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Category: Writing

Home Category: Writing (Page 4)

On writing about cartoons in Hell World

June 25, 20181 commentLauren Orsini

There’s no going around it: this month has been a hellscape. The discovery that my country is imprisoning children and babies is horrific, even if it’s what we’ve always done.

I have lived in DC for decades which means politics have always directly affected my life. Many of my friends and family are government employees or contractors, so when Trump tweets something stupid, they are the ones who pay the price—getting downsized, losing half their office budget, or spending valuable time creating a report on why it’s not possible to restore WWII era technology to the military, and yes that really happened.

During these times, fandom has been an escape for me. But last week crushed that solace, too, when we learned that there is going to be a white supremacy rally about a mile from Otakon. I’m well aware of our ties to the alt-right; I know that hate is always just a click away in the Crunchyroll or Anime News Network forums. But this is a new kind of closeness.

Times like this, it is more difficult than ever to be motivated as a pop culture journalist. These past few weeks, I haven’t even published anything on my Forbes blog. Reporting is like shining a spotlight, and I keep second-guessing if my coverage deserves people’s attention. When the world is a mess, can we still afford to focus on fandom?

I knew I couldn’t be the first writer to have this concern and I’m not—Vinnie Mancuso wrote What Is the Point of Pop Culture in a World Gone Mad? in 2016. Unfortunately, his essay is even more relevant in 2018: “What’s the use in marveling at dragons on-screen when the dragons are all here, and they’re more terrifying figures than any CGI budget could afford?”

It’s exhausting. When this all began I was calling my senators daily. Now I throw donations at organizations like RAICES and the ACLU as if money will excuse my inaction. At the very least I vote in every election, even dinky little local primaries. I know this isn’t a whole lot. As a white cis woman, I know that I have it easy and that I should be doing more.

This has been the deafening background noise of my life for months, but I checked out my archive here and realized I haven’t written about what it feels like to live in DC in this era. (The answer: suffocating.) Instead, I’ve been posting about cartoons as usual. Part of it is that I feel I should stay in my lane: I’m not a political reporter. Still, everything is political now: from the survival of my LGBT friends to the presence of immigrants like my father in this country.

There is no roadmap for where we go from here, but I know the answer isn’t black and white. The solution won’t be a total retreat into subculture writing nor full-time rage. I think it’ll be a little different for everybody reading this—what we can each contribute, the ways we can support each other in a world that has gone off the rails.

Additionally, I think fandom will be a part of what saves us. What’s incredible about conventions like Otakon is that even when there are 30,000 people in one spot with all the differences that come with that, there’s still at least one shared interest we all have in common. Its very existence refutes what the Nazis next door would have us believe—that some people are so different, they’re not even the same species. We know that’s flat-out wrong.

I’ll be sticking to fandom moving forward, but don’t think for a second that I’m not angry, that I’m not fighting. But like Mancuso concludes, there is a point to all this: “Pop culture doesn’t exist to save lives, but it can be a reminder that every single life is as valuable as your own. Just think to the last time a piece of art truly moved you, and realize there’s a good chance it moved someone half a world away.” I want to believe that still, so I’ll keep writing.

Standing still in 2018

June 18, 2018Lauren Orsini

First off, I wanted to let you know I’m giving a talk at the Japan America Society this Friday. You can still sign up for it here. I’ve been a member and language student there for four years, so when they asked me if I would volunteer to give this talk, it was a no-brainer.

This talk is coming two weeks after I gave an earlier version of it as an AnimeNEXT panel. It was one of four panels I gave at AnimeNEXT with John. Five if you count our participation on the AnimeCons TV panel, in which we talked about supporting the next generation of anime fans, something I have a lot of opinions on. 

With these speaking events combined, I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of resting on my laurels lately. I’ve been giving talks about things I have done in the past, without really having anything in the works at present.

Somebody asked me what happened to Anime Origin Stories. I stopped putting these up regularly right after a friend of mine passed away, and never got back to them. I haven’t posted any since November 1, and I still have 100+ stories waiting to be followed up on.

