ornoth

It’s finally time for us to move on, LiveJournal.

You and I had a good run together. Twenty years, in fact, since our relationship started back in 2002. 1,350 journal entries, between my general and cycling blogs.

But boy have you changed. In 2007 you were bought out by a Russian company, but I stayed loyal to you when most of my friends left for your alter-ego: Dreamwidth.

Since then you have: fired your American staff, broke a promise by relocating your servers to Russia, adopted partisan Russian censorship policies in your terms of service, prohibited other blogging platforms from crossposting to LJ, and made it difficult for users to export their existing blog entries to other systems.

I don’t know at what point your behavior crossed the line, but it obviously has. At this point, my earlier choice to distinguish between LJ’s policies and those of the Russian state seems naïve.

With that distinction removed, it becomes much harder to pay for a service hosted in an authoritarian country that is engaged in a clandestine hacking war upon the United States, and an unjustifiable invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

Between LiveJournal’s own policies and those of the Russian state, things have finally gone too far. So after 20 years with you, I’ve finally joined Dreamwidth, who will host my general and cycling blogs going forward.

Yup. Twenty years, beginning on February 16 2002 with this post, where I shortsightedly stated, “You shouldn't expect to see very much in the way of public postings.” That was the first of 1,350 entries (so far).

I found it telling that I observed that 20th anniversary by posting a status update on my Facebook, rather than LJ. Previously, I’d written about my feelings on the fifth anniversary and the tenth anniversary of my blog.

Henceforth all new postings will appear on Dreamwidth, where I’ve imported all my old LJ posts and settings. As you might expect, a few things didn’t come across perfectly, but I’ll try and iron those out over time. If you notice anything missing, broken, or ugly, I’d appreciate if you let me know.

As a reader – however infrequently that might be – you can expect my blogs to continue as they always have, save for the obvious change of domain name. Hopefully the only change you’ll notice will be a return to posting more often.

As an active blogger, I write about a lot of things. Usually, when I get an idea for a post, I work it until it’s polished and accurately represents my views before I post it for you to see.

But sometimes the words come out all wrong, and it doesn’t really fulfil the vision I had for the article. Maybe it’s impolitic, maybe it’s oversharing, maybe it’s just a marginal idea to begin with, or just too offbeat to put my name to.

When that happens, I’ll set the post aside for a while. I might revisit it in a week, a month, or a year… or maybe not at all. After fifteen years of blogging, I’ve collected quite a pile of these dubious articles that were never posted.

Over the next week, I’m going to publish a few of them. Partly to share a few of my less-polished thoughts; partly to clean out my works-in-progress folder; and partly to get some new posts up on my personal blog, which—as opposed to my cycling blog—I’ve only posted to once in the past six months.

If you choose to read these blogposts, I would advise you to reserve judgement. View them more as thought experiments than serious editorial commentary. I’m not that invested in them, so you shouldn’t be, either.

Just nod and follow the advice of the fiction writing group I ran for so many years. One of the first things they always told new members was: “That’s Orny… Don’t encourage him.”

A friend recently apologized for not sharing one of my blogposts because it would have been inappropriate for some of her readers.

That surprised me. I thought it strange that someone would apologize for not sharing something with their readers. I don’t want anyone to feel obligated to re-post my stuff.

I meant to say that to her, but in the moment, it came out like this: “I write to share, not to get shares.”

That off-the-cuff quip encapsulated a lot more meaning than I originally intended.

I blog for two primary reasons. Firstly, so that The Ornoth Of The Future can revisit these memories sometime later in life.

And secondly, to share my thoughts, feelings, character, and experiences with any of my friends who are interested. In that sense, I’m seeking a sincere and open connection with the awesome people I’ve met.

I don’t care about building an audience beyond that immediate circle. Nowhere in my makeup is there any desire to acquire mindshare, become an influencer, count conversions, or monetize eyeballs.

Maybe that’s why my two blogs have thrived for so long—13 years and 1,100 posts—while most other blogs die in obscurity after a feeble couple posts.

To be successful, a blogger needs to have interesting things to say, and lots of them. That’s where most blogs fall down.

Most people start blogging solely to market themselves: either to potential employers or clients or someone they could sell something to.

But readers don’t find self-promotion very engaging. To be successful, a blog needs to have lots of interesting insights to share or value to add. It must have more substance to it than just another tedious marketing channel.

It isn’t rocket surgery: your blog won’t grow a following if all it offers is shallow and monotonous self-promotion.

Fortunately for my readers, I’m not writing to impress employers or hypnotize customers, but to connect. You shouldn’t feel any obligation to give my stuff further distribution, because that’s not why I’m writing. My blog’s success isn’t tallied in impressions, click-throughs, likes, or shares.

I write to share, not to get shares!

Six years ago, I posted a poll to my blog, asking for feedback from my readers. One of the questions was whether I posted too often or not enough. Their answer was unambiguous: 60 percent of respondents chose “too infrequently”, while none chose “too frequently”. Surprisingly to me, my readers wanted more of my “stuff”.

From 2003 through 2008, I averaged 85 blog posts per year. Since then, however, I’ve become steadily less prolific each year: 49 blog posts in 2009, then 44, then 39, then only 31 in 2012 (with a quarter of those being PMC voice posts). Around that same time, I also stopped writing fiction.

This is a massive change for me. What caused me to step away from an entire lifetime of writing?

In the case of blogging, I think there are some obvious reasons.

Five or ten years ago, blogging was the new, cool thing. A lot of people were entranced by the novelty of it, and started dumping their thoughts out on screen. More than the novelty of blogging, I was motivated by the opportunity to have my posts seen by many of my close friends. Having my musings read by my social circle has always been important to me, but that motivator gradually dried up as people abandoned blogging and my readership dwindled.

And some of the blogs that used to post topics to write about—like the old Friday Five questions—also fell by the wayside as the novelty wore off, taking away a regular prompt to write.

And although I don’t think Facebook killed my need to write, I did find myself posting many of my very short one-time observations there, rather than writing them up in my blog. For most people, Facebook provided a better way to share the details of their lives than blogs ever did.

But it’s not all about the medium, either. When I stepped away from the consulting world, that reduced the number of places I traveled to and people I met, which were always good writing fodder.

And let’s face it: I’ve ranted and raved my way through over a thousand blog posts. It takes a bit of creativity to come up with a topic I haven’t already spewed about more than once!

Even my Buddhist practice, which filled more than a hundred posts, has matured to the point where I’m not being introduced to many new concepts, and I no longer feel the need to review every book I read or dhamma talk or retreat that I go to.

The bottom line being that there’s simply less for me to say these days.

Now, that explains blogging, but what about fiction?

While there are many factors involved, I want to explore one particular one: the impact my meditation practice has had upon my writing.

I’ve long held the belief that Buddhism and creative artistic expression have an uneasy relationship, and that’s doubly so for something like prose, which is so heavily based in language and concept. But a recent article in Buddhadharma magazine has prompted me to commit my thoughts here. A lot of this may sound a bit strange to non-meditators, but hopefully some of the concepts can get across.

I used to think that Buddhism’s focus on being in the moment was a boon to me as a writer. It allowed me to be fully present with my daily experiences, so that I could then draw on those observations to create compelling imagery for my stories. If my story needed a description of a swimming hole that used to be a granite quarry, I could compile an image composed of the detailed observations I’d collected by being very present and focused in prior, similar experiences. And for a while that worked out great.

But I failed to consider the other side of that coin. Being fully present and physically embodied in the present moment takes one out of one’s head and the endless stream of consciousness that preoccupies the human mind. If one is living in the moment, one doesn’t spend hours ruminating on purely conceptual what-ifs, which is where great story ideas come from. Such reverie—being literally “lost in thought”—might be the fertile breeding ground for imagination and creativity and inspiration, but a Buddhist would view it as an unproductive distraction from what’s real.

