Voice

I've been reading UNDEAD AND UNWORTHY, MaryJanice Davidson's latest novel in her Betsy, Vampire Queen series. The book made me think about that elusive quality called "voice." All writers have a unique voice, we're told, and we should strive to let our own shine. Some authors have highly recognizable (and easily parodied) voices: Hemingway's spare, short sentences; Lovecraft's elaborate prose, eldritch adjectives, and horror-stricken italics; Damon Runyon's New York underworld slang. Some others, equally unique, can't be described so easily. Stephen King's fiction has a characteristic sound and feel, but I don't think it’s so easily imitated as the others I mentioned.

The first-person narrative of Davidson's vampire novels falls into what I think of as the typical "chick lit" verbal register. Indeed, she was probably one of the pioneers of this subgenre in paranormal fiction. When Betsy emerged from her premature grave in UNDEAD AND UNWED, she came across as snarky, self-observed, obsessed with fashion accessories, and prone to overuse profanity. In fact, in some of the dialogue in this series, every other word out of the narrator’s mouth seems taken from the short list of terms that, thirty years ago, were commonly classified as “unprintable.” (Maybe it isn’t literally every other word, but to me, with my verging-on-zero tolerance for “those words,” it often feels like it. I mean, REALLY, how many people do you know in real life who talk that way in polite company ALL the time?) The first book of Davidson’s newer series, starring a mermaid named Fred, contained an author’s note declaring her intention of making Fred a different type of character from Betsy. Didn’t work for me, because their style and diction are so similar. Fred, too, impressed me mainly as flippant and foul-mouthed.

As an aside, why do I keep reading the adventures of Betsy the Vampire Queen if I feel that way about her? Well, she gets into intriguing predicaments, and it’s fun to watch how the plots unwind. The world-building of Davidson’s vampire and werewolf subcultures has its points of interest. And Betsy, to be fair, has grown as a character from the shallow young woman who emerged from that grave wearing (horrors) un-stylish shoes. She’s developed a genuine love for her husband, Vampire King Sinclair, and a deep sense of responsibility for the people, human and otherwise, who have gathered around to place themselves under her protection. I just grit my teeth and mentally “bleep” over the dialogue that rubs me the wrong way, not to mention all that silliness about shoes. (Sorry, I just don’t GET fashion.)

With UNDEAD AND UNWORTHY, however, I perceive a potential mismatch between tone and plot, or maybe even between tone and theme. Readers were warned that the series would take a darker turn starting with this novel. The publisher even changed the cover style. (I much prefer the cartoony cover illustrations of the earlier books, but admittedly they would mislead new readers if attached to darker stories. Cover art pitfalls comprise a whole different topic—the reprints of Laurell K. Hamilton’s earlier Anita Blake novels have the same cover style as the newer books, darkly erotic and therefore VERY misleading as far as the first few books in the series are concerned; those aren’t remotely erotic.) Previously, blood was spilled and villains died, but things generally turned out well for the good guys. When Betsy’s father and stepmother died in a car crash, her estrangement from them kept us from feeling sorrow over the loss, especially since Antonia, her stepmother, aka the Ant, has been consistently portrayed as a caricature rather than a rounded character. (Will she change now that she’s a ghost trapped into haunting Betsy? Hard to tell.) Therefore, the narrator’s voice has been able to keep the tone breezy, verging on humorous, even in the midst of what would, if described in cooler prose, sound like unmitigated horror. At the climax of UNDEAD AND UNWORTHY, however, Very Bad Things happen. Suddenly, Betsy’s characteristic voice doesn’t seem to fit so well. True, in the final chapter and epilogue, the author tones down the snark considerably. Still, I feel the mismatch may become a problem, if the “darker” trend continues as advertised. Will the author gradually change Betsy’s voice, thereby possibly disappointing readers who like the character the way she is, or try to maintain the familiar tone and diction amid a chain of events that may turn out to be too serious for that tone?

