Character sketch - the comic relief Cynthia 1:37 PM

Spike

Laughter is as important for good health as exercise. And if you laugh hard enough, you can count it as an ab workout. After my divorce, I watched Whose Line is it Anyway as much as I could right before bed, which allowed me to guffaw instead of cry myself to sleep. I did this while I was on the phone with a friend who was watching with me. Her laughter and my laughter combined on a molecular level to help send me off the sleep in a state of comic euphoria. Oh the Wayne Brady-flavored dreams I had....

Fool

Even if you're not reading or watching a full-blown comedy, many stories offer a comic relief character to give readers or watchers a break from the building tension. Not every story has a comic relief character, but when it does, and when it's done well, the character can help move the story along, showcase and/or challenge the main character and sometimes they even steal the show. But good comic relief is hard to come by. My favorite comic relief characters in books, movies and TV shows are not the stumbling bumbling idiots who fart, fall down and/or hit people in the nuts.(Yes, I realize I've already used up my and/or quota for the week.) They are usually more clever than that. A shining example is Spike, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who starts out as the antagonist/comic relief:

Merry and Pippin

"I know I'm not the first choice for heroics, and Buffy's tried to kill me more than once. And I don't fancy a single one of you at all. But... Actually, all that sounds pretty convincing. I wonder if Asian House is open..."

—moved to being the love interest/comic relief—

"Buffy, Buffy, Buffy! Everywhere I turn, she's there. That nasty little face, that bouncing, shampoo-commercial hair."

Sir John Falstaff

—and then to being the sidekick/comic relief in Angel, even after he double-died—

"Say no more. Evil is still afoot. And I'm almost out of that nancy-boy hair-gel I like so much. Quickly, to the Angel-mobile, away!"

I chose to showcase Spike because he's got some of the best lines, but it's the delivery that really seals it. On the page, this delivery has to be illustrated by the character's mannerisms and the reactions of the characters around him or her. How do I know how to do that? Well,  I watch clever TV shows and movies as research and I have real-life comic relief friends, so I just observe their delivery and my reactions to them. They not only see the humor in almost anything, but they help awaken my slumbering comedian and contribute to some of the most enjoyable ab workouts I've ever experienced.

Walter Bishop

Truly, it's hard to choose my favorites in this category, not because there aren't a lot of funny characters, because being funny doesn't necessarily make you comic relief. I've already deleted several names off my list for not falling into the category correctly, but I've wracked my brain for long enough. I'm sure I'm missing some great comic relief characters. Feel free to add any of your own suggestions.

Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy

Some of my favorite comic relief characters are:

• Sir John Falstaff
• “Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.” 
• Spike from Buffy/Angel
• "Aren't you a throw-himself-to-the-lions sort of sap these days. Well, the lions are on to you, baby."
• Flip in Bellwether by Connie Willis
• "You don't know what swarb means? No hots. No cutes. Cyber-ugg. Swarb."
• Walter Bishop from Fringe:
• "The turbulence over Ohio was like being in the belly of a seizing whale. I screamed like a little girl."
• Merry and Pippin from The Lord of the Rings
• Merry: "Don't know why he's so upset. It was only a couple o' carrots."
• Pippin: "And some cabbages. And those three bags of potatoes that we lifted last week. And - and then the mushrooms the week before!"
• Merry: "Yes Pippin! My point is, he's clearly over reactin'!"
• Pippin: "Run!"
• Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy from Star Trek
• "I've found that evil usually triumphs...unless good is very, very careful."
• Keanu Reeves in most movies he's in, but not on purpose
• "Whoa."

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• Character sketch - the sidekick

Character sketch - the sidekick Cynthia 4:36 PM

When I say "sidekick," you probably think of Robin or Kato or Tonto--some tights-wearing, mask-having comic relief character. But there are sidekicks throughout literature that help bring our favorite protagonists to life. I love writing sidekicks for my protagonists. I love them because they're awesome. Everyone should have at least one sidekick in real life, ultimately two (three's too many--let's not be greedy).

I think I love writing sidekicks so much because they were what I wished for most when I was growing up. Some little girls wanted a pony, but I--well let's be honest, I wanted a midnight black Arabian stallion--but I also wanted one of those best friends--the one you've known since kindergarten. Sure I had siblings, but siblings are terrible sidekicks for many reasons I won't go into in this blog post (nothing against sibilings...siblings are great at being siblings). I wanted someone to help me solve mysteries, to back me up when I was challenged and to set me back on track when I lost focus. I did go on an adventure with my best friend/potential sidekick in Texas, which involved me being thrown from a mighty stallion (falling off the back of a Shetland pony) and getting wounded in a mighty battle (landing in stinging nettle after falling off the back of aforementioned pony). We moved a lot, so as hard as I tried, I said goodbye to so many besties, at this point I can really only remember first names and hair color.

