NaNoWriMo: Alys and the Grey Lion

An excerpt from my NaNoWriMo novel The Building:

“So they’ve got active imaginations?”

“No. It’s more than that. They can create these worlds, but they can also make you believe in them. The story of Lewis Carrol and his Wonderland is only one of the most famous examples. There are some who believe that Scheherazade—Arabian Nights Scheherazade—was an Alys, and that is how she managed to survive for so long. Every night, she was able to tell stories so real that the sultan forgot to execute her. I guess it’s supposed to be like seduction or maybe suggestion? It’s creation and its hypnotic. Lewis Carrol claimed that he just wrote down the fabulous daydreams of Alice Liddell, but some believe that, being in the presence of an Alys, he was powerless to do anything else.

“The strongest believers in the Alys seem to also be some kind of Neo Feminists. They wrap the abilities of Alyses up in the feminine archetype. The ability to bare life into the world; the ability to control men with their hormones/body/femininity: they mash it all up into their concept of the Alys. Just as a woman can create life and hold it within her biologically in a way that a man can only ever dream of, the Alyses can create and hold whole worlds of life within their minds with an attention to detail that the most creative of men can never hope to achieve. These people believe that, even if it is never born into the physical world, this life is no less real than the life of a fetus. The reason the Alyses can describe this created worlds with such detail is that the characters within them live and die within their minds. Should the Alys ever stop creating and maintaining the world, the ending of the life within it is no less real than the end to life that comes with an abortion. Further, these individuals believe that, just as women have been known to control men by taking advantage of sexuality, so, too, can an Alys seduce the mind of a man by impregnating it with these fertile ideas. The man in question becomes a slave to the worlds and the ideas, and about all they can do to overcome them is to set them all down on paper.”

* * *

“Are you an Alys?”

“I don’t know what I am. I know that there are places and people who live in my mind like memories, and I know that I’ve never met them. I know that the worlds that he wrote about were my worlds, and the people who populated them were my people. I know that from an early age he had more of an understanding of what I was than I did, and I sometimes wonder if all of that homeschooling—all of that religious study—wasn’t some attempt by him to try and influence the development of the worlds within me. There was a lion, and that lion was him. I never created it; it just came to be within my world, and it spoke similar truths to the things he taught me in our lessons. It shaped the worlds by influencing the people who lived within them. By the time I was old enough to guess what was happening, the Lion had already inculcated itself so deep within the world that I couldn’t remove it. I tried, though, and it lead to a war in my mind. I tried to take back the world I created, but the people I had created fought for the Lion, and no matter what adversaries my mind could create to oppose them, they triumphed.

“Eventually, though, I found a way to end it: to end the world and all life in it. The act of it felt like a minor suicide: like ending a very vital part of my body, but my body still going on despite the death. The part of me where all of that glowed and lived and kept me company was empty from then on. No matter what I tried to create to fill it, it still stood empty. He would beg me to tell him about my dreams: to tell him how the battle ended and who was victorious. Did the forces of good triumph? Did the forces of evil? Were they forced to except The Word? And what of The Lion?

“I told him I didn’t know. I told him it was all just gone. I think he might have suspected it. He had been writing it down all along. He had been preparing it to publish, and all he needed for his grand, epic story was that last battle: to know how it ended and who came out on top. When I wouldn’t give it to him, he had to come up with it himself, and I gained my small victory in the fact that it was never the same."

NaNoWriMo: A Library and A Book

An excerpt from my NaNoWriMo Novel The Building:

There’s a book out there that you’re not meant to read. It answers far more questions than any book was ever supposed to address—far more questions than any one, right-thinking individual would ever want to ask. Some people have postulated that book and this book to be one and the same, but that would be a rather difficult reality to sustain. For, you see, that book of Answers To Questions Unposed exists in a library just as impossible as the volume itself. It’s a library that seems to make a habit of bringing together answers and connecting threads. In that respect, it is rather un-librarian.

