Category Archives: writing

A different reading difficutlery

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Screenshot anime Chihayafuru. Something scary has been seen.

Panic zone. OK, perhaps we should have started with something easier.

I am going to quote something from my fiction in progress. It is about someone reading a supposedly non-fiction book which covers ever more unfamiliar concepts. It is a little autobiographical, but not totally. In real life, it is more common that different books are similar to the different chapters I describe here.

[FICTION]The first three chapters of The Book of Dimensions had been quite readable. The first was almost childish, so easy was it to read, as if written for school kids. The second chapter, on time, was more on my level. The third chapter took some concentration and stretching of the mind to read: It was written with mostly common words, but the meaning of the text was uncommon, so it took some effort to “get it”. It was well worth the effort, though.

The fourth chapter, on the sixth dimension, was quite a bit harder to read. There were some more long and uncommon words, and the sentences seemed to be longer too, and the paragraphs. Not a lot in either case, but it did seem like that to me. The real difference was that it was really hard to get. The words made sense, and the sentences made sense. Some of them were brilliant and memorable. But others were just out of grasp. I felt that I should have understood them, but I did not get it. And the sentences did not get together to form a clear, bright picture this time. It was more like a dark garden with lots and lots of pretty fireflies, but they just danced around and I could not get the whole picture.

Peeking into the next chapter, it was simply unreadable. There were perhaps a few more long and unusual words than in the previous chapter again, and perhaps the sentences were a little longer, or perhaps it was the paragraphs, but that was not the problem. The problem was that even when the words were familiar, the things they said were bordering on gibberish. It was like if I would say to you: “The work of the wind is too heavy for the blue in the kitchen to exonerate.” Even if you happened to know what exonerate means, that would not help. It would still not really make sense. Or at least it would be impossible to believe.  [END FICTION]

In the case of our fictional friend here, the solution was to go back the next day and read over again the last chapter he had understood when he stretched his mind. Not the chapter he had just barely failed to understand, but the one before it. Then a week later, to read it again. Only when the knowledge or understanding of that chapter had been absorbed as a part of himself, could he understand the next chapter.

***

Some reading difficulties are mechanical. You could have dyslexia, or poor eyesight, or you may be unfamiliar with the language or the script. For instance, I have fairly recently learned to read hiragana, the Japanese “letters” that represent syllables in that language. By now I recognize them on sight, but reading a text in hiragana is still painstakingly slow, even if I only had to read it out loud rather than understand it. Even an unfamiliar font (typeface) can make a difference at this level.

Even if you have the reading skill automated, unfamiliar words can still trip up the flow of the text. If you are studying a new skill, users of that skill probably have their own words for things. Or even worse, they may use familiar words in an unfamiliar way, meaning something else than we are familiar with. The concept I call “reading difficutlery” begins at this level and stretches into the next. It is like reading difficulty, only not really.

The next level is where we know what the words mean, and every sentence we read makes sense grammatically. But we still don’t get it. It does not gel, as some say. It does not come together in a meaningful whole. There are a lot of sentences, but they are like “fireflies in the night”: Even if they are bright individually, they stand alone, and don’t get together into a picture.

It could be that the author really does not have a clear picture to convey, or writes badly. But if others get it, then probably not. As I have mentioned before, something like this happens when I read Frithjof Schuon, not to mention Sri Aurobindo. Better men than I insist that these books are awesome and full of insight, but my first meeting with each of them was not unlike running into a gelatin wall: I did not get very far into it.

In the case of the two examples mentioned, I kept reading the writings where I had first seen them recommended, and absorbed some of their thinking indirectly. I also read other books recommended by those who recommended Schuon and Aurobindo in the first place. Slowly, a little each day or at least most days of the week, I have eased into that kind of understanding. But to people who are completely unfamiliar with esoteric teachings, it probably looks like meaningless babble punctuated by the occasional unfamiliar word.

It is a bit strange that I don’t remember a lot of examples of this from my life. C.G. Jung was like that, but that’s pretty much the only case I remember. It seems to me that for most of my life, reading non-fiction was very easy to me. I did not have to read things more than once, and even then I did not stop to think, or take notes, or even underline words. Perhaps I have just forgotten it. Or perhaps I rarely read anything that was above my pay grader (or pray grade, in the case of spiritual literature). It is such a nice feeling, to coast through things, to feel super smart because there are so few new elements, you can pick them up without stopping. Your brain never runs full, it processes the new information faster than your customary reading speed … because there isn’t a lot of new information.

