Last month I was focused on A Better Me, my debut novel coming out late spring. The main character is a film student who works as a production assistant, an entry level position that demands the ability to perform any number of tasks under pressure. I have so much respect and admiration for PAs. I describe the novel as an urban fantasy/romcom. It’s a lot of fun, but it also plays with conventions of both genres. While it may not be the magnum opus I’ve been struggling to complete for two decades (someday), I had a blast drawing on some of my other interests.
One of my “side hustles” is film and television. I never pursued acting, but after I became involved in community theatre, I found opportunities to work in independent and Hollywood productions. Most recently, I appeared as a featured extra in Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. Pan’s Labyrinth is my all time favorite movie, and del Toro is one of my favorite directors. I didn’t meet with him personally, but he was such a warm presence on set.
I have also been working on the final edits of “The Patriarch”, a short story that will appear in the Writing Bloc Family anthology coming soon. This story is unlike anything I have written: a period piece noir set in the 60s. It’s not the first time I’ve written a male protagonist, but it is the first story I will have published that is told in first person. I don’t want to jinx it, but I have another period piece in progress that will hopefully release before Christmas. While my debut novel is on the lighter side, I dig deeper into social issues in some of my short stories. I’m also working on my second and third novels that play in the same “‘verse” as my first, and another personal collection of short stories.
I’ve done less writing here, but I have been watching the same tired narratives play out in the real world with my usual dismay and frustration.
As a child, I took two lessons to heart. The first is that nothing matters more than honesty. The second is that we should treat others with kindness and consideration. What life has taught me is that a lot of people do not want you to lie to them, but they do not necessarily want you to be honest with them, nor do they want to be honest with themselves and others. A lot of people also want you to go out of your way to make them feel comfortable and secure (perhaps even superior), but they do not want to treat others with even a modicum of kindness and consideration in return.
As someone who grew up with unidentified ADHD, I often felt like there were two different sets of rules. Just as I was picked apart for every little thing I did or said that might make someone feel bad, I was told that I needed to grow a thicker skin if anyone said or did anything that made me feel bad. As a consequence, I have grown up with a thick skin. I also have little patience for cruelty and dishonesty. And supposedly my ADHD is what allows me to identify patterns or disconnects between words and actions.
Schools remain the battleground for two omnipresent issues: censorship and Covid precautions. An outspoken minority of parents (but mostly political operatives, some of whom may not even be in districts they harrass) want to silence any instruction of history that might make children feel uncomfortable. If history does not make you feel uncomfortable, you are not learning history. Child development needs to be taken into consideration when deciding how much detail to include for different ages, but children need honesty. The truth doesn’t teach cynicism and distrust; lies do. We also need to be honest about ways in which the past informs the present, in part because there has been such a lack of honesty. Instead we have people quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. out of context while seeking to redact everything else he said. In addition to censoring instruction, groups are seeking to remove books by/for minorities and the LGBTQ community. Erasure has nothing to do with protecting children. It’s harmful. When you want children to have easier access to guns than books, you can not pretend to care about their wellbeing.
There is a lot of overlap between groups seeking censorship and groups attacking Covid precautions, also under the guise of protecting children from trauma. If anything traumatizes kids, it’s active shooter drills and the added confusion of adults yelling, trespassing, and, in the case of children with preexisting conditions, saying their lives don’t matter. Even the common cold used to send one of my sons to the hospital, especially when he was 5 and under (the age for which a vaccine is unavailable). Fortunately he outgrew mild neutropenia and his vulnerability to reactive airway disease. I’d like other children to have the same chance. Being immunocompromised is not a death sentence, nor should it be. I don’t expect perfection (I’m sure I don’t always do the right thing) but I’d like people to take ownership of their words and actions instead of dehumanizing others to rationalize selfish behavior.
A lot of these people claim to be pro-life. Parents and their unborn children are among those at risk of dying, but these people don’t care about the outcome. The rest of us saw that disconnect from the lack of concern regarding infant and maternal mortality rates. Covid just made it more vivid. I recently saw some guy saying it was time for the strong to stop lifting up the weak, and for the weak to lift up the strong. Sounds pretty weak, dude.
My son? He’s strong. (And he’d happily yeet that guy if he could lift him up.)
