Five Stages of Grief: A Study in Fantasy Novels

At this point, you know I love writing.  I do it at least once a week for your enjoyment.  It is my primary method of communication because I’m weird and antisocial and prefer to hide behind a screen where I can be unapologetically bizarre without any threat of judgmental eyes.  But another of the many reasons I love writing?

Because I love reading.  I love reading so hard.  I read before bed, I read on the bus to work, I read at lunchtime, and sometimes I when my day at work has been atrocious and I need 10 minutes to pretend I’m anywhere but in my stupid idiot jerk office.

Last night, a little after midnight, I finished reading the last book of the Codex Alera, a high fantasy series by Jim Butcher (most popular for the Dresden Files).  Now, I certainly enjoy the Dresden books.  They’re fun, they’re smart, and they have one of the more badass female characters in modern literature.  But my heart lies within high fantasy.  For those of you who aren’t entirely familiar with the distinction of high fantasy, think Tolkien.  Wizards and beards and such.

In addition, I was told that Butcher wrote this series essentially on a bet.  A snarky commenter on an internet forum challenged his writing abilities, saying that he was only successful because he had a flukey good idea.  Granted, private investigator/wizard Harry Dresden was a great idea, but seriously, what a douche.  Butcher responded by saying that he could write a great story from not one, but TWO terrible ideas of the douche’s chosing.  He selected the Lost Roman Legion and Pokemon.  In response, Butcher wrote the Codex Alera, which went on to become a New York Times bestselling series.  Suck it, the Internet.

I confirmed these facts through Wikipedia, so they’re totally true.

Regardless, a friend recommended the series to me because I like “nerd books.”  Plus, I love both of the preselected terrible ideas, so it was really a win-win for me.  I dived right in and was essentially hooked within the first 50 pages.  Sersiously, if you haven’t read them, get on it as soon as humanly possible.  Do it right now.  And if you happen to have ordered them and have them sitting at your house collecting dust, finish reading this post and go pick them up immediately I AM SPECIFICALLY TALKING TO YOU, MOM.

But now, I am overcome with the familiar emptiness that comes with completing a series, be it book, movie, or television.  I become completely engrossed in the worlds and grow voraciously attached to the characters.  So when it’s over?  It’s like a tearful goodbye to an old friend.  You’ve shared joy, hope, anger, despair, and love.  If you’re me, you’ve totally blown off other (real) friends and (timely blogging) responsibilities to spend time together.  How do you adjust when you near the end?  Realistically, you go through a version of the good ol’ Psych class standby, the five stages of grief:

• Denial – No, this can’t be the last one.  Dresden Files has like 15 or 20 books.  Why would he only do six in the Codex Alera?  That’s stupid.
• Anger – WHAT THE HELL, JIM BUTCHER?!  No, I need at least one more book to properly wrap up the story!  There are loose ends!  LOOSE ENDS!  IF YOU DON’T KEEP WRITING CODEX ALERA BOOKS, JIM BUTCHER, I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND PUNCH YOU IN YOUR STUPID FACE.
• Bargaining – Wait, can we do an internet campaign for more?  The stories were born of internet trolls, let internet trolls resurrect it once again!
• Depression – I can’t…  I can’t even.  I just reached into my lunch bag and felt the book I brought to read at lunch.  It’s way too short, and I don’t know the characters, and I miss Max and Varg and Kitai and Tavi.  What if I never love characters the way I love them?  I want to go back to bed.
• Acceptance* – This is stupid, but so is everything else.  I guess it’s par for the course.

*I am really bad at acceptance.

Fortunately/unfortunately/I’m not sure how I feel about it, the FAQs from Butcher’s website states that he has not ruled out a revisit to the world of Alera in the future.  So, in reality, I can’t fully complete the five stages of grief in regards to the Codex Alera.  It’s probably for the best, really.  Acceptance is the stage I’m worst at anyway.  Now, anger?  I am totally awesome at that one.

Enraged Editing

I love writing.  It’s fun, it’s relaxing, and it gives me the opportunity to express little nuggets of weird from within the deep recesses of my often twisted mind.