I think this is pretty common, that we stop reading things that challenge us, and stick to the same interests. We can learn a little more and feel smart. But if we go outside our area of expertise, or above our pay grade, that is when we run into difficutleries. I probably shrank back and forgot the whole thing for most of my adult life. It is only recently I have begun to see these difficutleries as a good thing. And that is probably why I am in brainlove with people like Marcus Geduld and Robert Godwin, who don’t stop challenging themselves and exploring the Great Unknown (albeit in very different directions). It requires effort, yes, but that is not what really holds most of us back: It requires giving up the feeling of being smart, a sweet and addictive feeling.

To sum it up: We learn the most when we are outside our comfort zone, but not yet into the panic zone.

An infinite number of books

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Screenshot anime Minami-ke, Kana and Chiaki

In regard to how stupid you are, I’ve compiled a ten thousand word report.

 In truth, an infinite number of books could be written on how stupid I am. And on many other topics as well.

I recently bought a book called The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. I may review it at some future time, probably at least somewhat favorably. But I have only read 18% of it yet. That is because I stopped at this quote by Neil Gaiman: “I would read other books, of course, but in my heart I knew that I read them only because there wasn’t an infinite number of Narnia books to read.”

I don’t have that relationship with Narnia, having only met it as an adult. But the idea of an infinite number of books is something that crops up in my own fiction in recent years. In The 1001st Book, the divine king Thoth of Attalan left behind thousands of books containing the universal magic lore. Wizards spend decades studying it and even centuries (for the final Gift of Thoth was that time spent studying the Truth does not count toward your lifespan), but they never manage to learn it all. It is said in that world that the person who reads and understands all the books of Thoth will be his reincarnation and save the world, but so far no one has come really close.

My choice of name and locale for the story is not incidental, but is plainly inspired by Japanese author and cult leader Ryuho Okawa, who should have reached 900 books any day now. Okawa does consider himself a reincarnation of Thoth as well as of Hermes Trismegistus, each of which is said to have written thousands of books containing all the secret knowledge of the world. Obviously this immense number of books is purely mythological. Only a few scattered fragments of writings purportedly from Hermes Trismegistus remain, although they are tantalizing in their powerful prose and have exerted a subtle but ongoing influence on Christianity and thus western culture.

Speaking of Christianity, we come to the second association. The disciple whom Jesus loved (generally assumed to be John) writes in conclusion of his(?) gospel: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.”  Once again, an infinite number of books. Yet in the end the number of books included in the Christian Holy Scriptures was quite limited. Rather than write an unlimited number of books, Jesus Christ entrusted to the Spirit of Truth to expand and bring alive what he had embodied.

The truth is that it is natural for anything higher-dimensional to be infinite in terms of lower dimensions. Did that sound abstract? Think of a mountain, it is 3-dimensional. Think of a photo, it is 2-dimensional (at least the part of it that interests us). You can take an infinite number of pictures of the mountain, from all sides and all heights, and each tiny change in placement of the camera will yield a new picture, even though the mountain is the same. Even if you take them from the same place, the weather and time of day will still make them different. And even after all that, you have only shown the surface of it. Its content, the quality of what it is inside, is not described even after all that.

Therefore, there can always be an infinite number of books, because there are things higher than books. I remember my aunt’s husband saying to me, after I admitted I did not know something: “There could be written thick books about all the things that you don’t know.” And I have been reading such books ever since. And yet there is an infinite number of books that could be written still, about an infinite number of things. Because there are things higher than books, and even something higher than those things. We are immersed in eternity.

Return to Micropolis

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Snapshot from Sims 2: Micropolis, where happiness is the prosperity of the soul.

One strange effect of the song Into the West playing and replaying in my head: I felt the urge to return to Micropolis, my Sims 2 Prosperity Challenge. (I named it before I knew about the game with the same name.) I chronicled the history of the Micropolis neighborhood for years, until I was lured away by Sims 3. I regret now that I did not continue writing it. It may be too late to resume now: My readers have probably drifted away. But who knows. Perhaps someone will find it again, or someone new will find it.

I quoted the song twice during my writing of that saga, both at rather poignant scenes, so that would be why I suddenly thought of Micropolis when I heard that song. And I realized something, belatedly: My illustrated story of this imaginary neighborhood may have been one of the most important things I have done in my life. I have thought of this before but it kind of slipped my mind, among the many things going on. But the way I act as a “guardian angel” for the sims in Micropolis, my dialog with them and their life with each other, was a unique opportunity to bring across my view of life: What I really think is important, and how to get there.