Also in November, I wrote a novel, which I’ve been meaning to edit. But I’ve only sat down with it once since then. That hardly counts as “in the works.”

I wanted to investigate more serious stories about fandom. Now that actually is something I’ve got in the works but no thanks to my own efforts—I found a place interested in assisting me with the resources I need to do this, so uh, stay tuned on that.

I’ve been letting Tom Aznable do the lion’s share of work for Gunpla 101.

Then there’s that blog series I said I was starting in March and stopped after one post. Nobody’s asked about it, but it still grates at me that I haven’t added anything new to it.

What have I been doing? I’ve had a lot of client work lately that’s not fandom related (unless you count writing about niche topics for niche audiences fandom, which I sometimes do). I’ve been doing my work for clients as thoughtfully as I know how and then logging off for the day. I’ve been going on a lot of walks. It’s a little like summer vacation.

We’re halfway through 2018, so I thought I’d give you a status update by writing this. Maybe it’s comforting to see that other people don’t have anything figured out, either? It’s weird not to be working toward a goal right now. It feels like standing still. This isn’t burnout. This is just a blank space in my career, in which I’m not sure yet where I want to refocus my daily work.

Habits are hard to form. It takes 30 days, experts say, for a repeated task to become a habit. And yet, they are so easy to break. Take Otaku Links, my Friday column for years. For the first few weeks, I didn’t post them, I felt like I was forgetting something. It felt weird, but not for long. Now weeks go by without me remembering that column ever existed. I know that in order to break out of this uncertainty, I just need to decide on a goal and start chipping away at it a little each day. But which goal?

The logical way to conclude this post would be to tell you how I’m going to break the cycle. But right now, I’m not sure what comes next for me. As I keep writing here every Monday, I’m going to continue to evaluate what matters most to me each week, and see if it forms a theme.

It’s all a long way of saying, watch this space! I’ll talk to you next week.

Mari Okada and writing with your soul bared

May 21, 20181 commentLauren Orsini

This post title comes from a criticism my mom used to give me whenever I was oversharing, overly trusting and too vulnerable with my friends as a teenager.

“It’s fine to tell them a little, but you don’t need to bare your soul,” she would emphasize.

More often than not, I regretted not taking her advice. As an adult I realize that revealing your own weaknesses doesn’t keep other people from poking fun at them.

I kept thinking about this while reading Mari Okada’s biography, as translated by the talented Frog-kun. In From Truant to Anime Screenwriter: My Path to “Anohana” and “The Anthem of the Heart” (affiliate link), Okada wastes no time putting all of her flaws on display.

Okada describes her adolescence using all the trappings of anxiety and depressive disorders, but without giving herself a diagnosis. It’s clear that her avoidance of school is an extreme reaction to facing the fact that she can’t control what other people think of her.

“Whenever I came to study,” she says of a driving course she took in high school, “I always brought along earplugs. I did this because it would hurt whenever I thought people were gossiping about me. This meant that I couldn’t hear the lessons at all.”

Throughout the book, Okada describes her peculiar habits born of anxiety, like peeling off her fingernails and refusing to bathe for days. In her 20s, she began dating somebody for the first time. “I was afraid of what would happen if he overestimated me… The answer I arrived at was to leave open the toilet door and do my business in front of him. If he didn’t hate me after that, then I could believe his affection was genuine.”

Just like showing her bodily functions to a romantic partner, writing about the most repulsive aspects of herself—the ugly side of anxiety—is Okada’s coping mechanism to deal with what she can’t control: in this case, readers’ reactions to the book. By drawing attention to the things she is most ashamed of, she’s trying to beat us to the punch.

Unfortunately, as Okada’s narrative continues, it becomes apparent that neither hiding yourself at home nor revealing absolutely everything is enough to control how people feel about you. After one of the first anime she writes for airs, Okada decides to (cue ominous music) read the comments:

“My chest was pierced with shock. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes were fixed on the words written there: ‘Piece of shit writer. She should just die.’ … This wasn’t like the persecution complex I had in my truant years, when my mind inflated the negative aspects of every little thing. These were words that were right there on my monitor… Somebody wanted me to die.”

