Free?

I'll admit it, I want to be read. Yeah writing is fun sometimes and it would be nice if I could get some cash from it a some point – not very likely – but really I just want people to read my books.

I think that's why I've been so happy about the Amazon three days promotion. It's really nice to see what appears to be a large number of people downloading “Bardo” and I do hope most of them will read it at some point as well. It might even lead people on to my other books.

The strange thing is, when you tell people you just want people to read your books, they often say, “well make it free all the time then”. But that's the funny thing people, and I include myself in this, wont touch free books. I released the “Truth about Faeries” free on Smashwords and despite good reviews and it's presence at the top of the free charts, no one seems to download it. I guess it's a suspicion thing. If it's free then I'm not going to touch it because there must be something wrong with it. Sadly this is often the case. The reason the Amazon thing works so well is that it's only free for now. It's a deal, a sale and who wants to miss out on bargain?

I think that's what's been putting me off writing recently: the hunt to find readership. I mean I'm not the next Oscar Wilde, but I do think that my books are pretty good. Sure they could be tighter in places and the early releases could have done with a better tidy up here and there. But I do feel I have something to say and fairly good way of saying it. But if I'm having to use all my effort to get people to read the books in the first place.... well.

An example would be a friend of mine who I went to visit once. Now this person had helped me a lot with the book both in terms of the ideas as well as being connected in other ways that I'm not going to mention for the sake of anonymity, yet despite having been involved and having bought the book, they hadn't bothered to read it. “Not had time,” was the reason, but I couldn’t help but notice that they were carrying around a well thumbed Star Trek novel. Now of course people have the right to do what they like with their free time, but for me it was a early taste of the stark reality of writing. If someone, a friend, who was so invested in the book wasn't going to read it, why would a stranger?

So should I keep at it? Will I keep writing? I don't know. I think it will depend in large on the success of “Bardo” and the results of releasing a book for free for a short time. Will it rise with the digits in the price column? Or will it sink back into the obscurity from whence it came. I'll let you know when I find out.  

21st Century Education

While rather ironically taught in twentieth Century education style, the course I had today at school on twenty-first Century English did make me think. The whole idea was that thanks to technology, students have now moved beyond the good old fashioned teaching style and that new things have to been taken into consideration to really deal with these changes and develop students for the real world. That means taking into account things like the Internet and social networking.

It's great that academia is starting acknowledging that things are changing and I think any step towards modernisation of education is a step in the right direction. However, it does seem that the kind of education that they are talking about is something that would have been suitable for when I was at high school and their in lies the rub: academia does not live in the present, but only in the past. It's a twentieth century model of research trying to find ways to deal with twenty first century children, rather than becoming twenty first century itself and it doesn't work any more.

Think about it. Most people with doctorates are no spring chickens to begin with. I mean they might have profile on facebook or twitter, but do they really use it? Is it actually a part of their lives? Maybe, maybe not, but it doesn't matter, they can still study it, right? After all you don't have to have been a drug addict to understand drug addiction. Then again, I bet it helps.

But that's not really the main problem. The thing is, that the world is changing faster than ever before. When someone prepares a study on education and technology, it's going to be out of date by the time it gets to publication, never mind by the time that it filters down through the system and into the actual classroom. So what we are getting now are educational methods based on students who in many cases have already graduated and even if it is current, we are teaching them to deal with the technology as it is today. Not the technology as it will be by the time they have finished their education.  To put it into context, when I started school, around 1987, I don't think I had ever seen a mobile phone or used the internet. Almost thirty years later the thought of not having a net connection scares me.

So what to do about it? Well of course we could try to modernise academia, although that in itself seems like quite a mine field and far outside my world as a lowly teacher. As for predicting future technologies, while fun, it does seems like a rather hit or miss idea - Myspace was a sure thing for a while. For me though it seems that the best thing I can do is help students learn to adapt, because that, more than any skill is what's going to be needed if students hope to do well in any future no matter what technology they encounter. Maybe it would be better then if we worked on universal education - skill that are useful no matter the technology, or lack of - rather than trying to keep up with the current trends.

An general interview about writing with some nice questions and good responses (on the interviews part.) Nice to get feed back to answers. You don't often see that.

http://www.kevinrau.com/i/ChrisMcKenna.asp

Thoughts on being published for the second time.

I remember the first time I seen my book “Paradigms” on Amazon, there was certain amount of giddiness about the whole thing. It was the end to a long journey from that first day that I sat in a café and started writing. I guess I thought that with the second novel “Bardo” it would be the same thing. Now I have to admit there is still a certain amount of excitement about the whole thing, but I do feel much more calm, even distant from it this time.

It is not, in itself, a bad thing I think. I know what to expect. I know who to send out copies of my book to when I want to get reviews and I have a good deal of faith in the new publishers marking ability. It gives me a sense of comfort with the whole thing. Similar I suppose to playing a sport for the first time and being a regular - the excitement is less, but the nuances more. 