The story of Micropolis is one of six very different families, all of which had lost loved ones and all that they owned in a hurricane. Together they settled in an abandoned village in the foothills. When I began writing the story in 2007, my “near future” setting seemed unreasonably austere: Everything was more expensive, jobs were hard to come by and almost impossible without college education, which was in itself quite expensive. My founding families were mired in debt from the day they set foot in their tiny houses far from the city. I wrote this toward the very end of the long boom, during its last frothing frenzy, long before the bleakness had sunk in among common people.

Over the course of decades, we follow the families as they go about their lives, but with a very unusual addition: An invisible higher-dimensional being, generally called “the Angel”, who observes them, converses with them, comments on their actions and thoughts, advises them and encourages them. Rather than using brute magic to give them prosperity, the Angel teaches them to use the opportunities in their everyday life to learn useful skills and improve their lot in the long run. Often a very long run, as they continue to rack up debt for a while until they have the skill and the free time to start paying off.

But the long-term project to turn the economy around is not even the most notable part of the project, despite the subtitle “a Prosperity Challenge”. The Angel is first and foremost concerned about the long-term happiness of his people, and help them make friends, find love, and steer each toward their life goals. The purpose is for each of them to achieve during their lifetime what in the Sims 2 is called “platinum mood”, or what we in this world would call “an unshakable mind”, a mental state where an individual is virtually immune to despair and able to always remain happy and do their best even in the face of adversity and disappointment. The wish of the Angel is that each and every one of his people will achieve this during their lifetime, a permanent feeling like the constant fulfillment of all desire.

So no, this state of mind is not permanent in me yet in the real world. But with the help of my higher-dimensional overseer, I still hope to spend more and more time in it until it becomes permanent. In a way, I am preaching to myself with this story, but the funny thing is, in The Sims 2 this really works. Living this kind of life really does bring happiness, peace of mind and peace among people. I don’t need to cheat or hack the game. Doing unto my sims what my own invisible friend does unto me works. Since most of those who will read the story are avid Sims players themselves, they will recognize this. That’s why I can tell a funny and heartwarming story about a small cluster of bereaved families growing into a happy and prosperous town, rather than trying to convince people of some ideology or religion. “Show, don’t tell”. ^_^

The already super long story of Micropolis begins here: http://itlandm-sims-mp.livejournal.com

Writing fiction is easy

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It was a dark and not particularly stormy night. Self-Sim was sitting in front of his old computer…

Writing is easy – it is writing well that is hard. But not everyone will agree with this, at least not with the first part. During this year’s National Novel Writing Month (“NaNoWriMo“), I have had a couple interesting discussions about “filler” or “padding”. NaNoWriMo has a quantity goal, not a quality goal, or not much of one. The idea is to write 50 000 words of a new novel during the month of November. Novels are usually longer than that, but 50 000 words in 30 days is already stretching it for a new writer (and some not-so-new writers as well).

In order to reach the goal of 50 000 words in 30 days, people have taken to various tricks: Not using contractions, always writing a person’s full name (and sometimes those names can get ridiculously long), writing out the lyrics of songs that are playing during a scene, random appearances of ninjas, etc etc.

I have mixed feelings about this. Not so much the contractions, they are overused anyway, and many Americans do not seem able to use them correctly anymore. But quotations, writing without thinking, I am opposed to. Quotations in fiction should only be used when they are important to the story. If you hear a song or a speech that changes your life, quoting the relevant lines is important. If a song is playing in the background while you are doing something else, the lyrics are probably irrelevant.

Still, there is padding and there is padding. Mindless writing is something I cannot really recommend, even if it gets your word count up. There are better ways to do that. A padding that is not just a padding. I think we could call it “reporting from an imaginary world.”

***

When we say to newcomers: “Just write”, we really mean writing their own creation. But it does not need to be good, or even part of the plot. For instance, describe the place where something happens. Is it a room? If so, there are probably windows and doors leading to other places. There is probably furniture, most likely some kind of decorations. Does a teen girl’s room have stuffed animals, or does it have half finished toy planes and a tube of glue? Are there framed pictures, and if so, who or what is depicted? Is the room tidy or messy? If there are objects on the floor, what kind of objects? Blue jeans, black underwear, a dog-eared copy of Scientific American? Putting this down on paper is writing, regardless of whether it makes it into the published novel, yes, regardless of whether that particular novel is ever published. This is the kind of work writers do.