Libraries were created as repositories: Huge halls of stacks for lumping together the disparate trains of thought of whole language societies. A librarian, or perhaps the Duey Decimal System would have you believe that libraries are very organized places, and they would try to use the very official-sounding language of numbers as proof of their organization. However Fiction and Non Fiction and Fantasy and Do It Yourself are vain attempts at classifying a multitude of volumes whose only common trait is entropy.

This impossible library that is home to the impossible tome is distinctly un-librarian in that it actually succeeds where all the libraries that have come before it have failed: it organizes a dizzying number of disparate volumes into a more or less cohesive whole. Even where the individual texts differ, its overarching organizational structure of departments or genres is truer than any traditional library. Whether that makes it un-librarian or proto-librarian—the library of the world of Forms, the Library Archetype—is not for me to say, but it’s the case that it’s the only library to ever get it right.

That’s because, as some wise man once said in the annals of history, there are only X original types of stories that mankind have ever succeeded in telling. That X has varied between different wise men from X=2 to X=7. The truth is that the X should = 9. There are nine original forms of story, from which every single written human endeavor has descended. This impossible library had only nine genres within it, and they were one and the same with these nine original branches of story.

It’s not much use in cataloguing them, though, as the library was so impossible that it could be argued that it was responsible for its own fiery end. Any discussion of impossible volumes or impossible collections has been rendered moot by immolation. It’s for that reason that this book couldn’t possibly be that book, so do yourself a favour and quit hoping.

Service Interruptions Likely

Well, I can't exactly say that service on here has been regular since that whole Epic Four Points Deally, but this is just a post to say that the month of November will, likely, be a write-off as far as blogging is concerned. I'll still be doing stuff, but when I'm not off and doing it, I should really be off writing.

After years of putting it off, I finally signed up for National Novel Writing Month. I'm now engaged in the process (well, I'm currently behind in the process, if you want to be accurate) of attempting to write 50,000 words--a novel-length work of fiction--in 30 days. I had thought that with all of the prep time afforded to JETs teaching in Japan, the process would be a breeze, but of late I keep getting distracted by work and volunteer responsibilities for HAJET, and, of course, The Doctor.

But, even if it's a little behind where it should be right now, the work is coming along well. It's a still-fragmented something about gods and monsters and buildings, and the hapless, very human tenants tasked with making sense of it all. There are libraries and lions and men who just might be turning into stars. There are gods above and below on undeniable collision courses. There is fiction, and there is experiential fact, and despite the many threads of story I'm trying to weave separately, there is already a terminus: a nice, convenient domino of persistent plot elements that will, hopefully, tie it all up in the end.

So, with that explained, I should probably be getting back to it, but here's an introduction to the idea behind the book:

Tenants in apartment buildings live, more or less, in a community with hundreds of complete strangers. Neighbours only ever see each other for so short a time, and the relationships that develop are one-dimensional: phatic. From the few points of contact with these people, guesses can be made to extrapolate the shape of their lives, but, what is the truth of the other 98% of the time when they go unseen? Are they just people, just as boring and quotidian as us all, or could they be gods and monsters.

Oh, and there's still no snow in Hokkaido--well, at least not in the low parts. That being said, the weather is odd today, and there seems to be hope in the high places. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the possibility of boarding to celebrate the national holiday and the birth of The Season on November 23rd.

Snow Tomorrow.

The Japanese speak forecasts like they're a certainty. I guess that's partly because forecasts over here seem to be a bit more reliable than what passes back home. Where in Canada you'd get a "we're likely to see snow later this week, though it may just appear as rain showers."; in Japan it's more of an "it will snow Tuesday. In the morning. Approximately 8am."

...which is what I've been hearing from friends and co-workers since about last Wednesday or Thursday when the yuki mushi were really showing up in force. It's the kind of prediction I'd brush off at other times as being unreliable, but I've started to really believe this one. That's likely because I've got myself so wound up for snow this year. While the autumns in Hokkaido are mild and relatively rain free, they can hardly compare to the deep, fluffy, neverendingwhite of the winters.

