On Fort Hood

People come read essays for nice summaries, where they map out easy Buzzfeed-friendly solutions: How could we have avoided this tragedy? This simple solution will show you how!
And my honest answer is, “I don’t know.”
My initial gut reaction is to say that we need to get the soldiers more help, prioritize funding to veteran care.  But that’s because there are a lot of depressed veterans out there shooting themselves in the head, and I think they could use the help.  A guy who’s so far gone he feels like shooting people at random?
I don’t know what causes that.
I don’t even know if there’s a common cause.  Maybe the last shooter was crazy in an entirely different way.
And I think what a lot of people are doing now is taking their generic solutions for “Here’s how we make things a better world” and slapping them onto this repeated tragedy because heck, anything is better than doing nothing – so we’ve got guys saying we need soldiers to have easier access to guns on base, or less access to guns, or to change the way the media reports on these shootings, or to change the regulations on psychiatric evaluations or whatever else they’ve been pushing for all along….
…but me?  I’ll admit that this is completely outside my element.  I talk about writing and gaming and relationships, because I know a lot of writers and gamers and people who date.  I have yet, thank God, to even meet anyone so disturbed as to go on a shooting spree, let alone know enough of them intimately enough to start drawing conclusions about their lives.
And I think more funding to help our veterans couldn’t hurt, as I think maybe the feeling of isolation by soldiers hurts them, that sense that we’ve sent them to hell and then abandoned them.  But would that have prevented this shooting?  Or any other?
I don’t know.
I just don’t know.
 

On Common Core Math

My Facebook page has been alight with anger over the concept of “Common Core” math – the new way we’re teaching math to young children.  They’ve posted pictures of Common Core examples, decrying their complexity, the stupidness of needing a new method when the old methods we had worked just fine, and how dare teaches do this stupid thing.
One of the most common ones I’ve seen going around is this:

Yeah.  My question is, do you realize how fucking hard the concept of “borrowing” is to someone who’s unfamiliar with math?
What I’m seeing here is a twofold storm of ignorance and fear:
1)  Explaining things to newbies is entirely different from explaining things to experienced people.
Look, I sell Magic: the Gathering cards for a living – a complicated card game with a ton of rules.  And time after time, I’ve seen experienced players try to teach newbies how to play the game…
…and they often confuse the newbies so much that they alienate them.
The problem is, the experienced players have been slinging cards for so long that they’ve forgotten how hard this game was in the first place.  So when they teach, they tend to concentrate on the things that players who are bad at the game need to know – which is an entirely different thing than what players who are totally unfamiliar with the game need to know.
So they rush past the core concepts of the game – the base mechanics that they’ve internalized so thoroughly that they don’t even think about them any more – to focus on things that make no sense if you don’t get those fundamentals.  I’ve heard them casually saying things like, “Okay, you gotta remember to play instants at the last minute, and leave your mana untapped until you need it” to baffled people who barely understand which card is which.
It’s a testament to how much fun Magic is that thousands of people still play it, despite these substandard introductions.  But Wizards of the Coast, being a smart company, recognizes that the #1 barrier to entry for Magic is overcomplexity, and so periodically creates products that are newbie-friendly.  And those novice-aimed products are often scorned by the “experienced” Magic community as being too simple, too stupid, too strategy-free.
“I learned it the old way!” they cry.  “And I still understood!”  Forgetting entirely that a) it took them a lot more effort to ingest that knowledge than they remember now that it’s reflexive, and b) a lot of people didn’t learn it, and walked away, and if the goal is to get as many people playing Magic as possible then maybe ignoring the failures isn’t your best idea.
Likewise, this Common Core example isn’t a fair example.  Yes, there are fewer steps in the upper diagram – but conceptually, sorting each number into neat rows stacked on top of each other, and knowing that you can borrow a number, and understanding that the borrows cascade, and remembering the edge cases, are actually pretty hard to get for many kids.  I know I struggled with it.  There’s a ton of buried complexity in this, and I’m pretty sure if you showed this same thing to two people unfamiliar with large subtraction problems, the more visual example below might work better.
Plus, the Common Core example below is a better way of conceptually explaining things.  Yes, kids can learn the rote method of “stack and subtract,” but that doesn’t actually teach them to internalize how math works.  When I’m looking to figure out what the difference is between a dollar and 97 cents, I don’t mentally place a 100 on top of a 97 and go through it column-by-column – I count forwards from the lesser number until I hit 100.
It could be argued that in fact, the old beloved style actually presents a barrier to conceptualizing math, sort of like teaching kids that the letters S-I-N-K mean “sink.”  It’d work.  It’d get them to recognize what a phone is.  But without presenting all the complicated phonetics behind it, getting them to spell out each letter, they’d probably not really understand the concept of words – they’d understand that a few grouped letters mean a handful of things, but not be able to extrapolate that to dope out new and unfamiliar words.
And even aside from that, from what I am told the Common Core doesn’t replace the old method, it supplements it.  Here is where I venture into the unfamiliar waters of “people said,” but from what I’m led to believe the old method is still taught in class – it’s now just one arrow in a quiver full of approaches to help gets learn to add big numbers.  If someone happens to find the columnar method more intuitive, they can use that in their heads.  It’s whatever sticks.
Which brings me to point #2:
2)  Parents are fucking terrified of looking stupid in front of their children, and hate to actually do homework.  Again, here I venture into theory, but I think much of the backlash against Common Core stems from the fact that a lot of parents get off on being the all-knowing wise folk, and looking dumb in front of their kids robs them of a special power.  Having to sit down with their kid and go “I don’t know how to do this” makes them feel like the schools are somehow showing them up.
And then they find themselves back in grade school, forced to understand a new concept.  They’re not just helping their kid with homework; they’re back in grade school doing homework, and grah I learned what I need to I shouldn’t have to work to internalize some new approach what I knew worked fine.  And rather than acknowledging that discomfort of this is something I don’t know,  they instead freak the fuck out about how ridiculously hard this all is and it’s difficult and won’t someone think of the children?
But those someones are thinking of the children.  If it’s hard for you, remember back to those early days when everything was hard for you.  Regardless of whether you use the upper old version or the bottom new version, your kid is going to struggle to import these new ideas into their head – and bitching about the approach because you don’t get it seems small, anti-education, and churlish.
And hey, maybe your kid is finding Common Core too complex.  Maybe that’s because for her, the upper example is more intuitive.  But I wonder how much of that struggle stems from the fact that Mommy and Daddy are expressing obvious frustration with it, bitching I don’t know why they do this, and sending the signal to your kid that this is actually a dumb way to approach it.  They pick up on things like that, kids.
So my take?  Is that yeah, it’s more work for you, but as a parent, your job isn’t to make your life easy.  It’s to do what’s best for your kids. And if that means you have to go back to grade school again and start over, well, go back and sit down next to your kid in class and learn along with them.
Teach them that everyone feels dumb from time to time.  That even Mommy and Daddy never stop learning new things, and that new things are exciting.  Because honestly, that’s a way better lesson they’ll learn than anything they can get in school anyway.
EDIT: I’ve had a lot of people saying, “I don’t like it when my kid switches schools and has to learn Common Core under the assumption that he’s been taught it all his life,” or “I don’t like Common Core because my kid can already subtract the old way and they’re punishing her for not knowing this new method,” or even “I don’t like it because the schools don’t give me any warning or context and now I have to train my kid with no help.”
In that case, you are not actually complaining about Common Core.  You are complaining about an inflexible educational system that is utilizing Common Core improperly.  Note how your complaint is not actually that Common Core is too hard, recognize that this essay is chastising those who criticize Common Core because it is too hard, then take your valid concerns about a one-size-fits all educational approach and move on.   This was not meant for you.