So I don't have a real-life sidekick. No one has ever helped me solve a twisting mystery, stand up to an oppressive giant, save the world or slapped me back into shape when I went off the radar because my role as slayer, leader of the rebellion or disavowed spy got to be too much. In movies, TV shows and books, good sidekicks often represent the protagonist's inner struggle--one may represent logic and another may represent emotion. Don't believe me?


Star Wars

Han Solo - emotion
Leia - reason

Harry Potter
Ron Weasley - emotion
Hermione Granger - reason

Star Trek

Bones - emotion

Spock - reason

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Xander - emotion

Willow - reason

Disclaimer: The role of a sidekick goes deeper than that if you want to delve into it, and there are other roles that can be filled by a sidekick. 

But sometimes there's only one sidekick. In these situations, the sidekick acts to balance out the protagonist's own fogged perceptions. They act as a sounding board or one of those really unflattering mirrors that shows how big your pores have gotten. Harsh reality. Sometimes they quietly offer options in the background and sometimes they offer a face-punch wake-up call.

Some examples of this balance in literature are:

• Holmes and Watson
• Gilgamesh and Enkidu
• Robinson Crusoe and Friday
• Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
• Frodo and Samwise

Then again. Sometimes they're just a volleyball.

To read more on the role of sidekicks in literature, go here:  https://sites.google.com/a/newmyths.com/nmwebsite/non_fiction/the-role-of-the-sidekick or here:  http://www.writing-world.com/victoria/crafting06.shtml

Character sketch - awesomeness Cynthia 4:34 PM

Awesomeness can be inherent or learned. It can be real or delusional (and delusional awesomeness is hilarious/annoying). The most awesome people I know are awesome because they're not trying to be. They're just:

1. really comfortable in their skin 
2. really good at everything they do (and reasonably humble about it)
3. persistently amazing friends

If someone happens to be all three of these, well then he or she has been fortunate enough to reach  Awesome Trifecta Status (or ATS)--the Bermuda's Triangle of Awesomeness, where anything lame magically turns to awesome at the touch of his or her hands. This is a great place to be. I've heard.

I thought about including a list of people I know who are awesome and the numbers of their corresponding awesome building blocks as mentioned above, but I think this will only:

1. alienate my friends who are not awesome and just now finding out (just kidding, ALL my friends are awesome!)
2. single out those of my friends who are awesome, but who have not yet attained ATS
3. boost the egos of my friends who have reached aforementioned status, thereby invalidating the parenthetical portion of #2 and creating an Awesome Paradox

Suffice it to say that I have been blessed with many awesome friends and continue to meet new awesomes as the world tumbles along. This planet is filled with them--sometimes cropping up where you least expect them--but you can find them if you are open to it. Often we get so caught up in our quest for internal awesomeness that we forget to embrace external awesomeness when we see it. Embracing it will only enhance our own, so grab it whenever you can--even if it's only for a moment.

That being said, the Awesome Trifecta is hard to find in real life. #1 is the kicker, usually. People tend to be weirdly insecure, and their insecurities keep themselves from reaching ATS. Because of this, I rarely write characters who are truly awesome. I tend to write those who get caught up in delusional awesomeness instead. True awesomeness is as elusive as true altruism, and therefore seems like fiction. And we all know that people don't like their fiction to seem like fiction.


Blog off.

Character sketch - creepiness Cynthia 4:49 PM

Watch The Creep here

The creepiest character I've read to date is Humbert Humbert from Lolita. I was introduced to him via book on tape (read by Jeremy Irons aka Scar from The Lion King) in my car on the way to work and was seriously worried that if I got pulled over, I might go to jail on suspicion of severe creepiness just for listening to it.

All of my creepy characters are based off one person in my life. Without giving too much information, because he is a human being, this guy seemed to be the ultimate creep--in the way he always showed up when you didn't want him to (which was any time), in his appearance, in the way he talked and in the way he looked at you. You always had this sneaking suspicion that he had just done, or was about to do something weird, perverted and/or illegal. And he didn't know how to take "no" for an answer. He was always trying to hug or touch people, often getting yelled at or slapped in the process. If you kicked him out of your party, he'd linger outside the doorway, peeking in, trying to make conversation with whomever would respond. And if no one responded, he seemed okay with that. He always trying to be part of something, which made me wonder about how he'd gotten to that place--what was his home life was like. I started wondering how he'd been treated as a small child, or how much, if any, attention he got from his parents. If he even had parents. I wondered who loved him and why he was so passionate about the things he was passionate about. I wondered what his house looked like--his bedroom.

I know, right? Who's the creep now? (Me.) But thinking about these things has helped me understand people who appear to be creepy. They're just people who never learned how to process and deal with the world. Whether they're a shy creep (George McFly) or a loud creep (Biff Tannen), creeps don't just materialize out of thin air. They are born of creepiness, heir to creepiness and parent to creepiness. And just like my insane and douchey characters, they come from somewhere.

