The True Danger of Fake News

While I do not shy away from politics on my social media accounts, I’ve tried to keep my political blog posts to a minimum. However, this post is political, and regardless of your views, I hope you will read on.

The True Danger of Fake News

By Sara Codair

No matter what side of the political divide people stand on, it is hard for them to deny that America is divided. What people do seem to disagree on, at least in comments, tweets, and Facebook posts, is what the source of this division is, who is encouraging it, and which side holds the majority.

While I don’t believe Trump created the divide from scratch, I am not alone in believing that he engineered its explosive growth. In his Atlantic article titled, “What Effective Protest Could Look Like,” David Frum, a former Bush-administration speechwriter, says “Trump wants to identify all opposition to him with the black-masked crowbar thugs who smashed windows and burned a limo on his inauguration day.” After an intense debate on an article about why Trump is not a Hitler-figure, I realized Trump had already done what Frum claims he wants. In an attempt to discredit me, his supporters kept bringing up allegedly violent liberal protestors who destroy people’s property. They wrote as if I been there,  destroying property and causing violence even though I’ve always believed violence undermines and delegitimizes protests.

In this political climate, the actions of those resisting Trump are being held under a virtual magnifying glass that highlights the worst of their actions. Frum writers, “Protesters may be up against something never before seen in American life: a president and an administration determined to seize on unrest to legitimate repression. Those protesters are not ready for it. Few Americans are.” I agree with him. We are not prepared for the information-manipulating Trump brought to the presidency with him despite all the warnings we have received from writers of dystopian fiction.

Whenever I try convince Trump supporters that they are being played, and/or that the liberals are not the evil baby-killers Trump portrays them as, they laugh at me. They tell me I am blinded by fake news and by snakes in sheep’s clothing and/or accuse me of living in my own little fantasy world. They say the “violent protestors” and “liberal media” are to blame. One person called The New York Times and The Washington Post liberal rags. Others called MSNBC and CNN fear-mongering fake news networks.

I won’t deny that the media has played its role in the growing divide, but I suspect they are being played, or possibly paid, by Trump. However, I cannot prove that last statement and will not even attempt to in this post because it is almost irrelevant. What matters is this: fake news exists on both sides. Regardless of who propagates it and which media outlets are actually fake news, it is out there. It exists. It is making the divide between American’s extremely difficult to bridge.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to argue with Trump supports, trying to get them to at least consider my point of view. What always prevents me from getting through to them are, believe it or not, facts. If I cite facts from a publication I consider reputable, like The New York Times, the Trump supporters will tell me it is fake news and either cite a conservative news cite that I consider to be fake news, or deflect completely by brining up mistakes made by and/or outright lies about past presidents (or presidential candidates). They like to assume that since I oppose Trump, I am a big fan of “Killary” and her husband.

Yes – I was not protesting somethings Bill Clinton did in the early 90’s like I am protesting Trump. Why? Because I was a child in the early 90’s. I was a sheltered, innocent child who cared more about playing outside and making up stories than what some snobby, rich grown-ups were doing in what might as well have been a different world. When I tell them that much, the Trump supporters either stop responding, or resort to personal attacks and/or completely irrational statements.

Some of the Trump supporters historical counter arguments date back before Bill Clinton. They go back to the civil war and beyond. When history fails to convince me, they resort to what I perceive as nonsense. For example, I told one person I didn’t care which political party had ties to the KKK in the 1800’s because it was completely irrelevant to the argument were having. This person responded by telling my the democrats had a new KKK called Black Lives Matter.

Another person told me everything I believe about the democratic party was wrong. They said democrats don’t care about the marginalized and minorities but are using programs like welfare and food stamps to enslave them.

Someone brought up the proverb:

“give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”

I said that is what the democrats are trying to do with affordable public college.

They thought college was a joke and “not good enough” and didn’t seem to care about successes I’ve witnessed working at community colleges.

Whether you think I’m right, a deluded “libtard,” or something in-between, I hope you can at least see that I seem to live in a different reality than the people I was arguing with. They think the democrats are evil and out to get them and have been conspiring to take their freedom. They see Trump as a savior and nothing I say, not matter how factual, can make them see otherwise because they claim facts they don’t agree with aren’t facts at all, but fake news. Perhaps those people, or you, might accuse me of the same thing.

As a person who was born and raised Catholic, and who still practices Catholicism and believes in the teachings of Jesus, I often feel alienated by other Christians. To me, and to many of my Catholic friends, Trump is the antithesis of our beliefs. We struggle to see how anyone who follows the teachings of Jesus could follow a man so filled with green, hate and arrogance.