If you’re a fan of the series and have read the latest novel, what do you think about this issue? In general, what about the question of harmony among voice, plot, and theme? Have other authors (you or someone whose work you’ve read) encountered this problem because of shifting the focus of a series, and how do they deal with it? The only other example I can think of is rather remote in applicability, because it’s a TV series: MASH. In later seasons, the program shifted focus from the silliness (which became less obtrusive) to more serious plot premises and themes (which were always present but less prominent). A TV show can’t have a “voice” in the same sense a prose narrative does; what would be the analogous factor on TV? The way I remember MASH, its shift to more rounded characters and emotionally engaging storylines (in my opinion, much improved thereby) coincided with the departure of Col. Blake, Trapper, and above all Frank Burns. Frank, in particular, not only irritated me but constantly undermined my suspension of disbelief. I couldn’t accept that such a buffoon could have been admitted to medical school, let alone graduated. Maj. Winchester had his quirks, but he was a believable character with intelligence and depth. I was also fond of B.J., who foregrounded the issue of separation from family, such a large part of the military experience. Col. Potter, of course, was wonderful. And Frank’s disappearance freed “Hot Lips” to develop from a caricature into a real character. So what do you think? Voice, plotlines, and theme—how do they fit together, and if you want to change the latter two, must you alter your voice, also?

Astrology Just For Writers

Geps Morris, a writer on LinkedIn asked:
Can anyone who believes in Astrology offer any hypothesis for how it might 'work'?

I'm going to post the answer here because this does relate to writing about relationships - especially relationships across vast cultural gulfs.

To get an "alien" mindset across to human readers, you must first establish a connection between the alien and the human.

The comments posted on Amazon's page for my novel (under the Daniel R. Kerns byline) Border Dispute, show that these 2 novels demonstrate this technique - making the alien accessible to humans. Border Dispute is the sequel to Hero. Both Ace mass market paperbacks.

The method is discussed below - "the same but different."

I answered the question about Astrology on LinkedIn two ways -- a very brief answer and a very long one -- I'm posting the brief answer here first, followed by the long answer.

------------------
“I don't "believe in" Astrology -- I just use it, as I use Science without "believing in" it.

The topic is very hard to summarize because understanding what Astrology is and how it works requires a totally different model of the universe than we usually rely on.

It's easier to understand what Astrology is not.

Two key ideas to ponder:

1) "The" future and "your own" future can not be predicted by any tool because you have Free Will. So does everyone else. What can be predicted with very good certainty is that you won't use your Free Will. Nor will they.

2) Astrology can tell you WHEN but not WHAT. We live inside a giant clock - the solar system. It's not an appointment book. It's a clock. It can tell you that it's 2PM in your Life -- it can't tell you that you have an appointment with the Dentist at 2PM or that you'll have to have all your teeth extracted because you didn't brush and floss enough when it was 10AM in your Life.

An Astrological Natal Chart is a flash photograph of the moment your Soul became bound to your Body. The Soul chooses that moment as best it can, according to what the Soul seeks to master or address in this Life.

The starting moment of a life or a sequence of events (such as a novel plot) has coded into it all kinds of challenges and opportunities that will unfold in a specified order.

But these aren't specific events -- they are categories of raw materials available for shaping by Free Will into the events which become the story of your life.

You don't have a "destiny" -- you have a Microsoft Dropdown Menu Bar where some choices are grayed out.

I talk a lot about how a writer can use Tarot, Astrology in my review column which is printed in the paper magazine, The Monthly Aspectarian, then posted to their website (lightworks.com ) then archived here. It's been monthly since 1993.

On Amazon you will find the first in a five book series on the Tarot, Never Cross a Palm With Silver .

Two more volumes in that series, Swords and Pentacles, have been posted a chapter at a time on Tuesdays the last half of last year where I co-blog with 6 other writers.
http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/

To find the 20 posts on Swords and Pentacles, search the blog on Tuesday or Tarot, or Swords, Pentacles. There are several newsletters or discussion Lists where the announcement of publication of all volumes will be carried. They are available on http://www.simegen.com/archives/ -- Newsletter-L -- Lifeforce-l -- Rereadable-l

As noted on the first page of this section, Tarot and Astrology are really one topic. To learn Tarot, study Astrology. To learn Astrology, study Tarot. They are inextricably intertwined because one deals with the Soul's choices the other with the Body's opportunities.