That being said, my true love has always been editing.  Any time an editing job makes its way to me, I’m thrilled.  No matter the subject, I love looking at an essay, a paper, a story, and doing my part to help it reach its full potential.  Each and every piece of writing is a challenge just waiting to be improved upon.  To me, it’s a puzzle, and I’m pretty damn good at it.

Unfortunately, there are downsides to considering oneself an editor.  I mean, downsides in addition to existing in a world full of appallingly bad writing that seems to leap out from the newspaper, the radio, and an infinite number of other sources to punch you in the brain.

Everyone’s a writer!
Yes, it would appear that each and every individual that fancies him or herself an expert on some topic also magically believes him or herself to be an expert in writing.  How convenient, right!?  NO, NOT RIGHT.  People that have truly good ideas about their field, whatever that field may be, can always benefit from having a skilled writer or editor working with them to brainstorm organizational techniques, target and write toward the appropriate audience, and generally polish their work into a suitable final product.  Consulting a writer is a step that is consistently overlooked because too many people believe that, as a speaker of a language, they are also qualified as a writer of said language.  This phenomenon is, incidentally, why so many companies decide not to hire writers and is consequently why I am currently toiling away at a job that has nothing to do with my skill set.  “Oh, we don’t need someone entirely devoted to writing,” they stupidly declare, “We can just split the writing and editing duties between a few existing employees to save time and money.”  Listen, people.  Your scientist needs someone to adapt his report to be palatable to the general public.  Your receptionist shouldn’t be doing your company newsletter.  Your web designer can make your site look pretty, but that doesn’t mean he can write decent content.  This is why we can’t have nice things, people.  This is why we can’t have nice things.

Passing high school English does not a writer make.
When people learn that you are interested in writing, they instantly feel the need to tell you about how well they did in English class and how many friends’ papers they edited during their college years.  Typically, this makes me cringe on behalf of the teachers who received an influx of poorly written, poorly edited papers one semester and never understood why.  When I have an acquaintance that continually brings up writing projects, I automatically become suspicious.  Soon, I muse, Soon they will ask me to read their books.  Sometimes, I’m pleasantly surprised.  A few years ago, I had a friend who constantly wanted to talk about his story ideas, and finally asked me to read his first few chapters.  It was obvious from his nervousness that he loved his story and desperately hoped I wouldn’t rip it to shreds.  He asked me for complete, brutal honesty:  it was good, because brutality is really my strong point.  Despite a few consistent grammar stumbles, I found his story to be interesting and his characters to be engaging.  At the same time, I had another friend who couldn’t have been more confident in her abilities.  She believed herself to be above her surroundings, an intellectual in a sea of commoners.  One day, she told me she wanted to prepare one of her books to be submitted to publishing houses and asked if I could read it over to look for any minor issues;  she had just done a revamp of the book and needed a fresh set of eyes.  I spent an hour reading, trying desperately to understand what she was talking about through the flowery language, the muddled sentence structure, and the grammatical butchery.  After that hour, I realized I had only gone through seven pages.  I told her that the project was longer than I realized and I would have to consider it a freelance project;  fortunately, she never brought it up with me again to discuss rates.

Editing vultures.
“Hey, you like writing!” they say.  “I have a paper due tomorrow, and I’d like to have someone give it a quick once-over before I turn it in.  I’ll email it over!”  Editing vultures, as I call them, have a very specific MO. They (being individuals that communicate with you ONLY when they want something) claim to be looking for constructive criticism, but in reality, they want a group of people to say things like, “Wow, this sounds really good!” or “Here’s a typo, but other than that, you’re a great writer!”  This is blatantly obvious because they never give you more than 48 hours to review their work.  I have a simple way of dealing with these people:  I edit the ever loving shit out of whatever they send me.  I don’t rewrite things for them, though.  Oh, no.  Those services are reserved for people who pay for the premium Nancy editing.  The free version just gets you 1,000 text boxes in your Word document with such helpful comments as “This is awkward,” “Your sentence structure needs variation,” and “This sentence is unclear; rework it to express your point more effectively.”  The last essay I received from an editing vulture had a 500 word limit;  my comments alone amounted to about 700 words.  So a word to the editing vultures out there?  If you really want help, great.  For a totally reasonable fee, I would love to read your shitty essay and make suggestions.  Otherwise, have fun completely rewriting your paper and dealing with the haunting realization that you have 12 hours to go and no real idea of where to start.

