It's The Great Tea Debacle, Charlie Brown!

It's now Tea Minus - well, whatever time is left between now and midnight, when The Great Tea Debacle begins.

Time to get those notes in order. Time to program the coffee pot, fill the tea kettle, set that chocolate up in neat little rows. And you'd best go potty now, 'cause once this bus gets moving, we're not gonna stop for anyone. (sorry, I was channeling my dad and our family vacations there for a minute)

How do you feel? Any aches or pains? Can you sit at the computer for long hours? Can you hold that pen for 4 weeks non-stop? Is your spouse willing to put up with this? Who's gonna walk the dog?

Did you pick the wrong month to quit crack?

What's your clearance, Clarence?

Okay, deep breath. Almost there. Wait for it.

Wait for it . . . !

Strategy, I has it.

So apparently several of my fellow Tea Debaclers have fallen ill. They've got the "crud", as it were, and here we are - 3 days from Start.

I - the one who never gets sick - thought ahead. I figured "whilst I never do fall ill, it would be inconvenient of me to catch the sniffles at the beginning of November." So I decided to go ahead and have my virus last week.

I had the sore throat wherein the only thing I could eat was soy ice cream and Kahlua. I had the sniffles so bad I was forced to sleep with some Kleenex shoved up my nostrils. And yes, my knees ached with that almost-fever feeling that gives you a glimpse of what life with be like when you're 90 and arthritic.

But that was last week. As I said, I thought it prudent to get sick and get it over with, so that when The Great Tea Debacle began, I'd be healthy and ready to go!

That's called Planning, people!

That's a Strategy!

That, shall win me Tea.

I can haz Icon?

Okay, I was over at the Nano site poking around looking for some contact info - and whilst stumbling about - realized they have those nifty-neato-keen participant icons people can put on their blogs and web sites and use in their siggy-lines on forums and such . . . And I thought "Hey, we need one, too!"

Actually, I thought "Crap, I'm bored!" and this was a useful 10 minutes.

So here, and I'll see if I can figure out how to put it on my bloggie.

The Solitary Tea Drinker

A discussion in the comments section of our Great Tea Debacle page of Official Announcements reminded me of how solitary writing can be, especially to those of us who might not have a black book filled with friends and acquaintances.

Many of us, not just writers, have our lives compartmentalized - in that, we have our Work Selves, our Home Selves, and probably one or two Hobby Selves and sometimes never the twain shall meet. We probably don't socialize much with our coworkers, aside from the usual office BBQ or Holiday Party. Maybe our hobbies involve us with other people, and that's great, but we're less likely to include those folks in our every day business.

More often than not - though there are exceptions - many of us keep our Writerly Selves secret from friends and family. I talk about writing with my one sister, naturally, but never mention a word of it to my mother, stepfather, other sister or nieces/nephew. None of my friends know, and not a single person I work with has a clue I'm a writer.

Writing itself - the development of ideas, plots, characters - is all done inside our own heads, and there's nothing more personal or private than our own thoughts. That's why, if you locked up a writer in a room with no pen, paper, pencil or typewriter, we could still happily entertain ourselves for years and years, working on our novels inside our own heads.

I've said before, that writing is an almost ethereal blending of two polar opposites. It's something very personal, that holds deep meaning to each of us - something that's done in a very private manner from inside our minds to quietly appear on paper, shown to precious few if any until completion - then it's offered to complete strangers in the hopes that masses of the general public will read it for generations to come.

It's true of all the arts, really, except people can usually tell you're a painter, or see you sculpting before it's done, or even hear you play that piano before you perform the concert.

Sometimes I think I'll explode if I can't share when an awesome plot idea suddenly fills my mind - especially when the solution to a situation I'd been struggling with bursts into my head with such clarity and genius, I'm dying to see it come out. But I don't. Mostly it's because something like that is too detailed and convoluted to share with someone without literally boring them to death with detail, and also my sister - who is my reader - doesn't like spoilers.

November is going to be a very solitary month.

It could be a very lonely 30 days.