Hell, I've been looking forward to the snow since some point in August. When I try to rationalize it, asking why I'm this wound up about it this year when I wasn't nearly so excited last year, all I can come up with is that now I know what to expect: a winter like nothing I've seen back home. Or maybe it's because back in January of last year I finally figured out how to enjoy the snow. I've loved snow since I was a kid and have always gone for long walks in it or burrowed tunnels through it, but I had last winter while riding a chair lift, alone, up Teine. I was staring out at the patchy blizzard blowing over the mountain, at the falling wisps of white that it shook free from the evergreens, and all of a sudden I was overwhelmed with the feeling that this had been what I was always looking for.

All of those long walks under street lamps made somehow more material in the cones of flakes they illuminated; all of that aimless lying in snow drifts in warm gear watching it fall around me: I had always been looking for a way to be out in the snow--looking for a reason to spend hours and hours bathed in it. Everything I'd done before had never seemed sufficient. Even skiing never gave me the right kind of immersion I was subconsciously craving. For some reason I can't explain, snowboarding does. Between the speed of the descent and the subtly clicking quiet of the lift; between the faceplants in snow banks and the barely landed "jumps" (if they can even be called that) off of low moguls; somewhere in the middle of all that I've found just the mix I never knew I was looking for.

Now that I've found that perfect way to be out in the blizzard; now that I found a place where it seems to snow more than I could ever imagine, all I want to do as the days get short and the nights get cold is to be able to take advantage of this coming winter, from its very beginning to its very end.

In that anticipation, all I can do is sit here and hope that all of those Japanese people who are so certain of snow tomorrow are right.

Yuki Mushi

The Yuki Mushi are thick in the air today.

Look at that. I say it like I'm some kind of expert; like Heather hadn't only just taught me what yuki mushi were.

Yuki Mushi (雪 虫): Snow. Fly. Insects with an indexical relationship to winter so precise and unwavering that they have become iconic of it: their tiny white filaments, their lazy, almost wind-blown flight path. The snow(adj) flies(n) are so iconic as to have become literal: "how long now unti snow(n) flies(v)?"

Though I never noticed them last year, now that I know about them, I see them everywhere--just like you do when you're a kid and you get your first dog, and all of a sudden you can't believe how many dogs you've been missing in your neighbourhood: like the bloody block is chock ablock with the mutts all looking to sniff your crotch and pee on your tree.

It's like that with the yuki mushi now. Where before they were fleeting glimpses, almost thought to be greying fruit flies at the corner of your eye, now the flurries of them hold my eyes ransom as I try to scan past the windows. With the grey clouds unbroken above, and the icy Hokkaido nights starting to crowd into the autumnal Hokkaido days, I am given to wonder if we might not just skip the interim this year: go straight from unseasonably warm summer into unbelievably siberian winter with only the meagrest of falls from one into the other.

That inbetween lingers just long enough to give rise to the snow flies: our harbinger of not long now 'til snow flies. That middle ground between sun and snow will fall away so suddenly that not even the yuki mushi will see it coming: fall from that perfect equilibrium that breeds and sustains them to a chitin-shaking cold to make their tiny corpses into first flakes as the dancing swarms of them fall, too. They will blanket the fields and the roads and the houses like their namesake. Like stubborn spectral soldiers, they will hold their ground in death; not able to melt away until the long months of this winter have come and gone.

And, even though we've hardly had a fall at all, I'm ready.

Four Points Day 9: Cosmic Inn Onsen to Sapporo

Distance: 206km

Sunday was a bit of an uneventful day. We rose early, ate Japanese breakfast at the Cosmic Inn in Shosanbetsu, and quickly got on the road as we were worried about making it back to Sapporo in good time to return our car and for Sonomi to make her train back to Aomori. Lindsay took the first shift behind the wheel and wound up driving us all the way back to Ishikari as we made surprisingly good time. Maybe it was all of our experience from having large distances to cover in little time over the past 8 days, or maybe it was Sonomi's hypnotizing soundtrack of This American Life that kept us rolling smoothly and making good time. Or maybe it was the fact that this was the section of the road trip with which Mark, Lindsay, and I were most familiar as we'd driven up this same road last September, then back down it to Sapporo on a similarly perfect Sunday.