Do people feel this way about their second child I wonder?

Hopefully this time I'll be able to enjoy the process a bit more. Last time it was rather intense, and while that was quite fun, it might be nice to experience publishing in a much calmer relaxed way.  

That's a shame.

We've been having a bit of trouble here at the university of late with students, and others, destroying the trees, as well as the flower beds below. The problem is that the trees have fruits that people want to get to and they don't seem to mind what damage is done on the way. The strange thing I've found, is that when talking to students they seem to know that it's wrong to steal the fruit and yet they do it anyway. This sort contradiction seems to come up again and again with Chinese people. Yet it seems that their general idea of morality is not that different from my own: theft is wrong, killing is wrong, destroying the environment is wrong. There seems to be no disagreement on these things, expect when you start getting into nationalist politics.

One thing I've been thinking about is that I could be part of the shame culture of China as opposed to the guilt culture that I've grown up in. So what's the difference between shame and guilt?

Well, a guilt culture is one where you take personal responsibility for your own moral choices, while the a shame culture is one when guilt is determined, not by your actions, but by others observation or discovery of your actions. In the example of the students and the fruit, the action only really becomes “wrong” if they are caught doing it. Where as in a guilt culture they would feel bad for stealing the fruit, observed or not.

Of course this is an over simplification, I'm pretty sure that Chinese people feel guilty about certain actions. Likewise I'm sure there are plenty of examples in the west of where some actions are based on shame and not guilt - think of all the things you do behind closed doors that are not immoral, but you wouldn't like others to see. You wouldn't feel guilty if someone walked in, but you might feel shame – unless you like others to watch. But It does seem that there is a difference of degrees between China and my own feelings.

I'm no anthropologist, but I would guess that it has some connection with judeo-christian religions as compared with other eastern religions, especially Confucianism. Although UK has pretty much abandoned its Christian heritage, just as China has abandoned it's own religions. They do still seem to be the yard stick by which we measure our own morality. Confucianist teachings were based on the concept of shame and honor, while Christian religion is more based on personal guilt and I imagine that we've carried these into the present day.

I also wonder if this extends higher into the actions of the Chinese government in general. When it comes to certain things, especially human rights, it seems that they are only wrong (they only bring shame upon China) when other countries point out that they are doing wrong. Until then everything is fine. It only seems to be the fact that other countries have noticed that brings about negative feeling - It's not the actions that they are taking themselves that are wrong. In which case it might explain why they go to such great lengths to stop people noticing and why they are so keen on people “not interfering with the internal policies of China.”   

Spring

Spring! I long for spring! Those sedentary days, where your body has started to wake from the chill of winter. The first touch of warm gentle sun light against your skin. The thrill of wearing a light jacket for the first time in months. To feel warm again, not just in the body but in the heart. Where is Spring?

I met Elle in the autumn and had I known then that she would be the last I would still have been more than satisfied. She wasn’t the prettiest girl I had ever been with, but there was something to her: a confident glow, a friendly warmth. Besides as age comes, looks become less important to a man. I had my fun in my twenties with vapid pretty girls. Elle was not one of them. I knew that from the very start.

“I’m looking for someone to take me home and teach me some things,” she had said to me on our first chance meeting in a run-down bar. It was a tempting offer, but I’d turned her down in the hope of leaving myself open for something more meaningful with another girl; I was of bored of one night stands.  

 “Ah, you passed my first test!” she’d said and I think from right then both of us knew.

 We never slept together that night, nor on our date the following weekend, but in time it happened. The fact that it’s the least important night of all the time we spent together was a testament, not to our lack of enjoyment, but to rapture of all our other experiences. The sex was more of an expectation, something that we had to do as a couple, a symbol, but our true intercourse was walking silently in falling leaves; cooking dinner together on Halloween and all those little glances. Those little glances, nothing was more special than those pure moments when in the midst of the chaotic world our eyes would find each other and for an instance everything seemed to stop.

Then winter came. It was mild at first, and Elle joked about skipping real winter all together. She would have loved nothing more. Elle thrived on the sun, her mood tied with its brightness. That’s not to say I didn’t love her on the dark days. But those sunny afternoons was when she was herself more than at any other time. And who couldn’t love someone so at peace with themselves? Someone so natural and free? Someone so happy just to be alive and there in that very moment? Maybe that’s why she did it. Maybe she was afraid she would never be herself again.

On Christmas I thought Elle would have her wish of skipping winter and I joked about giving her the bright sunny day as her present. It was even warm enough that we ate our dinner outside, pretending not to feel the chill winds that would occasionally blow in from the north. We were happy to imagine it would never come and were in love enough to believe in our own fantasies. We cuddle together as the dark came and drank wine and gorged ourselves on the remaining scraps of food, only returning to the house when it was fully dark and the star speckled winter sky told us that we could no longer pretend it wasn’t getting cold.