Last weekend, I posted this tweet in reply to Fox Business’. screen-shot-2017-02-06-at-2-01-02-pm

And here are some of the replies I received:

screen-shot-2017-02-06-at-2-02-13-pm

These people and I seem to exist in different realities, and I do not know how to bridge the gap between us without comprising my own values and faith.

America is divided.

As Abraham Lincoln said “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

 How much longer can America stand if her citizens remain so divided?

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If I do not find myself to depressed or discouraged, I may write further posts exploring some of the issues I touched on briefly but did not fully explore in this post, like Christianity, Media, and Dystopian stories. Thank you for reading. Please feel free to comment, but please try to be respectful. Keep an open mind. Please.

 

 

Micro Fiction: Be Better by Sara Codair

Note: This piece was originally written for Cracked Flash’s weekly writing contest. It didn’t win, but I still thought it was worth sharing since it is one of the first pieces I’ve written using gender neutral pronouns. I’ve been researching them for a while and often feel that if they were more known, I would rather use some neutral than she/her.

In the end, I think this piece was more of an excercise than a full story, but I’d love to hear what you all think of the Ey/Eir and how it worked in the piece. -Sara

Be Better
by Sara Codair

Eli, the captain of the guard, watched two figures silently move through the shadows. Ey unholstered eir blaster then stalked after them. Eir heart raced as they approached the supply house. The manager reported canned goods and medicine stolen, but no one had caught the culprit. Eli suspected that was because eir investigators pitied the fools who lived outside the compound.

The figures walked right past the supply house into the scrapyard. Nothing was reported stolen from there, though they rarely inventoried it since no one used cars. It was too dangerous for Eli’s people to leave the compound.

Ey followed the thieves right up to a rusty carcass of a pickup truck and waited until their heads vanished into the hood. Ey aimed eir blaster. “Freeze! Put your hands where I can see them.”

The two figures turned. Judging by their wrinkles, stubbly pale skin and flat chests, Eli guessed they were two middle aged white men – the kind of people that made it too dangerous for eir to live in out in the world.

“Please don’t shoot.” Both men dropped to their knees. “The government has gone nuts. We need your help.”

“Get off my property!” Eli undid the safety.

“Please let me take this. I’ll pay you back with labor. I have no money, my truck is broken, and my daughter needs to get to a hospital. She’s has a major infection.”

Part of Eli wanted to send the men away, reject them in the same way society had rejected eir, but as ey watched them look at her like they were praying to some forgotten god, ey couldn’t do it. “Take the part and bring your daughter here. We have doctors, and could use some help turning over the fields next week.”

Need to Binge Read

Why I Need to Binge Read

By Sara Codair

 

The Binge Read is a dangerous thing for me. If I find a good series that reads like one long book, I can be lost in it for days, sometimes even weeks. The laundry piles up. The floor stays dirty. My spouse complains I don’t talk, that all I do is read.

One summer, while partially unemployed, I spent a little under two weeks reading all the Game of Thrones books. The year I discovered Jim Butcher, I did something similar with the all the Dresden Files books that were out at the time. Most recently, I binge read five Throne of Glass books, not realizing there was still one more book that had yet to be published.

Now, as I am wishing I didn’t have to wait for the 6th book, I am remembering why binge reading is so necessary once and a while. It lets me see how series come together over time, teaches me about character, and provides a much needed break from reality.

15781567_10101166390456465_3749649748742396582_n.jpgWhile reading the first book in the series, I saw a novel that wasn’t much better, at least in my biased opinion, than the one I am presently trying to sell. It stood on its own, but was clearly part of something bigger. It wasn’t perfect, but the vibrant characters had loads of potential, and the last scene teased me just enough to make me want to read on. So I did.

I was sick, and still one winter break. I grabbed my kindle and downloaded book 2. I watched the characters fall in and out of love, beat the odds with sass and swagger, all while I saw the author set up a plot that went well beyond what was hinted at in book 1, also giving me about how I could use that growth and progression in my own work.

I saw characters change, and I believed it because of how vivid the world was, because the actions and events made that change seem realistic, and because the emotion roiling behind their poker faces was so raw.