While it’s nice to think that you could choose to turn that facility on or off at will, the whole Buddhist project is to establish a constant habit of stepping outside the mind and observing one's thought process so that thought itself can be evaluated and critiqued. Once unlocked, turning that observer off is no more controllable than asking yourself to not think about elephants.

The writer wants to take something impermanent—his thoughts—and make them permanent; the Buddhist realizes that thought is ephemeral and resists the unexamined desire to concretize something that—like all things—is subject to change and dissolution.

The article’s author, Ruth Ozeki captures some of this in the following passage:

What’s required in Zen is the opposite of what’s required for fiction. In zazen, we become intimate with thought in order to see through it and let it go. In fiction writing, we become intimate with thought in order to capture it, embellish it, and make it concrete. Fiction demands a total immersion in the fictional dream. This is not compatible with sitting sesshin, which demands total immersion in awakened reality. You can’t do both at once. Believe me, I’ve tried.

The Buddhist views discursive thought as untrustworthy and largely wasted energy, while the writer values discursive thought so highly as to want to freeze it, share it, and make it last. Ms. Ozeki acknowledges this herself when she refers to “my relentlessly discursive novelist’s mind (a handicap for a spiritual practitioner)”.

Buddhism instills a profound skepticism of one’s own thoughts and perceptions and habitual preferences: they are to be examined carefully, rather than believed unquestioningly. We look at our thinking in order to hold it more lightly and release some of its hold on us.

This erodes one of the most basic premises of the fiction writer: that there is somehow something important about the imaginary world of your thoughts… and that it’s important that those thoughts and emotions be communicated to and shared with others.

When thought about that way, it becomes clear that writing is at its heart an emotional act, driven by ego. The author is responding to a compulsion—“the creative urge”—which the Buddhist views as unskillful.

The Buddhist realizes that fiction writing is largely prompted by vanity, the thought that I have something new or special or important to say. The underlying compulsion to create is the product of an overactive and often counterproductive defense against the impermanence and uncertainty of our world.

It was reassuring to find that I wasn’t alone in my experience of Buddhist practice getting in the way of my writing. It’s not something I could have foreseen, and I’m not entirely happy to see the last vestiges of my imaginative writing career wither.

But fiction aside, I’m sure I’m good for a few hundred more blog posts. After all, there’ll still be lots of things for me to rant about. If nothing else, I can provide a daily first-hand report of all the exciting effects of aging!

Colonoscopies, ho!

Ten years, 700 blogposts covering 1200 different topics. I'm quite pleased with the quality of content, too.

My most frequent topics: Buddhism, humor, PMC, Friday Five, cycling, and DargonZine.

I consider it a success. I'm sure you can expect more of the same.

I’d like to preserve and share with you an email I sent yesterday to the DargonZine Writers’ List, in observance of the 25th anniversary of FSFnet’s founding.

Twenty-five years. Two and a half decades. A quarter century.

I’m not sure how well you remember December of 1984, but here are a couple mental snapshots that I recall.

One is taking my friend Murph aside one quiet afternoon and asking his opinion about starting a fantasy magazine that would be distributed over BITNET. It would be modeled after the handful of other newsletters my friends were sending out by email, as well as the annual literary journal I once produced for the regional Tolkien fan group. He liked the idea, as did all the friends I mentioned it to.

The other image is set a week or so later. I recall sitting in the University of Maine mainframe computer terminal cluster after a particularly egregious blizzard, composing the eight-paragraph announcement and appeal for submissions that I called FSFnet Volume 0 Number 0. Between Christmas 1984 and New Years Day 1985, I emailed it to 100 people who listed fantasy or science fiction as interests in the primitive user directory called the BITNAUTS LIST. Two thirds of them would subscribe to the zine, and submissions would begin trickling in.

Thus was DargonZine born, twenty-five years ago this week.

Some of you have been here since those early days, and some joined somewhat later. Whatever part you’ve played in our shared history, you have my deepest thanks, and my heartiest congratulations. Or if you’re really new to the project, I look forward to the contribution you bring for our future. New writers are absolutely critical for our survival and thriving, so I encourage you to be an active, vocal participant.

While I was editor, amidst the urgent pleas for submissions and critiques and mentoring work, I probably never talked enough about how proud I am of what we’d accomplished. This is probably the best opportunity I’ll have until 2034, when DargonZine will hopefully observe its 50th anniversary, and I’ll hopefully be an overripe 71 year-old. So indulge me for a few moments.

When I founded FSFnet, I was a solitary 21 year-old writer in the woods of Maine, seeking focused exchange with other aspiring writers. I wanted to grow and learn as a writer, and to share that path with people who were similarly motivated. One of the things that brings me the most pride is observing the exchange of ideas and the quality of discourse on our email list. If I look back across our time together, it’s incredibly easy to see how much each of us has developed and matured as writers. I take great satisfaction in our having done so well in accomplishing my initial goal.

What I didn’t expect was how deeply people have valued their association with DargonZine. Many of you have been here one, two decades, or more. It’s humbling and very rewarding to have built something that other people value so highly. Your dedication is visible in the time and hard work you put into your stories and critiques, your tenure here, and your willingness to contribute your time and energy to keep the project running. Many of you have made DargonZine an important part of your lives, and that’s an amazing compliment to receive.

Another thing that actually took me by surprise was how important DargonZine was for me. While I was in college, FSFnet was a fun diversion, but it was also a way to do something meaningful that other people valued, which gave me a real sense of satisfaction. I guess it was natural that would be eclipsed when I left school, began a career, and got married, but it resumed even stronger than before when I returned to the zine after my separation and divorce.

Resuming control of DZ in 1994 helped give my life focus and meaning when both career and marriage were in the shitter. Its longevity (at that time ten years!) became a major source of pride, and as my career rebounded, DZ also became a place where I could practice budding leadership and motivational skills. I suddenly and unexpectedly found myself describing DargonZine and its mission of nurturing aspiring writers as my life’s purpose. While other causes have taken priority in recent years, I really appreciate the comfort, direction, and meaning DZ has given me throughout the years.

Let me talk about those years, because many of you should take pride in our shared creation. As you know, we’re the longest-running electronic magazine on the Internet by a huge margin. In 25 years we’ve sent out approximately 200 issues with about 500 stories, totaling over 14 MB and close to 3 million words of prose. We’ve fabricated a consistent shared world with over 12,000 references to over 3,500 named things, with a complete encyclopedic reference database. These might just look like numbers until you start thinking about how much work any one of them takes to accomplish; then you really begin to understand the magnitude of our shared achievement. But more importantly than any of that, we’ve published stories from five dozen aspiring writers, all of whom have come away from that experience with valuable learnings that have made them better at their craft.

Looking back, there are particular events that I’m proud to be associated with. Naturally, the creation of the Dargon Project itself, back when FSFnet was foundering, is a major one, along with its early development. Printing the Talisman epic and several other exceptional stories were others. But out of everything, I think the pinnacle had to be going from conception to the final printed conclusion of the huge Black Idol story arc, since it involved so many writers, required such close coordination, was such a long and grueling process, and finally produced such a memorable and noteworthy result. But all our collaborations—the conspiracy, the war, the comet contest, and others—are all highlights. It was an honor to participate in and preside over many of them.

I take a little pride in my ability to twice walk away from the zine, leaving my most prized creation in others’ hands; that’s not easy. But the real pride comes in seeing people step up to the challenge and keep the thing going out of sheer appreciation, since the other editors did not have the same sense of ownership and obligation and personal ego involvement that I did as founder. Leadership of DZ isn’t the most comfortable mantle to wear, but those who have taken on leadership duties—and not just the titular editors—have done us all great honor by helping the zine survive.

