Rasmenia

“They’re fancy talkers about themselves, writers. If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.” –Lillian Hellman

Know when to tune out, if you listen to too much advice you may wind up making other peoples mistakes.  –Ann Landers

“I always advise people never to give advice.” –P.G. Wodehouse

*

I have a lot of pet peeves. Probably more than a reasonable amount. It’s a rare thing when I can watch TV, leave the house, or hop on the Internet without bitching, mocking, making fun of or simply pointing out something that I find annoying or idiotic. (Unless you’re reading this blog for the very first time, you already know this.)

Often, what I have to do is, I have to stop paying attention to whatever it is that bugs the shit out of me. I must ignore it completely. This isn’t always possible. Try ignoring the human race. It’s tough. Betcha can’t do it for very long. (I’ve tried. People start calling & coming to your house in a panic because they think you’re dead. It’s more irritating than just tolerating them.)

What I have to do then to maintain my serenity levels is, I have to filter out the bullshit to the best of my ability. I’m sure everyone does this to some extent. For me, this is especially true with the Internet because as we all know, the Internet is a never ending flood of bullshit.

However, I’ve been spending more time offline lately. Not having an Internet connection for 6 months sort of weaned me from the world wide teat. I check my mail, I make a few snide comments on Facebook or Twitter, like or retweet some shit, then I go about my day. Every now & then, I’ll get some free time & will spend it surfing around or reading a few articles online. Because I’m connected to several writerly type people & websites, I encounter a shit-ton of writer noise. Some of it is very good, very helpful & very interesting. Some of it is just utter crap.

Especially all of the fucking writing advice.

Advice is helpful. If I do not know how to do a thing, I’ll ask a more experienced person – or someone with a different skill set than I possess – how I should go about doing that thing. I will solicit them for advice. If I want to make my writing better — which I always want to do — I will seek out ways to do this.

So far, the ways I have found to do this are by writing… then writing some more & showing it to the members of my writing workshop. (A writing group works for me. It does not work for everyone. That’s okay.) Then I read books… followed by reading more books, then by writing more stuff.

I will seek out advice in one form or another. When I read a book that just blows the top of my fucking head off with its literary awesomeness, I’ll go out of my way to learn more about the author & their writing process.

I’ll read the occasional book, essay or article on craft. I almost always learn something new by reading these. The only catch is: all of this “advice” should come from a writer who has some serious writing chops. A super word-wrangling champ. If this “advice” is coming from someone other than an author I’ve already read & am familiar with, I want to see the proof in their pudding. Their writing advice essay (or blog post or whatever) should be written well enough to reflect that they know what they’re talking about. I don’t want to read some shit parroting some over-used bits of writer wisdom that we’ve all seen hundreds of times. I want to know what they’ve written. I want to know where their work has been published, whether it’s an essay or short story, or a novel.

Otherwise, I’m outta there. I’ll leave their blog or website, never to return again.

There I go. Down the dark, dusty halls of the Internet.

There is a lot of really bad writing advice out there. There’s a lot of advice that tells you that you can’t. Such as, “you can’t edit as you write”. Bullshit. You can if it works for you. Why not?  Some advice tells you that you must. As in, “you must use an outline”. Please. Good books get written with & without outlines. Stuff your can’ts & musts. These are never good, in any situation. Especially anything that tells you that you can’t. Fuck can’t.

I want more than a blog from someone who just decided to open up a Blogger account & call themselves a writer. I want to see some kind of writer cred. It does not have to be great big massive bestseller writer cred. It can be a wee small mostly unknown indie cred. But for fuck’s sake – it’s gotta be something other than the tired old clichés on writing barfed out on a blog post by an “aspiring writer” who wants to talk about writing more than they want to actually write.

Show, don’t tell. Classic writer’s advice. (How’s that for parroting some shit?) Show me, don’t tell me that you’re a writer. Show me how you’re applying your own advice into your own writing. Advise me by example.

It’s not only the bad, over-used advice from “aspiring writers” with blogs who like to talk about writing & being a writer. Although, yes, I do often find talk about being a writer & “the writer’s life” to just be some boring, romanticized shit.

There is also the fact that one person’s ridiculous & useless piece of writing advice is another person’s magical wand of genius inspiration. It works for one person & for another, it does not & may be scoffed at or made fun of. That’s just the way it is. Not everyone has the same writing philosophy.

What I’ve found is that most writing advice is useless.

What I’ve found is, the more you actually write, the more you can filter the useless dung from the genuine gems of word wizards.

What I’ve found is, it’s better to write than it is to talk about writing & that the teaching should be left to the teachers.

But, you shouldn’t take my word for it. I’m just another writer with a blog… & a lot of pet peeves.

“Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.”  – Charles M. Schulz

“What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?” – Salman Rushdie, Fury

*

When I was a tiny, brand-new person, I knew what it felt like to be overwhelmed by music, cookies & twinkling lights. I knew the absolute joy that can only come from a tiny, brand-new person’s sense of wonder when presented with stories & images of magical elves, animals & places.

I knew Christmas magic. It was nothing less than magic.

Like any kid, I got excited about presents. But, wasn’t the anticipation & surprise always more fun than the actual object wrapped up inside all of that pretty paper?

