The Big Bad Wolf

            Earlier this week, I saw a comment using “the big bad wolf” as a metaphor for a villainous person. As a fan of wolves, my brain started to rant about how wolves are continually maligned, even in this enlightened day and age. Knowing that wolves will avoid humans and only attack them out of desperation makes it somewhat ludicrous to use them as a metaphor for what we deem to be evil.

            Or does it?

            As I considered, the realization hit me that this comparison is far more apt than people realize. When we talk about the big bad wolf, we’re referring to our perceptions on the surface of a situation. More than that, we’re stereotyping, just as we do when viewing any other group as villainous.

            Let’s take a closer look at this metaphor, shall we? The wolf. This is a cunning predator; large and fearsome. It is easy to understand why humans came to fear them. Then came a time when wolves lurked around villages, preying on the weak, because they were starving. This is where the metaphor started. And, yes, wolves are looking fairly evil.

            However, we forget the part where the wolves were starving. They were desperate for food and just trying to survive. In fact, they still avoided attacking humans whenever possible, preferring to loot corpses. In normal circumstances, as I mentioned before, wolves avoid humans as much as possible. They are intelligent creatures, and also very social. Within their own packs, they are friendly and playful. Yes, they are masters of teamwork and extremely efficient hunters, but then, so are humans. The difference is that wolves hunt only for food, and they avoid letting anything go to waste.

            So, our metaphor of the big bad wolf shows us someone who is vicious because of their most visible behaviour. It shows us a stereotype of the worst aspects of a species from a time when they were struggling. However, it fails to show us what they are really like. In normal life, with normal circumstances, wolves are very different creatures.

            Considering this metaphor, my view on it has shifted. When we point at a person (or at a whole people) and say, “That is a big bad wolf!” we are commenting on the most visible behaviour. We are ignoring the parts that we can’t see, and very often don’t even go searching for them. In our ignorance, we have no idea what is motivating the wolf, or forcing it into its current position.

            Yes, I now believe that the misunderstood wolf is the perfect metaphor for that which we fear.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Faraway Friends

            One of the great opportunities we have in our modern society is the simplicity of communicating through the internet. We take it for granted now, but just a couple generations ago, it didn’t even exist. If you wanted to talk to someone on the other side of the world, you either wrote a letter (and waited forever for the response to return) or made an expensive phone call (although, if you go back just a little further, even that wasn’t available).

            Now we just pop open the internet and within moments we’re having conversations with people all over the world. Marginalized groups, who previously felt alone in the world, have a way to discover they aren’t as alone as they thought.  People who otherwise would never have met become fast friends.

            Having spent much of my younger life playing online games, I’ve been lucky to have many such friends. More recently, though, my online friends have come in the form of my writing support group, the Alliance of Worldbuilders. We started out as a group focused on giving constructive criticism on each others’ writing, but grew into something much more – a group of good friends from around the world. We even published an anthology of short stories together.

            This week I had the great opportunity to meet one of those friends in person – she was on vacation nearby and she suggested we could get together (last month she had met up with a number of the others in the group who, like her, live in England and previously had met a number of others around the world as well). Opportunities like this rarely arise, so even though it meant leaving my house (blech!) and driving to and in one of the largest cities in the country (blargleblech!!!), Colleen and I decided to go meet her.

            After arriving late because I’d only planned for half the bad traffic we encountered, we the three of us hit it off fantastically. I think we actually got along better in person than online. I had expected that we’d visit for maybe an hour, but we ended up chatting for over three hours an everything from writing to social issues to plotting global domination (forget I said that last one). My first meeting with an online friend was a huge success.

            For me, it highlighted the wonderful opportunities afforded to us through the internet. It had the marvellous capability of bringing together people who, in a past age, could never have met. What’s so great about this? The discovery that all the people across the world aren’t all that different from ourselves. Previously, all we could go on for picturing people of other nations was derived from meeting a few here and there, maybe travelling, and hearing from other peoples’ descriptions of then. This, of course, all gets simplified down into the stereotypes that still survive today.

