Day 7 -- Where I'd Rather Be

"He lay in the tall summer grass, gazing up at the sky.  He saw worlds there, in the sky.  Worlds of dragon fire, castles, and knights in shining armor...."

So as you may have noticed, I haven't written anything in the past few days.  That's because John and I were down visiting some of our friends who are about to move rather far away.  They wrote a book, by the by, and if you haven't had a chance to read it, I highly suggest checking it out.  You can find it here.

That said, today's challenge has actually given me a bit of trouble.  I've been thinking about it off and on for the past several days, and it hasn't gotten any easier thinking about it.  Part of the reason for that is that children's voices, when written by adults, tend to be a great deal more intelligent or insightful than they should be.  I have a harder time considering children's ideas and motives because, while I was once a child myself, there are a lot of things I have forgotten since then; also, I don't have any children in my life right now.  So, writing a child's voice is...more difficult than it may at first appear.

That is one of the few criticisms that John and I tend to consider when we're looking at children in other peoples' novels, namely because it's terribly obvious when children aren't quite as they should be.  Of course, writing about all of this makes me think I need a good dose of Roald Dahl, or perhaps some Dr. Seuss.

Today's prompt, however, leads me to believe that this young boy isn't five, six, or even seven, but somewhere in that awkward preteen stage--somewhere between 9 and 12 by my estimation.  It's that time in life that I sort of recall being more or less awkward.  You don't really know who you are; you're trying new things--a lot of which don't work.  There's a lot of jealousy, a lot of unkindness from other kids, and a lot of unconscious fear (which accounts for some of that meanness).  But there's also this self-centeredness that some people never really outgrow.  When you become a teen, there is a greater realization of the world around you--which causes its own host of problems; but 9-12 is that magical time when you can kind of--if you were like me--shut out the rest of the world and make it all about you.

I think, honestly, this is where a lot of writers get into trouble.  While children do have a sense of consequence for their actions, they don't really have a self-awareness that's related to the rest of the world around them.  They've only just started defining themselves by the other people and things around them, and that process becomes a nightmare right about the same time that hormones kick in--which is where I see our young dreamer from today's prompt.  Luckily, he's a boy; so, his hormonal changes aren't as drastic as it would be for a girl.  Still, this is definitely that point in life where girls are talking about bras (and making fun of other girls for not having them; oh, Ramona Quimby!--how you helped me survive my preteen years with your wisdom--though I did sort of read you before you were actually relevant to me;) boys and girls start relating to one another romantically (again, something I started really early;) and a child's sense of self begins to be explored in the sense of other kids' senses of themselves (sexuality, intellectual prowess (or lack thereof,) coordination (and lack thereof,) etc.)

So, ...now that I've gotten a basis for where to begin, do I write about a boy who is just realizing that he's gay?  Do I write a poem torn from a notebook page of youth?  Or do I poke at the bear of normalcy and see if it comes up dancing?  I'll admit, I'm excited about all three possibilities, but the first two are things I haven't seen much of at all in books--the first, obviously, because I grew up in a mostly heterosexual world.  It's only recently that fear and bigotry have started to give way to something resembling acceptance around the world, sadly.  BUT,...I don't think I can aptly portray that kind of childhood.  I have a lot of ideas and theories, but not having lived through that, or gone through that, I don't think I would do the mental psychology of that child justice.  I do hope, however, that gay, lesbian, transgender, (and all the other alternative ways of loving someone or being a human being) kids have their own Ramona Quimby one day--because, honestly, it's bad enough being different as a kid without having an imagined (if not real) hero to relate to.

So that leaves me with a poem--an interesting thought exercise, one I'm not sure I'm up to the task of doing well.  But let's see if we can find the poetic voice of our childhood boy....

I Love that Nathan Fillion and I Share March as a Birthday Month!

And it's true!  So he's an Aries and I'm a Pisces; it's still March!

