Writing is like painting a still life. There is what it should look like and there is what I am capable of painting. I know how it should look, how the colours should blend. I can see the outline of shadows and the glare of light. I can see it but recreating it, pinning it down and forcing it to paper is quite another thing.
The added difficulty is of course that I can't actually see it, only imagine it. The story that I have envisaged poses a question and it is my task to answer it, working through problems of words and character, slowly drawing out its true form which has been there all along waiting for me to wake up and realise it. It nags and it tugs and it never fully stops hassling until it's perfect, and of course it's never perfect.
It puts me on edge. In the way I used to be when I was at university - there is always something I should be doing, always a puzzle to unravel. I can never fully relax or forget, like a forgotten name on the tip of my tongue, my mind is rolling it and prodding it, trying to solve the problem.
I love it and I hate it and I'm not remotely convinced I'm capable of writing another book, even though I know it's there, waiting patiently for me to write it.
It should also be noted that my first book is far from finished, I'm just waiting for a kindly editor to come along and tell me what to do.
Too much information
We are once again, tentatively and nervously, putting in an offer on a house. Our realtor suggested that before we did so, we checked out crime stats and sex offenders in the area. Not that sex offenders can't move, but just to check there wasn't one next door, because, y'know, that might hurt resale value. So along we trundled to the sex offenders register and I don't think I'll ever be quite the same again.
Because I had no idea that the sex offenders register here not only tells me the name of any level 3 (the highest level) sex offenders local to any area I search , but also their address, list of crimes and provides me a photograph.
Am I alone in failing to see how this helps anyone?
It doesn't help me - unless I'm prepared to live my life in fear and to memorise photos and addresses, and even then that doesn't insulate me from possible attacks, because there's such a thing as first-time offender or un-prosecuted offender or not-having-eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head.
Perhaps parents would feel it helps them - perhaps they'd like to tell their children who to avoid, or would like to not buy houses on streets close to pedophiles. I mean, no parent is going to intentionally buy a house next door to a pedophile, so maybe in some way it helps parents. But doesn't that also generate a false sense of security (for all the reasons that I wouldn't be safe even if I committed the sex offenders registry to memory)? And why, if it's just about where to live, can it not just be a dot on a map rather than a face with a name?
But what shocks me the most about the whole thing is the complete lack of trust in any system of law that it displays. What it says is that a) these people are not (and will never be) rehabilitated and b) that there is no such thing as suitable punishment. It also says that the institutions that should be safeguarding children - the ones who should be doing background checks before hiring staff - are not to be trusted.
How can anyone ever re-enter society and move on and not re-offend if that society is watching them, ostracising them, waiting for them to re-offend? I know that sex offenders do re-offend, I know that allowing them to reintegrate into society isn't a sure-fire way by any means to stop re-offending, but it seems to me that creating a sub-class of people, publicising addresses and photographs is a sure-fire way to generate bitterness and hatred and to encourage re-offending.
In the UK, as I understand it, the sex offenders register is accessible by certain institutions and police do keep track of where sex offenders move to. This also, of course, shows a lack of faith in rehabilitation, but it's probably a realistic lack of faith, and we do need to protect our children.
There is a voluntary organization called 'Circles of Support and Accountability' that operates in the UK, Canada and some parts of the US whereby 3 - 4 trained volunteers form a "Circle of Support and Accountability" around an ex-offender, with the aim of preventing re-offending. A study of the scheme in California showed that participants in the scheme had 83% less sexual re-offending than the matched comparison group. Obviously there are factors such as that the ex-offenders who choose to take part do not want to re-offend, but that can not account for the entire difference in re-offending rates.
I've never written a blog post like this before, and I probably won't again, but I was so shocked by the discovery of this register with its names and addresses and photographs that I wanted to share it with you. I know one thing - I only looked at two of the names, out of curiosity that it was possible more than anything, but I don't feel safer. I feel less safe, and nothing has actually changed in my area beyond this knowledge. I have to say I think America's got it wrong on this one.
Because I had no idea that the sex offenders register here not only tells me the name of any level 3 (the highest level) sex offenders local to any area I search , but also their address, list of crimes and provides me a photograph.
Am I alone in failing to see how this helps anyone?
It doesn't help me - unless I'm prepared to live my life in fear and to memorise photos and addresses, and even then that doesn't insulate me from possible attacks, because there's such a thing as first-time offender or un-prosecuted offender or not-having-eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head.
