The Mighty Ghost Crabs!

One of the joys in staying at a great place like Punalu'u Beach is that you have time to really look around.  You're not limited to the few minutes your tour guide gives you, nor do you have to be somewhere at a particular time.  So after a relaxing day, my wife and I walked down to the famous black sand beach, and made our way along the rocky shore on the left hand side.

We found a stretch of level ground, and an area of thick cement that was crumbling as the ocean waves gradually wore away the lava rock beneath it.  As I headed toward one relatively flat expanse of lava rock, I noticed the top shimmer, as if the rock were morphing into something else.  An angry rock monster, perhaps? 

By the time we drew near enough to focus on the rock (on maximum zoom), we realized that these were little black crabs.  

Actually, they weren't that little: say, about the size of my palm.  

I climbed onto the rock, but the crabs had swarmed over the sides.  Few were still visible, or leant themselves to being easily photographed.  

Still, I crouched down, extended my camera as far away from me as I could, and managed to capture one as it climbed down the side of the rock.

  
Ghost crabs are predators as well as scavengers, and may seem fearless as they take on baby turtles and washed-up sharks.  But they're obviously wary of humans (as well as the Daleks who accompanied us on our evening jaunt).  That's the way it is with most of us, isn't it?  We may talk tough, and act tough, and play rough, but we're always assessing our strengths against those of others, and choosing our battles accordingly.  Some of us play the game ambitiously, others more conservatively.

If there's one thing I remember from my American History classes in elementary school, it's that the first President of the United States, George Washington, retreated from battles more often than he won them.  As a general in the Revolutionary War, he fought as long as he could, and then ordered a retreat, so that he and his troops could fight another day.  He lost more battles than he won, but through his determination, and by sticking to his goals and ideals, he eventually won the war.

Of course, like the dragons I write about, I'm the exception to the rule. I'm strong and fearless.  I don't have to weigh the risks versus the potential rewards of any given situation, or choose my battles with care. I can hurl myself at any challenge, and take on all life throws at me.

Just like George Washington.  Oh yeah: and those mighty Ghost Crabs!

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links
Article on Hawaiian Ghost Crabs
Information on Ghost Crabs from the Maui Ocean Center
Video: A Baby Sea Turtle Versus a Ghost Crab

Dumbo’s Zest for Life

Everyone’s got his or her favorite zoo animal.  For me, it might just be elephants.  I love watching them eat, bathe, and play.  For all their size and strength, they seem gentle and respectful of others.  When I watch them in their enclosures, many seem genuinely inquisitive, as if they’ve never lost their enthusiasm for life. 

In the 1941 Walt Disney movie “Dumbo,” a young elephant is ridiculed for his large ears.  When his mother Jumbo rises to his defense, she is locked away and declared mad.  Yet Dumbo overcomes the obstacles life hurls in his path.  He continues to believe in himself, and grasps the opportunities he finds.  His persistence pays off: Dumbo becomes the star of the circus, and his mother Jumbo is released from her imprisonment. 

Growing up involves learning difficult lessons.  Like squatters, the most painful experiences often lodge in our brains.  If we allow them to inhibit our actions, they'll limit our future prospects.  This weekend, I met a new arrival to the San Diego Safari Park.  Her name is Qinisa, and she’s a two-month-old African Elephant.  Like Dumbo, her inquisitiveness, playfulness, and exuberance reminds me of how I should approach each day, as well as the opportunities life hands me.  When the journey toward adulthood threatens to rob Qinisa of her zest for life, I hope that she, like Dumbo, still believes in her ability to conquer every hardship she encounters.  For our lives are what we make them.  Every day.

We can all fly.

Dragon Dave 

Related Internet Links

Announcement of Qinisa’s birth

Qinisa’s zest for life

Zelazny, Longfellow, & The Rising Sun

Today I picked up the manuscript for my first dragon novel, which I’ve tentatively titled The Dragon’s Apprentice.  After writing it last year, I performed a line-by-line edit to increase its readability.  I found this process not only tedious, but more draining than writing the original draft.  It felt like elective surgery performed without an anesthetic.  Part of me felt as if I were cutting away my fat, and making the work more fit and trim.  Yet a voice inside my head cried out in anguish that I was cutting out some of what makes each scene so special and fun to read.

