An Incredibly Taxing Year

So, Doug Jones prevailed against the odds in Alabama. This is a legitimate reason to feel optimistic, but just for a while. The Democratic win in the Deep South came under unusual circumstances and against a spectacularly flawed Republican candidate—it is no reason for the Democratic Party to feel overly confident about its prospects next year. Besides, there are too many other problems out there that challenge our frayed two-party system to warrant celebrating one unexpected swing of the pendulum.

Trump: "A giant tax cut for Christmas." Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times.
Trump: “A giant tax cut for Christmas.” Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times.

 

 

 

 

 

A few days ago I received an email from MomsRising, a generally progressive pro-family group. It cited five actions its million-plus members should take this week. They were:

  • Tell FCC and Congress: Protect Net Neutrality! (Net neutrality was killed today, by a 3-2 FCC vote along party lines.)
  • Sign Up to Deliver a Tax Letter to Your Local Members of Congress’ office! (Well, I suppose anything can still happen but it’s generally conceded that some sort of favor-the-rich, screw-everyone-else GOP tax bill is going to be signed into law before Christmas.)
  • Urge NO on National Concealed Carry Reciprocity! (There is still some hope we can stop this insane House legislation.)
  • Be an #ACAdefender for Open Enrollment 2017! (This seems to be working; there is strong demand for Affordable Care Act enrollment before the December 15 cutoff.)
  • Protect DREAMers. (There remains a chance the 800,000 young adults in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program may be able to stay past the current March 5, 2018 deadline. Here is an instance where the Doug Jones victory may actually help achieve a concrete result.)

Needless to say, the MomsRising list is by no means complete. The Republicans continue to dismantle almost every government agency they get their hands on, with dreadful consequences for the environment and Americans’ general well-being, and the insufficiently publicized danger of a nuclear exchange continues to grow. (At least the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won the Nobel Peace Prize this year.)

But, it’s the holidays! Enough doom and gloom, at least for the moment. Let’s try to look on the bright side, enjoy what’s good in our individual lives, and hope that some degree of civic sanity can be restored in the coming year.

The American Emergency

Of all the many spectacular failings our country has experienced over the past year, the ongoing gun crisis is both the most visible and the most illogical. What other country would tolerate so many mass shooting episodes? What other country—or what other country’s leader—would claim, with a straight face, that arming still more of its citizens is the solution? If you can picture America as a person, then that person is in the back of an ambulance, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds and speeding to the emergency room with sirens blaring.

A Baptist church in south Texas, scene of the latest American carnage. Photo: Nick Wagner/AP.
A Baptist church in south Texas, scene of the latest American carnage. Photo: Nick Wagner/AP.

 

 

 

 

 

The patient may not make it. And if the country does manage to survive, it is not likely to be in its current two-party, 50-state form. The U.S. is too divided, and too sick, to bounce back into its younger state of health.

I and others have written about the country’s new kakistocracy, which is almost entirely Republican. Today’s Republican party is a vicious fungal infection that is pushing America into an ever more perilous condition. On virtually every issue, including the gun issue, the Republicans are not merely wrong—they are unbelievably wrong. Some of this is self-interest and cynicism, of course. But most of it is simply mind-boggling stupidity, especially among the party’s base. President Trump is a glaring, throbbing, dangerous manifestation of this. If he doesn’t manage to plunge a steadily weakening America into some sort of nuclear exchange he still stands to promote the dissolution of the country’s most important institutions, including democracy itself.

Where the gun issue is concerned, the Democratic Party is also to blame—it has displayed unforgivable cowardice. For every Democratic politician like Connecticut’s Senator Chris Murphy (who represented Newtown in Congress at the time of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre) urging Congress to “get off its ass and do something,” many other Democrats stay silent. And advocacy groups for gun control also fall sadly short. Groups such as Americans for Responsible Solutions, founded by Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly, do not go nearly far enough in their proposals and remain hamstrung in their deference to the wildly misinterpreted Second Amendment.

The Supreme Court’s disastrous, conservative-led 5-4 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller that “the Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home” has somehow morphed into the right for anyone to bear arms anywhere for any purpose, which of course is the NRA’s and now our so-called President’s stance. This is quite insane yet it is the law of the land, a land currently led by “a fucking moron” as our Secretary of State has said.

