I've been writing quite a bit lately and it's reached a point where even when I stop, I still find myself thinking about the world I have dreamt up. This invasive immersion is something I've done many times when writing and I think it helps because unconsciously you are figuring out kinks in your story and you often have moments where plot-holes appear out of nowhere and relatively quickly a solution to said plot-hole presents itself.
This has led me to think about writing itself and what it is you try to portray. The obvious answer here is that you try to portray the story, but that's superficial and represents an answer that many people who aren't writers would give. A writer would say we try to portray much more than this, that we try to portray characters and their lives, and a living breathing world in which they reside. A surprising amount of time for a writer goes into thinking about the lives and backgrounds of the characters we create.
When you first start out writing, one of the major problems new writers have is that our characters are not three-dimensional and they aren't believable e.g. their dialogue doesn't feel natural. Those who are defensive about their work in their early days will challenge this with the "I know more about my characters than you do" response. I'll admit when I first started writing narratives I was in high school and I was guilty of this attitude. I was focused almost entirely on my own perception of my work and dismissive of others opinions. As a writer there are times when this can be necessary but it is very easy to fall into a pit of arrogance by doing so. It is important to know your characters well, but to be frank, if you can't communicate that knowledge then what is inside your head means nothing. What matters is what's on the page - or what the reader can infer from it. If you don't convey what is in your head you'll never be a great writer, you'll be a great thinker, nothing more.
There is a balance here which is very hard to strike and employs a skill that takes many years to hone and which even experienced writers can still struggle with. You can spend a thousand words describing the intricate details of a bedroom, but if it's not relevant to the story it's a waste of time. The balance is knowing what is relevant and what is not - and depending on the genre, knowing how to include details which will be important later without making it obvious why.
There is a level of abstraction that must be utilised. If we use your own life as an example, when you leave your house to go and buy food you will pass quite a few people and places. You don't stop to think about every single person you pass and you don't pay attention to every single detail around you because it's not relevant to what you want to achieve. When writing the same scene you wouldn't give details of every single person you passed for example hair colour and height.
For me personally one of the things I find hardest to abstract when writing is time. For example if a journey takes three days, and there is a lot your characters need to discuss to progress the story during that time this can be quite easy to write. The problem in this scenario is once you establish this journey takes three days then each time they make that journey you are presented with the dilemma of how you fill that time.
Video games are a lot more forgiving in this respect as a journey from point A to point B can often take a lot of time the first time you make it, but the game introduces "fast travel" to make it easier to backtrack. Using fast travel as an author can ruin a story entirely. Game of Thrones for example has a problem with this in their TV adaptation of the book series A Song of Ice and Fire in that some characters' journeys from point A to B can take an entire season whereas other characters can be seen to make the same journey in a single episode. TV programmes have a lot more lenience due to their episodic nature as you can to an extent dismiss the time between episodes as being indeterminate and a valid explanation of why things happen quickly. The explanation given by one of the producers of Game of Thrones is that individual characters timelines are not intended to be in perfect sync in the show unless they are in the same place at the same time.
In terms of episodic gaps, the equivalent of this from a literary standpoint would be to have one chapter end and the next chapter commence three days later, cutting out the journey time. However this in turn has its own problems in that it will either the annoying to the reader as it poses lingering questions of what happened during that time, something which can frustrate the reader if the author uses the ambiguity at a later point to reference the events they never saw, especially if a flashback is used. Alternatively this gap can pose another problem if you decide to go back later and write "filler" - this runs the risk of boring the reader if the author is simply stalling for time and delaying progression of the story which I have written about before. In the post linked above, it can be seen as rambling, and not about anything even remotely interesting or relevant.
Y2K and Brexit
"It's just like Y2K that was a lot of hype over nothing"I've seen this sentiment expressed many times over the last 16 years in reference to many things that were predicted and then did not come to pass. I find a grain of humour in this sentiment because those who express it show themselves to be nothing but ignorant.