            Yet, now, those stereotypes are tempered by the ability to go online and talk to almost anyone. We can really meet and find out about each other; discover how similar we are. In spite of the people clinging to the past – insisting it’s us against them – cultures from around the world are being brought closer and closer together.

            What a wonderful potential this has for changing how we view the world.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Are You Awake?

            Sometimes I wonder if a good portion of the world isn’t walking around with their brains half asleep. It’s like people are somehow completely unaware that other people are... well, people.

            I hear stories of news site editors claiming writers do better work if they aren’t being paid. At my old job, I had a regional supervisor who proudly talked about how the first business he ran hired immigrants straight off the boat got away with paying them less than minimum wage because they didn’t know any better. People protest about minimum wages being raised because people flipping burgers have it easy (meanwhile, food service is an extremely high-stress environment).

            Yet, all of those people are people. Where are they supposed to get their money, if not from their jobs? Everyone needs to pay bills and feed themselves. Everyone deserves to be paid for the work they do, everyone deserves to be able to live a decent life. Not all business owners are rolling in cash, but if the business isn’t making enough to pay the workers a decent amount, why is it still running?

            Across the world, people are tossed aside as being part of a group. Is their skin a different colour? Do they speak differently? Is their religion different? Obviously, everyone who falls into a category is exactly the same as all the others from it.

            Except that each of those people is an individual person. They have their own life, their own views, their own beliefs. Few people actually fit their stereotypes.

            While waiting in line, people get mad about the people in front of them who are holding them up, without considering that those people are just like them – or that they themselves are holding up the people behind them. When driving down the road, people honk and swear at the person in front of them for going too slow, without even pausing to think – that’s a person. Maybe they’re a new driver, or there’s a pedestrian in front of them, or they have some other reason for going that speed.

            Each person out there is a person and deserves consideration. How can anyone possibly not recognise that the people around them are not just organic obstacles?

            Perhaps their brains really are half asleep. What will it take to wake them up?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

We Need Diversity

            Something I see talked about a lot in the online writing community is getting accurate diverse characters written into books (people of different ethnicities, LGBTQ, people with disabilities, etc). Why? To ensure that everyone from every background and belief has characters they can relate to and, more importantly (in my opinion), to show people how much variety there is in the world and make them more accepting of people different than themselves.

            This is actually something that is very challenging to, for several reasons. The biggest challenge is fighting the social conditioning we have that leads to us simply using stereotypes – we’re exposed to them through all the media that’s out there already. Many of the books that inspire current authors are written either with an absence of diverse characters, or with them represented in stereotypical ways. It’s far too easy to follow the well-trodden paths.

            Then there is fighting the comfort zone. We are brought up with many taboos, and some can be very uncomfortable to push past. How do we write about people with different colours of skin when we’ve been told all our lives that pointing out someone’s skin colour is racist? How do we write about a disability or a gender identity we haven’t experienced ourselves?

            That leads into the third challenge: research. Research takes a lot of time and energy. It’s so much easier to run with the stereotypes, or just avoid unfamiliar topics altogether.

            Yet, we live in a diverse world, and therefore we must push past all out boundaries to include everyone in our writing. Once we do that, we need to choose how to present this diversity: do we highlight it, by making the story about modern issues related to it, or do we blend them in and treat them like we would any other character?

            While there is a need for the first, I feel that the latter option is the most important for the future. There are many parts of society that have been characterized in certain ways, marginalized or outright abused throughout history. This had been built into our media – movies, shows, games, books – and many of them will last for generations to come. We’ve become aware of the problem, and it’s getting talked about more and more – but it won’t be solved until we stop talking about it and make it normal.

            What really needs to happen is for diverse characters to be added into the media, but without them being treated any differently than anyone else. By doing so, we normalize them, and by extension show future generations that not only is it normal for people to be different – but it’s perfectly okay.