You're going to be writing your little fingers off, desperate to beat Pete the Chest Thumper, Lori the Wise and Determined, and Kristine the Energizer Bunny.

What about your friends? Your family? With Thanksgiving coming up, aren't you going to want to spend time with them? You've got that big meal to plan, and Grandma is going to want to give you tips on baking those pies.

And do you remember where you put Aunt Edna's lace tablecloth?

Then there's Christmas. You realize, as of November 1st, it's only 54 shopping days away?

Writing can be such a solitary undertaking. No one's going to fault you if you find yourself staring wistfully at those holiday decorations in that box in the basement. If your spouse needs a cuddle - if little Jr. has a rough time at school - if the leaves are piling up in your yard, making you the scorn of the block . . .

There is no shame in mailing the Tea. History will remember you.

Incentive

As if winning gobs of Tea from a bunch of losers, and having the skeleton and muscle structure of a publishable novel to show for it, weren't enough, the Winner of The Great Tea Debacle will have this great and wonderful Award to display on his/her (read: my) web page and/or blog.

So roll up your sleeves, Oh Ye Great Tea Debacle Writers, and get those tea pots boiling !

Okay, then make some tea, and maybe put on a sweater - 'cause we've got a week left to go.

The Long, Dark, Tea-Time of the Soul

Douglas Adams. I miss him. That man was one of the greatest writers this planet has been graced by. It was his humor that spurred me onward to strive to write and become disgustingly famous myself, and while we're waiting for that to happen, we drink tea in his memory.

I would never presume to suggest, or even dream that I could write in the style of Mr. Adams - to do so, even if I thought it would get my middle toe in a door, would be foolish. They say that, as writers, we should be able to compare ourselves or our writing to another published author or his/her works. Designed to give a prospective agent some frame of reference - of comparison - and to show that prospective agent we, the writer, have done our homework and read everything printed since 700BC and know exactly who our target audience is.

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. They really only expect you to be fluent in works from 658BC.

I wish I could be half as talented as Douglas Adams' left foot, but even if I were, or just thought I was, I'd be too timid to declare that to anyone. Though I did write a humor piece last year inspired by thoughts of the great writer, called: Mick Danger; Private Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat.

It's been set aside, in need of revision and edits, and a few thousand more words. I'm not entirely sure why I set it aside, but I do intend to pick it back up again. I think, when I took a good hard look at it, I had this odd sort of fear that THIS . . . This would be the novel that gets me an agent. This piece, this humorous Fantasy - of which I have never penned before - written in First Person - something I'd never even tried before - was going to be The One.

And I wasn't sure I wanted to be "known" for that. Did I want this humorous Fantasy to be my coming out, when all my other work is character driven Science Fiction? Did I really want to consider writing more just like it, and being known as a Fantasy writer?

Even now, while I have one of my best-loved pieces off - being read - I can't help thinking that Fantasy piece is going to be what breaks me out. Although it's a bit niche. It's about a writer who was murdered by his editor, who is then murdered herself.

All I have to do is dig it back out, edit the crap out of it, fluff it up a bit more, and pen a query. And I will.

I'm pretty sure I will.

But that still won't put me anywhere near a par with Douglas Adams.

In fact, sometimes just thinking about my favorite authors and their great achievements and works of amazing fiction humbles me into shame. Who am I to imagine I could join their ranks, and sit on bookshelves beside them?

These thoughts can be paralyzing at times, educational at others. In fact, I encourage you to sit back and consider the works of your favorite authors, or any of the greats, and ask yourself: Am I good enough to join them? Do I have what it takes to sit in a café next to Neil Gaiman and pass him the sugar? Would Ernest Hemmingway even let me pet one of his cats?

Humbling, isn't it? Makes you want to curl up on the couch with your wooby and eat chocolate. Then you'll flick on the TV and see they're running reruns of Firefly - written by another of writing's gods, who you couldn't even hold a Bic lighter to, which puts you into an even deeper funk only slightly alleviated by the amazing dialog and acting.

It's okay. We all feel that way at times. It's a bummer this is hitting you so close to November 1st, but you just can't dictate when these feelings of inadequacy will strike, leaving you sniffling into your wooby while the candy wrappers pile up.