After completing that process, I was overwhelmed by all the tasks that still awaited me.  I lumped them together, labeling them as my conceptual edit.  They would involve research, but mostly I foresaw them as reconciling the various concepts, technologies, and worldviews that arose during the writing of my first draft.  Like some of my exquisitely beautiful prose, some great ideas would need to be excised, others elaborated on, and still others created to supplement my fantasy world.

I couldn’t face that task then, so I set the manuscript aside for later.  After some time away from writing, I talked myself into writing the sequel.  In it, I would create more of my world, and my increased understanding of it, the peoples’ beliefs, and the technologies available would prepare me to face the conceptual edit for The Dragon’s Apprentice.  Well, I’ve finished the first draft of that second novel.   I know more about my world, and believe I can make more informed choices during the conceptual edit.  After allowing myself a few weeks off between the sequel’s completion and returning to the first novel, it was time to return my attention to the first dragon novel.

This morning I read the first chapter.  Not remembering all I cut out, I found that my mind followed the story well from sentence to sentence.  I enjoyed the flow of the narrative, reacquainting myself with this area of my fantasy world, and revisiting this portion of the characters' lives.  I made notes that will contribute to my conceptual edit.  After the time away, I think I can better judge what areas of my novel need more work, and more importantly, which aspects are fine the way they are.  As Roger Zelazny might say, I think I can finish the story, and provide the necessary explanations within the text, without weighing down the prose with unnecessary information.  Or compiling a glossary, index, and appendices longer than the novel itself.

In his poem “The Rainy Day,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “Into each life, some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary.”  Well, I’ve had my dark and dreary days.  Some days it’s rained so hard that I sank beneath the floodwaters, unable to see, to think, or even breathe.  As I begin my conceptual edit, the sun rises in the heavens.  It illuminates a path through the problems that await me.  While I wish I could have perceived that path earlier, I've set my feet upon it, and intend to follow wherever it leads.

Everyone gets overwhelmed at times.  Everyone sets some tasks aside for a time when they hope they’ll be better prepared to tackle them, and then feels guilty for having done so.  Whatever tasks you’ve set aside for later, but would dearly love to complete, I wish you the strength, and the willpower, to endure the dark and dreary days.  Rest assured: the sun will return.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

The Rainy Day

The Wooden Sea Serpent of Libbey Bowl

When I spoke with Kevin J. Anderson at Stan Lee’s Comikaze, I told him I’d been enjoying his blog.  He told me that he mostly used it as an excuse to share his travel photographs.  Of course it’s much more than that: the written descriptions of his journeys offer just as much value as the photographs, and his pieces on up-and-coming projects pique my interest in the stories he’s written.  But I understand his attitude.  He’s a professional author, and spends most of his time hard at work writing stories he can sell.  While he uses his blog to appropriately trumpet his stories, sometimes it’s nice to share some of your more memorable journeys with others.

On that visit to Ojai, as I climbed the bleachers to watch those playing tennis in Libbey Park, I couldn’t help but notice the activity going on behind me in Libbey Bowl.  I’m not sure what production they were setting up for, but I could envision sitting in this comfortable, outdoor venue and enjoying a concert with my fellow residents (assuming I resided in Ojai).  It had a nice homey feeling to it, which I liked.  I don’t often attend concerts in San Diego, but if I lived in Ojai…well, maybe I would.

The forms that nature offers up often intrigue me.  I don’t know if it’s one or two trees (or more), but it looks like a single tree that some accident forced back down to the ground.  Unlike lesser trees though, this one declared, “No, I won’t be cowed, I won’t allow you to defeat me,” and it defied the elements and rose back up again.  While it reminds me of a sea serpent, the tree makes a statement about the importance of determination and not giving up, regardless of what life throws your way. 

