Yes, sometimes life is fantastic. Melissa, a friend mine from university announced on a mailing list that she and her boyfriend Dong Jin were expecting. Of course they are both in South Korea and she’s apparently over the whole morning sickness thing. There are times when we men feel a little happy in our lot in life, we may not smell as nice as women, have those instincts which preserve ourselves, nor be anywhere near as smart, but our idea of morning sickness typically involves large bouts of drinking beer the night before. I must admit that when you get news such as this you think about how cool life is. I can’t think of a better parent than Melissa and from what I saw of Dong Jin this past summer, he will be a wonderful dad.

Now a quick segue way… My friend Marc Dyke and I once wondered about measuring the relative happiness of a city based on its airport. Some people are happy to leave and some are happy to return, hence theoretically the “happiness” quotient should balance out. There are many holes in this argument, but that’s not the point.

I’d like to think that everyone’s life is reflective of this balance. As you go through life, happiness is balanced by sadness and we get a fuller appreciation of ourselves and our worth. But sometimes, no matter how much good news you get, the bad news just doesn’t quite balance out. My friend Nils collapsed yesterday and was taken to hospital with intracranial bleeding. Nils is one of the best guys I know and proud to say one of the closer friends I have at work. His family is just fantastic. I am overwhelmed with sadness.

Right now, all I can hope is that Nils pulls through. My prayers are with him and his family.

I started out this day in what could probably be viewed as one of the happier days in my life. Certain things were coming together, a close friend was pregnant with a baby and frankly, I’d had a good night’s sleep. Never underestimate the sleep factor. At the end of the day as I go to yoga, I feel drained. A friend is in hospital with a serious condition for no apparent reason right now other than pure random chance and some close friends will be leaving town soon.

My “happiness” quotient is definitely “flat”. Nils, get better soon you hear?!

It’s not often I go to a concert. Heck, it’s not often an act comes to Edmonton that I really want to see (Shania Twain does not count). Tonight, however, was different; tonight was Nine Inch Nails. I think I’ve been listening to NIN since Seamus played me Pretty Hate Machine at the Muse. The music was so different to the Casey Kasem’s Top 40 music I had grown up to in Hong Kong. This was harder, edgier, the lyrics spoke to me. I hadn’t rebelled as a teenager and now approaching my twenties in a new country and feeling isolated in a very strange way, Trent Reznor actually meant something.

So here I am 13 years later, NIN has released a new album, I’ve just gone to my second NIN concert. The first was five years ago in Vancouver, which I went to see with Jaap Tuinman. Funnily enough I went with Dave McG from work and he had driven down from Edmonton all those many years ago. Not that we knew each other then; not that I knew I would ever be working at BioWare in Edmonton, though, strangely, it was a major topic of conversation between Jaap and I even then.

What does all this mean? As much as time goes by, certain feelings and memories stay constant. I have always said that music must trigger certain parts of the brain: smells, sounds, long forgotten conversations. Nine Inch Nails, strangely enough, have provided the anthem that has played throughout my life in Canada.

So how was the concert itself? Fantastic. Great simplistic set, very much focused on a now sober Reznor, he played oldies (Closer to God, Head Like a Hole) and not so oldies (a stirring rendition of Starfuckers Inc.), and the great stuff from With Teeth, his latest (Only, The Hand that Feeds). The crowd was older, somewhat more sober, but once in a while amongst the crowd you could see the by-day accountant turn into that angry teenager. For just a couple of hours of music.

Add Nine Inches to a Photo

Finally! On my computer lies the fresh beating copy of a Photoshop CS2 or Photoshop version 9 for those of us who don’t like the idea of re-numbering. Despite having to go through a grueling hour-and-a-half on the phone with Adobe tech support in order for me to use the upgrade (there are only so many times you really want to spell out Wijayawardhana - “Good gracious, that’s the longest name I’ve ever seen sir!”), the price seems to be worth it. The version I’m using at work is 7.0 and indeed I don’t get a chance to mess around with it at work.