You Don't Have To Feel Good To Do Good

I have never had a runner’s high. My body fucking hates exercise. My body wants its ass in this chair, guzzling chocolate milk.
For years, people told me, “Oh, when you find the right exercise, you’ll feel wonderful when you do it! Angels will sing and you’ll crave this workout!” And I tried everything, from running to Dance Dance Revolution to karate to swimming, and as it turned out what I really hate about exercise is “being out of breath” and “this burning feeling in my muscles.”
So I was a couch potato for many years.
What I eventually figured out, much to my glory, was that “enjoyment” was not a necessary component of working out. I could work out, and hate every moment of the day’s run, and do it because it was what needed to be done.
And in fact that was the key to unlocking much of the rest of my life’s potential. Did I need to feel good about sitting down to write that day? No. I just needed to plant my fingers on that keyboard and write. Did I need to be borne aloft to my job by wings of angels, carried by rapturous astonishment? Nope.
I needed to fucking work.
And the work has benefits that do make my life better. When I exercise regularly, I’m in better shape and can do more things and feel prouder of my body. When I write regularly, I become a better writer. (Seriously. My latest story in Apex Magazine is pretty bad-ass, I think.) When I work hard, I can afford to go out to see Captain America 2 and not worry about all of these home repair bills crushing my face.
Those steps make the rest of my life so much better that I don’t necessarily need to enjoy those tasks in and of themselves – I just need to buckle down and git-R-done, because if I don’t do those tasks then everything else in my life gets subtly worse.
Now, that’s not to say I set out to hate them. If I had a job I despised, I’d try to find another job. If swimming makes me miserable, I should find a less-objectionable form of exercise. And some days I have to realize that my lack of enthusiasm for a writing project indicates that it’s a flawed story, and I need to walk it back and fix it.
But if I waited to feel good about these necessary tasks, I’d write fiction once a week, go to my job once a month, and exercise when a bear chased me. And I’d be unpublished, broke, and miserable.
Which is why I don’t believe that “feeling good” is a valid foundation for necessary tasks. It’s something you should strive for, to be sure, but if you’re going to wait for a job that’s all cookies and candy, you’re going to be unemployed forever.
And likewise, with the concept of polyamorous compersion, I don’t think that I have to feel entirely wonderful about my wife dating someone in order to go, “Okay, that should happen.” Instead, I go, “Well, I like the New Relationship Energy high of dating new people, and I think it’s only fair my wife should have that.” So I endure some necessary discomfort at times, to make us both stronger.
As a result, my wife is happier, which in turn helps to make me happier, and we have a far better relationship than we would if I selfishly said, “You can only date people if it makes me thrilled.”
That doesn’t mean that I’m sitting at home, biting tinfoil, whenever she goes away for a weekend with her boyfriend. It means, like exercise, I endure some transient discomforts to make my life a better place.
And, like exercise, there are some people who fucking get off whenever they work out, their bodies flooded with endorphins, their minds filled with rapture. I envy those people, just like I envy the people who always love writing, who always love their jobs, who always love it when their partner’s happy.
But those people are lucky enough to be naturally drawn to those healthy things anyway, and so I don’t think it’s a particularly wise move to structure most advice around their needs. I mean, on one level, “Eat what feels good to you!” is totally healthy if what feels good to you is broccoli and tofu, and it’s a straight path to cardiac rehab if what feels good to you is chocolate milkshakes.
So for me? I tell people that poly’s often an effort to get right, but it’s totally worth it. That’s not true for many, who have no jealousy. But those folks don’t need my help.
I’m talkin’ to the folks who need to get out there and just work it.