As we contemplate that ambulance speeding toward a hospital with a dying democracy inside, it’s important to note that guns are only one of America’s deadly symptoms. A dysfunctional federal government, a chaotic health care system, and the rollback of almost every ethical, social and scientific advance made over the past century are others. But if we can’t address the gun issue it’s likely we can’t cure any of our other serious illnesses, either.

Can we address the gun violence emergency in this country? Not with our currently divided political system. As British journalist Dan Hodges wrote about Sandy Hook, “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”

I hope you’ve noticed I haven’t used the words “Sutherland Springs” in this post. What difference would they make? That little Texas town is just the latest in a long procession, the latest recipient of America’s thoughts and prayers. We’ll soon move on to the next locale.

My thought, or rather my hope, is that both of our national parties will fragment into their constituent parts and we will, sooner rather than later, be able to put together a government representing a coalition of the sane. Multiple political parties would break the gerrymandered stranglehold that Republicans hold over so much of America and enable a coalition government, say between a new progressive party and the remaining Democrats, to have a decent shot at power. That coalition would then be able to enact laws resembling those in Britain and Australia, where personal gun ownership is very tightly controlled. How those laws would then be enforced is a subject for another post.

A Nod to Empathy

I’ve just published a poem, “Transient,” in Poetry Quarterly (issue #30, Summer 2017, running a bit behind schedule). Because the magazine is behind a paywall, you would need to purchase a rather expensive printed copy or else subscribe to the online version to read it. That being the case, and because the poem is about empathy, a quality sorely needed today, I’ll reproduce it here.

—Thomas Pletcher

Poetry Quarterly, Issue 30, Summer 2017.
The Poetry Quarterly logo. My poem “Transient” in Issue 30 is a nod to empathy.

“Transient”

A damaged person on the floor,
filthy, scuffed, like the station itself.
Above the person hulks a cop, hand
on holster. The cop smirks and says, get up.
Get up scumbag and move the hell out.
His victim tries to stand but slumps back down,
a person in transit who needs to rest awhile.
No vagrants in the terminal
the cop says. Port Authority badge.
I remember this the only way I can,
hazily, since I
was drinking myself.
All this many years ago, when
the city’s days were dim and grim.
What was wrong with that person?
Couldn’t he/she rise?
Has karma messed that cop up by now?
I walk over and see the dull badge
has no name, only a number. Meanwhile,
the individual moans.
We need some help here, I say.
Some help my ass the cop says.
He kicks the prone figure once, then leaves.
I bend down to check:
that numb stare could yet be anyone’s.
Yours. Mine.

Two Takes on Sin

Society’s conception of sin continues to evolve over time. Religious instruction we may have received as children might not match up with our conception of what’s thought sinful today. In addition, the categories of sin have expanded to include the institutional and the national, among others, in addition to the personal. And sin’s contextual setting is generally secular.

Despite this fluidity, two recent novels tackle subjects that qualify as sinful from almost anyone’s vantage point. The multiple-award-winning (National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize) novel  The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead tackles America’s original sins of slavery and genocide (violence and theft perpetrated against Native Americans appears as a thread throughout the book). This year’s buzz-generating novel, My Absolute Darling by debut author Gabriel Tallent, is focused on the personal: child sexual abuse and incest. The two novels are quite different but both are intensely gripping reads.

The Underground Railroad provides an extraordinary and unforgettable journey.
The Underground Railroad provides an extraordinary and unforgettable journey. Photo: Amazon.com.

Let’s begin with The Underground Railroad. Whitehead has done a number of extraordinary things with this book. First, he has done a phenomenal job of describing the experience of slavery and the pervasive, lasting damage it caused. The novel’s primary heroine, Cora, is completely believable in her fluctuating fear and courage, hesitation and anger. Cora is pinpointed within her biological (her grandmother Ajarry and her mother Mabel are nicely delineated) and geographical (Cora starts her journey on a vicious plantation in Georgia and travels the railroad from there) settings, so she seems very tangible and real, as do her antagonists. One of these, the “slave catcher” Ridgeway, reminds me of of the judge in Cormac McCarthy‘s Blood Meridian in his flamboyantly malevolent behavior and philosophizing. Among its other sterling qualities, The Underground Railroad is a real page-turner. It’s a hell of a story.