As learning a language teaches you about another culture, learning these mathematically based tools teaches you about another universe structure. (yes, Tarot is Mathematically based)

Most people don't know they have a view of the universe, a philosophy. It's a shock to discover one hiding inside you. Finding out what is in your philosophy can be a shattering epiphany, even deranging.

Thus this study is not for everyone. Read Never Cross a Palm With Silver for how to discover whether you really want to know any of this -- or not. It's a very short book.”

--------------------

Here's the long version of the answer.

The truth is nobody knows how any of this esoteric stuff works.

Astrology and Tarot are both empirical sciences. Way back when "science" was invented (Ancient Greece; Aristotle; fast-forward to Bacon in England), humanity discovered we got much faster and easier, better and more profitable results from science than from magic. So magic was abandoned.

Magic just never got any research grants, government programs, PH.D. thesis writers, or Pharmaceutical Company investments.

So nobody really knows how Magic does what it does. Worse yet, nobody really knows whether Magic actually does anything -- because it hasn't been researched properly.

Not understanding the square root of minus 1 does not keep people from turning on the lights with a switch. Not understanding how Astrology works doesn't keep people from using it to shed light on a murky topic either.

Understanding "how" astrology works requires developing a theory of "what" astrology is.

Where did astrology come from? It came from crude empirical observations of coincidences between what was visible in the heavens and what happened on Earth. The lore accumulated generation after generation.

Today, these observations of mere coincidence are codified with computers which do the number crunching ever so much faster. And research has revealed many new mathematical tools with which to compare what is happening in the heavens with what is happening to a particular person. What's happening in the heavens is as predictable as clockwork. What's happening to a person is not.

Thus we have ways to understand what is happening to a person who is battling through a series of challenges no science can delineate or comprehend. We can look at what happened to other people "like" this person "when" certain indicators appear in the heavens.

Astrology is being turned into a "real" science by the data handling of computers -- but it hasn't happened yet. So we can talk here about how this compendium of accumulated historical observation called Astrology can be used by a fiction writer.

Astrology is really a branch of psychology. Every writer has to delve into psychology at least to the point where an understanding of human behavior -- of MOTIVATION -- can be articulated.

Character depth, Relationships and motivations are the pure substance of story. In conflicting motivations, writers find their richest material.

But it isn't enough to have your own view of what motivates people. You have to develop an awareness of what "readers" think motivates people, and then explain your view to the readers in terms of their own concept of motivation.

You have to translate your own understanding of what motivates real people into what motivates your characters so that you can write the the characters in a way readers will understand and thus believe. So you need a language in common with your readers. And you need to know more about human motivation than your readers do.

A wide and deep study of all the schools of psychology can produce that kind of understanding in a writer. A brutal education in the school of hard knocks can do it too.

Easier and faster - especially for the mathematically inclined - is to get a good astrology program (such as WinStar from Matrix Software which is the one I use also favored by Noel Tyl.) And start doing charts for people you know, using interpretive books to puzzle it all out. I recommend the "Planets In" series of interpretive books and all the books by Grant Lewi.

The world tends to use Astrology and Tarot to try to predict the future. Individuals want to know what is going to HAPPEN TO THEM, or how to achieve specific goals.

The anxiety that drives people to Astrology is often most deeply rooted in a frantic need to connect with themselves -- to experience their own uniqueness.

People want to know their OWN future. Is it right to marry this person? Should I get a divorce? What will happen if I quit my job now? Do I have to go back to school? When will my mother die? Why does everyone hate me? How can I ditch this loser!

People want to know what makes them so different from everyone else. They want specifics about who they are and how to subdue the world around them.

That screaming anxiety, the need to know the future, is the exact moment a writer has to capture in a story's main character. X-ray that moment of screaming anxiety for what drives a person to that moment, what they do to resolve that anxiety, and how all the loose pieces of the person's world then fall into a pattern which reveals the meaning of that person's life and you reveal your theme -- what the story says about the meaning of Life.