For those that don't know what Y2K was I'll explain it as simple as I can. Pre-2000 the vast majority of computer systems were developed to use 2 digit years for dates. Now I know you'll think this was stupid and short sighted and I agree it was. Nevertheless these systems represented dates in this way and the year 1997 was 97, and 1998 was 98, and 1999 was 99. The problem was that when the clock ticked over on December 31st 1999, the year would tick from 99 to 00 and these systems would interpret that as 1900 not 2000.
There were a series of predictions made by large software companies that this change would cause considerable impact and catastrophe. It became known and referred to in the media as the "Y2K bug" - Y = Year, 2K = 2000. The predictions that these catastrophes would come to pass were not wildly overactive imaginations they were simple conclusions drawn from simulations and various tests of the programs that comprised these systems. Make no shadow of a doubt if nothing had been done, all that was predicted would have come to pass.
It didn't happen though, and the fact that it didn't happen was seen as many as proof that this was a fantasy or mass hysteria that was unwarranted. This view is ignorant. The reason it did not happen is because billions were invested and millions of man hours around the world were devoted to upgrading those computer systems. Archived versions of many still exist and you can see for yourself what happens when the date changes. For many date and time critical services e.g. banking or air traffic control, the fact that everything in "00" happens before "99" causes unexpected consequences e.g. bank accounts having zero balances as they weren't opened until after that date.
Since June 23rd when the UK voted to leave the European Union some of the predictions on the consequences have come to pass while others have not. In the same way that Y2K deniers are ignorant to the investment that was made, many people who voted leave are ignorant to what has happened in the country over the last 2 months. For a start, the fact the financial systems of the UK have not collapsed is seen by many leave voters as proof the remain camp was fear mongering before the referendum.
This view is ignorant and dismisses the investment and effort that has been poured into the UK's financial sector to prevent collapse. In 2008/9 when the financial crisis occurred the banks in the UK were bailed out by the government with £124 billion. This bailout was met with public opposition, hostility, and anger directed towards bankers that persists to this day. Yet, since June 23rd when the UK voted to leave, our financial sector has had another bailout, more than last time, this cost the UK taxpayer £150 billion - something which nobody seems to care about. Leave voters have not echoed the anger they expressed in 2008/9 towards the banking sector. After the crisis a number of safety nets were put in place to prevent the financial sector from collapsing in future, the most critical of these measures was a deposit buffer which banks would need to retain to ensure they remain liquid. Since the referendum this buffer has been abolished to allow the banks to lend out a further £100 billion. In other words the rising cost of running the Cruise Ship UK has led the Bank of England to tell it to sell its lifeboats to reduce its ticket price, anyone ever seen Titanic? Do you know what happens when you don't have enough lifeboats?
The crux of the argument the remain vote still carries is epitomised by Ian Hislop's words:
"After an election or a referendum, even if you lose the vote you are entitled to go on making the argument. When a government in this country wins an election the opposition does not say 'That's absolutely right I have nothing to say' for five years"So let me reiterate the point: we have not actually left yet. We are still a member of the EU. Article 50 has not been invoked. In the 2 months that have passed since people voted to leave we have suffered a financial crash bigger than that of 2008/9 and had to pump money into the country that didn't exist in the first place. Our currency has fallen against the dollar to it's lowest point in 30 years. A number of big businesses have gone bust with many more freezing recruitment. We are still in Summer months and seasonal hiring is buoying our jobs market to an extent. The worst is not over and has not even begun. The bulk of the predictions made by remain centred around what would happen after we actually left.
Consumer confidence is down, business confidence is down, and we are passing through a transitional period now. In these six months many companies will now be preparing contingency plans for when Article 50 is invoked which is expected to be early 2017. The ignorance of all that has come to pass in the last 2 months alone is representative of the ignorance expressed during the campaign. Those that are working hard to keep this country afloat and pumping in billions are the coders who prevented Y2K - unseen and unacknowledged. The only difference here is that with Y2K it was all over on January 1st 2000. Brexit is far from over, we haven't even hit "the millennium moment" yet.