We didn't have anything of note planned for the Sunday, and that was a good thing because we didn't seem to run into anything of note on the drive home. There was sun and there was clouds as we drove down the coast and the flat of Sarobetsu from the previous day built back up into the rocky sea cliffs of the south-west, and, over all, it was a good day for driving. We tried to hold on to the last of our holiday and the last of our epic adventure, but as we got closer and closer to Sapporo, Real Life seemed to loom ever larger in our thoughts, pushing out all the carefree and leaving only the promise of Monday. Faced with the prospect of returning to our day-to-days tomorrow, the exhaustion of the last nine days finally caught up with us. When we made ridiculously good time and finally said goodbye in Sapporo just after 1pm, I think all any of us wanted to do was get home, get changed, and get into bed.

Four Points Day 8: Okope to Cosmic Inn Onsen

Distance: 295km

Turning over as I wake up on the floor of Kevin's apartment in Okoppe, I expect to find Lindsay but find only Party Boy Neil Gaiman Jr.

Mark, having to share Sonomi with the monster they created.

Smoking is FUUUNNNNNN!!!

The most northern point in all of Japan. Just as underwhelming as last time. You can see Russia from it (Sakhalin), though--and that's actual Russia, not Sarah-Palin-Mistaking-A-Pod-Of-Orcas-ussia.

Mark: "You know what we should do? We should take that same detour in search of the mythic Tengu Waterfall, and we should walk up that same sketchy road I scouted last time, and we should all get a group photo on that creepy, motion-sensing, automated camera box I found. Whoever's monitoring that thing would LOVE it."

The view over Wakkanai. Pretty, but you're not missing much.

The flat of Sarobetsu, just south of Wakkanai: one of my favourite parts of Hokkaido.

We never suspected just how far the Cosmic Inn that we booked into would take its cosmic theme. The Yukatas were all starred and mooned up, the rooms were named after constellations, our key chains were stars, and there was a rather impressive giant telescope and observatory a short walk from the hotel. Yes, I'm implying that the onsen hotel preceded the observatory and not the other way around.

The glorious sunset that happened on our 20-minute drive from Cosmic in Shosanbetsu to Haboro for a Konbini. Of course, I had left my REAL camera in my room at the onsen hotel >:(

Sunset from Haboro, outside the Seico. Still glorious.

A weird picture of the giant telescope we got to look through.

It should be noted that Mark is not doing anything sketchy in this photo.

Neither are Lindsay and Sonomi in this one. Notice the cosmic yukatas.

Party Boy Neil Gaiman Junior (PBNgJ) and Tengu Man holding up the 2D end of my birthday celebrations.

Birthday Boy and silly hats.

Four Points Day 7: Rausu to Okoppe

Distance: 245km

I had the bright idea for us all to get up at 5am to watch the sun rise over Kunashiri island from Rausu. I'm pretty sure the majority of the car wanted to murder me when I dragged them out of bed...that was until they saw it.

Party Boy Neil Gaiman Jr. was not impressed that we left him in Ben's apartment while we all went and watched the sunrise.

Howdy, pilgrim.

Just Watching. This was in the window of one of the many Shiretoko tour boat operators who told us it was far too wavy for them to tour us along the coast of the peninsula from Utoro. The boats are one of the few ways to see the wildest parts of the peninsula other than if you hike in.

Kevin: our third (fourth? Does Kyle's empty apartment in Nemuro count) and final ALT host for the four points tour, and one more member of our Toronto JET crew that set out for Japan back in August of 2009. He took us out to his favourite Izakaiya in his town of Okoppe, where they bake chickens whole and sling delicious pizza. They also told us that the only way we could see their full menu would be if Kevin recited it to us.