Farmers farm, teachers teach, writers write. Even if you have to scrap most of what you write now, even if you have to scrap all of it, writing is what you do. There is no way around it. (Well, you can use voice recognition software, but that only moves the writing from your fingers to your mouth.) You want to write something that makes you rich and famous, or if you are like me, you want to write something that can lift the spirit of men and women and give them hope and courage in the ages after your passing. But that is like winning a 5 kilometer race in the World Championship. First you have to grasp hold of the dinner table so you can get up and stand on your two feet. That is how you begin becoming a world champion. Writing all those lyrics are like that, it is OK for a week or two or three, but then you must let go and start on the terrible and frightening adventure of walking unaided, of writing what you see in a world no one else can see until you have opened it for them.

Every world has virtually infinite reach in space and time, and infinite depth of detail. In time, you will have to select what to report from that overwhelming flood of information. But at first, when you drill your first holes through the barrier between worlds, there is no torrent. You can barely get anything out with a drinking straw. Keep writing, but keep writing from the other side of that wall. Not this one. Look around. Listen. If worst comes to worst, smell. Watch the way people (or elves) sit, the way their eyes shift, their quirks and tics. It is probably not important, but if nothing important is going on at the moment, this is what you’ve got, and it is your duty to report it. It may never reach the printing press, but that’s the way the world is. Tell it anyway.

You may think that those who write amazing novels, that they happened to see an interior movie that was simply that amazing, and they just wrote it down. Well, I guess that can happen too. But quite likely they choose the best 80 000 words out of perhaps a million or more that reached their paper / computer screen. Or, for the particularly skilled, their brain cortex. But if you are still starting out, you can probably not keep a million words in your brain, so use the computer hard drive instead. Think of it as an extension of your brain. You are a writer. Writing is what you do.

Actually, planning is what you will do, probably before you publish anything longer than a school essay. Planning is underrated, to say the least. But there is nothing wrong with diving in, even while your plan is still sketchy – perhaps even all in your head – and take a look around. Who are these people, how are they living, what are they doing? Make your world come to life. Remember, the possibilities in a human brain exceeds those in the visible universe. You can create worlds without end, or as long as you live and retain your mind. Unlimited space, unlimited time, unlimited detail. The story behind a stuffed toy or a faded photograph may be enough to fill a book all on its own. All there waiting for you to write it down. And write, and write. You are a writer, it is what you do.

Chuunibyou!

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“It is my fate to bear the burden of endless battle with the harbingers of darkness.” Rikka is a Very Important Person.

Japanese has a new word, since a year or two ago. (OK, perhaps it only reached the world a year or two ago.) “Chuunibyou” – Middle School Second Year Syndrome – is the dreadful condition where someone discovers their individuality and free will before they discover the difference between reality and fantasy. They may dress all in black, including nail polish and lipstick where appropriate (or even if not), and hand in self-written poetry about death instead of their regular English essay. Or they may wear colored contacts and claim to have supernatural powers. They may declare their undying love for an anime character, complete with elaborate plans for the wedding. They may join some unconventional religion and try to convert everyone around them. Usually they get over it, and look back with considerable embarrassment on their actions.

The anime Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai – falling in love despite teenage delusions – is a romantic comedy without excessive display of panties and such. The main character is a high school freshman who is going to a high school a distance from home to avoid being recognized, because he spent his middle school years claiming to be the superhero Dark Flame Master, something that embarrasses him no end. But no sooner has his normal life begun, than he meets a girl in his class who wears an eye patch and a bandage on her arm to seal the supernatural powers inside her. And she knows his secret. Hilarity ensues, but despite all the awkwardness, they eventually become very close.

The anime – loosely based on a light novel with the same name – is warmly recommended for those who want a VERY Japanese love comedy without the usual pantsu glimpsing. There is some drama, but it is nothing that should scare large children. And the crazy antics and imaginary battles are wonderfully animated.

***

Naturally I find it interesting in terms of my own writing as well, since I like to write Young Adult novels, which for some reason is rarely about young adults but about middle and high schoolers. My attempt this year – which still badly needs a rewrite – stars a freshman in high school who takes anime way too seriously, joins a foreign religion, and believes that he is channeling the spirit of a Go player who died over 300 years ago. While I don’t go so far as to say he is deluded, I do have a side character present an alternative and more psychological explanation.