See Top Ten Creepy Characters from movies.

Character sketch - douchiness Cynthia 4:39 PM

Sometimes my characters are douches. Actually, this happens a lot. My method? First of all, I eat salt and vinegar chips to get myself in the mood. I don't know why this flavor freaks me out so much. I mean, I like vinegar a lot. But for some reason, salt and vinegar chips remind me of douche. Second of all, I think of, not only the people in my life who are epically egocentric, but also how I would probably be if I didn't have this pesky thing called a conscience. I'm far from sainthood--but since I am non-religious, I try to hold myself to a higher moral standard to prove to myself that I don't need to be good based solely on the fear that I may burn in eternal hellfire if I'm not.

But I digress.Writing a douchey character is similar to writing any other character. You just have to make sure they have realistic motivations and a good backstory. Random or over-the-top douchery is annoying. So I call upon the memory of the douches in my life, past and present and pay homage to them for their contributions, e.g.:

• The guy I worked with who bragged that his sisters called him a "douche rocket" and liked to pester, irritate and/or openly mock everyone around him. He was most triumphant when he made a female co-worker cry or beat the shit out of a Buddha-head with a golf club because he thought it was ugly.

• The neighbor who insists on parking 1.5 millimeters from my car. Literally, I cannot fit my hand between the bumpers.
• The guy I dated who stormed out of my house, slammed the door so hard it bounced all the way back open and peeled out of my driveway. The reason for his temper tantrum? I could break it down, but all that matters is that is was not a good one. He called me when he got home, but I didn't answer. I never saw him again despite his best attempts.

• The fellow English major in my Renaissance Literature class, who asked to speak with me in the hallway after class, then proceeded to rant at me for disagreeing with his interpretation of The Compass by John Donne, insisting I made him look foolish in front of his peers. No. You did that all on your own. You're shouting the exclamation mark on it right now.

Those are a few off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many more douche rockets out there-- fodder for a new story. In the meantime, my two favorite douche-inspired quotes are from Einstein and Misty Evans, respectively. 

<----Einstein's quote:

Misty's quote:
"He's a douche, Cynthia. My vagina is pH-balanced just from being in the same country with him!"

Blog off.

Character sketch - insanity Cynthia 12:49 PM

When I write, I try to give my characters realistic motivations. People aren't evil just to be evil--not your mother-in-law or your crazy ex, despite what you think. They usually have a reason for their behavior and feel justified on some level. I've written a couple of crazy characters and had to try to get inside their heads, so I started to wonder what could drive me to insanity. What would really make me act crazy? And then I thought back to those moments in my life when I had acted crazy. There are a few....

Being a die-hard list-maker, I've compiled a list of things that could or have made me crazy in order of severity and potential bodily harm to myself or others:

1. Someone threatening, annoying or in some way endangering my children
2. Lack of sleep
3. Irrational behavior from other people
4. Inexplicably losing something forever
5. Too much vodka

Threatening my children: I could kill for this. And I don't mean I get annoyed and I'm all "I could totally kill them." I mean I could see myself assessing a serious threat to my child and then making it go away through legal or illegal means if necessary. I'm normally a calm person. Some might say pleasant even, but there was that incident on the playground once upon a time where a grown woman was humiliating my 5-year-old and I verbally shredded her. It was a verbal shredding only, but it left mental scars and an almost palpable feeling of foreboding that lingered around the tunnel slide for months like a wandering spirit. It was with massive restraint that I kept myself from shoving her face into the dirt and kneeling on the back of her head until she vomited mud. Flash forward 12 years to when I rabid, minced and repeated with a vice principal, who called me back and offered an apology ten minutes later. I think he was sniffling. Crazy moments brought to you by Cynthia.

Lack of sleep: We all get crazy when we don't sleep. I go through bouts of insomnia, but refuse to take sleep aids because the idea of pharmaceutically incapacitating myself on purpose unsettles me. Instead, I stumble through my days half awake and babble incoherently at my coworkers, sometimes answering their questions ten minutes after they ask them. I see awkward and strange things in my peripheral vision and feel a one-sided kinship with Lewis Carroll, who must have written Alice's Adventures in Wonderland based on images from his sleep-deprived peripheral vision. Or drugs. Or a combination. I also remember a social worker telling me not to judge people who have random acts of terrible parenting, because extreme circumstances drive us to extremes and lack of sleep is a doozy.