The story is even richer for its ingenious sci-fi twist: the underground railroad is a literal railroad, complete with tracks and actual trains traveling unseen through hidden tunnels laboriously carved out beneath the earth. The stations are hidden under the homes and barns of abolitionist sympathizers deep in the South. This literal railroad is handled with subtlety and actually seems quite believable in context. Its operators run enormous risks, and some of them pay dearly. The Underground Railroad presents a unique and unforgettable view of the horrors of slavery, and its lessons pack unfortunate relevance in today’s America. The fact that the novel is also a fabulous read only adds to its achievement.

The case for My Absolute Darling is not quite so convincing. It too is a stunning read, but in an entirely different and more claustrophobic way. It was published quite recently and hasn’t garnered any awards yet, but it has received extraordinarily extravagant, not to say hyperbolic, praise. Stephen King has already hailed the book as a “masterpiece”; this strikes me as a bit premature.

My Absolute Darling is painful to read and difficult to put down.
My Absolute Darling is painful to read and difficult to put down. Photo: Amazon.com.

The core of the book concerns the struggles of 14-year-old “Turtle” Alveston to survive the depredations, sexual and otherwise, of her charismatic but dangerously out of control father, Martin. The Alvestons (Martin’s wife has already died under sketchy circumstances) live alone, in a remote setting nearly off the grid outside Mendocino. Martin is a survivalist as well, and browbeats his daughter on a regular basis to master the necessary skills. Between that and the incest, it’s small wonder that Turtle struggles in every  way at school and is a conspicuous outcast.

It has to be acknowledged that the book is exceptionally well-written. Tallent’s mother Elizabeth (one of his two mothers; he was raised by lesbians) is a well-regarded writer in her own right, having published stories and essays in The New Yorker and many other publications. So writing runs in the family. And Gabriel was brought up in the area where the book is set, which contributes to its sense of authenticity. His writing on Northern California flora, and the distinctions to be drawn between various firearms, is incredibly detailed and adds another layer of verisimilitude. Furthermore, Tallent’s depiction of Jacob, a high school boy who starts to draw Turtle out and eventually draw her toward the outside world, is marvelously done. Jacob’s sophisticated banter and essential innocence ring completely true.

Yet there is an ugliness in the book that revolves around its subject matter. Tallent has stated, in interview after interview, that he wanted to handle the sexual abuse of a teenage girl by her father gingerly without any hint of exploitation. He probably does this as well as it can be done but the subject stands regardless and continues to radiate its own unhealthy attraction for the reader.

I want to give Gabriel Tallent the benefit of the doubt, simply because this book is so well written. But the book’s denouement gives me pause: it is written in such a sweeping cinematic style that it is as though the writer were simply transcribing the scene from the film that is sure to come. My Absolute Darling is going to transform Gabriel Tallent’s life and make him famous (well, as famous as a writer can be these days) and wealthy. Did he set out to achieve this? You might reply that the book is so masterfully done it doesn’t really matter. But if Tallent chose to depict Turtle’s sufferings simply to draw readers in, wouldn’t that be a kind of sin in itself?

Cooperate to Resist

The monstrous rain from Hurricane Harvey that has immobilized Houston and adjacent parts of Texas and Louisiana has been predicted in many climate studies—hurricanes and other storms are expected to become more frequent, and more severe. Whether or not Houstonians or other Texans believe in climate change is immaterial at the moment; thousands of people need immediate help and thousands of other people are doing their best to provide it, despite the fact that many streets and highways are underwater. It is the kind of selfless community effort that has been in extremely short supply lately, and it represents the sort of empathetic teamwork and can-do cooperation that America was once known for.

Top: blue and red states, Wikipedia. Bottom: Houston flooding, Richard Carson/Reuters.
Top: Wikipedia, By Angr – self-made; base map is Image:Blank US Map.svg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3532565. Bottom: Richard Carson/Reuters.