The story character's "story" begins with the drive toward that moment, climaxes at the action taken by the character because of the anxiety, and concludes with the resolution of the character's need to know.

That anxiety will drive a real person to an astrologer. And some astrologers are good enough psychologists that they can counsel such a frantic individual.

But that counsel does not originate in the compendium of Ancient Wisdom called Astrology.

Astrology can not tell anyone about their individuality. It can't describe unique individuality. It can't describe HOW YOU ARE DIFFERENT from everyone else.

Astrology can tell you how you are JUST EXACTLY LIKE every other human who has ever walked this planet. (and maybe some other planets too).

Astrology has amassed data about millions of people, and crunched that data down into trends, generalizations, categories of behavior, areas of interest, times of challenge and times of rest -- times of building and times of disintegrating.

Astrology is a lot like actuarial statistics. We know the average lifespan is about 74 years -- but that doesn't tell you how long you will live.

Astrology is statistics distilled to a pure essence over more than a thousand years of record keeping. (OK on crumbling parchment, hand calculated, but it's amazing what humans can do with pen and paper!)

The secret to powerful fiction writing is vivid, individual, quirky, unique characters. But astrology is not about individuality. So what good is Astrology to a writer?

With a sound understanding of Astrology, a writer can craft a unique character who can be understood by, recognized by, the reader as someone they know -- because whether they know anything about astrology or not, every single breathing human being understands astrology intuitively.

We all recognize the life Passages. At 7 years old, kids become very self-directed individualistic people. At 14 - they know it all. At 21 they're gone off into the world, have the world by the tail and nothing can deter them from their folly. Ah, but at 28-29, all the chickens come home to roost for better or ill.

What is that 7 year cycle? It's the quartering of the natal chart by Saturn. The age of 28-29 is the most visible, most shared of all challenges -- people recognize the time between turning 27 and turning 30 as a big cliff. The 31 year old looks back over a chasm at the 25 year old and sees a child.

Every one of the 10 cyclical objects Astrology tracks (SUN, MOON, MERCURY, VENUS, MARS, JUPITER, SATURN, URANUS, NEPTUNE, PLUTO) has a periodicity that is recognizable like that. In addition to making aspects to their own birth position, all these objects make aspects to each other creating "cross terms" in the equation that is a Life.

As in an engineer's force diagram, two forces operating on an object at an angle produce a third -- a "resultant" -- and the force will move the object along the resultant path.

So the "aspects" that one of these 10 celestial objects make with a Natal Chart work like that - producing a "resultant" effect.

When you think about it like that, you see how complicated it can be to discern what a given moment in a given person's (or character's) life might be like. The moment in a life is an amalgam of 10 or more major forces. Once it's amalgamated, it's very hard to separate out the individual effects.

But with all the millions of lifetimes astrologers have documented, broad categories of "resultants" have been identified and named.

Certain celestial conditions are reliably associated (empirically) with certain kinds of human challenges or results. Grant Lewi's books HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT and ASTROLOGY FOR THE MILLIONS synthesize combinations of effects with cycles to show you how to discern how combinations will work in real life.

You don't have to learn astrology to see these associations. You already know them because you've seen them operating in lives around you -- or even on the 6 O'clock News.

Recently, Noel Tyl identified a complicated Natal Chart formation type that results in the life pattern you have seen again and again in the Rich and Famous. He calls it extreme Prominence.

See his book Synthesis and Counselling in Astrology, the Professional Manual (but this is NOT suitable for beginners, trust me!).

So the question comes down to how can it be that life-patterns are so common, so repetitive, that even people who don't know astrology can identify those patterns?

The superstitious are likely to assume that because a certain aspect and transit combination always results in a certain type of life-incident (car accidents, for example) - the transit CAUSES the incident.

But science teaches us that the mere coupling of events in time does not indicate a cause-effect relationship between them.