In the immortal words of the late, great Douglas Adams, it's: "Almost but not quite entirely unlike tea."

Don't worry, or let it get to you. This, too, shall pass. You'll get over it, and soon - probably sometime early December, you'll forget all about that and once again believe you can write.

You can write just as well as anybody!

Then you'll launch off that couch, toss you wooby aside, pick up a pen - and write my address on that lovely box of tea.

And I'll leave you today with yet more words of wisdom from Mr. Adams himself: "Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."

Last Night

No, I don’t mean Saturday, I mean the Indie Canadian flick called Last Night. It’s pretty obscure, and several years old, and – like many Canadian films - it’s a bit dark and depressing, but compellingly written.

At the start of the film we’re made to understand the world is about to end, and that this is everyone’s Last Night. While the movie is about a handful of people and how they’re spending their last night on earth, we’re never told what’s causing this destruction. It’s clearly been known for a little while, since most of the city has been abandoned as people flee to other places – presumably wherever they want to spend their last days, or perhaps thousands of them thought they could find a safe place.

It’s clear that the entire world is ending, at midnight, and everyone’s aware – but what I love about the film is that we, the viewer, never understand why. It’s not important why, it’s only important to know that all life on Earth comes to an end, and this is everyone’s Last Night.

Different characters deal with it differently, of course. Many are gathering in a park to watch “it” happen, while others are huddled at home surrounded by family and friends. One guy is working on his quest to have sex in every possible manner before he dies, while another is desperately trying to get home to die beside her husband.

One man, the previously mentioned woman’s husband, has left work and is home waiting for his wife. He only stayed at work because he runs the power company, and they vowed to keep the lights on for everyone, up to their last moment. This man and his wife planned to have a special last dinner, and die in each other’s arms. He doesn’t realize his wife is having serious trouble getting home, so he’s there waiting – his wife’s story is more pivotal to the movie, but I found this man’s short entry most compelling.

You see, while he’s waiting, and the clock is nearing 11:00, there’s rioting outside. He opens his door to suddenly face a young man with a rifle. An argument ensues, and the young man blows him away.

Keep in mind the entire world is ending at midnight. Everyone is going to die. The planet Earth will Cease To Be, and this man has just been murdered.

He’s known midnight would be his end, along with everyone else, and now he’s been killed – senselessly. His final hour stolen from him. It struck me as such a waste, and such a horrible thing to happen. Like having a doctor tell you it’s cancer, and you have three weeks left, then you’re leaving the office to go tell your family and make final preparations, and you’re run over by a bus on the way to the car.

The film did end with the world ending – we never found out what it was, or why it happened, but the final scene is a flash of white light, then the credits roll. His wife, unable to reach him, tried to commit suicide with another man, but they ended up dying in an embrace. The sexual deviant died in climax, and the entire planet vanished.

Of that whole movie, the most tragic part for me was the man who was murdered in that last hour. It left me with such an empty feeling, such a waste of hope and life. Much the same way I’ll feel about my competitors when November ends.

You’ll all have struggled so mightily – penned so many words, downed so much caffeine, and lost so much sleep – and it will all be for naught. In that last hour, when you know the First Great Tea Debacle is about to end for all involved, when you have that bottle of celebratory wine ready to pop open at midnight . . . That’s when it will happen. You’ll check your word count and realize you’re going to fall short. It was all for nothing – the entire month of grueling, torturous work. Such a waste.

You’ll cry, you’ll rage in denial, and your spouse will find you curled in the fetal position, fingers raw, mumbling incoherently about plots, verbs and tea.

Wouldn’t you rather go out with dignity, grace and style? November is the start of the Holidays, when your attention should be focused on family, the coming Winter, and a winding down of those Summer-time ambitions.

November 30^th is your Last Night. Why don’t you put down that pen, set the computer aside, and bake some cookies. Spend that Last Night with your family, remembering the good times, and what life was all about. Write up your Will, and let your loved ones know what your final wishes are.

I shall raise a tea cup in your honor, and keep your memories alive.