Another kind of cooperation is represented by the nine Northeastern states of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that have teamed up to implement a far-reaching cap-and-trade program to improve the environment and deliver more efficient energy to the region. Not surprisingly, California has implemented a similar effort, and it would represent a great step forward if the people involved in these efforts on both coasts would decide to combine their efforts. Adding Oregon and Washington State, along with traditionally blue states in the Upper Midwest and the holdout states in the Northeast (Chris Christie’s New Jersey, plus Pennsylvania), would be a bolder move still.

The two instances of citizen and governmental cooperation cited above are very different: one has arisen in response to a grave natural disaster, and it has brought out the best qualities of the many people serving as rescuers and volunteers. The coastal environmental programs are a more considered and more thoughtfully planned effort to head off the sort of catastrophes afflicting Texas and Louisiana at this very moment, or at least reduce their frequency and impact. Both efforts have one very important factor in common, though: they run counter to current Trump administration policies aimed at stripping government power from every area of public life.

Trump, who pardoned racist Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio as Hurricane Harvey made landfall because he thought media ratings “would be far higher than they were normally,” plans a visit to Houston today. The city is not really equipped to receive a presidential visit during this emergency, and it’s hard to imagine Trump touring the city by boat. He would serve the area best by staying away.

So far, the dysfunction at every governmental level that was evident from the beginning during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 seems missing—the Harvey rescue efforts appear to be working for the moment. But massive, years-long rebuilding efforts are forecast, and it remains to be seen how helpful Trump and whoever remains in his administration will be in delivering the needed assistance for those efforts.

Citizens working together to help one another in Houston are a refreshing counterpoint to the multiple Trump rallies at which everyone outside his base is excoriated. And the “blue” state governments that have decided to take on the environmental work the Federal government has turned its back on may yet help save the country from even worse weather-related events. In both cases, local citizens and governments are cooperating with each other in order to resist the destructive dismantling of government in Washington. (The selfless Texas rescuers may not think of it this way, but that is what they are doing nonetheless.) Both examples are essential and heartening, and we need to see more on both fronts.

Ulysses Runs Aground

One of my first posts on this site was in praise of Ulysses, the very stylish and capable writers’ text editor I used to write my 50,000-word novella during last fall’s NaNoWriMo. I continue to admire and enjoy this software but I’m about to stop using it. The reason? Ulysses is switching to a subscription-only model.

I oppose such a model on philosophical grounds, which I’ll try to outline below. I also think this switch will prove to be a failing business model for Ulysses, unless there are more dilettante/hobbyist writers out there than anyone previously realized. In fact I hope this model does fail, and Ulysses returns to the standard software practice of buy once, then pay for occasional significant updates.

Ulysses is moving in the wrong direction.
Ulysses is moving in the wrong direction. Icon © Ulysses GmbH & Co.

Adobe was the conspicuous pioneer in subscription software and the model has apparently worked for them. The big difference here, though, is that Adobe is the industry standard for designers everywhere. (Since I’m not a designer, I promptly stopped using Photoshop and other Adobe products and was able to replace the functionality I needed with no difficulty.) The equivalent standard for writers, at least where submission for publication is concerned, is Microsoft Word. And Word still offers the ability to purchase the software, instead of subscribing to it. There is no standard software for the process of writing. If there were to be such software, Scrivener would probably be the most likely candidate.

Ulysses actually suits the way I write better than Scrivener does, but so do many of its rivals, some of which also offer cross-platform capability (Ulysses is Apple only). And Scrivener itself can be a marvelous writing tool when pared down to its composition mode. The program is not as “pretty” as Ulysses but it does far more. Scrivener is essential for its excellent templates and for its comprehensive export capabilities. You can use it to write fluidly, reorganize and revise in fine detail, and then prepare a flawless manuscript for submission. No other software, including Ulysses, can do all of that nearly so well.

iA Writer, Sublime Text (properly configured) and the up-and-coming Write! all provide attractive, customizable writing environments with a left-hand sidebar for project navigation and organization (Write! just recently introduced a local sidebar and is already working to improve it). Update, 4/9/18: I no longer use Write! software and can’t recommend it. See this article for more information. Any of these programs can substitute for Ulysses during the first draft process, with Scrivener coming into play after the first draft is complete. (The software I’m using to write this post, Byword, would also qualify if it would just add a navigational sidebar.) What’s more, all of these programs employ traditional files and folders to organize your work. Ulysses, in contrast, hides your work deep in a largely inaccessible database, though you can deliberately create external files and folders if you wish. Some people think this system provides advantages; I don’t.