In contrast, my next story features a girl who everyone thinks is delusional or just trying to sound important, but who really spends every night in a magic world. The story is told by her cousin once removed, who comes to live with her and her mother (his real cousin) because there is no high school anywhere near the island where he grew up. The boy thinks the girl is crazy, especially when she starts reading from an invisible book. But then he starts dreaming about the same magic world…

***

One interpretation of the Jewish creation myth in Genesis is that humanity as a whole suffers from a kind of chuunibyou, having woken up to self-awareness at a point where we were still not ready for it. This seems to be the view favored by sci-fi writer and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, in his book about Perelandra (a mythical planet Venus where a new Adam and Eve are created in a tropical paradise.) In that book, the first humans reject the primordial temptation and grow up to their full human potential, which seems to be a kind of demigod. So in this view, the current humanity is in a kind of arrested development, stuck in a youthful delusion that we seem unable to shake off.

But now we’re getting pretty far afield for one entry. More another day. Or perhaps not. Every day is a special day at the Chaos Node.

Won NaNoWriMo!

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Every day, every passing day, for hours and hours I wrote about other people playing Go. And other vaguely Japanese-inspired things. 

This morning, I had 50800 words of continuous fiction written in November! So that was a total NaNoWriMo win. In all fairness, I had taken the month off. And also, there was no new awesome computer game this fall. (It may be said with some grain of truth that I lost to Skyrim last year. I am ashamed of this now.)

More surprising, I felt the urge to write a couple thousand more words after I had “won”, even though I have no plans to publish my novel. Maybe I will put it up on the Net, I have not decided yet. But basically, it has begun to become interesting again toward the end. I am only writing the things that interest me now. I was thinking of dragging out the angst about losing his girlfriend a bit more, but seriously he was never that into her in the first place. Playing Go was more interesting. Not that this book is autobiographical or anything. I think it is hard to imagine for the ordinary reader how non-autobiographical it is. ^_^

My arm hurts almost like in the old days, and I have dictated a few paragraphs; that is all my throat can take, given how rarely I speak these years. It has been raining a lot this month and this has kept me from exercising as normal, even though my pulse has gone back down to normal levels (for me, not for ordinary humans). According to my doctor, an hour of exercise each day is necessary to keep my arm from growing stiff and sore when I write a lot, and it seems he was right.

But today, there is no pressure. I have already won. ^_^

I hate people like me

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There are those who surpassed despair and still failed to reach their goal! You’ll find lots of them on the NaNoWriMo forums, particularly in the forum called “NaNoWriMo ate my soul”. And people like me are not making them feel any better. Not sure what to do about that, given that I have been there myself. Many times. Years in a row sometimes.

Still talking about the National Novel Writing Month. I hate it when there are overachievers who finish in a week, or ten days, or two weeks, while ordinary people struggle to get to 50 000 in 30 days. These speed writers make the rest of us look bad. This year, I am well on my way to hating myself. 42717 words as of day 10.

I would have felt better about it if the story was coherent and without boring parts. But hey, at least there are vague traces of the vague plot I had when I started. I thought for sure it gave up the ghost after the first week or so, but there is a ghost of sorts in it now, so that is good, I guess.

NaNoWriMo is here

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Hopefully some people will read my story because it has Go references in it.

It is the month formerly known as November! For the last decade, its name has been NaNoWriMo.

Hallelujah, November is here! It’s not a dream anymore!
Hallelujah, it’s finally here, I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting…
(With apologies to Chris de Burgh. Actually, “Brother John” was the first song I noticed by de Burgh, although it later became one of my least favorite. Go figure.)

Yes, the National Novel Writing Month has started. I am off from work and writing and having a great time. I guess this story won’t, after all, inspire love and courage in generations of young men and women after my passing as I had hoped. Well, it is still a first draft. Also, it is still barely 5000 words.

Go Go Ghosts! A story of anime, Go, Happy Science and the Japan that only exists in our hearts.

NaNoWriMo planning

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Happy Science has a rather less optimistic view of ghosts. (Here from the anime The Rebirth of Buddha.) Don’t worry though, there are other spirits who are more helpful.

NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, is an open project to write 50 000 words of continuous fiction during the month of November. I have participated for about a decade by now, and even take my vacation in November each year. So also this year.

Today was the last workday before my “writecation”, where I take 5 weeks vacation from work (all the weeks that include November, basically). My tentative plan is to study Go, re-watch the anime Hikaru no Go and perhaps The Laws of Eternity, and write tens of thousands of words of fiction.