Irrational behavior: The complete lack of common courtesy freaks me out. When a neighbor's random house guest parked their car in my driveway, I almost flipped my lid because WHO DOES THAT?! Also when the same neighbor's giant half-lame lab pooped on my lawn for the 57th time while the neighbor was watching, I may have picked up said poop, put it in a paper bag and deposited it on her porch. She was all, "Why would you put poop on my doorstep?" And I was all, "It's your poop. It was giving it back to you. You're welcome. At least I was nice enough to bag it!" I admit it was crazy, but that's the point, and I felt terrible about it afterwards. But it wasn't the inconvenience of not being able to park in my own driveway or picking a giant, steaming poop off my lawn that set me off, it was the fact that it never should have happened.

Losing something: Obviously, losing people is hard. And I've lost a lot, which is why one of my favorite poems is Elizabeth Bishop's One Art. I've had to say goodbye to family members and good friends in a scale of degrees ranging from semi-permanent to ultra-permanent. But I'm also talking about the phenomenon of sitting down with something on your lap and it suddenly quantum tunnels to nowhere forever. Like scissors. Or car keys. Or your phone that you were just talking on. Or those times you spend an hour looking for something that was right there a second ago. That doesn't necessarily make me act crazy so much a feel like I've already lost my mind.


Too much vodka: I mean...come one. Vodka, coffee, Red Bull, Twizzlers--water even (or dilutional hyponatremia) can be fatal. Too much of anything can make you nutty, right? You don't need the details. Just use your imagination for that one.

To read about more things that can make you crazy, see this page and be astounded.

Blog off.

“Dreams, they are who I am when I’m too tired to be me.” ― Jarod Kintz Cynthia 1:02 PM

Lately I've been having what you might call "weird-ass" dreams, partly due to an unfortunate fever I've been running, and partly due to the fact that I have an over-active imagination that spills over into the nighttime. Fortunately, I've been told that this is how bestsellers and religions begin. Since I'm in no mood to write scripture, I figured I'd scribble my dreams into stories, which I reserve the right to later turn into a religion if I so choose. One has resulted in a 300-page novel and the other is currently spinning into a short story.

There are five steps to the writing process as follows:
1. Think
2. Write
3. Make it better
4. Make it correct
5. Share the product

I've got number one down because I do my best thinking when I'm unconscious. If only I could submit in my sleep, I'd have it made. Number two is easy for me, but I get stuck on numbers three and four because I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I tend to edit forever. In layers. I'll do an overall copy edit to catch typos and late-night or boozy meanderings, then I'll isolate and refine the protagonist's dialogue and then each major character. I'll do an edit for technical accuracy (with the help of subject matter experts, the Internet and books), one for geographical accuracy (usually with the help of Google maps in lieu of actual travel) and then whatever other aspects are present in the story--medical research, historical research, etc.

I won't even say it's the submission process I hate, because that's over-said and sounds defeatist and whiny.But it's where I get stymied. So I suppose I'm implying it.

"I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work." -Tanith Lee

Blog off.

Penumbra Cynthia 1:06 AM

When I was in sixth grade, I read more than 200 books and saw my first lunar eclipse. I remember it from penumbra to penumbra, not just the way it looked, so three-dimensional and amber, bulging out of the night sky, but the way I felt when I saw it. I remember knowing I needed to capture that moment somehow, that it was too beautiful to let pass without some kind of memorial. I didn't have a camera, so I sketched it (badly) in pencil on notebook paper. I wanted to never forget.

There have been times when I've felt so inspired to write that I almost couldn't do anything else, and there are times when I've felt I had no words in me. During the wordless times, I turn back to my first lunar eclipse and remember the way it looked. And the way I felt. And then I build on that memory. I remember where I sat that night and sketched at the sky. I remember the field in Texas behind my house, filled with tiny flowers stretching out endlessly. I remember the thunderstorms and honeysuckle and prickly pear. I remember that the world felt unexplored.

This year has been busy in a good way. I've scrambled from event to event. I've accomplished a lot, but stared blankly at my computer screen, notepads and Delta drink napkins. Where there would have been words, there is a flicker, a line, a smear of wine. But tonight I am remembering that field in Texas. I'm going back to the eclipse.

Inspiration Cynthia 10:09 AM

Writers get inspiration from anywhere--an overheard conversation in a restaurant or a drop of oily water in the street. Inspiration is in imperfection. In perfection. In beginnings and endings. It's in fireball meteors or a beautiful photograph.

I often get midnight epiphanies based on a sound I misheard in a sleepy stupor or a half-dream I had two nights before. I wrote an entire novel based on the mental snapshot of a toddler scrambling ferociously up a hill in hopes of catching a glimpse of the sun.

If you Google "Strange Events" and hit the Images button, you have myriad story ideas at your fingertips including a street sign that says "Caution Zombies Ahead" and an astronaut carved into a 900 year old cathedral in Salamanca, Spain. (Apparently, someone felt the need to add it in the 1992 restoration, but still, great inspiration.) Of course if you're creative and you stare at your shower curtain long enough, you can find inspiration there too.