Here are a few reasons why a I think a subscription model for Ulysses is a really bad idea:

  • The cost for the end user becomes disproportionate. Let’s say you paid $45 to purchase Ulysses. Suddenly, you’re asked to pay $40 per year to continue using it. (Granted, existing users pay “only” $30 per year.) Now, this isn’t cost-prohibitive per se. Ulysses is excellent software and many people would argue it’s worth the added cost. But suppose you also buy Scrivener for $45 and then pay for two upgrades at $30 each over a 10-year period. That’s $105 over 10 years for what is arguably the one truly indispensable writers’ program, vs $300-$400 for Ulysses. Ulysses is not worth that cost differential; I think its developers are being a bit greedy here.
  • Suppose every bit of software you use regularly suddenly demanded that you subscribe in order to continue using it. Apart from the significant added cost, it would drive you crazy to keep track of all the required payments. The historical purchase-once, pay-to-upgrade model for software makes far more sense.
  • Ulysses is writing software. Its developers argue they need the extra subscription money in order to deliver “continuous improvements”. Writing software does not need continuous improvements—indeed, constant change for the sake of some supposed “improvement” would actually be detrimental. Once a writing program offers a flexible and pleasing interface, basic editing features and word count and the ability to navigate and modify project file structures, anything beyond is extraneous at best. I don’t use many of the extra features Ulysses already offers.

So, unless or until Ulysses comes to its senses, I’ll be using iA Writer and Sublime Text, among other programs, for short fiction and poetry and Scrivener for long-form work and revisions.

Do Something!

I had actually planned to write a mild, informative post on recent developments in software for writers. Instead, unfolding events compel a look at some atrocious happenings in the world and our so-called United States.

Which to address: the looming, horrific use of nuclear weapons or the flagrant resurgence of right-wing ignorance and violence throughout this country? I’m going to opt for the latter, on the grounds that once nuclear weapons are flying again, blog posts, Facebook, Medium et al. will all become instantly irrelevant. Trump’s Twitter as well. You could argue they are already irrelevant, of course. But while there is still some degree of social structure and control in place, social media may have some role to play. Bear in mind, though, that both sides believe this. Hence the heading for this post—it’s not sufficient to opine or respond on social media alone. If you want to protect what’s good in our society, genuine action is required.

Murderous moron: James Alex Fields Jr. Photo: Charlottesville Police Department, via Reuters.
Murderous moron: James Alex Fields Jr. Photo: Charlottesville Police Department, via Reuters.

Trump has encouraged, and thereby unleashed, a kind of hillbilly fascism at the grassroots level. We saw the most recent results in Charlottesville, VA this weekend: helmet-wearing thugs wielding various weapons to protest the removal of a statue honoring a 19th century racist and Civil War relic. Confederate flags and Nazi slogans were there in abundance, along with plenty of “Make America Great Again” merchandise. David Duke said “We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump” in order to “take our country back.” And Trump responded to the violence by decrying hatred on “many sides” (certainly his supporters cannot be asked to bear the blame alone).

Apart from the particulars, though, none of this is really new. Trump is an especially crude and vulgar exemplar of America’s worst tendencies, but he is hardly the first president whose statements and actions belie the nation’s stated principles and laws. Be honest and admit it: the highest ideals of America have always been an alluring lie. Yes, many admirable and dedicated people have sacrificed greatly to try to bring those ideals to life. But a great many other people in this country are either indifferent, or closer in spirit and sympathy to the idiots who gathered in Charlottesville to “Unite the Right.”

So what action can be taken in response, by those of us who would prefer to live in a country that actually adheres to its stated ideals? Here are some quick thoughts:

  • Band together. Not in small, local groups ringing doorbells but across states and regions. Progressive people must stand together regardless of location, and do so in big numbers.
  • Push to form regional alliances: California, New York, New England, for example. These areas already cooperate closely on issues like the environment. Let’s push for cooperation on other major issues that cry out to be addressed.
  • Urge the adoption of state-level legislation to form legally binding ties among these regional partners. If the South wants to secede again (and I say, let them), then progressives can respond by forming a sort of country within a country as a preliminary step toward building a new, blue America. The U.S. has never been truly united and it never will be. It’s time to acknowledge this.
  • BTW, the newblueamerica.org domain is available and I’m available to help build a site there if others want to pitch in with money, resources and political connections in progressive states.