It was the second week of January when the real winter came. On that day it suddenly snowed and the next it was too cold to snow. Everything froze: the water in the lake, the milk on the door steps and the heating pipes in the houses. Each day Elle and I would huddle together for warmth in the bedroom piled under as many blankets as we could, going out only for work and supplies and each day Elle would ask me if I could not give her another sunny day as present. It started to make me sad that I couldn’t, as each day I seen a little more of her happiness drain away. But there was nothing we could but wait for spring and that first bright sunny day.  

February passed, no warmer than January, but in many ways we had learned to cope and were warmed by the thought of the coming season. I could hear the optimism in Elle’s voice as we planned a thousand little trips we would make in the coming year. First we intended to head north to Fort William and climb the hills there are soon as the snows were melted or maybe even head south to the Lake District where things might be a little warmer. Neither plan happened.

It wasn’t until the end of March that people really started to ask questions. Most had put winter running late down to the fact that it hadn’t really started until January and people may have waited longer had there been the slightest sign of winter abating, but as the coldest April in recorded history rolled in the discontent started. The government gave reassurances, while televisions debated, but I missed most of it. I was too worried about Elle. She was not moppy or bitchy, but to watch her was sad.  It was like someone had stolen the life from her. The hardest part was to see her trying to fight it as she put on a brave face. It was like she was trapped inside her own body, trying to scream her way out from the inside and getting more and more exhausted with each attempt. She talked little and when she did it was only to bring up our plans for after the winter. She was not alone. Everyone was feeling it, like something in our bodies knew that it was wrong. For me everything felt grey and flat and there was some ancient compulsion in me that kept telling me to move on and find better hunting grounds. Had I not been so busy trying to keep Elle’s spirits up it probably would have been worse for me. Maybe it was her that saved me in the end.      

In June the announcement came that would change the world for forever. There would be no more springs, no more summers. No more days of warm sunshine on the face. No more chances to wear light jackets on a stroll around the lake. It was over for all of us. It would be the end of everything. Television, radio and the internet were filled scientists and their explanations as to why it had all ended. “Humans had been the cause.”  “It’s part of a natural cycle”. No one cared. Science had failed and would die with the rest of us.

Elle killed herself a week later. I think I had known it was coming. The way she ate at the dinner table as if savouring each bite. The gentle kiss she gave me as we fell asleep together in each other’s arms. When I heard her get up in the early hours of the morning, I didn’t try to stop her. How could I? What could I tell her, that it would all get better? We both knew that wasn’t true. The spring would never come and she would never be herself again without it.  She would never be the Elle I loved again without it.

I survived. Like the others I looted the supermarkets and horded my food. Those that didn’t passed away with the rest of civilisation. I guess they were the smartest ones. I really don’t know what I am living for. The cold? The solitude? The hunger? I would end it all now but for the thought that maybe they were wrong and spring will come next year, if only I survive. If I can, then maybe I’ll feel the heat of her hand on my skin again. Maybe I’ll feel the warmth in my heart just one more time. Maybe I’m just waiting for Elle. 

Here at the end of everything.

Being here in China and watching the news back home, I can't help but feel that I am in a privileged position for watching the end of the West. On the net I watch the growing pessimism from back home at the seemingly unstoppable rise of national debts and unemployment. While here in China I listen to the unswayable optimism and watch as new businesses and buildings rise up around me. I know it's not a certainty yet, but at the moment all the signs point to the end for the west.

So would it be such at terrible thing for west to end? Probably not. As a teacher I would give the West a passing grade for what he has achieved, but he's hardly been a Prefect. I mean his creativity and production has been quite good, but he could do with spending a bit more time on his understanding of environment consequences and he really needs to stop picking on the other kids.

For me the really worry is the alternative. If China was brining a new way of doing things to world then I would be more supportive of its rise, but if anything it seems like a step back. China has coupled the old communist autocracy with current rampant capitalism to create a highly productive country – economically speaking. And in the process has thrown away the things that were good about old communism (economic equality) and the current system (universal suffrage). If anything China today looks much more like industrial Britain, with a small, rich upper-class and a large poor working-class. True it is not the demon that many make it out to be, but it's far from being a paragon society or anything that the world should aspire to.   

There is still hope of course. China still has a whole host of problems that it needs to sort out before it can truly become dominant. Not least that as the West falls it will have to find alternative paradigms for its economy. Currently, the majority of Chinese revenue comes from manufacturing, the demand for which comes primarily from the West. Can it alter it's economy in time before the demand ends?

There is also the possibly that as China develops it will move from it's current system into something more appealing. Big changes have happened already and there are signs of possible improvements in the areas that cause me the most concern. Of course, only time will tell.