I am currently finding inspiration in a cup of coffee while I power through some articles I'm writing on the side. And there is a surprising amount of inspiration in the comfort of a cup of coffee. I could never been one of those writers who writes better drunk. I prefer to be alert and aware. And hopefully that inspiration (and caffeine) will carry me through today till the evening when I'll be writing something more creative again.

Blog off.

NaNorific Cynthia 11:13 PM

Well folks. I did it. I NaNoWriMo-ed my butt off and finished the rough draft of a novel in 30 days. Just over 50,000 words ready to be rearranged, deleted and rewritten over the next few months. This makes novel number four, all at varying stages along the continuum of completion.

I feel like celebrating, but I'm tired, my neck hurts and my hands cramped up as I was power-typing my last 2,000 words. My forearms feel like I've been doing pull-ups all night. And here I've been wasting time at the gym. All I need is a late-night word count panic to whip me into shape.

That being said, I want to thank those of you who helped me through this month--who encouraged me to keep writing, or even thought to ask how it was going. And now, I'm going to watch some episodes of The Big Bang Theory as my reward.

That is all.

NaNoblivion Cynthia 11:07 AM

Three days left for NaNoWriMo and I'm desperately scrambling to write the last 10,500 words of my novel. I'm no mathematician, but that's a fifth of the book in a tenth of the allotted time. I've figured that's 3,500 words a day, which is approximately 14 pages a day. It's called procrastination, my friends. It's called Thanksgiving weekend wasn't as relaxing as I had hoped. It's called staying up until midnight if I have to.

But I still believe I can do it. In fairness, I still believe my ashes will be scattered in space when die, so take that with a grain of salt. But I still believe I can do justice to McFee and my protagonist I've named Bertha just because I don't know what her name is going to be yet.

Tangent: Bertha's easy to do a find and replace on. Maybe I'll call her Hashtag instead. Yesterday I read that someone named their baby girl Hashtag: Hey, at least you're not named Katniss, sweetie. But four of your kindergarten friends will be. I say when you have a baby, you should have to spin a wheel at the hospital to randomly pick a name for your child. Why should we get to choose our children's junior high school mockery? We already gave them their DNA makeup, which is a crapshoot, since attractive parents can make hideous children and hideous parents can make attractive children. But name your kid Hashtag and I'm not sure it matters how cute they are--their name is Hashtag. Right?

Maybe I'll keep Bertha as my protagonist's name. Maybe I'll change my name to Bertha. It's kind of grown on me.

NaNoWriMo Cynthia 12:11 PM

I haven't blogged much recently, because I've been working on some big projects, but I thought I'd take a minute to update my many followers.

I am 18,000 words in to NaNoWriMo, which is pretty much on target for the national goal of 50,000 by the end of the month. My son and were discussing our different writing styles this weekend and we discovered some things about ourselves. He's a detail guy. He loves to name things, and is always asking me about plot devices and archetypes. I like to plan my characters well and outline vaguely, if at all. I never know how my story is going to end when I start writing it, which makes it a more exciting and emotional journey for me. It's worked well for me so far. Maybe I'll mix it up some time in the (not near) future, but so far I haven't felt the need to.

That's all for now. And a P.S. for Jesse: I ate Greek yogurt for breakfast today--strawberry banana flavored. And I drank my coffee with pumpkin-flavored creamer. I know I'm mixing spring flavors with fall flavors, but I can't help myself.

On Evolution: Cynthia vs. Jason Sherman Cynthia 4:00 PM

This is a column that was published originally in March 2008. It was written in fun and is not intended as an angry rant on either side. 

Cynthia:

Millions of years ago, an amoeba oozed around in the ooze until it had a good idea. It turned into a fish, grew legs, walked on the land, climbed a tree (meteor crashed, dinosaurs died), climbed out of the tree, stood on its hind legs and became a man.

Woman arrived via taxi wearing heels and a tasteful scarf to keep the primordial ooze out of her hair.

It’s never been a neck-and-neck race. Evolutionarily speaking, women have always been a couple of millennia ahead of the men who missed their stop on the punctuated equilibrium bus ride of life. We were the first to not have hair on our backs or pee on the toilet seat, we were the first to groom ourselves and ask for directions and we were the first to realize it’s not okay to spit in public.

Women use their opposable thumbs for turning book pages. Men use theirs for mashing X-Box controller buttons.

Women use their pinkies to fine-tune their eyeliner lines. Men use theirs to dig stuff out of their ears.

It’s just painfully apparent that in the evolutionary scale, men haven’t made much progress—except those metrosexuals who have reached some sort of tentative evolutionary high based on the fact that they act, dress, talk and walk like women—they wax their eyebrows, swallow their expletives, gel their hair, wear great shoes and have learned how to read. They are considerate of others and don’t smell funny. Fortunately for women, these evolutionary hybrids have allowed us to continue reproducing with little or no harm to ourselves.