It’s time to Think Different, as the late Steve Jobs once said about something much less important. Very little is working today, a great deal is broken. Catastrophe is barreling toward us on multiple fronts. Keeping one’s head down and going with the flow is only inviting disaster. We need to start thinking about big, unconventional change outside the normal political boundaries, and working to achieve it, before it’s too late.

Everything Now

Arcade Fire’s fifth studio album was released on July 28 to mixed reviews. Really mixed reviews—critics seemed to either love or hate the album. Its Metacritic average score of 66 translates to “generally favorable” reviews, but this is simply due to the averaging of far ends of the critical spectrum.

Arcade Fire's fifth studio album. Cover: Wikipedia.
Arcade Fire’s fifth studio album. Cover: Wikipedia.

The Times and the Guardian are exceptions to the “love it or hate it” rule; both provided genuinely mixed reviews. The Guardian wrote that the desire “to experiment musically isn’t enough to make Everything Now a bad album – there are songs worth hearing and genuinely thrilling music here – but rather a flawed one.” The Times said “The title song finds a breezy balance between earnestness and exhilaration. Elsewhere, that balance falters, and Everything Now becomes a slighter album than its predecessors.”

I’ve been a fan of the Canadian band from the beginning and my own view of Everything Now more or less echoes that of the Times and the Guardian, but with a bias toward the positive. There are some marvelous earworms here, and Arcade Fire’s perceptive critiques of modern society remain (though the perspectives have shifted somewhat). This time the targets are extreme consumerism (“Everything Now”) and media proliferation (“Infinite Content”). The concomitants to these, depression and suicide, are also present.

These targets remain timely—the lyric “every room in my house is filled with shit I couldn’t live without” certainly resonates with me. And the relevance of “Infinite Content” is borne out by, among other things, the Times’s new “What to Watch” columns, which run several times a week and which imply all we have to do is work and watch TV.

Some have said (and I agree) that Arcade Fire’s music “grows on you,” and this album certainly does. If you like the band’s earlier albums you’ll most likely enjoy this one as well. It’s a bit different, but that only serves to expand the group’s horizons. And those tunes will draw you in.

Irrelevant Fantasy

In the Guardian recently, fantasy author “Robin Hobb” (real name Margaret Ogden) is quoted as saying, “Fantasy has become something you don’t have to be embarrassed about.”

I strongly disagree—I think readers and writers of fantasy alike should be highly embarrassed, and that includes writers as popular as Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin and as feckless as Lidia Yuknavitch, whose very poorly written The Book of Joan is briefly reviewed below.

The Book of Joan—preposterous and poorly written. Cover: Amazon.com
The Book of Joan—preposterous and poorly written. Cover: Amazon.com

Fantasy fans should be embarrassed because what they do has no bearing on reality, be it the reality described by astrophysics or the inner life of the mind. There is only the sketchiest, most tangential connection to real world concerns and problems. Fantasy enthusiasts are estranged from these concerns and problems, or hiding from them. They are children playing games of make-believe. They are fleeing adult responsibilities, including the responsibility to strive to make some sort of sense of the world.

I realize there are people who enjoy the genre, and these folks will obviously disagree quite strongly with what I’m asserting here. But consider: we as human beings have not yet gained the abilities to fully understand the universe we inhabit. Why waste time creating imaginary worlds that invariably pale in comparison to the mysteries of our own? It strikes me as an abdication of sorts, like a child turning his back on other children and retreating to a corner to play by himself.

I suspect deep psychic pain may make fantasy attractive for some people, as the genre offers a way to escape from the known world without the extreme of actually, physically quitting it. This is likely so in Yuknavitch’s case; the author apparently had a deeply traumatic childhood and the world limned in The Book of Joan features supernaturally strong women as a probable consequence. I can understand and respect this. But I can’t respect the way it’s done.

The following critique relates to The Book of Joan and extends to fantasy in general.