            Gone are the days when everyone needed to be made with the same cookie cutter. As a society, we are moving closer and closer to accepting people for who they are. By allowing people to be true to themselves the world becomes a happier place. But we can never achieve complete acceptance until our sources of entertainment – which shape us and our ideas in more ways than we realize – represent diversity as normal. Diversity in media starts here and now, by making the extra effort to put it in and make sure it’s accurately represented.

            The world is a diverse place. We need to celebrate it, not stifle it, and make it perfectly normal to be whoever we are.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Review of The Warded Man

            Wow, it’s been forever since I've done a book review! It’s about time. But first, a story.

            I bought this book, The Warded Man, four years ago. Since then, it sat on a shelf. Why? Well, because I simply never got around to reading it until now. It happens sometimes.

            So, this past week I decided to pick it up and read it. Suddenly, a couple days later, I received an email from Amazon with a list of books they thought I’d like, including the sequel to The Warded Man. Spooky, right? I mean, I bought this book four years ago from a book store. Amazon had no way of knowing I even owned it (I made no mention of owning or reading it anywhere online). I start reading it and suddenly there’s a recommendation for the sequel. I feel watched. Either this was a remarkable coincidence (likely) or Amazon has a remarkable marketing setup probably involving satellites (unlikely, but fun to speculate about).

            Anyway, on to the actual book. The Warded Man, by Peter V. Brett, is the story of a world where every night, demons rise from the ground to prey on living things. The human race is dwindling. In ancient times, they used to have the magic to fight these demons, but all they know now are the defensive wards to keep the demons at bay. They huddle indoors at night, with the screeching demons outside, hoping that the demons won’t find a crack in their defences.

            The story itself follows the lives of three characters from three different villages, each of which survived a horrific demon attack. The reader is brought along on their journey as one strives to become a Messenger (the people who travel from town to town, braving being on the road at night with only their wards to protect them), another is apprenticed to be an Herb Gatherer (the women who function as the society’s doctors and midwives), and the third chases his dream to be a Jongleur (the entertainers who sometimes travel with Messengers, who spread news and legends as well as joy).

            As I read the book, I found myself wondering what it was that kept me reading. I felt that the overarching plot of the book was a little thin, yet for some reason I couldn't put the book down. It was the characters and their individual struggles that were so compelling, dragging me forward, wanting to know more – and above all else, wondering where the story was going that it would inevitably bring them all together.

            Along with that, the world building was excellent. The political structure of the various cities and settlements were very well developed, as were the cultural differences. I did find the overall culture to be a tad on the sexist side (relying heavily on gender stereotypes), however I believe this was intentional on Brett’s part – after all, in a world where humans are struggling to survive, repopulation is paramount and alters priorities in the society. One thing I absolutely loved was a character’s transition from a small community – where everyone banded together to help each other out – to the big city, where people were apt to strive for wealth and beggars roamed the streets. A wonderful commentary, I felt.

            Overall, I found The Warded Man to be a thoroughly enjoyable read. It was creative and well thought out – a wonderful debut for Peter V. Brett. I may even have to get the sequel which Amazon clearly wants me to buy.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

I Want to Teach the World to Con

            This week’s blog is brought to you from the mind of Colleen.

There is a phenomenon that geek/anime/nerd convention goers sometimes experience known as the post-con blues. It's the feeling of emptiness that proceeds the day or weekend of non-stop fun and freedom that accompanies the events where nerds run wild. It can feel different for every person. I personally wake up every morning for a few days after and feel weird in normal clothing, having worn a costume or “cosplay” for most of the past 72 hours. I forget how to do simple tasks like work and dishes. I miss being surrounded by the people who all seem to know me inside and out without ever having met me before. I miss the all-consuming, no-questions-asked, friendly acceptance that pervades every single con I've ever been to or heard of.

It doesn't matter who or what you are, how you're dressed, what fandom you're in, your sexuality, your race, your religion. None of that matters except one thing: that you treat everyone around you with the same respect you are enjoying. No exceptions to that rule. The thing that everyone who comes into contact with us eventually realizes is we take care of our own. We're like a gigantic family.