Any man reading this column (congratulations on your ability to read) is probably offended, but be honest, are you picking at your ears right now or scratching your butt?

I spent too many years picking greasy laundry up off the floor, prying mashed Skittles off pocket change and wiping little after-shave hair bits out of the sink. I spent too many years involuntarily watching Max X and Fear Factor out of the corner of my eye—watching him drink straight out of the milk jug and turn all the clothes pink. And guys—as righteous as your indignation may be, he’s not the only one. You’re doing something gross right now. You just won’t admit it.

Yes, I’ll admit that there are various incarnations of man/woman, woman/man, man/man and woman/woman. There’s always an exception to the rule, but bear in mind—it’s an exception. 

But it’s not too late to play catch-up. Just wait around for the next catastrophic world-wide event, and make sure you go with the flow this time. Come on. It’ll be fun.

Then well have someone to talk to.

Jason Sherman:

Contrary to popular belief, evolution isn't something that actually matters. There's the scientific community who postulate that we evolved over millions of years, the religious community who argue that Adam was the first man created by God, the scientific/religious community who argulate that God used evolution as a means of creating man, and then there’s the rest of the population who simply don’t care.

I'm with those guys.

Argument and debate are great things, as they inspire thought about different points of view, but at some point this particular argument got way too fanatical for its own good.

Honestly—people go insane over this. For some reason, the question "Do you believe in evolution?" has become akin to asking "Are you an atheist?" or "Are you a Christian?" Seriously people—we're talking about something that, if it’s true, takes place on such a huge timeframe that there is no possible way it would have any effect on any human, ever.

By the time evolution crops up again as a valid point of discussion for humans (in a Why-is-my-face-melting kind of way), I’m fairly certain the human race as we now know it will still resemble itself in the way a FOX News story resembles something that actually happened: not very.

We will probably have gone through seven nuclear winters, four Zombie Apocalypses, and at least three million more seasons of American Idol before any living thing has actually visibly evolved, and by then, we won’t remember what we looked like now anyway. (Sorry; I ran into a sort of paradox of tense there.)

What began as a simple conflict of theories mushroomed into a completely irrelevant Science vs. Religion SmackDown 2008. You might as well argue about the exact orbital patterns of galaxies, or try to understand the plot of Syriana. It would take way too long to know for sure, and isn’t worth the effort.

Whenever someone comes up to you and asks the question, (and the answer’s not, "Of course I’ll marry you!"), try to change the subject as fast as possible, or better yet, simply give them a good, hard slap.

No amount of discussion is going to change either party’s mind anyway, and this guarantees that:

1. They’ll never ask you about evolution again and
2. That they’ll think twice before asking anyone else. And come to think of it, anyone walking around looking for an argument deserves to be slapped. Hard.

On finding directions: Cynthia vs. Jason Sherman Cynthia 12:32 PM

This is a little light reading for my followers and other random readers of my blog. It's from a column that was published originally in April 2008 called "The Battle of the Sexists." Keep in mind, it was written before smart phones with built-in GPS became a thing. It was also written in fun and is not intended as an angry rant on either side. While your comments are appreciated as always, please be nice.

Cynthia:

I get lost a lot. It’s frustrating and embarrassing.

I didn’t get the internal compass that tells me which way is north. I thought I just had a horrible sense of direction. I didn’t realize I was missing vital parts. It turns out there’s a reason.

Some people have natural iron deposits or something in their noses that helps them know instinctively where north is. Now that I know this, I want iron deposit implant surgery—it’s not cosmetic, it’s a necessary procedure. (Will my insurance pay for it?)

Well, according to theregister.co.uk, CALTECH scientists found that human noses have magnetite, the same thing that bats, homing pigeons, migratory dolphins and honeybees have, that helps them find their way through the earth’s magnetic field. It’s a tiny, shiny crystal of magnetite in the ethmoid bone, located between your eyes, just behind the nose.

I am apparently magnetiteless.

Because of this, I hate driving in new places—I take my directions in the flavor of right or left. North and south mean nothing to me unless I can see our familiar Utah mountains. I MapQuest everything, but still frequently find myself driving off into oblivion.

It goes like this:

“Hi, I think I’m lost.” I say into my cell phone after I’m already 10 minutes late.

“Where are you?”

“I...uh...just passed Snickerdoodle Street.”

“Snickerdoodle and what?”

“Snickerdoodle and 4th.”

“Snickerdoodle and...what? 4th North? You’re in the entirely wrong city! How did you get there?”

Substitute different street names and that describes any of a number of my ventures into the wilds of America’s streets and freeways.

My brother has the same problem I do. Apparently the lack of magnetite in the nose is hereditary. But he found a smart solution to his problem.