I consider myself lucky that for the first few years of my life, I had grandparents who I always spent the holiday with & that they got more excited about Christmas than anyone I’ve ever met since. There was always an enormous tree, standing upon a big platform with an entire model town built on it… complete with the model train that would chug by, doing laps around the tree. There were cookies shaped like Santa Claus’ head, homemade candy & plenty of holiday music that my grandfather & I would yowl along to.

But… that was another time. The grandparents, the little model town & train are all gone. I am no longer a tiny, brand-new person, but am a big, grown-up person who no longer believes in elves, Santa Claus or that December 25th is Jesus’ birthday.

I am a big, grown-up person who knows that human beings do all of the rotten, terrible things in the world, not fantastic creatures & that it’s other human beings who do the few good things in the world, not mythical characters from stories that were written a long time ago.

Now, when Christmas rolls around, I am no longer overwhelmed by music, cookies & twinkling lights, but am beaten down by annoyance & loathing as I watch other big, supposedly grown-up people bickering about their imagined “War on Christmas.” I’m disgusted with the absurdity of holiday shopping – whether pepper spray is or isn’t involved. I’m saddened & sickened by how much I hear the word “want” for the last 2 months of the year. He wants she wants they want I want WANT WANT. “I want” seems to be said more than “I’m giving”. (Here’s the thing: if you say “want” more than “give” around the holidays, then you have failed at Christmas. You are doing it wrong.)

Over the years, I’ve morphed from being tiny & brand new to the jaded Scrooge I am now. I’ve been watching not only the dipshittery mentioned above, but also festive occasions where I have given a Christmas present to someone, only to have it insulted right to my face. (It wasn’t EXACTLY what they WANTED.) I have had my religious beliefs (& lack thereof) insulted & condescended to. Gifts I’ve given have been regifted back to me a year later.

What I’m getting at is, when I’ve seen the worst side of people, it’s usually been at Christmas.

Earlier this year, Olivier & I decided we weren’t going to be a part of this nonsense. We would not exchange gifts with each other. Instead, we decided to run away. We spent a few months tossing vacation ideas at one another.

“We could go to an island,” he said, scratching his beard. “We could be lazy & boozy. Cabana style.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t want to be summer. I still want to be winter. We could take a train to Switzerland & eat lots of fondue.”

“Uh. I dunno. We’ll think about it,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

This went on for months. Until we no longer had plenty of time. We could stay home, we decided, but really… that would just feel shitty. It was November. Holiday Hell was descending upon us.

Then on one average & unspecial Sunday afternoon, I asked my husband, “Remember when you were a tiny kid, how magic Christmas was, before the preaching, bitching & the wanting?”

“Yeah.” Olivier nodded. “It was. It was exciting & happy. It felt great. But, now… now it’s just fucked – nothing but resentment & stress.”

I thought about it for a few minutes, then I turned to my husband. “I know what we should do for Christmas.”

The answer was so obvious, we couldn’t believe how long it took us to see it.

We skipped the gifts, the tree & the decorations. We tried our best to avoid anyone who pissed & moaned about whether you should say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. We ignored everyone who wanted to lecture about “keeping Christ in Christmas” & closed our ears to talk of wanting & shopping. These are the people who suck the magic out of Christmas.

Instead, we contacted some local charities & asked them if we could lend a hand. We ended up working with Les petits frères des Pauvres (The Little Brothers of the Poor).

You may have already heard of it, but for those of you who haven’t, Les petits frères is an international non-profit that was founded here in France in 1946. They focus on aiding the elderly who may be ill, lonely or impoverished.

Our task was to fetch two elderly ladies from their homes on Christmas morning & take them to a restaurant where all of the volunteers & guests would share a repas de Noël.

We chatted on the way to the restaurant & after we arrived, we helped other volunteers to get several more guests inside & seated at their tables.

After everyone was settled, we had a nice meal with lamb, smoked salmon, red wine & brie. We listened to interesting stories. We joked & laughed & danced. We clapped & hooted as we watched dozens of elderly men & women in Santa hats dancing, singing & laughing like children.

I looked over at Olivier, who had been smiling all day… & I realized I’d had a silly grin on my face, too. I glanced over at two ladies, one of them 100 years old… the other, 106. I thought of what it might be like to live that long & I realized… I’m still just a brand-new person by comparison.

Standing there, with a goofy grin on my face, clapping my hands among all of that joy & merriment, I suddenly thought of how magical Christmas used to be & all of a sudden, it was again.

Later, on our way home, after we had delivered our two new friends safely to their respective homes, Olivier & I decided that we would be volunteering with Les petits frères again in the future.

If any of you are interested in volunteering with Les Petits Frères, click on the link below. They are in 8 different countries, so you may find them in your area.

“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.”  – Steve Maraboli

“Do I fear death? No, I am not afraid of being dead because there’s nothing to be afraid of, I won’t know it. I fear dying, of dying I feel a sense of waste about it and I fear a sordid death, where I am incapacitated or imbecilic at the end which isn’t something to be afraid of, it’s something to be terrified of.”

“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.”

“So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion.”

“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.”

Christopher Hitchens

April 13, 1949 – December 15, 2011