I heard a story at a con I attended this past year. The fellow telling the story was recalling a time when he had been standing in line to register at a con. Behind him were a couple guys he described as “con tourists”; regular joes who just wanted to see what all the hype was about. They saw someone in a particularly noticeable cosplay and made some smart remark or other. Everyone in the hall went dead silent and turned to glare at the offender. He’s sure to keep his comments to himself next time.

In some cases, cons are the only place some people have to feel accepted and free. I am lucky enough to live in a group of people who are just as judgement-free as a con typically is, but I know most people do not have that luxury. Some people look forward to con all year and pour all their heart and soul into their cosplays. Cons are extremely important to a lot of people and the organizers know this. One of my favourite cons was started by a group of college friends over five years ago. Now most of them are married, some have moved out of the province, but they have continued to put their con on every year despite all the challenges – partially because they love it, but also because of how important events like theirs is to so many people.

One of my all time favourite things about cons are the instant friendships that are made. You sit next to someone at a panel, you start chatting over an epic piece of merchandise, you are wearing cosplay from the same fandom and BAM, suddenly you're talking to the other person like you've been best friends for life. I have learned so much from these kinds of friendships. I have had fundamental prejudices I didn't even know I held shaken and destroyed from a half-hour's acquaintance.

Con is a magical place where dreams come true, where you can find and be your true self, where you can find love and life-long friends. Con is also a state of mind that I try to carry with me into the “real world”. It's a feeling of wanting to live in harmony with everyone around you, even if it isn't always easy. Someone I met at a panel said it best when he explained the concept of non-judgement to the group. He said “There is no judgement. Internally you may be cringing, but externally you're giving a thumbs-up all around. That's the way it is. Period.” And every day I wake up determined to bring the con sensibility to the world. It won't happen in my lifetime. But maybe, just maybe, if I keep thinking nothing but good about my fellow human beings, maybe my kids will see that. Maybe they'll catch hold of that and tell a friend. Maybe that friend will tell a friend. And slowly, ever so slowly, we will change the world. One geek at a time.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Colleen on Food

Today's blog is brought to you by my wife and co-author Colleen regarding one of her favourite subjects: Food.

I've always enjoyed cooking. But even longer than that I've enjoyed eating. At some point I discovered that food wasn't just a phenomenon that occurred when mom was around; I had control! Once that transition happened there was no looking back. I started with Mr. Noodles and then the rest is a blur until the present day. I take on any cooking challenge and I defeat most foods that I come across. The majority of the time when I fail in the kitchen it's because I went free-form, sans recipe or the recipe I did use was faulty. As egotistical as that sounds I swear it's the honest truth.

Cooking always seemed to come naturally to me. At age ten I broached the subject of home made bread with my mother. Time and again she had attempted this feat and her efforts had always turned out “smelling of beer” she told me and as a result she was fearful of teaching her young daughter. We tried anyway and my mother was astonished at the result. Not only was the braided loaf pretty as a picture but there was not a whiff of beer to be smelled. I try to tackle every culinary challenge with the same fearlessness I had at ten.

Cooking will never be a chore for me. Each aspect of it is a delight. I wish I could wave a magic wand and infuse other people with this love I have because I know too many of us dread entering a kitchen. Of course when you've been obligated to perform this traditionally “womanly” task since age fourteen, it's a little hard to find the fun in it after sixty odd years.

I also adore giving back to the people I love. I regularly baked brownies for my amateur theatre group, cookies for my live action role play group, innumerable meals for my family, casseroles for ailing relatives. My knee-jerk reaction to any situation is food. A few years ago I heard that my husband's grandmother had fallen and broken a hip. Instantly I asked “Should I cook something for grandpa?” And nothing makes friends faster than hearing “These cookies are great! Who made them?” One Christmas I decided to give an uncle the twelve days of cookies. I ended up wrapping a box weighing over thirteen pounds, of just cookies. The joy of eating is very seriously rivalled by the joy of giving and sharing a meal.