And, finally, the personal relationships. I have met about three dozen of our writers, both at our Summits and outside of them, and I’m delighted to have befriended most of them. While creating a network of social bonds wasn’t even on my radar back in 1984, it’s by far one of the project’s biggest and most pleasurable results, and another source of pride and honor. The people who have written for DargonZine are family, and one of the biggest and least-expected treasures of my life.

It’s been a surprisingly long and rewarding road, my friends. We’ve seen a lot, done a lot, and accomplished a lot. You’ve made me very proud, and I hope you take as much pride and joy in DargonZine as I do. Not just in the world-record longevity which we celebrate today, but in all the good it has done for so many writers. I’m honored to have shared the journey with you, and I look forward to many years and more adventures to come.

DargonZine can, of course, be found at http://www.dargonzine.org/.

Most of you know that in 1984 I founded an Internet-based magazine for aspiring writers called DargonZine and ran it until a couple years ago. I have to say, there’s nothing quite like amateur fiction. As ably demonstrated by the following unedited passages from some of the rough drafts that were posted for peer review. Their beauty is self-evident; enjoy.

“Before I do my mother, will you put yourself in exile with me?
Skar smiled a mean little smile as Kane recovered himself and quickly snatched the bag off of the table. Skar slowly drank the rest of his ale, and the rose from his table.
The baron said, “He’ll get over it, my love. But this could have all been avoided if you had been more discrete.”
When she had not conceived after months of trying, it became apparent that something was wrong. Now, years later, there was no denying her bareness.
All of the walls around the room were filled with doors, and in the center a grand staircase lead up to a balcony on the second floor.
Sandia reached the edge of the doorway and peaked in.
“What?” she screeched. “You pick up some orphaned peasant girl and bring her back, then you dump her on me while you gallivant off to heard sheep or whatever it is knights do in this backwater squandry.
“I’ll return in two months,” DuVania said forcefully. “No one is being abandoned, Friana. During that time, I’m sure my daughter will fair just as well as she has during the past two months.
The tavern was teaming again, full of evening patrons eating and drinking their fill
[note here that Parris is a male character] Parris recalled the family tale that had been passed on to him by his father, a weak and bitter man with no ambition. Parris and Clifton’s great-grandfather, Duke Cedric, had been unable to conceive a child.
Soldiers dressed in the white and blue livery colours of baron Narragan lunged at him from both sides.
There were archers and varying degree of men-at-arms from peasants with farm implements to well-equipped castle guards bearing shields with their lords’ liver colours and chain hauberks.
Dara reached them and scanned the deep blue horizon. Sumner Dargon pointed and she was able to make out the white rectangles of sales approaching.
When I returned to the room, it looked beautiful. It had always been one of my favorite rooms for this reason. Because there were no windows, the light from the candles and the scone lit the room with a golden glow.
He felt the warmth of her through his clothing. He stood still again and let that warmth envelope him.
I had already seen that few city dwellers considered woodsmen, wearing simple leathers and fir shirts to be uncivilized.
Enough was enough. I remember pushing away the proffered cup of water, and the incensed look on the fishmonger’s face as it spilled over him.
I stared at the creature and it stared back at me. Then it spayed water from the top of its head and I was soaking wet; so was every other man standing nearby. It got their attention.
“May I come in?”
“Off course.”

As DargonZine’s founder and former editor, I was asked to make a few comments as they completed their 24th and began their record 25th year of online publication. I thought I’d share my responses here, in case anyone is interested.

Why did you start Dargonzine?

DargonZine, which was initially called FSFnet, really began out of my desire to exchange ideas, tips, and techniques with other writers. I was attending college in the backwoods of Maine, and there really was no one I could have those kinds of focused conversations with.

At that time, BITNET was just coming into being, and several of my peers had founded electronic magazines that focused on computers or humor. But at that time there was really no online forum for fantasy and science fiction fans.

Having edited a fiction-based magazine in high school, I immediately recognized the value of combining this newfound communication technology with my personal needs as a writer. I could attract people like myself, who sought a serious, focused online writers’ group, while entertaining hundreds of fantasy readers by freely distributing the writers’ output online.

Twenty years before the term “social networking” was coined, we realized the power of bringing aspiring writers together and sharing their works with supportive readers, and that formula has been the basis for DargonZine’s success.

Did you ever imagine it would still be running, 25 years later?

During the early years, obtaining enough submissions was a constant struggle, and it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that DargonZine had enough writers to ensure that issues came out on a regular basis. So for many years our focus on getting the next issue out superceded any inkling of how long the magazine would survive.

However, as the few older e-zines folded, by 1995 we had clearly become the longest-running electronic magazine on the Internet. At the same time, we had an established core group of long-term contributors who were willing to do whatever was necessary to keep the group alive. Only then did we start thinking about DargonZine having a future beyond the next two or three issues.

What were the early days of Dargonzine like?

Most people don’t realize how primitive the Internet was in 1984. This was ten years before the first public Web browser was developed, before IRC, predating even commandline FTP. The only service available was text-only email.

The “Internet” was limited to a couple obscure places that would pass email between two incompatible networks. The only sites on the Internet were major colleges and large government contractors, and the only people who had both access and the technical knowledge to use it were computer science students and computer center staff.

At that time, there were virtually no public gathering places on the Internet (pun intended). One of the only ways to find people was to register your name, email address, and interests in a central text file that listed a few hundred “Bitnauts”: tech-savvy Internet users. DargonZine’s first two mailings were sent to users on the Bitnauts List who had listed science fiction or fantasy in their interests.

Back then, when connections between universities rarely exceeded 9600 baud (15 minutes per MB), sending a couple hundred emails at once could bring the entire network to its knees. FSFnet was one of the first users of Eric Thomas’ Listserv software, which addressed this problem by multiplexing email and file distribution to make more efficient use of BITNET’s star topology and slow network links.

What advice would you give to others who want to start a long-lived webzine?

There are two crucial elements in making your e-zine work: the subject matter, and your dedication to it.

Because you’re competing with everyone else on the planet, your e-zine needs to be the single best source of information on your topic. If you intend to put out a magazine about Star Trek, your zine has to be really exceptional in order to stand out among all the other sites already out there. That’s incredibly difficult, but I’ve seen it done.

The other option is to focus on something newly emerging, like steampunk fiction or digital video recorders or GPS phones. If you’re the only zine that deals with your topic, it’s much easier to become the recognized authority in the field. This is what DargonZine did back in the early days of the Internet, when there were no other writing groups or fiction zines online. If you do this, you just have to make sure you do it well enough to discourage anyone from starting a new zine to compete with you.

The subject matter is what will get your zine off the ground, but your dedication is what gives it longevity. I’ve see hundreds of zines and newsletters fold after putting out four to ten issues. Usually there’s a honeymoon period when there’s lots of content and both the editor and contributors are very motivated. But in short order the editor discovers that the pipeline of submissions has run dry and there’s actually a lot of technical drudgery in preparing and distributing issues. It’s here where the editor’s passion and devotion to the subject matter makes the difference between a zine that quietly fades away into obscurity or survives and goes on to enduring greatness. And, really, if you’re not working on something you love to do, you shouldn’t be wasting your time on it.

And if you’d like to impart any anecdotes or anything else, please let me know!

Although the Internet allowed DargonZine’s contributors to work closely together in a virtual sense, our writers have always been physically isolated, spread thinly across the globe. In fact, during our first decade we didn’t see any value in meeting one another in person. Even when that changed, we spent two cautious years meeting in small groups before inviting all our writers to our first open DargonZine Writers’ Summit in Washington DC in 1997.

The ensuing DargonZine Summits cultivated lasting friendships and generated an unexpected amount of enthusiasm among our contributors. Since 1997, we have held annual meetings each year in different cities around the world. The Summits are a balance between working sessions focused on improving our writing, fostering personal connections between writers, and sightseeing in the host city. Although we were skeptical of their value at first, the Summits have proved to be one of the most rewarding, inspiring, and effective activities we’ve ever provided.

