"I have a dream"

I was thinking recently on the books that really influenced me when I was younger. I generally don't count the books I enjoyed among them; we may all have liked the Famous Five, for example, but those kinds of books were throwaway for me, to be read and liked and then forgotten. The books that get into your head and under you skin generally have a little more depth.

First, some background: I was fifteen before I saw a black person in real life, as opposed to on television or on a movie screen. I was in Boston, on holiday with my family. We had just gotten out of the airport, and I saw a man walking down the street. If I recall right, I pointed it out to my mother - but she only told me off for being silly.

One of the books that I read when I was about thirteen was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. It's a very complicated book. It's about... lots of things, but what I absorbed from it was this is what racism looks like. There's a difference between knowing something exists, and seeing it come alive on the page; it became so much more important because I could never see it for myself. Irish culture was so homogenous that I never learned that someone could be treated differently because of the colour of their skin.

The charm of the book was that it was just people, to me. People in a tough situation, but still loving, taking comfort in each other, finding ways to laugh and survive. Its voice felt honest and real.

The second book I read about racism was To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. If Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry taught me what racism looked like, To Kill a Mockingbird showed me that you could could take a stand against it; that the world was unjust, but it didn't have to stay that way. The only thing I regretted about it was that I could never really hear the voices of the black characters, as it's told entirely from the viewpoint of a young white girl. It's also been slammed for its use of racial slurs, and even threatened with censorship as a result.

(Another thing that I wonder about - being white, apparently I shouldn't use the most well known racial slur at all. Does that mean I can't even mention it in context? Is it always considered derogatory, even when the writer has no cultural background that would define it as so, and thus never use it in conversation - or in reference to an actual person of colour?)

Discussions of race are a minefield in the States. Even the most well-meaning white person can inadvertantly cause offense or say something racist, only to howl that "I didn't mean it that way!" when an African-American calls them on it. I've seen it a few times, and every time I question the offender, why deny it? It's part of your cultural heritage. It will happen, despite your best efforts. Don't deepen the insult with a non-apology ("I'm sorry if I caused offense..."). Accept what you've done. Take responsibility for it. And do better next time.

I know I've probably already done it, but there has been no one here to call me on it. It's only a matter of time, though.

Roll of Thunder and Mockingbird compelled me to look further. I read the full text of Dr. King's famous speech, for example, and I was inspired by it. These days I subscribe to blogs written by black people. I keep up with the news. I want to read their stories and hear their voices, and be influenced by them and find the threads that I can weave into my own.

Books can do that, you see. They get into your head and under your skin, and they can change the world.

Driving the Space Shuttle, and other fun things

That up there is a concept car called a Mazda Furai. It has a 450HP Renesis engine, and... oh never mind. You probably don't care. Just look at it. Look at the beauty of it.

I would give anything to drive this car.

I've talked before about how I love cars and I love to drive. The Furai is the car I want to own, if the stars align and reality is bent and somehow Mazda spontaneously decide to let twenty-something Irish women drive it around the Nürburgring. It's just so exotic, so otherwordly. But in this particular reality, I'm not likely to ever see one in the flesh - and that's especially because I live in Ireland.

One of my major gripes about this country is to do with the cars. Vehicles with more powerful engines are taxed to the hilt. Vehicle Registration Tax is a crippling chunk of the price of a new car. Insurance for anything even remotely interesting is prohibitively high. This all adds up to what I see on the roads today - a parade of automobiles that are small, fuel-efficient but weak, and utterly, utterly boring.

No Ferraris do I see, much as I'd want to. Few Porsches. BMWs for the businessmen, which are always black saloons with white leather inside - and they might have two liter engines and resemble large boats on the road, but their ubiquity makes them uninteresting. And they were never made for the cult of speed; their purpose is simply to be part of a professional image. Women drive around in little hatchbacks, or people carriers for the kids. The boy racers have their sporty Toyotas and Hondas with spoilers on the back, but who are they kidding? They're mostly working with cars that were never designed with them in mind.

I was over in the States a while back, and I had the pleasure of renting and driving a Chevrolet Corvette ZHZ for about five days. Take a look at it there.


Imagine, if you will, the sensation of driving a $60,000 American muscle car when you have only ever experienced vehicles like the safe, family friendly Toyota Corollas that are so common in Ireland. Imagine driving something with an engine that sounded like a tiger roaring under the hood, and compare it to the quiet, sanitised hum of your average four-door hatchback. Believe me when I say that driving the Corvette on an American highway was a little slice of automotive bliss, and handing back the keys was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

It was like driving the Space Shuttle. You'll never see one in Ireland, because it's so expensive in every way that it might as well be in orbit.