Global. Positioning. System.

It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced. See, you plug it into your car, input the address, and it tells you where to go. Literally. A magical voice tells you when to turn and which way. It even says things like “left” and “right”. If you overshoot your mark, it corrects for you and recalculates your path. I feel now like I can conquer the world via freeway. Then I found out that it cost money, and gave up on my dream. I went back to MapQuest and somehow made it from Ogden to St. George, to Las Vegas, around Las Vegas, and home again. I found out along the way you can send the MapQuest directions to your cell phone—a happy compromise.

So, no. I don’t have any sense of direction whatsoever, but it’s not because I’m a woman, it’s because I’m a Loveland. It’s my father’s fault.

Jason:

For Spring Break my pal and I sojourned to the slightly smelly ultra-consumerist neon Mecca of Las Vegas. Not to have my trip ruined by failing to find the place (which would actually be an accomplishment unto itself, considering the city is like a radioactive blemish on the face of the planet), I nimbly jumped to a computer and, in turn, the Internet to procure directions on how to reach the 500-mile distant societal scab.

And instead of a complex list of twists and turns, instructing me to merge onto I-9whatnot, which gradually becomes State Road 274563, taking the right-hand turn onto Jeb Podunkers dirt road after 72.695 miles to cut over to west-bound I-9whathaveyou, a mere eight-step list appeared nearly instantaneously, and four of them were telling me how to get out of my own neighborhood. Step numbers one through seven combined for a grand-total distance of three miles, and number seven was comical in its simplicity: Turn left to merge onto I-15 S/I-84 E toward Salt Lake; Continue to follow I-15 S; Passing through Arizona, Entering Nevada—460 mi.

These days, you have to be really trying hard to get lost. In an age where helpful technology (as opposed to unhelpful technology—Microsoft, I’ll have a chat with you later) flows like running water, no excuses exist for even the lowliest non-tech-savvy 20th-century Earthican to get lost (and mom, I’m talking to you here: The Internet isn’t broken; there’s a binder laying across the keyboard).

In fact, we did get lost when we got to Vegas. Here’s the situation: Two Vegas-newbs show up at two a.m. in a city neither of them has ever been in, the person were supposed to be staying with has turned off his phone, and we have no idea where he lives. However, unlike your abacus-using auntie, we didn’t simply find the cheapest motel and bed down for the night (we’re two dudes—that would be just weird anyway: Me and Chris spent a night in a cheap motel in Vegas. Kinda a party-stopper, that).

Being the MacGyver-loving future-nerds we are, we simply whipped out his laptop and cruised the dark Vegas residential roads, searching for... are you ready for it? ... An unsecured Wi-Fi connection. Yep, there’s actually a reason to password protect it! Anyhoo, after finding one and searching through several phone-book Web sites to no avail, and even signing up for one of those background-check services, we finally found the guy’s address by phoning back to Utah and waking somebody up (although we did find out an extraordinary amount of other information about him, such as his income and previous residences).


A quick Googlemaps search (note: Google is awesome: Street View anyone?) later, and we had pinpoint directions to the exact geographic coordinate from where we were. Actually, it was like a well-calibrated missile, (as opposed to that out-dated term, a well-oiled machine) ... (And if you couldn’t tell by now, I really like parentheses.) ... (And who cares? Threes no rule against excessive parentheses use!) ... (And for those who don’t like it, archaic grammar usage is simply another thing that changing to become more efficient, just like the advent of highly-effective technology. (Take that Ms. Biddix!))

My Post-College Writing Career: Student Loans and Job-Hunting Cynthia 9:11 PM

When I graduated from college, I was in the middle of writing THE GREATEST NOVEL OF ALL TIME called "A Scribble in the Margins." I finished it a year later, immediately following my epic trip to Europe, where I saw things like this pile of sleeping Germans (top) and this caveman on a beach in Barcelona (bottom). I gave my amazing novel to a physics professor to edit. He said he enjoyed the story very much and gave me some helpful feedback. I made a trip to the U of U physics department, where much of the story is set, and got some more helpful insight and background for my story. When I made all the edits and had my critique group look at it, I gave it back to the physics professor, who re-edited it and provided even MORE helpful feedback and suggestion. Done. It was done. And then. I had to write a query letter. Every writer knows about the dreaded query letter. Yes, we can write a 400-page novel. Yes, we can create believeable, loveable characters, complex plots and subplots. Yes, we can weave in elements of the Campbellian Monomyth. We can do all these things. But when it comes to writing a one-page query that not only effectively showcases the plot, characters and voice of the story, but the credentials of the author and a the reasearch said author did on whichever agent or editor he or she is querying, we choke. At least I choke. At least I feel like choking something.