Linux Again
A few weeks ago I took my annual dip into Linux. I have several versions that I use for different things apart from this. The most notable would be Fedora's LXDE spin and DEFT Linux. Aside from these versions which I use when I have need, I like to take a dip into what I'd call "mainstream" distributions of Linux once a year just to gauge the progress of the OS and I thought I would share my experience on this blog.
This year it was the turn of Ubuntu, specifically the main distribution and also the Xubuntu distribution. The latter is by far my favourite of the two. Although Lubuntu has had its moments of charm for me in the past. Whilst exploring the distributions I look for a number of things. First and foremost is the ease of use. Now as a full disclaimer I know my way around Linux and I wouldn't consider myself new to it so my view will always be somewhat skewed by my technical background. Nevertheless I try to approach the OS with an open mind in the mindset of a new user who is trying to find their way around.
The first Linux distribution I ever used was Mandriva Linux back in 2004. One thing I liked about Mandriva was that they created their own control centre and various other interfaces to present a user-friendly method of configuration. My explorations over the years have continued to gauge this usability enhancement and this year as with previous I found myself let down yet again by the sparsity of graphical configuration tools. You are limited in what you can configure through graphical interfaces and even now 12 years later I find myself still being drawn down into the terminal and using commands to achieve what I need to - this isn't practical in my view for the majority of computer users. I am only comfortable doing this because I know what I am doing, but as I have said in previous posts even I have broke Linux on more than one occasion.
Linux has come a long way but many of the grievances I and many others have with the OS remain and just don't seem to be a priority at all. One of the less practical and more superficial grievances is the fact to many people, myself included, Linux is often ugly to put it bluntly. There are a few distributions that tried to make the experience more visually pleasing but it remains quite hideous. Now I understand that visual bells and whistles can be seen as inefficient when you are focused on performance, and I would agree, however with Windows for example there is the option to tell the OS whether you want to optimise for appearance or performance, allowing for a much more pleasant visual experience. To many Linux distributions look reminiscent of Windows 95. GNOME is one of my most hated desktop environments for Linux as it is undoubtedly the ugliest, KDE is an improvement as is Cinnamon on Linux Mint.
Beyond these grievances the underlying problem I see with Linux is the militant, sometimes borderline religious belief that only those who "know what they are doing" should be using it. As I said above the annoyance of having to resort to using the terminal to achieve something that in my view should be possible through the interface is often met with disdain and the retort if you don't know how to use a terminal you shouldn't be using Linux. This kind of animosity towards users who are not of a technical background was what led many people to use Apple computers in the early days and divided people into "Mac vs PC" camps - while that was a misnomer as they moniker referred to hardware when the argument was based on software it does seem to be the case to borrow and extend this analogy that today it is very much "Mac vs PC vs Linux" with those in any of the 3 camps looking down on the other two and criticising them.
For the time being I will stick with Windows 10, there is very little tying me down to one system anymore but for what little ties me down there is even less motivation to change. There is no real incentive for any Windows user to switch to Linux despite what many enthusiasts might try and say to convince you otherwise, if you do actually switch you'll find yourself without help very quickly. If Linux ever wants to be a serious choice for the majority of users then these problems with the design and with the attitude of the community need to be fixed.
This year it was the turn of Ubuntu, specifically the main distribution and also the Xubuntu distribution. The latter is by far my favourite of the two. Although Lubuntu has had its moments of charm for me in the past. Whilst exploring the distributions I look for a number of things. First and foremost is the ease of use. Now as a full disclaimer I know my way around Linux and I wouldn't consider myself new to it so my view will always be somewhat skewed by my technical background. Nevertheless I try to approach the OS with an open mind in the mindset of a new user who is trying to find their way around.
