Enchanted Wordsmith

2001-09-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

I don't know what I'm supposed to be writing today . . . I didn't work on my Dare pages either Tuesday or Wednesday. Maybe I will later on today. I have a lot of thoughts I need to get out, though, about the attacks on Tuesday and what has been happening since. This post is, as they say, OFF TOPIC. Read at your own risk; current opinions follow. These opinions may change, evolve, or whatever, but for now this is how I feel. Because I am sad. I am afraid. At this moment, I feel very little anger, though I know it will come. I was in my car when I heard my first news about the attacks. All I could think about the news cast was, you're joking right?

From various people I know, I keep hearing things that shock and scare me. Someone advocating the internment of Arabs in camps like the US did with its Japanese citizens during WWII. The willingness to give up any and all civil liberties if *someone* will promise that this will make us safe. People not caring against whom we retaliate, only that we do something and do it fast, and people not caring whether massive amounts of innocents are killed in the revenge attack. I have, like most people, heard reports of harassment, hate mail, and death threats - including the shooting up of Arab-American-owned businesses. I have also heard from people willing to shelter others from racism and hatred, of people praying for peace and justice, and praying for the souls of those who died, those of their families, and for all of us. People wondering and willing to ask the question: why would someone have perpetrated an attack like this? Why is there so much hatred directed against the United States?

Some people think that this attack has something to do with the U.S.'s support of Israel in the Middle East wars, and possibly something to do with the U.S. pulling out of the conference on racism. My opinion is that this attack took at least a year's worth of planning, and that there must've been a network of people on the ground assisting the hijackers. The television commentators and politicians keep calling the terrorists who hijacked those planes cowardly. They weren't cowards; they were willing to die for their beliefs. I think they were firmly esconced in the arms of religious fundamentalism. They became murderers. I can't pretend to understand their mentality, and I think anyone who says they do but who hasn't lived in their world is fooling themselves.

I hear Bush call the attacks acts of war against the United States, read that NATO has passed a cold war era resolution declaring that an attack against one of their members is an attack against all, see the comparisons of the attacks to Pearl Harbor, and I worry. A lot. I hope NATO will be a moderating force, working for justice.

Will we be able to find credible, conclusive evidence leading us to the person or persons who masterminded and helped in carrying out these atrocities? If we do, will we be able to strike in such a way as to prevent innocents - or at least as many as possible - from dying? If we don't, will we strike out at someone anyway because the call for blood is a rushing roar that won't be denied? Did the government make up its proverbial mind about who it was going after before the evidence had even begun to be sifted through? Will this be like the aftermath of Oklahoma City, where everyone was sure we were dealing with terrorists from the Middle East, where people of Middle Eastern descent were lynched in the Heartland - and then the perpetrator turned out to be an American citizen?

What do we as a nation do? As has been said, we cannot stand for terrorism. So . . . we retaliate. What then? Israel has been operating on the policy of retaliation for years and they are the most sophisticated and experienced country in combating terrorism - they still can't stop terrorist attacks on their own soil. In my mind, their experience has proven that retaliation doesn't work - it only fuels the fire for attacks in revenge of increased magnitude. Why would it be different for us? What other choices might there be? I pray we find some, if not now then in the long run.

Do I think we will retaliate? You bet your ass. Will we bring about justice? I don't know - I can only hope.

I don't know that the people of this country will ever know the exact reason the terrorists committed Tuesday's attacks. If what they hoped to accomplish was to show us the veracity of their hate, they succeeded. If they hoped to change anyone's minds about anything, I think they failed. Let's hope that we don't allow what happened to affect our freedoms, because then the terrorists will have won.

For all my wondering about the whys and wherefores of what has happened this week, I do want to be clear that I feel no one "deserves" to have terrorist acts perpetrated against them.

I am saddened for and proud of the scores of police men and women and firefighters who risked their lives and lost them, who ran into those buildings knowing what could happen, who were caught inside and beneath the buildings as they collapsed. I also feel proud of the passengers of the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania who, perhaps because they were aboard the last plane hijacked, were able to understand what was happening and what was probably intended for them, and chose otherwise. I pray that the souls of the dead arrive safely and gently in the arms of their Gods, whomever they may be, and that their families be comforted in their grief. I pray that whoever is responsible for these horrors is brought to justice - and I pray for their souls, and for the families they left behind. Should our military men and women be deployed overseas, I pray that they have whatever support they need.

Watching the replay of those planes hitting the twin towers continues to tear my heart out every time. I tried to get away from it all this morning by turning on VH1 to listen to music as I got ready to head for my office. Didn't work. It turns out that on the day of the attacks, Sting was scheduled to do a taping for either Storytellers or MTV Unplugged, not sure which. He showed up at the studio, and performed one song, followed by a moment of silence, in memory of those who died. That song was, of course, Fragile. Appropriate - and chilling. I started to cry all over again:

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay

Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star
Like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are
How fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star
Like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are
How fragile we are
How fragile we are
How fragile we are

************************************************
May Heaven and Earth grant us wisdom. For me, this is not only about America. It's about all of us in this world.