You have a thesaurus?!  Congratulations.
There are people in this world that believe with all their hearts that committing something to writing requires complex, nigh unreadable, sentence structure and a multitude of $10 words peppered throughout.  In reality, this type of writing serves only to make the writer look like an asshole.  Well, at least to experienced writers.  Tragically, such pretentious writers tend to congregate together in certain industries and encourage one another to write LONGER sentences and use MORE OBSCURE words!  They hang out in packs and try to one-up each other as their giant egos cause their heads to swell until they rupture in a firework show of rampant stupidity.  Or at least I like to imagine.  In reality, the solution is simple:  have you ever used that word in conversation?  No?  Then why do you think it’s okay to use it in your writing?

So, will I judge you if you say “me and my friend” or “my friend and I” in the wrong section of a sentence?  No, it doesn’t matter.  Will I make nasty comments when you misspell things in your Facebook status?  I’ll roll my eyes and smirk, most definitely, but there are far worse Facebook sins.  I just ask that you put a little bit of care into your writing because it’s part of you, and that you respect those that exist to help.

All complaints aside, they best tip I can give in terms of writing is to know your strengths and weaknesses.  You have issues with organization?  List your ideas and consult with someone before you start writing anything so that you can settle on a solid direction.  You have problems with spelling?  Make sure to use word processing software with spell check and highlight words you’re unsure of for future reference.  A specific word or phrase giving you fits?  DON’T USE THAT WORD OR PHRASE.

But let’s be real:  my editing pet peeves will not be so easily defeated.  They will pop up in my inbox and the professional world for the rest of my days, a written manifestation of fingernails on a chalkboard scraping along the inside of my brain for all eternity.  Last week, I read something aloud to boyfriend for confirmation of its awfulness, explaining its grammatical crimes.

“Wow,” he said, “I could tell that sounded wrong, but I wasn’t sure why.  Do you always look at written things like that?”

I nodded solemnly.

“Oh man, that must really suck.”

Yes, boyfriend, it does suck.  Sometimes, I’m not sure how my brain endures it.  Then, I look down at my lap while I’m working on a particularly painful project and see this:

Seriously, cat, everyone is really lucky you exist.

Thanks, Simon!  You’re the best at keeping me from smacking people!

Of Lunch Beers and Breakdowns

I almost quit my job on Friday.

I did!  It’s true.

It all started out simple enough back in August.  I took a job way below my intelligence and skill level because I needed the pay and benefits.  I learned everything quickly, I proved my worth to my coworkers, and I found myself breezing through without a care (or an intellectual stimulus) in the world.  Two months later, I was asked to take on an additional assignment (as well as additional pay) to assist a coworker who was covering for an open position, and was also preparing to go out on maternity leave.  Who doesn’t want more money and a little bit of a challenge?  Well, the little challenge became overwhelming as more and more duties were piled on (without corresponding piles of money).

It was then that the new boss started.  He seems great.  He’s got a sense of humor, he’s got experience in the industry, and he’s willing to learn about what we do and what we need to accomplish.  Better yet, he was very intrigued to learn that only I and one other coworker held a high-level degree.  Betterer yet, upon our initial meeting, he thought I was eight to 10 years younger than I actually am.

So with the promise of better times on the horizon, I prepared to come to work this past Monday and tackle a big project: assisting my previously mentioned coworker with the task of mailing diplomas out to 990 December graduates.  I readied myself as she asked me to start putting labels on the mailers.  I dutifully began peeling, sticking, and sorting.  I labeled mailers for four hours until the last label was attached and my poor sad hands had turned into misshapen claws.  I went to report to my coworker: partially to tell her I was done, partially to ask where the hell she had been that was so much more important than finishing her project.