My husband has told me several times that what I cook is the best of its kind he's ever had or that he doesn't normally like whatever it is but when I make it he can't stop eating it. He once told me that my deep-fried “potato thingies” (a mashed potato French fry based on a Julia Child recipe) were the single most delicious thing he'd ever eaten. He's also accused me of trying to fatten him up with all my cooking. Feeding him is the greatest pleasure I have in an activity I already deeply adore.

I manage to infuse almost every aspect of my life with food. One of my duties as Jonathan's co-author is to assist in the descriptions of his writing. When he draws a blank he will leave [DESCRIPTION HERE] in the manuscript and I will add my imagination in the form of clothing, hair colour, fireworks displays, meadows of flowers and even a chocolate chip cookie. One chapter in his first book found the main character trying chocolate for the first time courtesy of a cook, who I was given free reign to do with as I pleased. Of course, there is no better way to introduce anyone to chocolate than with this time-honoured treat. I went to town describing how a freshly baked, warm, chewy, sweet chocolate chip cookie feels, tastes and smells. After that, the minor cook character earned a larger role in the book.

I hope to someday publish a cookbook and share my first love with the world at large, but for now I have the joy of keeping a relatively small corner of the globe happy and well fed.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

 

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Social Conditioning

            I’d like to take a moment to talk to you about social conditioning. It’s a term I like to think I came up with, though I'm sure someone beat me to it. Yup. I just looked it up. Wiki defines it as “the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by society”. Or, as I like to put it, a very mild form of brainwashing that not only has happened to all of us, but we participate in doing to other people every day.

            For example, if I were to ask you what colour little boys and girls wear, even if it isn't your answer, your first thought will most likely be that boys wear blue and girls wear pink. If I told you that mom is working around the house, you’ll picture her cleaning something, while if I were to have said dad is working around the house you would have seen him fixing something.

            Gender stereotypes are just the easiest way of showing social conditioning. They exist because they've been trained into us for generations. We are now trying to counteract it by saying “It’s okay; your gender doesn't matter, you can do any job you want!” but, even as we say it, a small part of our minds are rebelling. It’s true, gender doesn't matter, but these roles are so ingrained into our minds that we have trouble taking those words and putting them into action.

            When they were raising us, my parents made a great effort to keep my brother and I from even being aware of these stereotypes and they did a fantastic job of it! They both shared in the work around the house, they both loved to cook, they both worked at the business they both owned. I remember a time when I owned a doll and never thought anything of it. Then school happened.

            School is the first place outside our homes that we are exposed to social conditioning – and it’s not from the teachers. It’s from the kids who are spouting out what they've learned from TV or their parents or grandparents. My brother was older, so he went to school first. Suddenly we went from being the best of friends to fighting all the time, because he learned about sibling rivalry. After I started school, I gave my doll away because boys didn't play with dolls. Suddenly we were infused with all of these stereotypes and pressure to follow them that we’d never had before. Luckily, neither of us had what we were raised to believe entirely squeezed out of us, but we did take a fair amount of residual damage. Neither of us ever quite fit in. I know my brother was bullied a fair amount and, while no one ever outright said it to me at the time, I've learned that many people’s first impression of me was that I was gay, simply because I didn't care about being masculine. I was happier being myself than trying to prove I was a man.

            This is just a small picture of what social conditioning is and what it does to people. Where does it come from? Well, mostly it’s from children, or, at least, they’re the ones doing it the most and the ones most susceptible to it. Where do they get their information from? Other children, parents, grandparents and TV. TV is actually one of the worst sources, because children often follow examples. In order to entertain us, shows need some sort of conflict and, as a result, there are some very despicable characters that we are exposed to, meanwhile there’s a child sitting there and watching for examples on how to behave.

            Most people go though their whole lives blissfully unaware of social conditioning – not surprising, since the only way to notice it is to stop and wonder why we do some of the things we do. I've always felt that it’s important to consider my motivations before taking action, which is how I first stumbled across the idea of social conditioning. Now I often stop to think, am I doing this because it’s part of who I want to be, or is it because society has trained me to act this way?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.