However, I’m not sure if I’m a fan of the whole activation thing. I work in a software company, I know the problems of piracy (yes folks, when you make a living from software seeing people copy and sell your games off the street in Shanghai does kind of tick you off — our staff work damn hard to put those bits and bytes on those CDs). However, I do not believe making it hard and annoying on your honest customer is a way of combatting piracy. With Adobe activation if my computer changes drastically, the copy is invalidated. Good lord.

You want less piracy? Sell the product cheaply to those who can’t afford to buy it for full price. Believe me, if people could afford to, people would not pirate. By making it cheaper to own for those that couldn’t normally, the company makes money rather than losing it down the drain. The people who pirate and still can afford, you’re not going to stop them anyway. There’s an old saying, locks are only on doors to protect the innocent.

Just a couple thoughts from a guy whose ears are ringing.

Writing the novel pt. 3… (or how to keep procrastinating).

No one tells a story without a reason. Even when a group is sitting around a campfire as the embers are dying, the storyteller has a reason: to scare, to soothe, to become popular. Writing a novel is no different. Before you can tell a story, you need to ask the following question of yourself, “why this story?” The answer provides the basis for how the story will be told, its mood and by extension how good or bad the story will turn out.

For example, a person telling a story for horrific effect will twist the story to fit the intended mood. The characters may be invested with scary voices, dramatic pauses as the storyteller looks around intently, or cadences that mimic and speed the passage of the heart. In a written story this may amount to sentence length, choice of vocabulary, chapter structure etc. The same story told for documentary purposes will be completely different.

Is it important that the reader realize why someone wrote a story? I seem to remember hours in university English deconstructing novels to figure what is actually going on. Why did Charles Dickens write Oliver Twist? Why did Jonathan Swift write Gulliver’s Travels?

I believe that great literature challenges the reader to find the reason or reasons why the words were put on paper. Such a challenge not only gives insight into the deeper meanings of the story, but also to a better understanding of what that story means to the reader personally. A truly great piece of literature never strays from the author’s primary motivations that provide its cohesive forces. This does not mean that you will get to the end and immediately know the inner workings of an author’s mind. If that were always the case, large bodies of literary analysis would become obsolete and be thrown out of library windows worldwide. Certainly as a child, Gulliver’s Travels was nothing more than a fantastic story. However, motivation for writing a story must be more than simple entertainment if you are intent on creating something that lasts.

What is my motivation for writing this sucker? Do I want to become wealthy? Hardly. I seriously doubt anything I write will actually sell. In all likelihood I will post it online to the derision of readers worldwide (or to complete ignorance and silence). Do I want to really beat Craig to a novel or boast about my 50,000 words? No not really, while I make fun of my challenge to Craig, this has been brewing for much longer. My motivation lies in my frustrations with the world and how we deal with crises. I want to inform and challenge the reader in how we think about the world and the relationships between the peoples that breathe its air. I would not be so presumptuous as to attempt world change (though world domination is completely different); I want to twist your perceptions and challenge your prejudices. Of course, I also want to entertain.

Your opinion about the importance of motivation and the effect on a story is likely very different from mine…

Monkeys with machine guns on a Train

Talking of stories and getting published, my friend and former colleague Seamus Heffernan has managed to get himself published in an anthology of comic and prose in support of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The anthology is called “The Hammer of Time and Other Amazing Stories”, published by Monkeys with Machine Guns with proceeds from the sale of the book going to the Red Cross in aid of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in the southern United States. Seamus’ story is called Train and I highly encourage you to purchase and support the effort. You can get the book in physical or downloadable PDF format at Lulu’s.

Well done, Seamus and much success on helping the cause.

A novel in its most basic form is simply a collection of words. There is the wonderful saying that if you placed an infinite number of monkeys in a room and gave them typewriters, they would eventually randomly create a great work of literature. In fact with computers and the idea of an infinite universe, given enough time and enough chaos a computer should be able to randomly produce the contents of Hamlet.