Perhaps parents would feel it helps them - perhaps they'd like to tell their children who to avoid, or would like to not buy houses on streets close to pedophiles. I mean, no parent is going to intentionally buy a house next door to a pedophile, so maybe in some way it helps parents. But doesn't that also generate a false sense of security (for all the reasons that I wouldn't be safe even if I committed the sex offenders registry to memory)? And why, if it's just about where to live, can it not just be a dot on a map rather than a face with a name?
But what shocks me the most about the whole thing is the complete lack of trust in any system of law that it displays. What it says is that a) these people are not (and will never be) rehabilitated and b) that there is no such thing as suitable punishment. It also says that the institutions that should be safeguarding children - the ones who should be doing background checks before hiring staff - are not to be trusted.
How can anyone ever re-enter society and move on and not re-offend if that society is watching them, ostracising them, waiting for them to re-offend? I know that sex offenders do re-offend, I know that allowing them to reintegrate into society isn't a sure-fire way by any means to stop re-offending, but it seems to me that creating a sub-class of people, publicising addresses and photographs is a sure-fire way to generate bitterness and hatred and to encourage re-offending.
In the UK, as I understand it, the sex offenders register is accessible by certain institutions and police do keep track of where sex offenders move to. This also, of course, shows a lack of faith in rehabilitation, but it's probably a realistic lack of faith, and we do need to protect our children.
There is a voluntary organization called 'Circles of Support and Accountability' that operates in the UK, Canada and some parts of the US whereby 3 - 4 trained volunteers form a "Circle of Support and Accountability" around an ex-offender, with the aim of preventing re-offending. A study of the scheme in California showed that participants in the scheme had 83% less sexual re-offending than the matched comparison group. Obviously there are factors such as that the ex-offenders who choose to take part do not want to re-offend, but that can not account for the entire difference in re-offending rates.
I've never written a blog post like this before, and I probably won't again, but I was so shocked by the discovery of this register with its names and addresses and photographs that I wanted to share it with you. I know one thing - I only looked at two of the names, out of curiosity that it was possible more than anything, but I don't feel safer. I feel less safe, and nothing has actually changed in my area beyond this knowledge. I have to say I think America's got it wrong on this one.
that buzz of homesickness
This week, homesickness returned. It's never fully and completely gone, but since those first few home-sick months it has retreated to a low buzz in the background, entirely manageable and mostly ignorable. Until it comes back. And when it does come back, it hits me in the chest and knocks the air out of me, leaving me feeling incomplete and lost in this foreign life of mine. Longing for familiar voices, food, friends.
So I mope around the house, with Jeremy reminding me that it's all entirely hormonal (it's been 'that' time of the month afterall). 'That doesn't matter'. I say. 'I still feel crap'. 'But it's got to help to know it's not real, it's not forever', is his point. It's a valid point.
But real or hormone fueled, I hate this feeling. It makes me feel insubstantial, awkward, unwilling to be in a group of people that are not MY people, because although I do have some people here, I do not have a gaggle of them.
The homesickness has retreated again, back to its normal level of buzz. But I am left a little startled by how quickly it swept in, scared by the realisation that it is never far away - always at striking distance.
But then I suppose I knew that already.
So I mope around the house, with Jeremy reminding me that it's all entirely hormonal (it's been 'that' time of the month afterall). 'That doesn't matter'. I say. 'I still feel crap'. 'But it's got to help to know it's not real, it's not forever', is his point. It's a valid point.
But real or hormone fueled, I hate this feeling. It makes me feel insubstantial, awkward, unwilling to be in a group of people that are not MY people, because although I do have some people here, I do not have a gaggle of them.
The homesickness has retreated again, back to its normal level of buzz. But I am left a little startled by how quickly it swept in, scared by the realisation that it is never far away - always at striking distance.
But then I suppose I knew that already.
So
So I managed (somehow, inexplicably, miraculously) to get an agent. A living breathing agent who likes my book and believes it has potential and sends me editorial comments so that I can make it better and more publishable (or maybe just publishable).
An agent.
Wow.
Thank you God, thank you friends, thank you Jeremy for making unemployment = time-to-write rather than time-to-move-in-with-my-parents. Of course this doesn't mean that I actually will get published, but it means I have a better chance than if it was just little old me sending of my manuscript to publishers without another edit and without making it publishier (I've noticed that the more I get into writing, the less attention I pay to whether words are actually words).
That's all.
An agent.
Wow.
Thank you God, thank you friends, thank you Jeremy for making unemployment = time-to-write rather than time-to-move-in-with-my-parents. Of course this doesn't mean that I actually will get published, but it means I have a better chance than if it was just little old me sending of my manuscript to publishers without another edit and without making it publishier (I've noticed that the more I get into writing, the less attention I pay to whether words are actually words).
That's all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)