No One Expects the Russian Moon Invasion
It’s not nearly as crazy at it looks….
April 25, 2021
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[Editor’s Note: If you are watching Apple TV’s “For All Mankind” and have not yet seen the Season 2 finale, read no further until you have. This is your only spoiler warning. And if you aren’t watching the show, you really should as soon as possible. ]
My heart was torn out last night - on the moon.
No, I wasn’t on hallucinogens. And I’m not being literal, obviously.
Nevertheless, last night on the moon, people who are important to me died.
No one saw it coming, except for them (eventually). They actually chose it.
I am talking about fictional characters from the Apple TV alternate history drama, For All Mankind. Based on a historical timeline where the Soviets are the first to land a man on the moon, the show takes viewers down a fascinating and decidedly plausible alternate history where the Cold War rapidly moves into space as the superpowers set up bases on the moon and make their space programs much more robust and far-reaching than they have yet to become in our own world. Along the way, we get to know and love (and hate) a wide array of skillfully developed characters, each of whom navigates the fascinating and frightening Space Cold War with varying degrees of trepidation, bravery, and Die Hard style “Yippee-Ki-Yay.”
The show’s second season - set in the early 1980s - wrapped up last night with extraordinarily dramatic events on the moon, on Earth, and in the orbits around them.
It tore me up with the crushing deaths of some beloved characters - done in the perfect way at the perfect time, yet it was also somehow far too early for them to leave.
If you saw the episode, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, you may have experienced the same feeling in other shows or movies.
Game of Thrones did it all the time - Ned Stark, the Red Wedding, that Rat Bastard Joffrey, and about twenty other biggies.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe likes to do it, too (though super heroes aren’t ever really dead, are they?). RIP, Tony - you did indeed have a heart.
I’ve written before about M*A*S*H doing it to poor Henry Blake.
And I must have heard my mom / sister / niece / female friends holler every year or so that Grey’s Anatomy killed some hugely popular character out of the blue with a bus or a plane or a rare fast-moving bacterial blood monster or something.
It’s one thing when a character leaves a show by choice and we all know it’s coming - it’s sad and bittersweet, but we can all say goodbye in advance.
It’s another thing entirely when it’s unexpected - we haven’t had time to prepare, to do a retrospective montage even if it’s just in our minds, or know we should be calling upon our friends for emotional support beforehand. It’s even harsher when the actors playing the characters are caught by surprise along with the viewers, as happened with last night’s episode (as I learned after frantically reading through various episode recaps online after I wiped away my tears).
That’s what tore my heart out last night. And here’s the weird thing…
I love when that happens, even if I don’t like the choice.
Why? Because it’s storytelling at its boldest, its most raw, its bravest, and its most controversial.
Because some writer somewhere, it was clear, had allowed the story he / she / they started to “write itself” to an unexpected and difficult end.
It’s happened to me in writing Krelle’s Inferno, which led several of my beta readers to send me weepy, expletive-laden texts or voicemails in the middle of the night.
And yet, every one of them also said, “I get it, as much as I hate it.”
Exactly.
If art imitates life, then - to me, at least - writing is included.
That means our own nonfiction lives can - and I will say, should - be allowed to unfold and “write themselves” daily.
This might take some explaining, because I am NOT saying that we should live without plans, goals, or dreams to pursue. Nor am I saying that we should just lay around like slugs every day and wait for things to happen to us. Neither makes sense - both are forms of giving up, of opting out on life, and are recipes for cynicism at best and self-destruction at worst.
What I am saying is that in both writing and living, our plans / aims / goals cannot be so fixed from their outset in the “Shoulds” - a checklist or timetable of how our lives should be. It should look this way, it should happen just like this, it should only take this much time, etc. - that they leave no room for the unexpected, for changes and reversals, failure, or even an entirely different outcome.
I can only speak for myself, of course, but maybe an example from my writing and from my real life can help clarify.
Writing Krelle’s Inferno was the most unplanned thing I’ve ever done, and that’s what made it so successful and rewarding. I knew how I wanted the book to begin, a few things that needed to happen in the middle, and generally how I wanted it to end. Of the five primary fictional characters I created (I also included real-life historical figures as important characters), only three of them were well-rounded when I started writing. The other two emerged as the story began to take its specific direction.
Each of these character’s personalities emerged, and as they interacted with one another as the story unfolded, my creativity channeled into dialogue and actions that made sense to their personalities and back-stories. The story began to arc specifically to the characters — not to my preconceived notions of where the story should go. I told several friends that the characters themselves seemed to be indicating where their story should go.
As each chapter unfolded and ended, I found myself surprised time and again by what happened, what was said, and where the next step in the story would go. I learned to trust what came to me. Readers would tell me when something didn’t quite match the character's personality, which led to rethinking and re-edits. Questions came up like, “would she really say that/do that in light of her past experiences?” Or, “he said in the last chapter he’d never do that, but here he is doing that. Does that mean he’s hypocritical? Or does that mean I need to change one side or the other?” Important questions, for sure, that needed to be addressed. Each answer changed the story.
Each development in the story and with the characters not only propelled the story forward, but opened up new possibilities along the way - ones I had never considered before, and honestly, would never have occurred to me without the story being exactly as it was at that given moment. If I remained honest with the story, the characters, and myself each step of the way, the characters would lead me to the ending in time.