Maybe that's why I've always liked sea serpents.  Oh, and trees, too.  Trees are pretty neat.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

About Libbey Bowl

Libbey Bowl welcomes Amateur Astronomers

A cool, evening photo of Ojai

Bren Cameron: The Ultimate Underdog

One of the most popular character types in fiction is that of the underdog.  We feel for Harry Potter, for example, because he is an orphan, and his aunt and uncle treat him so poorly.  Harry, to a certain extent, is a modern, male version of Cinderella, who was mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, and like Harry, needs magic to elevate her status in life.  In Science Fiction, the name Ender Wiggin stands out.  In Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Ender is a young boy who eventually saves Earth from a powerful alien species through his training, fortitude, and intelligence.  To this list I would add one more: Bren Cameron in C. J. Cherryh’s novel Foreigner.

After writing yesterday’s blog, I realized that I really hadn’t told you much about the novel, aside from that one moment, near the end of the book, in which Bren’s worldview is suddenly transformed, and he must prove his worth.  For those of you who follow my blog, but will not read every book I recommend, that may be enough for you.  But I felt I simply had to tell you more about Bren’s journey, because of all our favorite fictional characters, underdogs are often the ones we identify with the most.  Consequently, their portraits of courage, determination, and endurance help sustain us during the difficult phases of our lives.

Unlike Harry Potter, Cinderella, or Ender Wiggin, Bren Cameron is a grown man.  He has worked hard to achieve his status in life.  He alone, on this world of the Atevi, has been allowed to leave the island where the rest of humanity is consigned to live.  He works as an advisor to an important Atevi player in world politics, and acts as an ambassador for all his fellow humans.  He sees himself as having acted properly in every respect during his years of service, and as having served as a positive force for both races.  So when he awakens one night to find an Atevi breaking into his house, he is shaken out of his comfort zone.  

He debates whether he could call and alert his fellow humans on their island, but his Atevi security force and household staff assure him he has nothing further to fear.  Compounding his dilemma is that he defended himself with a gun that, according to Atevi/human agreements, he is not supposed to possess.  Soon afterward, Bren is summoned to his Atevi boss, the Aiji, who sends him to hide out in his aunt's castle.

As a former political player, the Aiji’s aunt has argued against the current state of Atevi/human relations.  Bren wonders if he can trust her when he shares a cup of tea with her and nearly dies.  After he is nursed back to health, he is nearly assassinated again by another Atevi assassin.  Bren lives from day to day in a constant state of worry, plagued by more questions than answers.  Who among his staff (and the aunt’s) can he trust?  Can he even trust the Aiji anymore?  He is cut off from everything he has formerly depended on, including any source of news.  

Compounding his anxiety is the Atevi psychology.  They view life as a complex web of allegiances, and follow orders out of loyalty to their superiors, seemingly without regard to whether or not they personally like an individual.  In fact, there is no Atevi name for liking a person.  Every time Bren tries to convince someone that he likes them, that he regards them as a friend, the Atevi walks away from the encounter wondering why Bren has just equated them with his taste in salads. 

As much as he has studied them, and as long as he has lived among them, Bren will never truly understand the Atevi.  It doesn’t help that they are taller and stronger than him: even with his skill in martial arts, he is no match for them physically.  And, as the incident with the tea showed, much of the native plant life is hostile to humans, making him utterly reliant upon their good graces for his survival.

When events arouse widespread hostility against humans, not only Bren’s life is threatened, but that of every human on the planet.  I don’t wish to ruin the story for you, but I’ll leave you with this.  Unlike Harry Potter and Cinderella, Bren has no magic to aid him.  Unlike Ender Wiggin, he possesses no superior mental skills.  He alone, through hard work and great effort, may be able to save the current situation and preserve Atevi/human relations.  But to do that, first he must survive overwhelming odds on a hostile planet peopled by giants.  

For me, this makes Bren Cameron the ultimate fictional underdog.  Of all the literary examples mentioned, his profile of courage, determination, and endurance will sustain me through the trials that lay in my future.  If my recommendation of him consequently comes to your aid during your own dark days, I will have considered writing this blog post well worth the time and effort expended.

With warmest regards,

Dragon Dave

P.S.  Who are your favorite fictional underdogs?  I'd love to hear about them, and about how they've helped you through your own times of trial, if you'd like to share your opinions and experiences with me.