I’m still processing what, exactly, I learned about writing novels from this binge, and will be for some time. However, that is not the only benefit. The world is going crazy right now, and it was refreshing to see some arrogant, dirty, greedy rulers get their asses kicked by the people they oppressed. It was like, here is a guy that is way worse than the ones you have deal with in the real word, and oh look, that former slave is really kicking his ass, even if the plot later does follow a LOTR/Star Wars type thing and reveal the heroine is actually heir to a neighboring kingdom’s throne…

While I miss some of the characters like they are real people, I have a better appreciation for my own world, and a renewed motivation to not only use my own writing to play and create, but to revise the hell out of my WIP’s hoping that one day, someone will binge read my work.

Flash Fiction: George and the Fatal Mistake

Earlier in the week, I blogged about a rejection I received for this story. No matter what I tell myself, at the end of the day, it really is fan fiction, and I need to stop sending it to places that don’t publish fan fiction. It belongs here, on my blog, where any one can read it for free and get a laugh, or shiver, from it. If your not a Star Wars fan, you might want to skip this one. Otherwise, enjoy!

-Sara

George and the Fatal Mistake

By Sara Codair

George felt sick as he walked down the red carpet. It should’ve been like walking on a low gravity planet full of cuddly Ewoks, but it was more like wearing lead shoes while trudging across the molten Mustafar. His wife’s arm was threaded through his. Lights flashed. Cameras clicked like a Killik army, clicking their pincers and mandibles as they marched.

His skin was crawling by the time he took his seat. Normally, he would’ve seen every cut of a Star Wars movie before it premiered, but he gave those rights away when he sold his franchise. He hadn’t known about the new books until he saw one on the shelf in the grocery store and he was being left out of the brainstorming meetings for the Clone Wars cartoon. The public was under the impression he didn’t care, that he had washed his hands of Star Wars. The public didn’t know shit.

Contrary to what most people thought, Star Wars had never really been his. There were guidelines it was supposed to follow and George feared Disney had thrown those in the trash compactor. He never meant to give up all control.

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The screening confirmed his fears. Sweat dripped down his forehead, and he couldn’t hold his popcorn down another second. Abandoning his seat, he went straight to the single stall bathroom.

No matter how many times he hit the switch, the bulb wouldn’t illuminate. His cheeks tingled. His throat tightened. He stumbled towards the toilet in the dark, sunk to his knees and heaved. His throat burned as half-digested popcorn and Coke spewed from his mouth. A cane tapped on the tile floor, followed by a shrill, frog-like laugher.

“A long time, it has been,” croaked the voice.

George turned around and saw the demon he had sold his soul to over thirty years ago. It was barely three feet tall, with wrinkled green skin, glowing red eyes and pointy ears.

“Remember me, you do. Good.” The green devil took a step forward.

George nodded, staring at the being that inspired Yoda. With its tattered brown robe, tan tunic, stick cane and light saber, it looked like it had just hobbled of off the set of The Empire Strikes Back. Of course, the fictional Yoda’s eyes had never glowed that hellish red.

“A deal we had. Keep it, you did not,” continued the creature. “Thought you could cheat me, did you?”

George shook his head, backed away. He hadn’t intended to break the deal; he just wanted to retire and enjoy his wife before he got so old and shriveled that she started hiding his Viagra. Selling the franchise had been the best way to do that. It satisfied the fans’ demand for more and gave him billions to retire on.

“Appear in the new movies, I did not.” The creature rose off of the ground and hovered mere inches away from George, so they were eye to eye. “Dead, they will think I am. Power, I will lose.”

“You’re still in the other six.” George scrambled to mollify the monster’s wrath. “You were a Force Ghost in Return of the Jedi. They know you’re not gone. Your name was mentioned in the books hundreds of times. You’re in the Clone Wars shows. People remember you. They adore you and quote your lines like scripture.”

“Yet, mentioned in this movie, I am not. Sold me to my enemies, you did. Destroy me the Faeries will, now that my image they own.”

“Fa-faeries?” Breathing became difficult; he didn’t know if it were nerves or if the creature was Force choking him. It didn’t need hand motions like Vader or the Emperor. Those had been purely for the benefit of the audience.

“Mmmm….Own Disney, the Faerie Courts do.” The creature placed a three-fingered hand on George’s chest. Its fingernails were long, black and sharp enough to pierce through George’s tux and draw blood with the lightest touch. “Punishment, I must extract.”

“Please!” George sunk to his knees. “I didn’t know. I’ll get it back. I’ll do anything. Just please don’t hurt me!”

“Too late, it is,” cackled the creature. He dug his claws into George’s chest and pulled.

George felt his skin tear and screamed. It wasn’t loud enough to drown out the slurping, sucking and chewing until fangs pierced his heart and the world went black.

