Dark Lords Don’t Have Friends

I was a Star Wars child, and so a bit too old for the Harry Potter demographic. However, I did manage to catch each of the films on TV, and just recently watched the final two installments – Deathly Hallows 1 and 2. Author J. K. Rowling has stated that the main theme of the books is death, while others have suggested politics, oppression, survival, or bigotry. I noticed three additional themes that seem to be somewhat common in the fantasy genre.

The first theme is that of friendship. Dark Lords and evil wizards don’t have friends. They have armies, minions, underlings, slaves… but not friends. This must be an incredible weakness, because it was essentially Harry and a few loyal friends who defeated Lord Voldemort, and he’s not the only “dark lord” brought low by friendship:

Darth Vader and the Emperor were thwarted by Luke Skywalker and his band of chums. Sauron the Necromancer (Lord of the Rings) was destroyed via the efforts of little Frodo Baggins and a few brave buddies. The Dark One (Wheel of Time) was vanquished by young Rand al’Thor and his pals. Friendship implies love and loyalty, so it seems that one hero and a dozen friends – bound by love – are more than a match for any quantity of malevolent evil.

The second theme I noticed was that our hero often seems to be the least likely person for the job. A few years before his showdown with Voldemort, Harry Potter was just a little orphan boy with no training or experience. A few years before defeating the Emperor, Luke Skywalker was a teenage dreamer with no knowledge of the Force or Jedi Knights. Frodo Baggins was a peaceful little Hobbit when he got swept up in the quest to destroy Sauron, and Rand al’Thor was a small town farmer’s kid, naive and clueless about the One Power.

Yet somehow, each of these unlikely fellows was chosen for the task and managed to pull it off against all odds. Not only that, but we’re left with the understanding that no one else but them could have done the job. The savior of the world comes wrapped in an unexpected package.

The third theme I noticed in the Potter series was how utterly clueless the public-at-large seemed to be concerning the grave danger posed by Voldemort and his followers. Citizens of London (and the world?) were quite unaware of the magnitude of evil surrounding them, and a similar situation exists concerning the Emperor, Sauron, and the Dark One. Outside of those who actually fight in the battles, most people remain oblivious and unbelieving, easily fooled by propaganda put out by the enemy. Many don’t even know there is a cosmic war going on.

Of the three, this theme is currently the most true-to-life.

3 Things You Never Knew

Beginning writers are often advised to simply write about things they know – a particular hobby or experience that they can share with readers. This enables a writer to practice the bones of writing structure, description, etc. while minimizing the need for extensive research (and without over-taxing one’s imagination).

Since I have done very little writing these past few years, today’s short post will cover a topic I know… and you probably don’t.   Read on.

Intro: A piano has eighty-eight keys (notes) and each of these activates one or more strings, depending on the note. This means that there can be upwards of 200+ strings on a given piano, and every one of those strings must be tuned properly.

Three Things You Never Knew About Piano Tuning:

1. No two pianos are tuned alike. Every piano has to be made in tune with itself, rather than with a set standard, so each tuning is unique. Because there is a certain amount of “inharmonicity” in every piano, the notes are actually adjusted slightly sharp or flat of their exact pitch, in such a way that they sound as pleasing as possible when played together. If every note was simply tuned to its exact chromatic pitch it would sound out of tune when played. Pretty crazy, huh?

2. Piano tuners do not need perfect pitch. In fact, tuners do not listen to the pitch of the notes as they tune. Instead, they listen for beats (or vibrations) that occur whenever two notes are played together – a wah-wah-wah sound. Piano strings are attached to pins at either end, and a tuner manipulates the pin in tiny increments until the “beat rate” between two notes reaches a certain tempo, for example: 6.5 beats per second. Different notes require different beat rates. When the beat rates are all adjusted properly, the piano sounds in-tune.

3. Tuning to the correct pitch is only half the battle; getting the strings to stay there is an art in itself. As a tuner progresses up or down the keyboard, adjusting strings as he/she goes, notes that have already been tuned tend to go out of tune again. If that weren’t bad enough, an entire piano can quickly go out of tune once the tuner goes home. To prevent this, a tuner must learn to “set the pin” of each string so that it remains firmly in place, even when notes are played loudly and lots of vibrations are wracking the piano. Setting the pin requires a good deal of practice before it can be done consistently, and until then, most tunings will be unstable and subject to failure.

So there you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about an obscure subject.

Am I a Writer?

Writers and published authors will sometimes state that the act of writing itself is their passion, and so they will always write whether they get paid for it (and published) or not. These folks are among the most prolific, and often successful, writers. Others find writing to be therapeutic, or they write with visions of fame and movie options.

