inherently different

Archive for May, 2006

My dad has been here for 13 days. For the most part, I have enjoyed his visit and the Red Queen seems to survived the onslaught with much less pain than I seem to have experienced during her mother’s visit two weeks earlier. For those keeping score at home, we have had an extra guest in our home for the last month and change.

My father is a cantankerous, oftentimes delusional, old man. He is passive-agressive and opinionated… an unlikely and volatile combination in most instances, dangerously so in my presence. Our conversations have run the gamut from his claim that his parenting skills are what created me ultimately (arguable) to how Mormons are crazy (compared to christians/catholics). I love my father, but he says things that sometimes make me cringe. Especially when he speaks of my nephew, his grandson, in a rather possessive tone. He has, at various times, claimed that my nephew is actually his son. Delusional in the most innocent ways, rather shiver-inducing when given real processing time.

I think there comes a time in all our lives when we realize that our parents are rather fucking crazy. To acknowledge this fact means we have to come to terms with the idea that eventually we’ll be fucking crazy too. I don’t mind the fact that I am difficult, but to think about what I’ll be like in 20 or 30 years (provided one of my blog buddies don’t come kill me first) is rather frightening.

I had the most interesting dream. I don’t usually have free-form dreams. Which is to say that I don’t usually dream about things that I don’t control. Before I go to bed, I think about something and that is what I dream about… oftentimes I dream I am writing an article or a few pages of dialog and I dream that whatever I type is actually happening in front of me… so, when I dream, I dream what I want to dream… well, it’s atleast what I remember dreaming about.

So last night, I had a dream in which I was on some sort of reality dating show… In it, I was dating some girl (sorry Red Queen, it was some random girl) for the sake of the show… we went to a few spots in San Diego (the Mission Beach Roller Coaster, the boardwalk, a few bars, etc) and a camera crew followed us around. Then they invited two of the girls friends to meet us for a few days of fun… i guess the idea was that the girls would meet me to see if I am good enough for their friend. Then the girl was to meet two of my friends to see if she was good enough for me.

Thing was, it was all contrived… In my dream, I had been dating the girl long before the show came to us and asked us to be on the show. So one of the scenes was them talking to me about my habits, my likes, dislikes, etc. As we’re doing this, one of the directors of the show said that it wasn’t working… so they asked if they could do it at my father’s house in Poway. I agreed, and we all went to my father’s house.

My father was hosting a birthday party for my younger brother. So the girls met my younger brother and my older brother who was, at least in my dream, studying to be a doctor. Our whole family (aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, etc) were there to help celebrate. There was a big white tent set up in my dad’s backyard, white linen covered tables, a band… it looked more like wedding reception than a birthday party. So the whole production team is there, along with the girls and my buddies. As the show is progressing, my father calls everyone together to sing happy b-day and everyone complies.

As we’re singing, my father apparently hired a kind of train (really an atv made up like a train) to roll around the tent with a huge fake cake on it. So the driver starts driving around the outside of the tent (you know, the pavillion kind that just has a top, no sides…) and suddenly, the driver accidently trips one of the tent poles and the whole thing came down on top of the party… the camera crew captures the whole thing and it is sheer pandemonium…What was I doing? Laughing my ass off as I am helping people escape the fallen tent…

Weird dream. I woke up shortly after that. I think this is the first dream I have had that wasn’t something I chose to dream. It was kind of weird to essentially be a passenger. Do any of you control your dreams? I know why I do it (long story made short: I had bad nightmares as a kid and I learned to control EVERYTHING in my dreaming state), but often wonder why others don’t do it as well.

Writing is easy. In fact, it is by far the easiest thing that I do on a daily basis. It requires very little effort on my part. The process is simple: I think about something, then I write it. I don’t use outlines or any sort of step-by-step process. For the most part, words spill from my head and find themselves magically on a page or on my screen. I rarely have a plan of action… it is all just a happy accident. In fact, I am writing right now and I know where I will eventually end up without jotting down notes. I won’t even edit this post beyond punctuation and grammar just to prove a point. The point being that writing is easy for me.

I am not so delusional to think that writing is this easy for everyone. Some people can write effortlessly and others struggle to find a voice that is both engaging and clear. I can’t say that I am both engaging and clear everytime I write in my blog, but I don’t have that option when it comes to my professional life. I am given a topic and my editor demands that I follow the editorial rules they set all the while being both engaging and clear (it would be even easier if I didn’t have to follow those basic rules).

Great writers can draw you in despite their shortcomings. Some writers abuse every single rule of writing known to modern man, but it doesn’t detract from their prose. It is because they are engaging and write with some level of clarity. They find the inspiration necessary to churn out an article or story and you lose yourself for a period of time in their world. All writers need inspiration and this is the area that is dangerous for all writers. At some point inspiration becomes emmulation.

If there is a subject few writers like to discuss it is the topic of plagiarism. Recently a few of my writer friends and I have discussed Kaavya Viswanathan, the rapidly falling writing wunderkind. If you don’t want to follow the link, let me break it down for you. Kaavya was 17 years old when she signed a $500,000 2-book publishing deal. An amazing feat for anyone, let alone a virtually unknown writer. After her first book was published, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, it was instantly acclaimed by various media outlets hungry for the NEXT BIG THING. There was only one small problem. A good portion of the plot and a great many passages were stolen from books Kaavya had read as a teen. More and more similarities are being found and have now forced her publisher to cancel the second half of her book deal, a former employer to review articles she wrote while an intern, and more importantly, being labled a plagiarist. For a writer, NOTHING could be worse than having people think you steal.

I don’t have any compassion for people who steal even when it is "unintentional." I’m not saying that a writer can’t find inspiration, but to lift words from piece written by another author and try to pass them off as your own is beyond any act I can forgive.