Today my newest story was printed in DargonZine. More importantly, this is my last appearance in the zine I founded almost exactly 24 years ago, at the Paleolithic dawn of the Internet era.

The story itself is nothing to write home about. I’d planned for years to write a “walking tour of Dargon” as a way of helping new readers and writers get up to speed on the city, which is the main setting for most Dargon stories. That morphed a little bit when the group decided that we’d all do something similar, describing parts of the city but trying to incorporate cross-overs between our stories.

Then, when it became clear that this was going to be my last published work for DargonZine, I made it a bit more autobiographical and changed its title from the placeholder of “Butler” (the protagonist’s name) to a rather heavy-handed double entendre: “The Farewell Tour”.

Because I never had a theme or any particular ambition for the piece, it’s a pretty flat read, not much different from any travelogue I might write. As I say, there’s no meaning to it other than departure, and no plot other than a guy walking around town noting his observations.

Its primary noteworthiness is as a fencepost: the final thing I did for the magazine I started as FSFnet back in 1984, and which I ran for two separate stints totaling around sixteen years. I stepped down as leader and editor in the latter half of 2005, although it took another two years before the new editor began assembling and sending out issues on his own.

Since my departure, there have been an impressive number of changes. I’ll decline to pass judgment on the value of those changes, because the zine and the writers’ group are not mine to rule any longer, and the new folks deserve the freedom to run things the way they choose.

After a long wait, 2008 brought the final two actions of my long tenure with DargonZine. In July I attended my final DargonZine Writers’ Summit, saying goodbyes to the core group of people who have faithfully helped me keep the zine alive, many of them for close to two dozen years. I think that gave everyone a healthy sense of closure.

And then there is today’s publication of “The Farewell Tour”.

I originally founded FSFnet to meet and work with other writers, and give us all a central place to send our stories out to appreciative fans on the nascent Internet. The first piece of fiction we ever printed was my story “Ornathor’s Saga”, which appeared in the debut issue of FSFnet back in January 1985. A year later I wrote and printed “Simon’s Song”, the very first story set in the new shared milieu called Dargon that is our sole focus to this day. Given that history, it’s very fitting that my last act as a project member isn’t putting out an issue or hosting a Summit or writing an editorial, but having my fiction printed.

The door closed. The latch fell into place with a click that was no different than any other morning, but to Butler, it rang within his ears like the tenth bell that heralded the oncoming night. With a sense of finality, he slowly turned away from the home he’d known for twenty years and began his long journey into the unknown.

Read “The Farewell Tour”

unicornpearlz asked: How the heck did you get so good at marketing?

I’d say there are probably three factors.

The first is just simple observation. Since no one can escape being marketed to, it makes sense for an engaged member of modern society to learn how mass media manipulate individuals and groups. This requires examining those media with a critical eye, giving thought to what the media are doing and how they go about doing it. I see that as just basic visual literacy.

The other is that it’s kinda of been part of my job. I’ve been designing Internet information systems since 1983, and that has included information architecture, data visualization, and (especially with the rise of the web) visual design. As such, I’ve gradually become attuned to the fact that layout and illustration do a whole lot more than just make a page look pretty; they control what information the user focuses on, what they perceive as important, and even how they react to that information.

In the early days, web developers and designers had to be jacks of all trades, and I was strong in technology, business strategy, and information design, but my weakest point has always been the creative side of visual design. Thus, the third factor: in 2001 I started classes at the New England School of Art and Design, with the idea of picking up a certificate in electronic graphic design. In 2005, due to extraordinary events in my life, I walked away from the program with just one class left to matriculate. But by then I’d gained all the knowledge I was going to get from the program.

Knowing I sucked at graphic design, that was an interesting and conscious exercise. When one is young, you always play to your strengths, looking for a job you will excel at; when you’re older, you start thinking more about new, more ambitious challenges and the value of exploring and strengthening the areas you’ve always found most difficult. When I started classes at NESAD, my work was actually well ahead of that of the kids in my classes, but over time, my work stayed at about the same level, while theirs improved dramatically. What I did gain was a better understanding of design and designers, and the incredible insights of the Bauhaus movement.

At the same time, it pretty much confirmed my lack of confidence in my creative ability. While I have expert skills providing critiques and making suggestions, and moderate skill at taking an existing design and improving it substantially, I’m an utter failure if I have to start with a blank page; the ideas just don’t come. So I didn’t overcome my weakness, but I definitely learned a lot, and refined my understanding of my limitations.

What’s ironic is that this lack of creative confidence has spread to my fiction writing, as well, which is one (of many) reasons why I decided to end my involvement with DargonZine. Fortunately, at least it hasn’t interfered with my blogging or photography, which have been my major “creative” outlets in recent years.

But really, I think my first two survey courses in graphic design were the most valuable in terms of gaining a degree of visual literacy. They taught me how to look at a piece of media and evaluate it from a designer’s perspective, and some of the techniques and methods used to influence the viewer, whether subtly or otherwise.

With only eleven days until this year’s Pan-Mass Challenge ride, you can expect to start hearing a lot of PMC news.

This year’s fundraising letter will appear here in the next day or two, but don’t stress about the ride date, as I can continue fundraising for another two months.

However, the thing I wanted to mention in this post is that I was the cover story on the summer edition of “Views from the Vendome”, my condo’s newsletter.

Better still is that it came out last Tuesday, which coincided with a going-away party for one of our longtime concierges, Bob. Everyone I saw seemed to have already read the article and were all very enthusiastic. I’m hopeful that it’ll bring in a few contributions from the Vendome crowd, who haven’t been a big source of donations in the past.

If you’d like to see the article, click through to the PDF version of “Views from the Vendome”.

From the welcome sheet that came with my Wyndham Hotels affinity program card:

At the new Wyndham, thoughtfulness and intelligent design define everything we do, so you can be well fed, well rested and well treated. Be well.

OMG… You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. This is a good example why the management aphorism that “Anyone can write copy” is false.

After a week, I suppose it’s time to summarize the results of the Orny’s blog reader survey. I found the results kinda interesting, generally not as grim as I’d expected.

I got 15 responses, which is a pretty decent response rate. Looking at the list of people who have friended me, I think at best I could expect around 20 responses, so 15 is a 75% response rate.

I had 2 responses within 2 hours, 10 after 24 hours, and 15 after 48 hours. No one has answered after 48 hours (as of this writing at 160 hours). That means people read my posts soon after they come out, which would be expected if my posts appear on their Friends Page.

To that point, 85% of people said they read my blog via their friends page.

65% of respondents said they read my journal daily, which again would make sense if I’m on people’s Friends Page. No one said they read it less than weekly, although a week into the survey, that’s a bit of a self-selecting set.

Not one person thought that I posted too often. I don’t think so, either. I generally don’t post unless there’s something worth saying. At least IMNSHO.

Of the 15 respondents, 60% said that I did not post often enough. Again, that’s a pleasant surprise.

78% of respondents said they read 75-100% of my posts. This is a surprisingly high number. I was expecting a lot more people to skim my posts, since they’re often lengthy, and sometimes repetitive.

No one said they read less than 50% of my posts, and no one checked the “I really don’t read very much of it” item. Again, I’m flattered that people think my stuff worth taking the time to read.

77% of people said my journal makes them laugh, and 70% said it made them nostalgic. Only a couple people said it made them angry or bored, so I think those are pretty good stats. The only head-scratcher for me is that five people said it made them sad, which I’m a bit curious about. And I’m kinda annoyed that no one said it made them want to give me money!

I got very few responses to the question of what there’s too much of in my blog. The answer I most expected was that there was too much heavy, thoughtful stuff. Although that was indeed the most popular response, only two people felt that way, and that’s a much lower number than I feared.