Everything about my original plan found its way into the story — my envisioned beginning, middle, and end — but all looked far different from anything I could have dreamt up in the book's early stages. That made the book a thrill to write, and this approach allowed me to enjoy writing for hours at a time .
Now, this is not every writer’s process. Yet, from the challenges I’ve seen other writers encounter when they over-outline and over-plan, there’s significant risk involved in trying to “contain” ones writing. All this accomplishes, from what I’ve seen, is limiting or even smothering the story. The story needs to breathe, to grow, to extend beyond a writer's preconceived ideas of plot / dialogue / conflict / chapter length / total word count / blah blah blah.
My life has needed similar time to breathe, to grow, to extend beyond my preconceived notions of everything and anything. This took me a really long time to start learning and allowing, though I’ve seen that experience is really the only way to learn anything worthwhile and have it really stick.
Much as my book developed, my life has improved on every front in the last handful of years because I’ve taken this same approach to it. I know generally where I want to go, what I want to achieve, who I want to be with, but I’ve learned to abandon trying to anticipate or force particular outcomes. Whether it be my job, publishing my novel, personal relationships, or whatever, I lose the wonder and surprise and growth if I try to pigeonhole everything — and everyone — into preconceived notions of How I’ve Decided Things Should Be.
I once did everything I was “supposed to do,” and got everything I was “supposed to get,” and it turned out disastrously. But I’ve since learned that those were other people’s “supposed to’s,” not mine. This isn’t to say those are wrong for them, but only that they're wrong for me.
My story had to breathe, had to evolve as my character developed and new people entered my life. As they did, internal and external forces redirected my life story to places that I never could have dreamed of a decade ago.
That tells me I’m creating my story — both in my writing and in my life — my way. Finally.
In my writing, I came to accept my characters as they developed. I’m getting better at giving the real people in my life the same courtesy, instead of expecting them to fit into the character I expected them to be. By letting them be who they are, they make my story that much richer— more so than what I could try to force on my own.
Which makes life, never mind writing, so much easier without dumbing it down or reducing its importance. Living my Now this way takes care of Later, because I won’t be thinking about Later until it’s Now.
That’s just how it works for me.
Call it Zen. Call it “Considering the Lilies.” Call it Stoicism. I don’t care. Just don’t call it giving up or a lack of faith or being childishly sanguine, because it’s none of those. I’ve done all of those before, so I know what they look like.
For me, all this is freedom and serenity. It’s meaning and purpose. It’s both the expression and culmination of faith. It helps me see what is actually happening and who people truly are, each more loveable and beautiful than how I once framed them.
It’s letting my stories unfold with the right balance of my direct input and of asking others for help, of taking initiative and letting go of control, and of embracing newness while staying true to the direction I need to go. It’s accepting reality of life as it is each day to the best of my ability (some days go better than others), and trusting that I’ll be okay.
Because the story is going to kick way more ass if I do things that way.
I like my stories with open-ended endings; when the end actually arrives, it allows for a new, open beginning.
Which means however things go, wherever they go, I win. I’ll take those odds.
For whatever reason, I’ve had to grow beyond my own preconceived notions and challenge my most steadfast beliefs in order to see what can truly be possible for me. What I am “supposed to” do / be can be so damned limiting, because “supposed to” is too often rooted in fear or judgement or vanity.
To do that push through is scary as hell, yet I’ve also seen so many others do so and end up with lives richer than they’d dreamed of when they were living on the Safe Side of Supposed To. It’s not just me, folks. So this is available for anyone, it seems.
I’m seeing that when I bring my best to the table, and let others do the same, we all get the best if we are willing to try new stuff that may taste weird at first.
So, if this all means that my “story” ends with something as wild and unexpected as a moon invasion and the deaths of characters that I wish would have not happened so soon, then that’s the story. Period. That doesn’t mean the story lacks meaning - in fact, it might mean more as a result. And if the story was one worth telling or living, then I don’t think I’ll have many regrets, however it turns out.
That, too, is open-ended. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Not anymore.
Plus, this way is so much more fun. Thanks for being part of it.
Chins Up, Everyone.
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Thanks for reading My Sunday Post. Here are some important updates from my past week:
Soul Book of the Week: Together by Vivek H. Murthy
Book On My Nightstand: 2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman / James Stavridis
Best Show / Movie I Watched: For All Mankind, Season Two Finale. Just get Apple TV already.
Strongest Earworm Song: “Eminence Front” by The Who
Best Triathlon Training Moment: Running my best mile times in months. Workouts are paying off.
Favorite Hangout T-Shirt of the Week: This one. Because they might actually be good this year….
Coolest Thing of the Week: Plotting (yet another) new project. More on that soon. It’s gonna be fun.
Thing I Know Now That I Didn’t Last Week: That there’s a town in Texas named Ding Dong, and one in West Virginia named Booger Hole. You’re welcome.
Most Helpful Perspective / Advice of the Week: “Narcissists can’t stand their own company, either.”
Current Wanderlust List: 1) California (it’s a theme); 2) Lake Chelan, WA; 3) Not Booger Hole or Ding Dong