***

Yes, I intend to write 50 000 words of fiction about Go and related topics. For the unnaturally curious, here is my rough outline of the story:

The main character is a high school freshman who I for some reason want to call Eric. He is an “otaku”, obsessed with Japanese entertainment: Manga, anime, Jpop, and games. He was introduced to manga and anime by his older sister, but he is more into it than she. On the other hand, she is doing outrageous that he is not: She is writing gay fan fiction about straight character. This bizarre hobby of hers makes him rather nervous whenever she comes up with another scheme to give him a social life. (His sister is actually concerned about him, because he has no friends and tend to hole up with his anime and games all day.)

One day his sister introduces him to the anime Hikaru no Go, about a 6th grade boy who finds an old Go board which is haunted. The spirit in the board attaches itself to him and begins to badger him to play Go, because it is the ghost of a Go player from 1000 years ago who cannot find peace until he has reached “the Hand of God”, the perfect play. As long as the ghost is telling him how to play, he plays like a master, and becomes the center of attention from serious Go players. This causes him to try hard to learn the game himself, and a lot of adventures happen during the 75 episode of the anime.

The anime Hikaru no Go has inspired thousands if not millions of young people all over the world to learn to play Go. But it has only inspired one boy to try to find his own Go-playing ghost. This is his story. As you may guess, it is meant to be a bit on the humorous side.

Eric’s logic is that there since Go is popular among old men in Japan, there is bound to be thousands of ghosts who want to return to play more Go. All he needs is to attract one of them. They don’t need to be the best, as long as they are better than most people in Scandinavia, his success is assured.

First he needs to learn the basics of Go and the various Japanese phrases used in the game. (I can use this to pad the book if I run out of story.)  He also needs to expand his Japanese vocabulary, since it is unlikely that old Japanese ghosts speak English. (He actually lives in Norway, but for simplicity, all Norwegians speak English in his world.) Then he needs to find out how to get in contact with Japanese ghosts.

As luck (or plot) would have it, the solution to all his problems is found at the local Go club, in the form of a girl close to his own age, who happens to be half Japanese, daughter of a Norwegian sea captain and his Japanese wife. Not only does she play Go and speak Japanese, she is also a member of the Japanese religion Happy Science, which has an extensive lore about the afterlife. Together, they try to find out what happens to Go players who die.

So there you have it. Go, anime and Happy Science. “Write about what you know, not about yourself.” It shouldn’t be hard to write 50 000 words about these things – it is possible that I have already done so in my journal… ^_^;

Talk to your toaster

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I also used to be excited about the future, but now that I live here, I take it for granted.

NaNoWriMo – national novel writing month – is approaching once again. (“The month formerly known as November”, as I like to call it.) The forums for 2012 are up and running, and in the technology section there is as usually a thread dedicated to speech recognition, or more specifically Dragon NaturallySpeaking. (I would not mind a more general thread, since Windows also comes with speech recognition built in. Hopefully we can have more threads later.)

One thing I wanted to say early on was that it is not enough to be able to use speech recognition in a technical sense. The next challenge is to be able to tell a story to the computer. This is a very different thing, especially for us who have been writers for many years and are used to thinking with our fingers. It also doesn’t help to have been a grown-up for many years, during which you have not been able to tell long, obviously made-up stories to people without them looking at you very strangely. I suppose there are some families in which this problem does not exist, but I am not sure whether it is a good thing or not… ^_^;

So I recommended that people start telling stories to their computers already now, all through October, so that they have gotten over that hurdle, that shyness or awkwardness of telling imaginary stories out loud to inanimate objects. In fact, I recommend practicing on the toaster as well, and with blatant nonsense. The purpose is not to deliver the Great American Novel to your amazed toaster, but to get yourself to accept the unreasonable fact that it is possible to tell stories to home equipment. Such are the times in which we live. I could not have made it up in a sci-fi novel. Magic fantasy, perhaps, just perhaps.

I ask you, gentle reader, to consider this: Not only do I occasionally talk to a machine without being insane (or more so than those who don’t). I also carry in my shirt pocket a telephone, my own library with dozens of books, a bookstore with millions more, thousands of newspapers from all over the world, millions of songs and an unknown number of movies, and enough cat pictures to last the craziest old cat lady for a lifetime.

You can probably add to this, but the point is: I do this almost every day without giving it a second thought. I don’t wake up each morning thinking: “Oh my God! I live in a miraculous, magical world filled with amazing wonders that I would not have believed were possible when I was a child – what should I do today to take advantage of this to the fullest?”

If I did, and if my conclusion was that I should start the day by talking to my kitchen equipment, that might not be the worst thing I have done in my life.