To muddy the picture further, in astrology, the CAUSE can PRECEDE the EFFECT. (this is referred to as the "orb of influence" -- a symbolism can materialize any time plus or minus 6 months of the zone of highest probability).


-------------------END PART ONE------------------

More on how a writer can apply these ideas to creating characters next time I post.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

If Authors could Interview Readers...

Interviews, as Rowena noted, can either be interesting or snoozers. Having spent several years as a news reporter, working in the print and electronic media, I've seen both kinds of interviews. The one that I would want the most today, though, would be the one where I get the scoop from my readers.

I think that's something all authors want. Sure, we get fan mail. Heaven knows, I adore fan mail and it honestly brightens my day, encouraging me when deadlines are howling, my brain has frozen and my muse has taken a hike. "I love your books, they're so much fun to read" are words that soothe my writerly soul.

But they don't tell me why you--the reader--feel that way.

There are times, many times, where I desperately wish I could interview my readers.

Why did that particular character tug at your heartstrings? I'd ask. Was it his appearance, his gestures, his expressions...what was the turning point where you really felt him to be the hero you wanted? And what was it about the heroine that made you cheer for her, root for her? Was it because she was somewhat similar to yourself, or because she was different?

The thing is, most of us--at least, the authors I know and reguarly drink with a cons and such--really have no idea of what we're doing right. We can study books on conflict and characterization. We play with the concept of rising action. But they're just that: concepts and theories. Each time we sit down to write a book, the situation is new. We've either never met the characters before or they've grown since the previous book. We throw them into situations and then pound our brains for exactly the right words in which to bring you, reader, into that same situation. With as much intensity and passion as we can.

And we hope, no, we PRAY you like it.

Because we really don't know. We're really not sure. As I was explaining to a trio of my delightful beta-readers this weekend, authors probably read each chapter over easily ten times as they progress through the book: we read it for continuity, we read it to make sure we're on track, we read it when we've made changes to it, we read it because we've been away from the computer for a day or three and can't remember where we left off. By the time a book is finished first draft (FIRST draft), it's not unusual for an author to have read the entire book twenty times. Fifty times. By the time the book is through second draft, one hundred times of reading those damned words is not at all unlikely.

You become numb to what you've written. You can no longer discern if the funny parts are funny, the scary parts, scary. You KNOW what's going to happen on the next page so you're no longer able to gauge the flow of tension.

You can damned near quote the damned book by heart.

Then the book comes out and you get a glowing fan mail: "I loved the book!"

And in your heart of hearts, you want to yell: "But WHY?"

And in your heart of heart of hearts, you fear that since you have no idea of what you did right to make the reader love the book, you'll never be able to duplicate it and do it again.

Honest, we really feel that.

So I think the next time a reporter or blogger asks me for an interview, I'm going to strike a deal. Sure, you can interview me. But then I get to interview you.

Happy reading! And don't forget SHADES OF DARK hits the shelves July 29th at a bookstore near you--IN the romance section!

~Linnea
SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost, coming July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

I love you beyond all measure, Chasidah. Sully’s voice in my mind was a husky whisper. The tightness in my chest began to abate. But I am concerned when I no longer know who or what I’m asking you to love in return.

What makes a good interview?

Since this is a craft blog, I'm probably not asking in the right place!

However, I'm wondering whether there is a "one size fits all" interview, or whether interview questions and answers ought to be carefully tailored according to whether the majority of those likely to read the interview are readers who want to know more about the author, and some insider secrets behind the writing of the book, or writers who want to know what works for other writers in the sfr genre.

I've just had the privilege of being interviewed by our Heather of Galaxy Express, who asks the best and most insightful questions ever! Also by Mandy Roth and Michelle Pillow, who ask a mean (in a good way) question or six.

Almost every interviewer, whether for a craft site or a review site, asks which authors I believe have influenced me. My answer to that never changes. Now, I don't mind in the least being asked a question I can answer on autopilot.

However, I cannot help wondering whether readers are interested. If so, why?

Another question which I completely understand for writers' groups and craft blogs is which How-To-Write-Science-Fiction books I recommend. But, do you think readers who are not writers are interested?