2001-09-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

Day Ten:

Workshop over. Brain Failure. Back on the Dare Tuesday.

Carpe manana,
Les.

2001-09-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

Day Five (and the beginning of Day Six).

No, the fact that there was no entry yesterday (Wednesday, September 5) does NOT mean that I missed a day - just that my hour was split 30/30 and by the time I finished up it was 11:45 last night, and I didn' t feel hardly at all like journaling, though I did feel a lot like sleeping. No work on the novel yet; I did a few more revisions on the story. Then I took it to my weekly critique group and read it aloud, and did the last of the fixing late last night. Shadow went out this morning and I was glad to see it go.

My weekly group is a beginning fiction class that became an advanced fiction class that became a critique group. We've been together for at least ten years, though I've only been part of it for the past eight. People have come and gone. We have satellite members in Mesa, AZ and Austin, and one in "the great beyond." Several of us are published in different genres - we've got romance writers and children's writers and mystery writers, and of course science fiction and fantasy. And we're thorough, with the emphasis on making the stories work so that we can sell them. Most of the serious goofing off gets saved for our several times yearly box-o-wine parties, or as Guiseppe likes to call it, vin au cartin. No politics allowed. Well, no personal writing/ego agendas, anyway.

Will get some more keyboard time in this afternoon and tonight in between errand running to get ready for my workshop weekend. Tonight's mission: to get my heroine Cait to the Summerland and make contact with whoever is likely to screw her over the most. The rest of tonight's mission: put up a pot of homemade tortilla soup and make up some blueberry crunch granola. Gotta feed peoples this weekend!

Yesterday's trax: VH1 Rock Across America video countdown, listened to from the other room.
Tonight's likely trax: VMAs, same deal.

I am a video junkie.

Later,
Les.

2001-09-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

Day Four.

Yes, the fact that there was no entry yesterday (Sunday, September 3) means I fell down on the job, literally (well the job part, not the falling part). No writing yesterday with all of my overtime, a good dinner with friends, and a couple of beers. Workshop planning: finished.

I made up the writing time today and logged 2 hours. Shadow is finished. I'm going to take a last quick peak at it tomorrow and send it out. Tomorrow, I'm going after the novel.

Mega congratulations to Frank Wu for his win at the Hugos, and to Toby Buckell and Melissa Yuan-Innes for their many Campbell Award noms! Next year, final ballot.

Today's trax: the rain and thunder outside, the construction on the 39th floor, and the incessant *!?#*! phone.

Later,
Leslie

2001-09-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

Sunday night, September 2, Day Two.

Writing, etc: Very pleased to have done my writing! I got a good, solid scene and a half in on Shadow. For my skinwalker/shapeshifter and her guard, THINGS GET WORSE, of course. I'm on target for finishing up tomorrow. Which I will have to do at work since the partner I work for has Exceptions due on Wednesday and I've been drafted to work on the, um, draft. Seven and a half hours today on class planning, a little L-O-N-G to stare at the computer screen on my day off. But we *did* plan three, 3-hour sections of the Elements of Magic workshop.

Recent (and future) reading: Just finished up (finally) reading Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio, with which I started mildly intrigued and ended utterly captured. Fabulous! And I'm eagerly waiting for the new sequel to The Talisman to hit my mailbox, for unlike my friend Glenn, Straub and King didn't challenge my suspension of disbelief with those machine-gun wielding werewolves.

Tonight's trax: Aaliyah (RIP) mix and the soundrack for Magnolia. Aimee Mann is a goddess.

Ciao for now -
Leslie

2001-09-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

Saturday night, September 1, first day of the 1/24/30 Dare. I managed to fit in a little more than an hour's writing time between planning forays for a class I'm teaching next weekend. Elements of Magic, enter all ye who dare!

Writing work today: Shadow, fantasy short story. It was a shadow of a story (thanks, Paul and Mark), but I'm adding the section that will give it bones, blood, and flesh. A skinwalker, a psychiatric ward guard, and a graveyard, oh boy. I'm hoping to finish it up by Monday so it can go in the mail on Tuesday. Then it's on to section 2 of my novel, Soul Thief, which is kind of like La Femme Nikita, only (partially) set in the spirit world. Cait the recently murdered heroine goes on a mission to across the Sunless Sea to the Isle of the Dead on a mission for the nasty, blackmailing Reilly. If she doesn't get the information he wants, he'll erase her soul from existence, so she'd better be a good girl - not.

Tonight's trax: Brand New Day, Sting (mellowness); Mirabal, Robert Mirabal (Alter-Native).

Off to finish up my laundry in the pouring rain.

Happy Labor Day weekend!
Leslie

2001-08-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

Hi and welcome to my September 2001 writing dare page! An hour a day for 30 days, write, write, write. Woohoo!

I am Leslie Claire Walker, living in Houston. You can find my short story "As the Crow Flies" in Writers of the Future Volume XVI. And you can find me writing (or gardening, cooking, reading, reading Tarot, watching movies, listening to music, and hanging with the dog and cats). Or you can find me at work, putting up with Energy Dept. lawyers.

Happy Labor Day weekend!

Leslie