But here's the cool thing about his birthday--it's this week on March 27th!  (And yes, before you ask, I know the above quote is incorrect--but doesn't it look awesome!  And also, what a great sentiment for Nathan's birthday!  And how awesome is it to be in the same company as Leonard Nimoy and Harrison Ford?)

Well, to celebrate his birthday, our favorite ship's captain is spearheading a campaign to bring clean water to the world--definitely heroic, and one of the many reasons I love him.  He's not only a great actor, but a wonderful human being.  So in honor of his birthday, I ask you to consider donating some money to this great cause, and if you need more convincing, here's a little video all about it.

The Joy of Discovery

Sometimes you don't even realize it--that the article, or the road, or the song, or the show--whatever that moment of choice led you to--is really a new discovery.  And the moment you start denying yourself certain choices is the moment when discovery is lost.  That said, not all discoveries are good ones, and some have far-reaching consequences; Pandora's box opened, after all, has let the atom bomb into the world.  And that certainly can't be put back in the box again.

That said, I have to admit that over the past few weeks as I work to find new ideas and new thoughts to share with you all here, I find myself inundated with this amazing amount of information.  Still, like Solomon, I worry about what I put here--what is right and what is wrong--good or evil--true or false.  I wonder if the knowledge that I share with you will have far- reaching consequences, and I worry that even my own desire to find something interesting or new may one day serve to lessen my credibility as a truth-seeker.

And yet, ...I still can't stop myself from clicking on that next article, or reading through hundreds of Facebook posts, copying pictures, and saving things to my favorite's bar because I think they might be of some use or importance in the months and years to come.  I'm learning as I go that what might not seem a big deal right now may later prove to have been prescient, and I'll admit that even I want to learn the secrets of how to discover a thing--to search out a method that says: This thing is important to know about now, as it will be relevant in the years to come.

Science fiction writers always seem to have a leg up on this--their imaginations and their own interests and discoveries leading the way for "future tech" and scientific research.  But the truth of the matter is that these people could see problems and then speculate about the kinds of solutions that might be created--ideal and otherwise.  They believed in a better world, and whether they were satirizing the present, theorizing about a utopian or dystopian future based on currently held beliefs of the world, or just trying to push social, moral or cultural agendas, they did so by inviting us to discover something new.

With that in mind, and seeking to emulate some science fictional ideals of discovering the world around me, I have a few articles to share with you today that made me rethink my ideas of cultural myths, historical figures, and how bad I am at making friends.

The first is an article by Gizmodo that talks about the Bermuda Triangle.

Now let me just say that I have always had a love of mysteries.  My dad loves that stuff, and when I was growing up, we watched a lot of TV shows that tried to explain the seemingly unexplainable.  My dad loved discovering things, too, and he passed along that love to me; it is something I cherish to this day.  That said, ...sometimes the love of the mystery can be almost as important as knowing the reality.  But I think that the reality, in all cases, is just as important.

So if you're wanting to know some truths about the Bermuda Triangle, I encourage you to check out the article.  It 's definitely worth the read.

Next on my list is an article about daylight savings time.  It stems from clicking on a link that I found at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle link, and I just couldn't pass it up: Today I Found Out.

So it turns out that daylight savings time was something of a proposal written by Benjamin Franklin, and it was more or less written in jest.  If you'd like to read more about it, I urge you to, and check out the bonus facts at the bottom of the article.  They're pretty interesting.

And for those of you wondering when daylight savings time is this year, I went ahead and did a search for that for you, too.  Here it is--your calendar warning.

Daylight Saving Time begins on Sunday, March 9, 2014 (in 45 days) and ends on Sunday, November 2, 2014.

Which brings me to my last bit of discovery: making friends isn't easy for me.  Maybe it isn't easy for anyone.  But John Cheese's article at Cracked.com today made me feel a little less weird about it all.  So if, like me, you have some issues making friends and want to discover the secrets to unlocking the friend-verse, I urge you to have a look at the article.  Also, ...you can friend me, or add me to your Google+ circle, or ....  Yeah.  You get the point.