How much of a list is appropriate before a bibliography becomes boring?

Don't we all list the same --mostly Writers' Digest published-- books and authors? The Physics of Star Trek - L. Krauss
How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy - Orson Scott Card
Conceiving the Heavens- M. Scott
The Science of Star Wars- J. Cavelos
World Building - Stephen L. Gillett
Aliens and Alien Societies - Stanley Schmidt
Writers Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe--George Ochoa and Jeffrey Osier


If I have overlooked some superb resources, please do add other recommendations as Comments, and a brief word why they are tops in your opinion. I'll add them to a Listmania and give commentators credit.


By the way, last evening, I made a Listmania list on Amazon.com because it is so much more fun to show cover art, and I did the same thing with a Top Ten list on Chapters.Indigo.ca

(If anyone takes a look and likes my list or lists, a "Helpful" click would be much appreciated!)

Moreover, if the authors on this list would like to put a "being interviewed tip" in the comments, maybe I could assemble a Listmania with their cover and their tip, and we'd have something helpful and promotional on Amazon etc.




This is the cover of the ARCs for Knight's Fork that I'm doing privately. It's astonishing to me that it is cheaper to put together a POD, than it is to photocopy and spiral bind galleys! Moreover, it's tidier, and a lot more special looking.

For the next few days, there's an ARC being given away to one of the people who comments on the Rowena Cherry Author Feature at:

http://ravenhappyhour.com/ravenblog/?p=460

I believe that I'm also giving away another ARC in one of the contests being run from my newsletter on my website.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

What Writers Should Avoid—or Not?

From the Writer's Digest Book Club, I recently bought a book called DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY, by Chris Roerden. The author discusses twenty-four categories of mistakes and overused devices that can induce the "screener-outer" (first reader) to reject a manuscript. Most of Roerden's advice isn't actually peculiar to mystery novels, but applies to any kind of fiction. The missteps discussed include many of the usual suspects, such as over-reliance on adverbs, aimless chatter instead of dialogue that advances the story, character descriptions consisting of indiscriminate catalogues of physical features, wobbly POV, cliches, misuse of prologues and dream sequences, too-obtrusive dialogue tags, etc. Many of Roerden's points strike me as right on target, and the many examples he provides from best-selling mystery authors give texture and depth to his counsel. The book reminded me of areas where I tend to get lazy if I don't watch myself. Goodness knows, it's all too easy to describe a character on first appearance with a list of traits rather than remembering to weave description into the action.

Some of this author's advice, though, works against the grain of my preferences as a reader, as well as a writer. For example, he comes down hard on excessive backstory. Now, I realize I'd probably lose the reader quickly if I dropped into an extended flashback after the first page of the first chapter (as I did in more than one unpublished work, before I learned better). And I acknowledge the wisdom of working the characters' past into the ongoing action little by little, as the reader's appetite becomes whetted for it. But Roerden's antipathy to long flashbacks of any kind doesn't fit my tastes. I love backstory, whether narrated as a straightforward flashback, contained in a document the protagonist reads, or told to one character by another. My favorite parts of Stephen King's IT, PET SEMATARY, and BAG OF BONES are the episodes from years or generations past that enhance the horror of these novels by lending them layers of depth. I'm very fond of "club stories," the device of framing the tale within the context of people sitting around telling stories to each other. Speaking of methods of presenting backstory, DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY contains a whole chapter on "Toxic Transcripts." What's so deadly about giving the protagonist a document to read? Roerden says it's not a good thing to expect your reader to read a long section that consists of a character sitting and reading. I understand this contention in principle, and I admire the techniques he recommends to break up the sitting-and-reading with action and suspense—if the information wanted can in fact be adequately conveyed by disconnected snatches from the document in question. As a reader, however, I don't in the least mind reading many consecutive pages of whatever the protagonist is supposed to be reading, if the journal, letter, etc., is interesting in itself. I imagine Roerden doesn't approve of Dorothy Sayers' CLOUDS OF WITNESS, in which Lord Peter reads a letter several pages long to the House of Lords to exonerate his brother of a murder charge. (To make matters worse, the letter is printed first in French, then in English.) And how about Roerden's prohibition against having a technical expert lecture the detective on the expert's area of specialization? I love that kind of thing. I had trouble following the plot of the brilliantly conceived first-contact SF novel BLINDSIGHT, but I eagerly devoured the appendix in which the author explains his vampires' biology and psychology. While watching the TV series NCIS, I get irked whenever the head of the team cuts off medical examiner Duckie or forensic scientist Abby in the middle of explaining the technical minutiae of their latest discoveries. I want to hear those explanations! I realize the 45 minutes of a TV show don't leave time for them, but there's no reason, from my viewpoint, to shorten them in a book.