Despite her self-professed lack of confidence, this amazingly doesn’t keep Okada from writing or even from reading more comments. Later, she draws strength from positive feedback about her most personal title to date, the truant-focused Anohana. These comments mean a great deal to her because, like the boyfriend who accepted her after seeing her use the bathroom, these fans love a narrative that includes the worst parts of her. In the end, Okada realizes that to reach her goals, she needs to work around her anxiety: “I wanted to become an anime writer. To make it happen, my overly self-conscious nature could bug off.”

Okada’s story is one every creator should read. As somebody who writes fiction and fanfiction under a pseudonym I will hardly tell anyone, somebody who can’t bring myself to read the comments on my Anime News Network reviews, I realize Okada’s success story requires a great deal of personal strength and far more courage than she gives herself credit for.

It’s oddly comforting to read about Okada’s hangups when contrasted with the enormous emotional impact of her body of work. Faced with the futility of never be able to control how she or her work is received, Okada simply writes from the heart. If I do it while remembering I won’t be able to please everybody, maybe it’s OK for me to write with my soul bared, too.

Fandom, Population One

February 5, 20182 commentsLauren Orsini

I blame Crunchyroll for this one.

I usually use that streaming service to watch the latest anime—especially so I can review some for Anime News Network and have relevant contributions to the conversation about others. But every now and then, they casually drop an extremely old show.

I’ve been an anime fan for 20 years, but that doesn’t mean I’ve seen everything. (I didn’t even watch Akira until 2015, though any time is a good time to watch the classics!) So there’ve been times Crunchyroll has dropped an old show that has upended my entire fandom life.

This time it’s Yu Yu Hakusho. A lot of people like this show, I’m finding, but their affection for it is tinged with nostalgia, while for me it is brand new. The fandom is basically dormant. While people appear to remember the show fondly, there’s no reason for most people to draw art or write fic or cosplay or make memes or anything.

Even the least popular Winter 2018 anime will be sure to gather a following as long as new episodes are coming out. But wait 20 years, and even the best-loved shows lose their momentum.

I think my experience will become increasingly common. Thanks to anime streaming services, anyone can discover any show at any time. We used to talk about “gateway shows” and anime fandom that comes in “waves.” But now, there is no one entry point to fandom, and no limit on which show somebody might watch at any time, whether it be an old one or a new one.

So what do you do when you are the Yu Yu Hakusho fandom, population one?

Personally, I’ve found a lot of comfort in writing a fanfic. I’m interested in the show’s contradictions: a world that can be at times hellish or full of hope, with paradoxical characters to match. Since the show is about supernatural detective work, I’m writing a mystery.

I haven’t written fanfiction for four years, but that’s mostly because I don’t have to. Usually, I can just read other peoples’ takes on the story and feel like I’m part of the discussion. But since there isn’t much going on right now, I have to make my own fandom.

I write fanfiction under a fake name and my account is tied to nothing that would lead you back to me, so it’s kind of cool to write for readers who have zero expectations. It’s not as lonely as you would think, either. I was astounded when the first comment came in, followed by a second.

This fandom may be dormant, but by putting something out there, I managed to inspire a person or two to speak up. Even one person, caring and contributing, can help bring a fandom back to life.

What I learned from writing a novel in a month

December 11, 20171 commentLauren Orsini

On October 30, I wrote How I’m silencing my inner critic to tell you about the ways I was preparing for National Novel Writing Month. Back then, I was a very different person. I was a person who had never written a novel before.

A little over one month and 50,100 words later, that’s changed, and I’ve changed, too. I’ve done a lot of difficult things this year. Some, like running a 10k and taking the Japanese Language Proficiency N4 exam, were planned. Others, like saying goodbye to one of my oldest friends, were not. But finishing NaNoWriMo was the one that required the most daily, dull dedication.

In November, I wrote at least 800 words every day for my novel. Here are some of the lightbulb moments that came to me over the course of that work.

