for a moment, how far a person must be pushed before they will choose a vague hope over the entire life they have built for themselves and those they love.

Again, I wanted this blog to be about writing. I wanted it to be about form, and prose, and art - simple, safe things. But this... this is too tightly woven into my own life to ignore, and I cannot be a taleweaver without also being human.

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

I've found another interesting blog, by one Barry Eisler. Apparently he's famous, or something. One of his thriller books has been made into a movie that was probably never released on this side of the Atlantic.

I will say without a shadow of a doubt that I dislike modern thrillers. I just don't find them particularly appealing; the interplay of suspence and action that seems so widespread in them is wasted on me, probably because I find the characters to be one-dimensional. That's my taste, of course. I'm not the target audience for such books after all.

Why subscribe to Mr. Eisler's blog then? It's very simple, really - he is a good writer. He writes with style, clarity, and a great deal of passion on his blog, and that is something to be appreciated and valued.

I'll probably never be sold on thrillers in general, but if I'm in a book shop and I happen to see his work, I'll certainly recommend it to people I know who'd like it.

Male and Female

I sometimes wonder how to write believeable characters in books. I'd consider characterisation as being one of my strong points in my work, but like every aspiring author, I do struggle with some aspects of it.

The Novel has two main characters; one male, one female. I've written them in very specific ways, and I know where they are alike and where they are very different. But the biggest problem I have is, predictably, with sex.

Books typically characterise men and women in very different ways when it comes to sex. The virgin-whore paradigm, for example - historical romances make enormous use of it in their characterisation of the heroine, who is almost universally chaste until her encounter with the hero. Those romances get a pass because that's just how it was, back then, but even modern characterisations of women seem to follow the same path - and it's just so boring. Why reduce one half of human sexuality to something so trite and uninteresting? Where are the shades of grey?

Men are frequently characterised as biological whores, their hormones driving them to sleep with the attractive females regardless of whether it's a good idea or not. This is so very, very dull as well, and does men a great disservice - as if they are not rational, not capable of being governed by their heads and not their privates. Am I the only one who thinks this charactetisation is just plain stupid? We are meant to believe that these men are also intelligent and sane enough to save the world or captain a ship or have made millions on their own... No. I don't think so.

I'm playing with a little subversion of these characterisations right now for my main characters. I have a leading lady who views sex as a weakness, and is easily powerful enough to have her opinion respected. She is like a man, neither virgin nor whore, where her sexuality is a tiny and irrelevant part of her life. My leading gentleman is a lover and a worshipper of women, who has sex out of adoration. He is like a woman in that he places a higher value on emotional attachments than the mere physical act.

I could spend hours thinking through the facets of their characters, discovering new nuances and reflections that change how they react in tiny ways. I might make a few alterations as time goes by, but I will never return to the silly clichés that infect so many other well-woven stories. My characters deserve better than that.