In approaching my novel and fulfilling the 50,000 word challenge that I have set forth, I feel as if a great sword has been suspended over my head. I hesitate to call it the Sword of Damocles but certainly I can say it is a Sword of My Own Folly. The grand goal was to have started and finished a rough draft of the first chapter this week; instead I found myself in a grandiose conversation with Corey Tomsons and Donna Wong regarding the creation of great fiction.

Inch by inch I feel that Sword creep closer to the hairs on the nape of my neck.

There is a great temptation to cheat death. A small voice resting on my shoulder softly whispers a plan that would rid me of said Sword and place me amongst the pantheon of Novel writers. Usually I’ve associated this voice with the same one that has uttered the following in the past: “Come on Dups, have one more drink… so you’re feeling slightly unsteady and there are actually three drinks in front of you not the single one you remember buying… but you’ll feel great if you keep drinking, heck you’ll feel fine in the morning… that last hangover was simply an accident and mmmmm the seafood you just had mixes so well with that tequila…”

Why not, suggested Corey, his face brightening at the thought… Why not simply write a computer program to simulate the creation of a novel? It would take me all of a couple days, at the most a week to come up with a half-decent attempt by using open source available texts at Project Gutenberg. The program would strip the words, use a sorting and counting algorithm, put in some basic grammar structures and voila… 50,000 words in a matter of minutes. Even better, poor Craig would be seething… and we all agree he’s much more interesting when he’s seething.

Despite the upsides, I dropped by a gun range, shot that little troublemaker of a voice a couple times with .45 calibre and came home (when in Alberta, do as Albertans). Chances are it’ll climb out of its grave fairly soon… unfortunately.

Instead I will let my hand wander over the keyboard. Heck if a monkey can do it, a few million years of evolution should be able to help me somewhat. Then again, according to the Kansas Board of Education, maybe someone had an inscrutable plan for me and I should just give up and let Him guide me to the light… and tequila. There can never be enough tequila. Maybe the Kansas BoE is right, how could humans have evolved to create tequila? Only someone with a grand master plan could have created something so wonderful, evolution be damned. I think I’ll send Kansas some of those typewriters and monkeys, they have a better chance of creating a useful curriculum.

You might have heard that November is National Novel Writing Month. Certainly my friend Craig Welsh has. He’s heard it from all of his friends, ad nauseum. We want the sarcastic bastard to write a novel. So far only one of my friends has managed to write a novel and that is Seamus Heffernan, my former co-Editor at The Muse now learning how to speak with a civilized accent in England. Amongst my many friends and acquaintances I have doctors, lawyers, librarians, playwrights, world-renowned mathematicians and chemists, fire jugglers, and even news anchors. I want a bestselling author.

Now, writing 50,000 words in a month is just plain crazy. No offense Nanowrimo, but I really like the idea of being able to use a spoon with my tired fingers at the end of writing a novel. What’s the point of having a novel if your wrists have to be amputated at the end? Now, Craig has been complaining about his friends and this “novel” challenge. I agree with him, I’d hate being pestered too. So Craig, here’s another challenge. I’m going to join you (no not in Nunavut, are you crazy man?); I’ve always said that I would love to write a novel, so Craig, I lay down the gauntlet. Are you man enough to join me?

Nanowrimo says a month. I say by March. 50,000 words by March. Or 350 words a day. Doesn’t seem that bad does it?

This is going to be a new experience for me, a wordly experiment. I’m going to see if I can take you on the journey with me. However, sorry to disappoint, but I refuse to reveal the actual story as I write. Instead, any crazy people coming to this site (i.e. all two of you) will get to follow me into my spiraling descent into madness.

Feel free to pester me on how it’s going. I might even be polite in my screaming.

Oh and Craig, have I upped myself into being killed on the first page?