I've still got my crappy Toyota. I throw it around the place a lot, and drive it too fast, and generally act irresponsibly every once in a while. But why can't I have Corvettes, and Mustangs, and Dodge Vipers, and all the gloriously powerful American cars? Why must the government make it so hard to own a truly awesome automobile, one that doesn't need a spoiler or a flash paint job or blue LEDs or, by all the gods, any of the other ridiculous modifications that young gentlemen like to make to their rides?

Maybe it's the market. Maybe there isn't enough interest here to warrant shipping over a few Corvettes modified for right-hand drive, although with the apparent number of boy racers around with money to spare, I find that a little hard to believe. Chevrolet do sell their saloons in Ireland, so the infrastructure is there.

Or maybe it's government regulations? I really can't say. Whatever they are, the barriers to awesome car ownership here are vast, and it hurts a little more when you've had that taste of heaven, and seen all the amazing cars that are the norm on the other side of the Atlantic.

Someday, mark my words. Someday I'll drive my own Corvette. And it will be awesome.

The stories we tell each other

Two posts in a single day. Who would have thought I'd ever have so much to talk about?

I read a lot of blogs, and inevitably I follow my nose through their links and find my way to other blogs and websites. Today, I've wandered into a blog by an author called Neesha Meminger, and I've read a post of hers that talks about bullying.

I was bullied as well, a long time ago. Shut up, sit down, get over it. It's not all that important. It's your fault. Stop making waves. Stop getting people into trouble. Maybe if you tried to make friends, they wouldn't be so mean.

It's so easy to tell that story, the one where it's not really bullying. The other one, where you have to face up to the needlessly cruel things people do, is a lot harder. Maybe it's because you did something, and you can't admit that it wasn't right. Maybe it's because you don't want to say it happened to you. Maybe it just makes you too uncomfortable.

It's so easy to tell children the stories that won't hurt them, or shake them, or make them feel uncomfortable. It's easy to tell them that nobody is racist or sexist anymore, and persecution doesn't exist. They hear that narrative and just brush it off when they are racist, sexist, or when they persecute someone. She started it. She's just making trouble. I was only joking.

Writers should tell the hard stories. We dream that the world can be different to what it actually is all the time; dreaming of a voice for the silenced is not beyond us. Those narratives are harder to tell, but they are very, very powerful, and they can change the world for the better.

I, like many others, still carry the scars of the easy stories. I have a duty not to let them stand.

Fantastic Worlds

So, Avatar has come out on DVD and BluRay, and smashed all kinds of records for most discs sold and all that. I will freely admit that I simply do not buy DVDs, and I don't own a BluRay player, so I'm a little baffled by all the excitement. If this follows the same trend as many other big releases, there will be a limited edition version out in time for Christmas with extra content that is supposedly there to encourage you to spend twice the money on the content you already own. I have heard that James Cameron is also planning a 3D version next year, so people will have the chance to pay yet again. Fun times indeed.

Oh well, I say. What people do with their money is entirely their own business, and long may it bring them joy. But, personally, I have no need for another plastic disc cluttering up my home. I saw Avatar in the cinema, in 3D. I experienced the spectacle as it was meant to be experienced, and (unfortunately) it doesn't have anything else to offer other than spectacle.

The plot is Pocahontas in space, as many other people have said before. I found it quite silly at times. It's already been ripped to shreds for racism and whatnot elsewhere, so there's no need to repeat all that here. And the dialogue... oh, the dialogue. If I were being kind, I'd call it 'unintentionally hilarious'. Characterisation was disjointed, a little unreal. I left the theatre with the firm opinion that James Cameron had poured all the money and effort into the visual effects, and wrote the script himself whenever he had a few minutes to spare.

So, if we strip away the artistry, the beauty of Pandora and her creatures, what then? I have no reason to spend money on a movie where I can't experience the one exceptional feature of it. Nothing in one's home can replicate the movie theatre unless one happens to be very, very rich. But the sad fact of it all is that Avatar should have appealed to me, and I should be out buying the DVD right now. I live and breathe in fantastic worlds; Alice in Wonderland, the Belgariad, Dune, World of Warcraft. Pandora should have been no different.

What might have been another playground of the imagination is... nothing. A vague metaphor for the New World with a different skin. A setting hamstrung by lackluster story threads, destined for bad fanfiction at best. It's like taking the most expensive canvas, the most delicate brushes, the most vivid paints, and handing them over to an amateur to draw stick figures and blobs. I'm sure people will appreciate it, but oh! What might have been!

And for all that, I still don't begrudge Avatar its success. It deserves it simply for pushing the boundaries of what can be done. I know Hollywood will be chasing the phenomenon of Avatar for years, and out of that effort we are sure to get at least a few well written movies.