61% of people want more photos and more sex. Well, photos I can do, and I’d also point people at my Flickr account. Sex… Well, I can share, if you really want, but I’m not sure you’ll get what you’re thinking of. I found it kinda odd that the people who want to see more sex aren’t the ones I would have expected, and 70% of them are women. People also want to see more short posts and relationship stuff, and I’ll see what I can do there. Brevity is challenging.

The most openly controversial topic in the whole survey was Carmen Miranda. Four people said they wanted less, one explicitly wrote “Carmen Miranda” in the open text box asking what they didn’t want to read about, and another posted a comment to the same effect. On the other hand, seven people said they wanted more Carmen Miranda. That means very few people are neutral on the topic.

By the way, Wikipedia states that in 1945 Carmen Miranda was the highest paid woman in the entire United States, bar none.

Finally, 74% of responses said that they liked my blog just the way it is. I’m glad to know that I’m doing something right, and hopefully my stuff will continue to be of interest to people.

The full result set can, of course, be found here.

Thanks for reading!

Here’s the assertion: your brain wants a rough balance of activity and rest.

If your brain has to work really hard most of the time, it has a tendency to seek out quietude when it can. If you’ve ever worked in a high stress position, you know how precious “down time” can be. On the other hand, if your brain doesn’t get enough exercise, perhaps it becomes restless. Once you reach a certain level of boredom, you start looking around for things to occupy your mind.

Let’s start with that latter state. I’m going to kick around the idea that “creativity” (in general) may be a symptom of your brain looking for things to occupy it. If you have the spare mental energy to noodle on things and wonder about this or that, you’re more likely to produce stuff we’d call “creative” than if your brain is overwhelmed and working hard all day. No?

The reason why I say this is because I think that the converse explains some things I’ve seen in myself. When I’m slammed at work and putting in twelve-hour days, the last thing I can imagine is sitting down and writing a story or designing a web site, even when I happen to find myself with ample time on my hands. But those are exactly the things that motivate and excite me when I’m not challenged at work and there are few demands on my limited attention.

Is “creativity” a symptom of your brain searching for something interesting to do? Does intense, focused work sap your brain of the desire or the impetus to create? I’m curious about others’ experience.

I’ve struggled in recent years to justify my self-perception that I’m a creative person. I rarely find time these days to write fiction, take pictures, or design web pages, and when I do… I keep finding myself stymied by a complete lack of creative energy or inspiration.

Should I attribute that to creative burnout from a very stressful career? Or is it just that I have become less creative with age? Or should I resign myself to the idea that I’ve never been a very creative person, since even my prior successes were mostly derivative in nature?

Whatever the cause, these days my brain seems to be less willing to jump into creative pursuits, but very attracted to just turning off the internal discourse and letting my mind just rest.

So it’s been a couple weeks since the 2006 Dargon Writers’ Summit, which this year took place in Cincinnati. What follows is a highly-hacked up version of the summary I posted to our discussion list.

Typically, I’d say this posting would only be of interest to me, but you might be interested to know that this year I went into the Summit with the intention of resigning most of my responsibilities.

Having run this writing group since 1984 and long having considered it one of the most important activities in my life, my departure represents a major, possibly shocking development. So you might want to read about that. But I won’t get into the details of it until near the end of this missive.

So here’s the story. Note that the original email this is based on is addressed to the writers themselves. The original email text is indented, with comments outdented.

Last Wednesday afternoon Daf, Rena, and I arrived at Liam’s and went to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. Rena made her way to her hotel, while the rest of us played a quick game of “You Have Been Sentenced”, an educational sentence-building game designed for a bit younger audience, before crashing throughout Liam’s many guest bedrooms.

Thursday the four of us drove a couple hours into the Kentucky Hills. Daf and Rena went to Natural Bridge State Park, where they took a chairlift up to (or perhaps only down from?) the top of a ridge and hiked across the massive stone bridge and around the area. Meanwhile, Liam and I went to nearby Red River Gorge for a 6-mile hike along one ridge, then down into a valley and up another. It was very steamy, hot work, and we were glad to get back to house, exhusted, for a shower before meeting up with Jim and snagging Jon at the airport to complete our complement of six for this year’s Summit. Sadly, there were no new writers joining us this year.

Ironically, we drove through Lexington KY. The only time I’ve been there before was for the 1991 VM Workshop. I returned from that trip to find my wife moving out prior to our eventual divorce, so the area, though very pretty, has very mixed emotions associated with it.

The hike was really spectacular, and I enjoyed it a lot. It was just right: enough exertion so that you knew you’d had a workout, but not so much that we were limping home in abject pain. I was impressed with Kentucky when I was down there in 1991, and came away just as impressed this time.

I was disappointed with the meager turnout of just five other writers, but one can’t expect much, given our rapidly-dwindling numbers. It was definitely nothing like Austin, just three years ago, when we had a dozen. The chronic absence of any new (unpublished) writers was another major irritant for me.

Supper was at Knotty Pine on the Bayou, a nice but rustic Cajun place near Liam’s. Pretty good stuff. Returning to the house, we had a bit of a scotch tasting, mostly thanks to Daf’s plunder from his 2005 Scotland trip, then proceeded with a game of Summit favorite Settlers of Catan before crashage.

I pretty much confirmed my preference for Talisker as a full-bodied, smoky whisky. Nothing else came close.

Friday a few people slept in, while the rest of us got a very substantial breakfast at a place called First Watch. Then it was back to the house for the Summit working sessions. Friday’s sessions were designed to be all focused on writing (as opposed to project administration stuff).

Jon, our impulsive guy, was twice warned not to order a huge plate of pancakes, but decided to do it anyways. He probably ate about 2/3rds of what he received.

The thinking behind separating project business and writing was to do the writing-related stuff before the surprise announcement of my scaling back my involvement, which would be an immense distraction. I also wanted to set the zine up to succeed as best I could, and that seemed to suggest making as much progress on the writing stuff as possible before throwing the spanner into the works.

I opened the ceremonies by sharing a bit of a joke: a map of Baranur where all the place names had been replaced by anagrams. For example, Monrodya had been rechristened “Many Odor” and Welspeare was now “Ale Spewer” and Leftwich became “Elfwitch”.

Next up was Liam with a very informative talk about point of view. He made the important distinction (which I hope we’ll observe henceforth) between POV (first person, second person, third person; omniscient vs. limited, etc) and perspective (which character’s head you’re occupying). Then he went on to talk about advantages and disadvantages of each, and rules for their use. Great stuff!

Next, Jim—in his usual animated fashion—gave a great talk about medieval ships and shipping. He described their main uses— transportation, fishing, and warfare—the various types of ships, their methods of propulsion, and what life was like on board. Again, great stuff!

The whole idea of “white papers”, where a writer goes off and does some research and then reports back to the group at the Summit, is fairly recent, but has always worked out very well.

While Liam stepped out to get out lunch, I led the group through an interesting writing exercise called “sausage sentences”. The idea was to write an entire story where the last letter of one word was the first letter of the next, “linking” them together. It was fun, but rough! Adverbs are not your friends! And you can just forget about fancy verb tenses and even pronouns! In the end, some pretty interesting works were crafted, including the ever-memorable “gnarly yellow walnuts”.

Finally, Liam shared the results of his and Rena’s research into Dargon’s money systems and monetary values. The basic message was that our intention to make the money systems confusing for the characters in Dargon had simultaneously confused the heck out of our writers, as well! The research indicates that although there were a few notable outliers, people have stayed mostly within the ballpark of rational values, and a few specific tweaks might clarify things nicely for the writers. Liam will do one more iteration and present a summary document to the group which will hopefully set the level for monetary values and sexchange rates so you can use them without fear.

With the working sessions over, we headed over into Ohio for the first time. We tromped through the Cincinnati Art Museum, which had a fascinating show of dozens of Rembrandt van Rijn etchings; sadly, no photos allowed. Half the group stayed to plunder the art museum while several others went to the Krohn Conservatory’s Australian butterfly show. Later, we met up and made our way to Mt. Adams, a trendy sightseeing district in Cincy. After a bit of wandering and admiring the views of the city, we had a fine supper at Teak, a Thai place.