In April of that year, I wrote a novel in 30 days. It was one of the most exhilarating things that's ever happened to me, like riding my bike down a hill at top speed--the wind whipping my hair wildly behind me. (The hair that's hanging out from under my helmet, that is.) With a premise based on an image from a dream I'd had a year or so earlier, I wrote the whirlwind novel, which I call Firedamp (see teaser image to the left that is (disclaimer) not mine).

Last November, I pulled Brynda Brandt out of mothballs and decided to revamp it for NaNoWriMo...well more like rewrite it from scratch. So I did. In 30 days, I rewrote it and it was much much better. But I'm still unsettled. Brynda Brandt is my white whale (or wide wail, depending on how frustrated I am).

I still have a pile of poems, sitting around being awesome. Some I adore, some I think are neat, and some are embarrassingly weird/lame. But I can't seem to get rid of any of them.

Below is another poem I'm fond of called Laetoli, Tanzania. As background, several sets of footprints were found in the aforementioned location that were dated to 3.6 million years ago and the earliest evidence of bipedal locomotion. There seemed to be evidence that a bigger pair of foosteps carried a tiny pair of nonfootsteps on one hip, and smaller pairs of footsteps trailed behind. Further research suggests that they were all the same size, crossing at different times, and the uneven gait was due to a bad leg, but it still spurred this poem.

Laetoli, Tanzania

More than three-and-a-half million years ago

she left her footprints in the ash,

fossilized, forgotten, found, and finally

studied with some kind of reliable science.

They think she bore the weight of a child on her hip—

while another…maybe two…trailed behind,

aping (but not apelike) her footfalls,

primitive and barely upright.

Kicking off from ancestors. Hobbling toward the future.

But they can’t calculate how much her shoulders stooped

as she stepped through the stifling heat,

or how hard her lungs spasmed—trying to cough out ash,

fleeing punctuated equilibrium.

And they haven’t yet hypothesized how many of her tears

joined the rain that made ash into mud—

the mud that preserved her heel-toe, heavy-hipped stride

as fodder for some article in Nature magazine.

After all the hours of observations—a plaster mold, a measurement—

and line after line of notes about half-life and bipedal locomotion,

she was just one more mother

skirting the edge of disaster.

My College Writing Career: Sorority Parties and Beer Pong Cynthia 10:34 PM

One day, I went to college. I had always wanted to get an English degree, although according to http://www.holytaco.com/the-10-most-worthless-college-majors/, an English major is #4 of the 10 most worthless college majors. Meh. I did it anyway. I loved every class I took in my major. Maybe someday I'll get an MBA to balance it out. http://www.princetonreview.com/college/top-ten-majors.aspx.

I tackled an old novel at the beginning of college, a Y.A. about a redhead named Brynda Brandt. It is based on a story I used to tell my sisters at bed time when I was in Junior High. I think I dragged it out for a couple of years because I used to Tom Sawyer them into doing my chores in exchange for story time. I'd always loved the main character, so I compiled my pubescent ramblings into a novel. When I thought it was done, I took it to a couple of writing conference and got some positive feedback regarding my antagonist, but I felt like something was still missing, so I put it aside.

I started writing poems and essays--a lot of essays. And some of them turned out to be quite good--both the poems and the essays. I wrote a response to Walden that I was pretty happy with. I still  pull it out and read it sometimes.

I presented a collection of poetry at the National Undergraduate Literature Conference called "The Cosmological Collection." The next year, one of my lighter poems, called "The Novel's Lament" was chosen for that year's Metaphor:

The following year, I was editor-in-chief of the publication, so I didn't submit any work, but wrote a precious acknowledgment and laid the book out. My friend Matt Glass, designed the awesome cover. I also presented a collection of poetry at the National Undergraduate Literature Conference called "Love in the Key of B Minor," and won the English Department poetry contest that year with a group of poems that included this one--one of my favorite:


A Sonnet for my Only

In time, with time we’ll find forgotten peace
and rest with arms around its given grace.
Two souls step soft through darkened wait-worn streets,
with you and me remembered on its face

And go, let’s go into the wandering there
imprinted in our now and in our then,
with moments tangled in our longer hair
returning like a lost re-gotten friend

I find, we find for now it aches to wait
the nightmare months that you and I divide,
and to this place it seems we came too late
to have the now that others toss aside

Devotion rests in every waking kiss.
Till time forgives us I remember this.

I also wrote a thrice-weekly humorous column called The Battle of the Sexists, in which I wrote against different guys--we'd pick a point of view and present our gender's point of voice. It was always a good time.

At the end of college, I started working on a science fiction novel called "A Scribble in the Margins." Two years later, I finished it, edited by a handful of people, including a physics professor for accuracy. Fortunately for me, this professor is also well-read and was able to help me out with some character and plot suggestions as well. I know this ending is abrupt, but I suddenly got tired.

Blog off.

Next time: Post-college writing. Now it gets crazy!