I don’t seem to fall into any of these categories. I enjoy writing to a certain extent, the same way I enjoy various other activities, but I have no passion for writing in and of itself. I could easily go a day (or a month) without writing a single word. I don’t find writing to be especially therapeutic either (maybe just never thought of it that way).

What I do enjoy is being able to edit and refine my ideas before sharing them with the world. Too often my spoken words come out like a bad first draft, and I wish I’d have said things differently. That problem goes away when writing. I can say what I want in just the right way. It’s almost like cheating.

Yet despite that enjoyment, I often have to force myself to sit down and put words on paper screen. Sometimes I lose interest in my great story idea because I realize that it doesn’t have any ultimate significance – like it’s not enough for me to merely entertain or inform, I want to change someone’s life. Unfortunately, life-changing ideas are hard to come by.

The one exception to my lack of passion is when I am in the midst of a debate, and many of my debates have concerned some point of faith or theology. I once wrote a sixty-page response to a friend on the subject of free will vs. predestination, and I could hardly bring myself to leave the keyboard until it was typed, edited, printed and bound. I was passionate.

Most other times, not so much. I’ve already concluded that I’m not a natural born writer, or someone who needs to write like eating or breathing… but am I a writer at all? Must one have a passion or consistently produce finished copy to identify as a writer? Any thoughts?

Let’s Get Critical

A few years back I took a series of online writing classes through www.writersonlineworkshops.com (an extension of Writer’s Digest magazine). These included basic fiction writing, short stories, and magazine articles. Students received weekly reading and writing assignments that we submitted to a professional instructor – always a published author with impressive credentials. We also had to read and critique each other’s work.

These little critique sessions were curious. One would think that aspiring writers would have solid reading comprehension skills, and that they would be able to recognize such common writing devices as humor, metaphor, or foreshadowing.

Not so. Upon reading various critiques of my own work I found that several students had totally missed the point, or didn’t get the joke, or were bewildered by a fairly straightforward metaphor. Their comments made me laugh, and I had to wonder if the problem lay with my writing or their reading. It was them, of course.

This experience caused me to question the value of writing groups in general, particularly those that are comprised mostly of other unpublished writers. As it turns out, they often know next to nothing about good writing. Who would have guessed?

On the other hand, I was delighted to receive comments from the instructors, all of whom had a bevy of writing and teaching credentials to back up their analysis of my prose. Their criticisms motivated me to buckle down and focus, while their compliments encouraged me for weeks afterward.

I guess the lesson I learned was this: Choose your critics wisely. If not a published author, then at least a trusted friend who is well-read and possesses the level of intelligence needed to pick up on subtle humor, satire, cultural references, and other linguistic whatnots. Don’t settle for less, because at the end of the day, clueless criticism is probably worse than none at all.

The Hungry Games

A Dystopian Parody:

Messy Desks: Part II

If you missed my first post on the incredibly messy desk of my friend David, click here. Today’s Inkblot features the desk of my 84-year-old father, and here it is -

Now the question is: Does this mess result from an active mind, a busy lifestyle, or just plain sloppiness? Well, the fact is that Dad’s mind isn’t all that active these days unless engrossed in a basketball game or a golf match. He is quite busy for a man of his age, but he also has plenty of free time to tidy up if so inclined. Therefore I conclude the he is sloppy by nature, i.e. he just doesn’t clean stuff up. In support of my conclusion I offer these “insider” glimpses of his two bedroom dressers -

His basement workbench -

And his garage corner storage system -

So Dad, as much as I’d like to compliment you on your active mind and industrious lifestyle, all I can really say is… clean it up!

Your Desk Is Messy

This is the desk of my good friend David. He’s a church pastor with a doctorate in theology and a thousand or two books lining his office walls. Intellectually, David is a busy man.                            Some say a messy desk indicates an active mind, and in this case I’d agree. But David is also a little sloppy, which you would know if you could see the many coffee ring stains just under those papers. David leaves coffee rings wherever he goes. Yet though his desk is messy, he would strongly deny that it is disorganized. According to David, everything is in its proper place, ready for quick access when needed (I just love how he pulls out the drawers to use as additional flat space). Let me give you a closer view -

Along with his messy desk, David maintains a rather unique corner filing system -

But as I say, David is VERY busy, intellectually and otherwise, so an industrious lifestyle begets a cyclonic desktop. It works for him, what else matters? In further support of the messy desk / active mind theory, I offer the desk of David’s secretary, a woman of few responsibilities (as David tends to do most things himself) -Obviously there’s not a lot going on here. Be on the lookout for “Messy Desks: Part II” where we will analyze yet another messy-desk keeper. Until then…