#

When the crossroads demon was done feasting on the traitor’s flesh, he took on the appearance of the dead man. He brushed the dust of off his pants as he got up and walked into the hall, in search of someone who could fix George’s mistake.

“Do just fine, this one will,” he muttered to himself before he offered to buy JJ Abrams a drink.

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When a Form Rejection is Better…

I often find myself cringing at form rejections, wishing that editors would give just a snippet of insight into why they rejected my story. Today, I found myself wishing for a form rejection.

Nearly a year ago, I wrote a story titled “George and the Fatal Mistake” merging George Lucas’ sale of the Star Wars franchise to Disney with a cross-road/deal with the devil trope. I sent to a few speculative publications, but quickly realized it was too close to fan fiction for their taste. I sent to a few celebrity and pop-culture themed calls for submissions, but also got rejections. After more rejections from humor zines, I was thinking it just didn’t belong in a lit mag, but saw an interesting anthology and thought, “I’ll try one more time.”

That was first of my big mistakes.

The second was that I didn’t reread the story to make sure it was the most up to date, error free draft. I wasn’t confident it was even a fit for theme. It was late. I didn’t think it was worth the effort.

The result: The rudest and most detailed rejection letter I’ve ever received that not only criticized my editing and writing skills, but put me down as a teacher as well. This editor even went as far as telling me that she couldn’t imagine anyone anthology editor would publish my writing.

For the first time since I started submitting stories, I actually wish the editor had just sent me a form rejection, and while I normally don’t let an angry editor deter me from submitting a story elsewhere, but I knew even before I sent this one out that it was the type of thing that belonged on my blog, not someone’s zine or anthology.

Later today, after I finish fixing all the grammatical errors than angered this editor (and a few she didn’t comment on), I will post it on my blog, and readers who don’t know anything about Star Wars can ignore it, and those who will appreciate it can read it.

Next time I get a form rejection, I will think of this angry editor, and be happy with “thank you for submitting, but this just isn’t what we are looking for.”

 

Winning #NaNoWriMo2016

I have not been blogging as frequently as I once did. Aside from a busy semester, the other thing that can be blamed for that is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

In the beginning of November, I wrote a couple posts about NaNoWriMo: one saying I was doing it “for real” and another about how making my own cover image for the book helped me stay focused. Now, I am pleased to announce that I did it. On November 29th, 2016, I ended the first draft of my novel, “Like Birds Under the City Sky” at 50, 555 words.

“Like Birds Under the City Sky” is the third novel I have completed a draft of and the experience of doing this first draft was very different than my other two novels. It was shorter, it was done in a small amount of time, and I didn’t find myself living the characters in the same way I had in other books.

I wasn’t making up the next Chapter as I was driving to work or falling asleep. I didn’t feel like I became these characters as I wrote them. However, I did write every day. I did do my usual mix of some planning and some making things up on the spot. I had an end in mind, but gave my self the freedom to meet the group of genetically modified cats that helped my characters defeat their enemies.

Is this novel better or worse than the last two I wrote? I don’t know yet.

The pieces that were part of the short story I had originally intended it to be are beautifully polished and the rest of it is rushed and choppy.

The one thing I think I did a better job with was having a more focused, obvious and specific want or need driving the characters: my characters want to survive, be accepted, and be free from the people who are hunting them. Since the characters were being driven by what I might call “simpler” wants than the characters of my other novels, the plot was easier to come by, however, I worry that the characters didn’t experience as much growth as characters in my first two attempts at novel writing.

For now, I’m going to be happy that I finished a daft in a month, and I’m going to let that draft rest. I plan to send more short stories out, and send out more queries for Out of Focus. After Christmas, when I am on winter break, I will begin the process of revising Like Birds Under the City Sky, and get a better sense of how NaNoWriMo really worked for me.

Micro Fiction: Bullet Hole in a Yellow Window

Bullet Hole in a Yellow Window

By Sara Codair

Congealed sugar crystals.

Bubbles captured in amber.

Spider webs waiting to trap unsuspecting flies.

A perfectly round path to another world where your blood isn’t splattered all over the sofa, sinking into the deepest part of the cushion staining pure white stuffing red.

In that other world you’re still smiling at me, laughing with me and loving everything about me. In that other world, I’m free to love you out in the open, free to live a hundred years by your side.

“You have the right to remain silent,” says the man in this world, encircling my wrist in metal.

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I wrote this story for the 100 word story photo challenge back in August. They never posted a winner for August, but you can see the photo here if you want: https://www.facebook.com/100wordstory/photos/a.374368579247657.94462.213141275370389/1298620266822479/?type=3&theater