  • It’s intellectually lazy. Read this description of the scenario Yuknavitch sets up: “CIEL was built from redesigned remnants from old space stations and science extensions of former astro and military industrial complexes. We who live here number in the thousands, from what used to be hundreds of countries. Every single one of us was a member of a former ruling class. Earth’s the dying clod beneath us. We siphon and drain resources through invisible technological umbilical cords. Skylines. That almost sounds lyrical.” CIEL and skylines are key to the core plot of the book, yet we are supposed to take them on faith. Redesigned remnants and invisible technological umbilical cords. OK, got it.
  • It’s badly written. A sample: “‘Okay! You have my attention,’ I yell. The walls echo back at me. ‘What the fuck was that?’ My voice merely ricochets around. I walk closer to the wall. I put my hands against it; solid matter. ‘Nyx?’ Nothing. Just the vanishing points in the cave where light gives way to shadow.
    Then it’s Nyx’s voice: ‘Please take care to move slowly; you are not exactly among the living.’
    What the fuck does that mean? Not exactly among the living?”
  • It’s pointless. Various attempts have been made to link this … novel of a reimagined Joan of Arc to today’s controversies and dangers. All of these attempts are nonsense. The book has no bearing on today whatsoever. It’s pure escapism, for those who can buy into its lazy premises and tolerate its clumsy narrative and preposterous (yet clichéd) plot.

I really don’t mean to single out The Book of Joan for special abuse; for all I know, it may be one of the better recent fantasy novels. I think HBO’s Game of Thrones adaptation has all of the flaws found in Yuknavitch’s novel and then some. It’s every bit as irrelevant and yet it is wildly popular. In a similar vein, Donald Trump is completely unqualified for any sort of leadership role and yet he is President.

There are other, better ways to stretch your fictional boundaries, if that’s what you feel impelled to do. Science fiction? For sure. Speculative fiction? Absolutely. But fantasy? Sorry, no.

Poetry and Programming

When I worked as a web developer, Sublime Text came out of nowhere (Australia, actually) to become enormously popular. I understand it remains popular still, though I believe the newer program Atom has also gained a lot of adherents. One of the best things about Sublime Text, though, in addition to its name, is its flexibility—flexibility that extends to making the program a suitable environment for writers.

Sublime Text as a programming editor.
Sublime Text as a programming editor.

For years, I’ve heard stories about writers adopting Sublime Text in place of some other software. Indeed, the Sublime Text site now bills the program as “a sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose.” Having used Sublime Text as a developer, I decided to give it a go as a writer. It works remarkably well. For shorter forms of writing, especially poetry, it is superb.

Sublime Text: programming and poetry for $70.
Sublime Text: programming and poetry for $70.

The “minimap” feature (which the recently reviewed Write! app also uses) is very helpful in longer narratives, as it lets you visualize where a current line fits into the larger story. Update, 4/9/18: I no longer use Write! software and can’t recommend it. See this article for more information. For my money, though (speaking of which, Sublime Text retails for $70—this gives you a license to use the software on all your computers, regardless of whether they’re running Windows, macOS or Linux), the program’s real killer feature is its exceptionally configurable layout.

Sublime Text for writers—comparing three versions of a poem side-by-side.
Sublime Text for writers: comparing three versions of a poem side-by-side.

I like to compare multiple versions of my work as I move toward a final draft, and Sublime Text’s vertical columns feature (you can have as many as four columns) lets me view multiple versions side-by-side. This is especially useful for poetry, since it provides a direct line-by-line comparison.

Sublime Text’s programming heritage remains evident in some ways, but writers should not feel unduly intimidated by this. For example, you need to configure preferences via individual files, and you also need to add a few plugins to make Sublime Text a solid environment for writing.

You can install the necessary plugins via the program’s Package Control feature. Only four are really needed: Markdown Editing, Pandoc (which lets you export your Sublime Text work to Microsoft Word), Side Bar (a better replacement for the default sidebar) and Word Count.

If setting up Sublime Text seems a bit too hands-on, then there are plenty of other solid writing apps out there, including the aforementioned Write! But if you like the idea of customizing your writing environment, and the capability of directly comparing multiple versions of your work appeals to you, you’ll find Sublime Text very satisfying. You may even find it sublime.