The butterfly exhibit was nowhere near as impressive as my expectation had been, and the most beautiful example—this iridescent blue species -- adamantly refused to keep its wings open when being photographed. But it was better than wandering around the art museum for two hours…

The Thai food was pretty good. I had cashew chicken, which was probably second only to that at Boston’s King & I.

Returning home, we made good use of Liam’s pool table while putting some brass tacks down in the Doravin story arc. Things are coming together there, especially in the first section of the arc, which will get the ball rolling. A few of us capped the evening off with another round of Settlers, again running late into the night.

I had really hoped we’d make a lot more progress on the Doravin arc, but it wasn’t to be. I think it’ll get off the ground, but I’m not sure how much momentum it really has.

That brings us to Saturday. Liam, despite his bleary-eyed sleep deprivation, got up and got everyone waffled before the working sessions, which in turn focused on the project, what we’re doing, how it runs, and so forth (as opposed to writing).

I went through the results of the Web survey from last month, which I’ll publish shortly. The statements that our writers agree with most are that the quality of writing in DZ is very high, that writers feel empowered to run with ideas for the project, that participating has been fun, and that DZ is a great social group. But we don’t feel that we do a good job achieving our goals, nor that the zine could continue in my absence, or that we could rely on our fellow writers to do what they promise. This last one was a big “ah-ha!”, and is a huge integrity issue that stands in the way of our getting anything done, and is something that frustrates the heck out of me, personally.

Basically, this was a 20-question survey wherein I probed how people felt about the project, and about how we’ve done against the goals I’ve always had for it. The results are disappointing in places, and in other places contradict my own beliefs about where we’re at. At any rate, it was educational.

That was, of course, the prelude to my resignation discussion. I started out with some level-setting, including what I get out of running DargonZine and the accomplishments I’m most proud of, before segueing into the numerous things that have driven me apeshit.

Next came “The Discussion”, and I’m as unsure how to talk about it here as I was at the Summit. I guess the short version is that I’m burned out. I have a bunch of specific goals I’ve always wanted the group to achieve, and we haven’t achieved them under my leadership. What’s worse, I don’t think we ever will achieve them under my leadership.

I want to actually list what those goals are, so that you can understand where I’m coming from. They may differ from your goals, or your idea of the project’s goals. My personal goals include: making DZ a supportive and nonthreatening and fun environment; helping writers improve their craft; creating a group that values new writers as our most precious asset, whatever their writing level; building a close-knit community; allowing people to form meaningful friendships; building something that people care about and feel they own; building something people will actively contribute to and work to build up; ensuring the project’s survival; advancing my own writing; helping people grow in other ways, like leadership, initiative, and maturity; and providing meaning for my life by helping other people.

Basically, I went through each goal in detail, describing the failures I’ve seen: how we are a closed group and don’t value our new writers, our 2% success rate over the past five years at getting new writers into print, our chronic inability to achieve our goals, and how no one seems to feel any ownership in the zine or willingness to help make it work.

Beyond my concern about how we’re doing against my personal goals, keeping this group moving forward is an immense amount of work, and I’ve exceeded my ability to do that, to the point that I’ve gotten discouraged, resentful, and irritable. It’s no longer fun, and my irritability increases the amount of conflict on the list. As much as I love DZ and as much as it means to me to be its leader, there’s no question in my mind that I have to step out of that leadership role. And I shared that with the people at the Summit, over the course of an emotional (and far too lengthy) diatribe.

For about the past three years, I’ve gone through periods where I considered quitting. Usually I decide to hang on, because I thought things might get better, but now I feel like I have to admit that they aren’t going to get better under my leadership.

I can’t really say much about what it felt like to tell this to these people who have depended on me to run the project since its inception. It was hard. It was a relief. It was painful. It was emotional. I was numb. Putting it all out there, being willing to walk away from my life’s work… Well, it’s a watershed point. It had been coming for a long time, and I had to get through it. Something had to change, and that change was long overdue.

I’m really not in a position where I can or should be the decisionmaker for the zine anymore, so I left it up to the group what they wanted to do next. The cool thing is that I think they responded well to this immense challenge that—for most of them —came out of the blue.

Although I tend to remember the many times the writers have disappointed me by blowing deadlines, dropping the ball, and conveniently forgetting things they had promised, I have to repeat that I was very impressed by how the group responded. They were mature and practical, and accepted my statement of the problem and my inability to continue as leader without question. Then they got into solution mode and came up with some great ideas that I hadn’t foreseen.

So we listed all the things I do and broke them down into four roles: editor, leader, techie, and marketing (the fifth role of mentor having already been forked off as a separate position that Jim presently occupies). Then we looked at what could be reassigned. The majority of the stress in my job comes from being leader/visionary and ultimate decisionmaker, so we decided to take that role off my hands. The ultimate project leader is now Liam Donahue, and he will share that role to some degree with Jon Evans, and I’ll be involved to a much lesser degree, in an advisory capacity. I will continue to perform the editor job (putting out issues), with Liam as the Assistant Editor backup. Dafydd has agreed to share the work load of the techie role, and he and I will work together over time so that he is able to maintain the web site and other technical stuff just as well as I. The marketing role remains a questionmark, but Jon and I have both been talking to former DZ writer Rhonda Gomez, and we believe she’ll be willing to take on some of those duties.

It was kind of a revelation to me that most of my stress comes from the visionary role. Of course, that role also includes arbiter of conflict and ultimate decisionmaker, which makes that person a lightning rod for conflict.

Furthermore, that person is also charged with setting the group’s goals and ensuring that we achieve them, and our constant failure to achieve our goals has left me utterly demoralized.

On top of that, over the past twelve years I’ve tried just about everything I can think of to inspire the group and move the group forward. The perpetual lack of success tells me that my methods haven’t worked, and—since I lack any more ideas about how to motivate people -- it’s time to turn the reins over to someone with more fresh ideas and evergy to try and make them happen.

So let me ask you to pay attention to and work with Liam and Jon. They’re both experienced managers and able leaders and know the project inside and out, and I have absolutely every confidence in their wisdom. The project and where it goes from here is largely theirs to determine. As for me, I’ll remain around. I hope that I’ll be able to contribute more writing in the future and maybe do some mentoring, but we’ll see about that. I’m going to have to spend some time transitioning duties and then see how my attitude responds to this change. However, I’m honestly pretty confident that this change is best for me, for the zine, and for you. I’m excited to see what Liam and Jon come up with.

The interesting thing is that their solution of farming out responsibilities leaves me with the option of staying with the project -- even in an editorial role—while drastically reducing my responsibilities. I think that worked out rather nicely, and it gives me the opportunity to do two of the things that mean the most to me— mentoring and doing my own writing—which I haven’t had the time to do in years.

One of my major harping points has been how poorly we have served our new writers. The Summitteers took up that challenge and completely revised the mentoring system in a way that—to our surprise—received universal support. I’ll leave the details of it to Jim, but the basic idea is to make it easier for new writers to get involved with DZ by giving them the ability to share their existing and new non-Dargon works, then some reduced requirements for getting their first full Dargon stories printed. New writers can start anywhere along a whole continuum of participation levels, with increasing rewards being given for increasingly integrated stories. Everyone thought the idea had a ton of merit, and Jim will be filling you in with more details shortly, but everyone was really excited by the idea. We are even planning to get back in touch with a number of former writers who never got printed, in hopes that some of them may want to try this new way of getting up to speed with the zine.

This was something of a surprise to me. It’s been a while since anyone applied much creative thinking to the project, so I’ll be curious to see how this dramatically new direction plays out. But clearly, if we don’t solve the new writer ramp-up problem immediately, the zine is dead.