Read My Story "The Cultist's Son" At Apex Magazine!

Cultists want to summon Gods to destroy the world. They also have children. And those children, if they survive, are severely damaged.
My Lovecraftian tale “The Cultist’s Son” is now live at Apex Magazine, one of my favorite fiction places.  The usual excerpt follows:

“I used to think the sky would peel open,” the girl with the green hair confesses, curling black-nailed fingers around a can of Pabst.  “I always had bloody knees, because I never looked down when I walked — I’d clasp my eyes to the sky, bracing myself for the sight of a gigantic hand pulling aside the clouds.  If I saw Him coming, maybe I could pray hard enough in time for God to forgive me.  Otherwise… Mom told me I’d burn like the whore I was.  In sixth grade.”
Her smile is shy, a crooked little secret that Derleth likes.  He finds his own head bobbing in agreement, his body resonating to the tune of her broken childhood.
The girl’s smile melts into a relieved grin; she’s discovered a fellow member of a secret society in a cold and hostile land.  She grasps his hand.
“You know, don’t you?” she whispers.  He can barely hear her over the death metal band onstage, pounding out a Cannibal Corpse cover tune.  “You know what it’s like to live in fear of the world ending?”
Derleth closes his eyes.  He can see the clouds parting across the mesa, black lightning slithering to the ground.  Except it’s not lightning — it’s tentacles tumbling from the sky, suckered and glistening and rooted to something big enough to have engulfed the Earth.  They flop down from cumulus clouds, slapping against the ground hard enough to cause tremors.  The rusting tin shed caves in, collapsing upon his six brothers before the corrugated walls are scooped away by a questing tendril.  A hundred other boneless limbs descend hungrily upon his squalling brothers.  They haul them, wailing, up into the sky, up with a billion other innocents plucked from collapsing skyscrapers, mud huts, once-sleepy suburbs.  Clouds, now tinged with crushed red.
All the while, Mother dances in crazed triumph, naked, breasts flopping.  Spattered in blood, she gargles the syllables that beckoned the Goddess here…
Derleth shakes off the — dream?  Idea?  It’s hard to say.  The girl with the green hair chews her pierced lip.  She’s so afraid he’ll laugh at her, so relieved she thinks she’s found someone who shares her terror of the Rapture, that already she’s confusing intensity for love.
Derleth thinks of himself as an empty cabinet.  He knows if he remains quietly agreeable, people will stack up his insides with their own needs and desires, imbuing him with all sorts of cheerful motivations.  And since he does not trust his own voice — Mother’s doing — he finds that preferable to telling people who he is.  Was.
Except now, he’s found someone who knows a part of him.
“You were raised by fundamentalists, too,” she begs, trying to make a light game of it.  “Weren’t you?”
He turns away from her to dive into the mosh pit, terrified of the unknowable, always terrified of the unknowable.

In addition, if you’re just dying to have more of Ferrett on your platter, they’ve got a rather meaty interview with me, discussing my writing habits, my struggles with depression, and what I learned at Clarion. So go check it out.
(And as always, if you liked The Cultist’s Son, share it, retweet it, do whatever the heck ya gotta to get the word out. Short fiction never gets enough play, so every recommendation helps; it’s why I’ve started to do short fiction reviews.)