Writing a book is physically demanding

On November 23, I woke up with an ache in my left wrist—tendonitis. I wore a brace for the rest of the month. It turned out that meeting the daily writing goal, on top of all the other writing projects I was work on, ended up being my body’s limit. I’ve had tendonitis before, back in college, but I’m pretty sure it was from playing way too much Guitar Hero.

I’ve only written one nonfiction book this long—Build Your Anime Blog, which was 50% interviews, took me two months. I was commissioned to write my cosplay book in 7 weeks, but it was mostly photos and only about 10,000 words. Every other year I’ve tried to finish NaNoWriMo, I reached my mental limit long before my physical one.

I’ve never had writing-related injuries before because I don’t type correctly. I just typed this sentence ASDFJKL; style like I learned in school, but I type more quickly using one thumb and four fingers. Weird, I know. But my typing speed is around 64 WPM and I’ve never had carpal tunnel so I consider it a non-issue (unless somebody is watching me and then I get really self-conscious of my weird typing). If I ever do NaNoWriMo again, I’ll consider dictation, typing on a smartphone, and other strategies before my wrist gives out.

Some of the best ideas happen when you’re stuck

One of the questions NaNo asks you when you start is, “Are you a planner or a [seat of your] pantser?” I would absolutely consider myself a planner. I knew I wanted to write a novel about a Type 3 parallel universe (that’s the one that’s the most fun, I think) so I checked out some books on quantum mechanics and the Many Worlds theory at the library and took notes. By the end of October, I had drafted out a bunch of plot points and scenes I wanted to use for sure.

And then, November 14 happened. I reached the halfway point of 25,000 words, but I didn’t have any plot left. I had no idea what I was going to do and I wasn’t about to quit then. So I stumbled through the dark, trying to follow the threads I’d already started unraveling to their logical extensions. By then I had a pretty good idea of who my characters were. Instead of driving the narration inflexibly, I started asking myself how they would react to the situations I’d already put them in, and let those suppositions lead to new scenes and developments.

I accidentally wrote my characters into a love triangle, solved plotholes with bizarre Google searches, and when I was really stuck, referenced back to my library books, especially Hyperspace by Michio Kaku, which I highly recommend. If nothing else comes out of this novel, at least I learned a lot about the known universe.

Fiction doesn’t have to be for anyone else

I was afraid to tell anyone about my novel. I was worried that any kind of reaction, even positive, would paralyze me. In the entire time I was working on it, I brought up exactly two plot points with my friends, and that was only after I had reached 40,000 words.

But I can tell you about it now that it’s December. My working title is “Until We Meet Again,” and it’s a science fiction lesbian romance. It’s also about being a first-generation American, adult friendships, start-up culture, tropical fish, quantum computers, and people cooking pasta more often than is realistic. Especially after I ran out of plot, I began mining my entire lifetime of experiences and I got a pretty eclectic mix.

I realize this does not sound like a recipe for a bestseller, or even like something you’d want to read. And I realize now that’s OK. This shitty first draft doesn’t have to be published or even be read by anyone but me. For years I struggled because what I was worried what I was writing wouldn’t be good for publication and now I realize with NaNo, the end product is not the point. The point was the process of showing myself I could stick with a story this long.

Writing a book can help you heal

Jess was a writer. She met her wife online because they read each other’s fanfiction! She kept beautifully handwritten bullet journals. I’m grateful she left so much of her writing behind, but it’s still deeply upsetting to me that her life’s work is complete far too early.

When my friends asked me about my novel, I told them it was “Jess fanfiction” because it’s about the discovery of a parallel universe in which some key events—including one character’s death—never happened. While writing this novel and exploring the presumed flexibility of our physical universe, I was reminded that grief isn’t a linear process, either. I thought that fully immersing myself in this story for a month would have been an escape from my real life, but it was really a lens through which to reflect on missing her from a different perspective.

There were a lot of emotions I was holding onto because I didn’t want to forget. But now that I’ve put them in a book, I’ve been able to mostly let them go. People say grief is “hard to put it into words,” but putting it into words freed me, I think. Now that I’ve written about how much I miss Jess and made it part of this novel, I know I’ll never forget my friend.

Photo of colorized dark matter via NASA/ESA/J.

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