“Okay, I just finished printing the diplomas,” she said,  “They’re ready to be put in the mailers.  I want them to go out tomorrow.  But I’m not feeling well, so I’m going home.  Be sure that gets done…they absolutely need to be out before the weekend.  I’ll see you in the morning.”  With that, she was gone.  I took a deep breath and retreated, enormous stack of diplomas in hand, to the fort I had constructed of boxes full of mailers.

That day, boyfriend took me out to lunch.  It was then that I made an important decision: if I were to make it through the day, I would require some assistance.  I would partake in a lunch beer.  It wasn’t a full lunch beer, to be fair.  We ordered a sampler of five tiny baby beers.  I myself enjoyed a Big Gruesome, a chocolate peanut butter stout from Spring House Brewing Company, and a Mad Elf, a lovely ale from Troegs Brewing Company that blends, cherries, honey, and chocolate.  I’m no beer expert, but I must say, I do love alcoholic beverages that taste like dessert.

When I returned, the diplomas stared up at me with malice.  I would not be defeated my something so silly, I thought.  Not while I was full of beer!  Two of my coworkers joined and we worked until the end of the day, finishing nearly half of the job with only a few issues cropping up.  This would be no problem!

The next morning, my coworker, the one whose job I had been helping with, called in sick.  My sanity shattered.  Helpful coworker patted me on the back and offered her help.  We soldiered on until only a few problem diplomas were left: five students, we determined, had given no mailing address.  One lonely diploma and folder remained, but did not match…and I realized that I had placed a diploma in the wrong mailer the day before.  Normally, in such a situation, I would just call the student and warn her of the issue.  But I knew that the coworker in charge would become more than a little enraged, which was confirmed by others in the office.  I admitted my mistake to the boss and vowed to rectify it.  One coworker, ever so concerned with providing the most accurate picture of every situation, made sure to tell everyone in the office (ESPECIALLY the new boss) that she had pointed the diploma in question out to me, but I still paired it with the wrong mailer.  True, yet so very, very annoying.

Always one for a hopeless adventure, I decided to venture to the college mailroom to see if the batch from yesterday had been mailed.  Helpful coworker tossed me into her car and drove me there, more than happy to get out of the office on a Friday morning.  We found the stack untouched and quickly uncovered the rogue diploma.  Relief washing over me, I conspired with helpful coworker:  while we were in the mailroom, why not help out our poor overworked mail room employee by putting postage on the 600 diplomas that awaited attention?  We tracked down a technician who, eager to escape any type of work, taught us how to use the postage machine.  There we stood for the better part of an hour, running mail, stacking it into bins, and laughing about how much better it was than sitting in our awful, tension-filled office.

After we finished, I matched the last two diplomas up with their rightful mailers and got them out of my sight as quickly as possible.  Honest coworker reminded me once again how funny it was that the one she mentioned was the one I had messed up.  SO FUNNY, HONEST COWORKER.  I sought a peaceful, quiet Friday afternoon; what I received was the slowest 3 hours of my life, full of angry parents, ungrateful students, and computer issues galore.  I found myself staring miserably at the Pitt water bottle situated at the edge of my desk, tears welling up in my eyes.  I’M SORRY, PITT!  I TOOK YOU FOR GRANTED AND I’M SORRY!

The whole ordeal reminded me of one of the 12 things I learned in undergrad as a history major:  the concept of the J-curve.  Sometimes, conditions become drastically worse in a sudden plummet.  People drudge through their days quietly at rock bottom without much of a peep.   But when things improve just a bit, that little upward swoop at the bottom of the J, people get a taste of what improvement can look like.  And they want more.  At these points in history, you have your uprisings, your revolutions, and apparently, your lunch beers.

So tomorrow, I will go to work.  I will complete the tasks assigned to me.  I will plaster on a smile and laugh at stories about everyone’s weekend.  Inside, however, I will be formulating an escape plan.  Will the changes be a result of the new boss and the shake-ups he’s hinted at during our first few staff meetings?  Or will they come from a new, unrelated opportunity that has yet to reveal itself?  I can’t be sure just yet.

But there is one thing that I am very, very sure of:

Those changes are coming.

And that I don’t like my job.

Oh, and that I miss Pittsburgh.

(Okay, there is more than one thing I’m very, very sure of.  Sorry.)