It's shown the world that there isn't anything beyond the reach of special effects these days. It's shown the dreamers that the technology exists to make their own fantastic worlds real.

I can't wait to see them.

The first threads

I think every author must remember their first stories. The first published one, the first written one, the first completed one. You think back on them sometimes, even when you know they were complete rubbish and your current material is infinitely better. It's a tiny thing, but it's also a place you point to where you can say "This is where I began. This is where I made the choice. This is where I became a writer."

Those threads are probably frayed and ragged, utterly unworthy of attention in any normal frame of reference, but to you they are precious.

I can remember my first story vividly. As a child, I recall myself and my sister telling each other stories late at night - the pretend games of narrative, using dolls or pictures or whatever we had lying around. It was so natural to me. It was instinctive taleweaving, telling only for the joy of it, just like every other kid.

I remember our old computer. It was a huge, clunky (by today's standards) white box, with a clacky keyboard and a basic, DOS command line interface. A Commodore 286, I think; to this day, I wonder if my parents only got it for the novelty of it, because neither of them are particularly technically inclined. But on this pitiful, ancient machine - unworthy of attention in any normal frame of reference, even then - I made something magical.

I was twelve years old, and I started tapping out a story about the snakes returning to Ireland.

It's said that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, way back in yonder days. In reality, it's probably something to do with ecology and whatnot, which is not nearly so interesting. But the idea of it was fascinating to me, and I began to dream up images of rivers of scaly bodies slipping away into the sea, with St. Patrick standing sternly behind them with a grim expression. And I thought of snakes, in the modern day, talking amongst themselves about a lost land to the west and north - a sanctuary, Atlantis even - that was little more than legend and rumour.

Ah, it was so little. I barely wrote a few pages before giving up. And it was terrible, believe me - a twelve year old may write well for their age, but that doesn't make their stuff good. It was a story I wouldn't give the time of day to, now, and it was my whole heart and soul made real back then. That was the first time I tried to catch a dream and forge it into a story. Those were the first threads.

Be they ever so humble, I sure every writer remembers them.

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.

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.

I Dreamed a Dream

I read a very interesting blog post today over on www.nielsenhayden.com. You should go read it.

It's ok, I'll wait.

... ... ...

Read it? Good. Here's the part that really struck me:

It’s a central narrative of Britain’s Got Talent: the shy, podgy little contestant comes out on stage and says they want to sing professionally; that they believe it’s what they were made to do. The audience titters cynically: Yeah, right. The judges don’t quite roll their eyes. “Go on, then,” they say. “Let’s hear it.” The contestant takes a deep breath and —

ZOMG, it’s Paul Potts singing “Nessun Dorma”. It’s thirteen-year-old Andrew Johnston singing “Pie Jesu”. Most recently, it’s Susan Boyle, singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables. When they open their mouths, what comes out is the real thing: rich, powerful, self-assured music.

Teresa says, rightly enough, that an editor or agent has to wade through hours and hours of utter crap to get to that ZOMG moment. But I can just hear the writers reading that post and almost jumping up and down saying, "ME! Please let it be me!"

It takes real courage to stand before someone so... disdainful, and still want to show them that you've got what it takes. They expect you to be forgettable, to be a non-entity. They expect less than nothing of your talent. But we still want to be there, no matter how much it might damage us; we want to be the one talent that shines in the darkness and sets their world on fire. That feeling, when you stand there and watch the skepticism and disbelief fade away to joy and you know that you made it happen - that feeling is golden.

I'll bet good money that Susan Boyle will never forget that first moment on the stage, when the music started and her voice soared over the audience who never believed she could do it.

One Small Step for Man

On this day, in 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

I'm celebrating the occasion by watching a film called The Dish. It remains one of my favourite movies of all time. It was pitched as a comedy, though, and it never received the real recognition it deserved for the story it told.

It's one of the greatest stories in the world, landing man on the moon. It's about striving, and reaching out to capture the dream of something fantastical. It's something that should be impossible, but through our blood and sweat, we make it possible. It is the naked spirit of humanity, burning at our brightest and best.

I never saw the moon landing, but when I watch The Dish, it shows me a shadow of what it was like. And it is wonderful; it is an inspiration. It is - it was - a dream made real. And people can lament that we've done little since, but they can never take the dream away from those who still look up to the stars and believe that humanity can become better than we are.

The Apollo 11 mission went to the moon because it was hard, because it could have been impossible. They showed us something beautiful and brilliant; our first venture out into the universe. And everyone who saw it became a part of it, and dreamed it with them.

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. For all mankind.