almost done

I am nearly finished with the first draft of SILVER SCAR. Actually, it's tough to consider it a first draft since I do rolling revisions. But the final three chapters are first draft and, as usual, they affect everything else and create - you got it! more revision.

I'm running late on my own schedule. No one's fault but my own. I'm psycho busy. Well, fuck. Who isn't? I sure as hell don't expect anyone to feel sorry for me or kick my ass over it. (Unless I ask. Thank you, sir, may I have another!)

I heard a story today about someone who was considering doing a contract gig in a certain Middle Easter nation. Wouldn't be there more than a few weeks total. But it's a repressed nation, and a friend of this friend saw something terrible happen there. And my first thought, which I'm not proud of, was: Fuck them. Let them rot. If they're going to behave that way, then let them rot. I even toyed with the idea of taking the personal stance that the US should cut all ties. (It'll never happen. It shouldn't happen.) But I was having a whole hell of a lot of trouble justifying letting them have access to Western ingenuity and technology when they'll turn around and do something so horrible...fuck them.

And then I remembered I have the typical US bias against the Middle East, conditioned by war, media, and airplane pilots who never had to learn how to land.

So half of me thinks I should be more judicious and understanding, more multi-cultural, and the other half of me wants to say Fuck it. This is black and white, lines drawn in the sand, all that. I'm right. They're wrong...

And no, I don't think we should rush in to save the people. Not this time. Not again. Not when we can't even save ourselves...

Except we did, didn't we, long about the mid 1700s? We had likely fewer resources and organization than many peoples living today. We weren't joined by much--just the continent we lived on and the idea of making a better life. We lived under repression, but we fought the fuck back.

And I realized that attitude of mine, that torn, broken, not very noble attitude, highly informs SCAR. 

I just had to wrap up a plot line involving suicide bombers. Trinidad's parents (not a spoiler) were suicide bombers. I had to put a lot of thought into it. At first I thought I might cut that plot line, but no, it persisted. Trin was so damaged over it. So yeah, it stays. And I thought I might try to justify it in this world I created. Make Trinidad understand. But I realized I'm American. I'm a product of my culture, and that's not always such a bad thing. We have a revolutionary background. (Which also helps me understand why we tend to leap into the middle of fights that aren't ours. We get the whole oppression gig only too well.)

Trinidad has a similar attitude, and I realized last night that's okay. He can have a idistinct opinion on revolution, on acts of war and terrorism, on suicide/murders. (As I do, though not quite the same opinion--he's a lot closer to it than I am). 

Is this a statement? I don't know. If it is, I'm mostly talking to myself, so no offence. If I mean anything by writing my book, I guess it's that, at some point, you have to help yourself. Like Trinidad does. Like the United States did.

And like certain other oppressed peoples maybe should.