The first Linux distribution I ever used was Mandriva Linux back in 2004. One thing I liked about Mandriva was that they created their own control centre and various other interfaces to present a user-friendly method of configuration. My explorations over the years have continued to gauge this usability enhancement and this year as with previous I found myself let down yet again by the sparsity of graphical configuration tools. You are limited in what you can configure through graphical interfaces and even now 12 years later I find myself still being drawn down into the terminal and using commands to achieve what I need to - this isn't practical in my view for the majority of computer users. I am only comfortable doing this because I know what I am doing, but as I have said in previous posts even I have broke Linux on more than one occasion.
Linux has come a long way but many of the grievances I and many others have with the OS remain and just don't seem to be a priority at all. One of the less practical and more superficial grievances is the fact to many people, myself included, Linux is often ugly to put it bluntly. There are a few distributions that tried to make the experience more visually pleasing but it remains quite hideous. Now I understand that visual bells and whistles can be seen as inefficient when you are focused on performance, and I would agree, however with Windows for example there is the option to tell the OS whether you want to optimise for appearance or performance, allowing for a much more pleasant visual experience. To many Linux distributions look reminiscent of Windows 95. GNOME is one of my most hated desktop environments for Linux as it is undoubtedly the ugliest, KDE is an improvement as is Cinnamon on Linux Mint.
Beyond these grievances the underlying problem I see with Linux is the militant, sometimes borderline religious belief that only those who "know what they are doing" should be using it. As I said above the annoyance of having to resort to using the terminal to achieve something that in my view should be possible through the interface is often met with disdain and the retort if you don't know how to use a terminal you shouldn't be using Linux. This kind of animosity towards users who are not of a technical background was what led many people to use Apple computers in the early days and divided people into "Mac vs PC" camps - while that was a misnomer as they moniker referred to hardware when the argument was based on software it does seem to be the case to borrow and extend this analogy that today it is very much "Mac vs PC vs Linux" with those in any of the 3 camps looking down on the other two and criticising them.
For the time being I will stick with Windows 10, there is very little tying me down to one system anymore but for what little ties me down there is even less motivation to change. There is no real incentive for any Windows user to switch to Linux despite what many enthusiasts might try and say to convince you otherwise, if you do actually switch you'll find yourself without help very quickly. If Linux ever wants to be a serious choice for the majority of users then these problems with the design and with the attitude of the community need to be fixed.
256
The story follows a young man named Sebastian who awakens with no idea where he is or even who he is, this was my first attempt to broach the theme of self discovery in a literal context. This was a theme I would later return to with greater depth. '256' serves mostly as a proof of concept, a prototype for a future work that developed this idea in much greater depth.
Endless Wonder
I once dreamt of endless wonder
That dream has since been torn asunder
Shattered by my struggles and strife
They seem to be the body of life
Others speak of cynics and pessimism
As they wax lyrics of their sweet schism
Their view is all they will ever see
It is for this they will never know me
I step back into shadows from light
My eyes adjust and regain their sight
I will see the truth beyond the path I know
And follow my heart that's where I need to go
I close my eyes and whisper so soft
And remember the place where I was once oft
My truth is mine for you to see
But your belief is unnecessary
I must embrace the heart that once beat so wild
And return to the spirit of my inner child
I must see it was not the world, that was torn asunder
Instead it was I who lost the dream, of endless wonder
That dream has since been torn asunder
Shattered by my struggles and strife
They seem to be the body of life
Others speak of cynics and pessimism
As they wax lyrics of their sweet schism
Their view is all they will ever see
It is for this they will never know me
I step back into shadows from light
My eyes adjust and regain their sight
I will see the truth beyond the path I know
And follow my heart that's where I need to go
I close my eyes and whisper so soft
And remember the place where I was once oft
My truth is mine for you to see
But your belief is unnecessary
I must embrace the heart that once beat so wild
And return to the spirit of my inner child
I must see it was not the world, that was torn asunder
Instead it was I who lost the dream, of endless wonder
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