After all that painful stuff, Jon took the floor to talk about our financial state and nonprofit status, then gave his presentation on how to manage a project. That might sound like it doesn’t apply to you, but everyone here is involved in little projects, and we have always sucked at getting things done. Several writers have listed these non-writing projects as things that frustrated them to the point of quitting. Jon’s project management techniques, if applied, are absolutely guaranteed to help. The information was straightforward and should help people follow through, so that— unlike today—we can once again feel confident that we can rely on people to actually do what they say they will do.

This reliability bit is a major thorn, and something that really discourages new writers, who might sign up for a task, full of enthusiasm, only to have it unceremoniously dropped in their lap by a veteran. And I’ve always thought this was the most basic form of integrity, so it’s always driven me apeshit whenever this happens in “my” organization.

And yes, these things driving me apeshit is definitely a theme here… Has been for over a decade.

All these sessions will have results placed in the Document Library shortly, as soon as I can collect them from the presenters. I strongly encourage you to check them out, because they were really great presentations that I think will help us a great deal.

After spending most of the day on all that heavy stuff, we were eager to have some fun. We moved our dinner reservation up and had champagne (thanks to Jon) and an early dinner at Brio, an Italian place at Newport on the Levee, a touristy shopping area. From there, we went through the Newport Aquarium, which had some really interesting stuff: sharks, avians, otters, gators, and so forth. Afterward we stopped for ice cream at Graetor’s, a Cincinnati original, before heading home. Dafydd showed us his pictures from his trips to Hawaii, Australia, and Scotland, but people were dropping hard, and we went to bed without even managing a single game of Settlers! We’re clearly not as young as we used to was.

The Summit is always a big photographic opportunity, and I definitely plunged in with my new camera. The aquarium was both a particular showcase and a major challenge, since the ambient lighting was kept very low so you could see through the glass. There’ll be some photos posted in short order, and you can also check out this year’s Summit page for both photos and a writeup.

Sunday was departure day, and with no working sessions, people slept in and took good long showers. We got the group photo done and cleaned up the house, then managed a quick game of Settlers before Rena and Jon left for the airport. The rest of us had a quick and enjoyable game of the related Seafarers of Catan before we, too, had to make our way to the airport. Tired good-byes were said, and the journey back home via the evil that is O’Hare was undertaken, carrying with us the precious memories of another wonderful encounter with our longtime friends and fellow writers.

So I got home from the Summit late Sunday night; my flight out of O’Hare had been delayed, and I didn’t get home until after midnight. So that wasn’t a restful night. I’d taken Monday off, but Monday night one of my former writers, Rhonda, was arriving in town for her daughter’s graduation, and wanted to visit. Unfortunately, her flight arrived at 10:15pm, and we were up until about 1:30, talking.

Less than a week later, Janine, another former writer, was in town for a week-long conference. We had dinner together several times, and talked well into the evening. Again, more sleep deprivation!

So June has been an interesting month, as far as my contact with my writers goes. And sleep deprivation like crazy, but at least it’s been in the service of socializing with people I care about, which is a pleasant change.

One of the most useful sites I’ve found for writers is Common Errors in English, which is maintained by WSU English prof Paul Brians. He provides a handy reference that is amusing and easily navigable. It rocks my world.

I recently purchased and read the book which he has made out of the site. It contains just the same information as you can find online, but I thought purchasing it a worthy way to support the site.

Last night, as I plowed through the ‘Y’ entries before finishing the book, I came across something I didn’t know and found highly amusing. It was in this entry for “Ye/The”.

What it says is this: “ye” as a synonym for “the” is a malapropism. “The” was originally spelled not with the digraph “th”, but with the old Anglo-Saxon thorn character (Þ): þe.

Big deal? Well, although it’s always represented the sound ‘th’, the symbol that represents the thorn has evolved over time. For a while it looked quite like the letter ‘P’. Then it evolved to look more like the letter ‘Y’. Thus, while “the” has always been pronounced “the”, there was a time when it *looked* like it was spelled “ye”. The thorn spelling was replaced by the “th” digraph in the late Middle Ages, but the thorn continued to be used for a long time in certain places, notably store signs.

Thus, while everyone knew “the” was spelled “the”, there were places that still used the thorn. Since the thorn looked like a ‘Y’, places like “Ye Chandler” spurred a popular misconception that “ye” was some old-school word (pronounced “yee”) that was a synonym for “the”. But there never was any such word as “ye”. Surprise!

Now, this does not extend to “ye” as a plural personal pronoun. That usage is fine, such as in the carol “O come all ye faithful”. No problem there, because there “ye” is a valid form of the old school “thee/thou/thine” pronouns. But “ye” as a synonym for “the” is just a myth that began when the use of the thorn character in English was discontinued.

And yes, both the thorn character and the sharp, pointy bit on a rose were both originally spelled: þorn.

I recently read David Kundtz’s “Nothing’s Wrong: A Man’s Guide to Managing His Feelings”.

I guess the first thing to relate is why that book interested me. I grew up in a family where little to no emotion was visibly manifested. I was extremely introverted and intellectual. As an adolescent, I found myself becoming ever more angry, selfish, and hateful.

Then I started dating, which was an immensely transformative experience for me. I was confused by how impulsive my first girlfriend could be, and jealous of her stunningly carefree demeanor. I decided to try to incorporate this lesson into my life, thereby gaining a previously absent appreciation for beauty, nature, kindness, and humor.

Back then, I didn’t think the intellectual and the emotional halves of my personality could coexist, so I created separate, distinct identities for them. “David” was cold, calculating, and intellectual, while “Ornoth” was impulsive, open, and joyous. One or the other would be predominant for six months to a year, while the other popped up at odd moments, and then they’d reverse. In those days, someone close to me could see in my eyes when I switched gears. That took me through college and into marriage.

Despite all that, I guess the trend was for the cold intellectual to gradually reassert itself. My ex-wife’s parting shot to me was to give me a Mr. Spock tee shirt for my birthday, an unabashed reference to my lack of warmth toward her.

In the fifteen years since my divorce, I’ve changed more radically than I ever thought possible, but the basic disconnect with my emotions has persisted. I’ve worked hard to develop compassion and generosity, but no matter how hard I look, I can’t seem to detect what most women tell me is the essence of life: my emotions.

It’s undoubtedly a difficult thing for a woman to understand: that a man really doesn’t have the emotional range or insight into his emotions that is so basic to her. I can’t speak for any other men, but I don’t think I’m alone when I admit that I’ve spent much of my life honestly doubting whether I have any emotions at all, and whether I could ever detect any I had, however hard I try.

Thus, the book.

The first thing the book establishes is that men need a different vocabulary to talk about their emotions. Women’s emotions come from their hearts, but men feel things “in their gut”. By drawing attention to the body’s physical reactions, Kundtz actually echoed themes I’ve heard in my Buddhist studies, which emphasize the physical form and its state changes as the place to look for evidence of emotional activity.

The next logical step is, of course, for a man to become more aware of the changes in his body. That would seem like a potentially productive line of inquiry, although I found the way it was presented a bit unhelpful.

“The very first and vitally important thing you have to do in dealing with any feeling is really something that you must *not* do. Don’t bury it. Don’t run from it and don’t cover it over. Just stay in the moment and feel it. Just feel it. Don’t bury. Don’t run. Don’t cover. […] Got the idea? Just stay put; don’t run. Just feel.”

That kind of rhetoric does nothing to help those of us who have stopped, have looked, and found nothing. “Just take a few deep breaths and feel whatever you’re feeling” is not only an unhelpful tautology, but it’s also thoroughly frustrating for someone who has no idea how to “feel what they’re feeling”.

Kundtz talks about this ability to notice one’s feelings and says “Without this first step, all else is doomed”, but then turns around and says, “It might also be true that at any given moment you may not be feeling anything very strongly”. Well, duh. I can’t say I’ve “felt anything strongly” in years!

The underlying, common assumption is that men are all actively suppressing their feelings, because everyone has feelings, don’t they? As someone who is reasonably mature and has actively tried to sense my own feelings and come up empty, I find that a decidedly hurtful way to dismiss my difficulties. I may indeed have emotions, but don’t accuse me of being dysfunctional simply because my emotions are not as overt as a woman’s. Defining women as normal and men as inherently abnormal is both prejudicial and hurtful.

Beyond that, as Kundtz himself is quick to point out, “Nothing’s Wrong is based on the strong conviction that there is a direct and causal relationship between violent behavior in males and their repressed (buried) feelings.” If that were true, one might well expect me to be a mass murderer, given my longstanding and lack of emotion, which can supposedly only be explained by active repression. But it hasn’t happened yet, so far as I know.

Anyways, leaving that particular issue aside for the mo’, let’s turn back to Kundtz’s three-step program to male emotional fitness: notice the feeling, name the feeling, and express the feeling. Assuming I find some way to get past step one—the real problem—there’s still this final step of manifesting the emotion.

The next question is *how*. Okay, I’m feeling happy, and maybe I can even recognize that; now how do I make a conscious choice between the myriad ways of depicting that emotion in my actions? Should I skip and jump? Should I whistle a tune? Should I go buy a drink for a cutie at the pub? How do I choose? And don’t you *dare* tell me something useless like “whatever you feel like doing”, or I’ll rip your throat out. It’s not that easy.

When he starts to talk about expressing one’s feelings, Kundtz cites a 1998 Newsweek article that reads, “when people regularly talk or even write about things that are upsetting to them, their immune systems perk up and they require less medical care”. Kundtz interprets this as “The talking or writing is the third step. It externalizes the feeling.”

That’s actually extremely good news for me, because I do a *lot* of written self-expression, as the length of this entry attests. The very first thing I turned to when my wife left me was email. Ironically, even today my real-world friends criticize me because they see more of what’s inside me by reading my blog than by talking on the phone or hanging out with me. Another funny bit is that Kundtz not only mentions writing, but also specifically calls out cycling, poker games, exercise, and meditation as other avenues for self-expression, and those are all things I do quite a lot of.

Another interesting bit is how thoroughly Kundtz disses isolation. He opens one section with a quote from Men’s Health magazine which reads, “Lack of social connection is ’the largest unexplored issue in men’s health’”. He follows with, “If there is only one change that you make as a result of reading this book, please make it this one. *Please!* Determine somehow, some way, at some time to regularly get together with friends.” I found that kinda interesting, considering I’m really the epitome of the isolated bachelor, and have recently been pondering how to reach out and craft a few new meaningful friendships.

I don’t want to give you the impression that I disliked the book. It was reasonably interesting, and successful at raising all kinds of topics for reflection. I just wish there was a little more depth to his analysis of how to detect one’s own emotions. “Just feel what you feel” isn’t helpful at all, although I’ll start watching my physiological responses to see if they provide any clues.

One last bit, which is something of a tangent. In addition to the Mary McDowell quote I’ve posted about already, Kundtz also cites the following quotation: “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that’s my religion.”

I think that’s about the most eloquent statement of the Buddhist law of karma that I’ve ever heard. Satisfaction comes from taking moral actions, and immoral actions produce dissatisfaction. And I’m blown away that the speaker added “And that’s my religion” as a postscript. Can you guess who the quote was attributed to? I’ll give you a hint: he has a wretched hairdo and spends most of his time on $5 bills.

Imagine what might happen if we had a president today of a comparable ethical standard.

So after much delay, I finally sat down and read Lynne Truss’ extremely popular “Eats, Shoots & Leaves”.

As both a writer and an editor, I naturally approached the book with certain expectations: her correction of common misconceptions, a tone of authority, and clear, correct, and entertaining explanations of grammatical rules. I think that’s a fair set of expectations for a work subtitled “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation”, and which describes itself as “The Runaway #1 British Bestseller”.

Frau Truss—anyone pontificating on grammar should be referred to by a German title—does start out quite strongly, dealing right up front with the marks whose use is most prone to error. She begins by devoting an entire chapter to a justifiably militant tirade against misuse of the apostrophe, which is sadly epidemic. She goes into quite a bit of detail on both the apostrophe and the comma, citing specific usage rules chapter and verse.

Even her section on colons and semicolons is reasonably clear, although not nearly so concisely put as the rules in my 2002 Missive to the DargonZine Writers on the Colon and Semicolon.

However, from that point on, Truss’ book goes all pear-shaped, as she explains that exclamation points and question marks should be used at will to control meter and tone, as if proper punctuation were subject to postmodern revisionism and prose was just another form of interpretive dance.

Most frustratingly, Truss proceeds to expound on italics, quotation marks, dashes, parentheses, ellipses, and hyphens, but gives the reader little more instruction than “These marks all mystify me”. Where are the rules of usage and the research behind them that were all cited in earlier chapters? Why bother including chapters on all these marks when you have no insight into their proper usage?

But the book does, after all, have panda bears on its cover, so that makes everything alright [sic], doesn’t it?

Actually, what does make it all right is that any progress in getting people to properly operate their own language is a Good Thing. However, it’s probably unrealistic to expect a single book to have any great impact upon such a longstanding and pervasive problem, since proscriptive writers and editors have been railing about public misuse for several centuries with no appreciable effect.

If you’re an Orny reader, you’ll know by now that for the past couple years I’ve been reexamining my personal philosophy, which has led me from secular humanism and Existentialism into Buddhism. So the following quiz results should come as no surprise to you:

Buddhism

67%

atheism

67%

paganism

67%

agnosticism

63%

Satanism

58%

Islam

42%

Judaism

25%

Christianity

17%

Hinduism

I am pretty righteously amused, however, to see a perfect tie between Buddhism, atheism, and paganism. I would admit to all three, and think there’s absolutely nothing that makes them incompatible with one another.

I also took the “commonly confused words” test and got the following:

English Genius
You scored 86% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 88% Expert!

That is, of course, not a surprise, although the botched “beginner” level is a bit odd. Having spent the past 35 years with writing competence as a priority, I actually expected a bit better.

Last week I distributed DargonZine 17-2, which contained “Sweet Healing”, a story that I co-authored with P. Atchley. Actually, it was more a case of my adopting the story, with her permission, when she took a sabbatical from the group. Her initial draft was a little rough, but had the kernel of a touching character sketch, which appealed to me, even though I usually prefer not to use a female point of view character. So I polished the story up and it appeared in our new issue. I can’t say it’s a work to rival my best, but I think it accomplishes what I was trying to do with it.

Although it’s not exclusively my work, it is something of a milestone for me. Although my twenty years as editor of our collaborative writing project has given me a lot of insight into what makes good writing, I still find it incredibly difficult to find the time to sit down and bring my visions to life. When I returned to DargonZine as a writer in 1993 after an extended absence, I promptly printed three stories, including one of my favorites: the two-part “Love an Adventure”. But in 1994 I reassumed the job of editor, and “Sweet Healing” is only my second story in the intervening ten years.

That’s a pretty frustrating record for someone who considers themselves a writer. The good news is that I’ve got another two-part story nearing completion, as part of our immense forthcoming 24-story, nine-author collaborative story arc, and that’s given me back some of the confidence I’d lost over the years.

So hopefully “Sweet Healing” is only the first of a number of stories I’ll have printed in coming years. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve exercised what I consider my primary artistic outlet, and I’m really hopeful that this change will stick.

If you want, you can check “Sweet Healing” out here. If you do read it, I’d be curious to hear your reactions to it.

If you’re really masochistic, you can find a list of all my Dargon stories on my author bio page. The recent ones, which are linked from that page, are really the only ones I could possibly recommend reading, except for the older “Legend in the Making”, which can be found here.

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