Am I so atypical of the modern genre fiction reader? Doesn't anybody else love reading backstory and watching characters explain things to each other in lengthy detail?

Westercon 2008 Report

I flew to Las Vegas with my husband for Westercon the day before programming started. We had bought tickets in January, so our fare was reasonable.

We were on Southwest, and they are not charging extra for checked bags -- but have reduced the weight limit to 50 lb and enforce that. Because I was carrying books for "show and tell" on the panels -- plus flyers to give away -- my bag weighed in at 49.5 lbs. When we picked up the luggage in Las Vegas, I found the handle on my rolling suitcase had ripped off. I've got to travel much lighter if I do that again.

We got settled in the hotel, picked up badges and learned the way around this huge, spread out hotel. It's a sprawling, multi-building golfing resort/casino that usually charges $399 for the room we got for $150 (which is still way high by convention standards).

Thursday morning we went wandering through the convention area and started meeting people. I met The Wombat (Jan Howard Finder) and we had a good 2 hour talk, then wandered around talking to other people.

I found the Green Room just opening up and sat down for a while.

I got to talking with some people, and it turned out two of them were a reporter-photographer pair looking for a story. I gave them several. They took my name, but I forgot to find out who they were.

Back near Registration, I ran into Jan Howard Finder (The Wombat) again and he introduced me to the fellow who was running the hotel's "business office" where you can get stuff copied for an exhorbitant fee. Turns out he's an aspiring SF writer. I gave him a flyer or three and a pep talk.

Programming started at 2:30 and I had my first panel. I was surprised we had 6 people listening to this panel. I did an autographing and Kaires turned up while I was introducing someone to the Sime~Gen universe. Kaires was wearing her S~G T-shirt and silver starred cross -- so she became my "show and tell."

The Convention's party maven had not answered Kaires' emails asking for party-space at the con. (room parties were not allowed; you had to use the designated rooms) By the time Kaires got an answer from the party maven, it was "sorry, all booked" even though she'd requested space months in advance. Kaires had come all set to throw a whopper of a Sime~Gen party Friday night, but we just couldn't make it happen.

Friday I did another bunch of panels -- a few more people in the audience at each successive one as people arrived. I didn't have so much energy as I usually do, and wondered why. The topics were interesting and the audience awake -- the panelists clever and full of things to say. I wasn't. (got some laughs and a compliment or two anyway).

After a short discussion in the dealer's room with another panelist (Tony N. Todaro I think it was) someone came up to me in the hallway and gave me the most surprising compliment of my life -- that I exhibited great body language during that exchange in the dealer's room! I didn't know anyone was listening or watching. That made my day.

I woke up Saturday morning with a stuffy head and by 11AM I knew I had a cold, not just allergies. I'd have given everyone at the S~G party a cold -- so it's a good thing we didn't have the party!

My husband ran all over and finally found someone in the Con Suite who gave him some ephedrin for me. Saved my life. Later, the hotel gift shop produced NyQuil and DayQuil which I lived on until I got home to my more usual remedies. That's the first time in decades that I've gotten sick at a convention. Usually, it's after I get home!

Despite laryngitis and stuffiness, I did my remaining 3 panels on Sunday and garnered a number of compliments, gave out some newsletters, and had another unique experience.

I often carry around several books of mine and offer them for sale at the end of a panel especially if that title isn't in the Dealer's Room. And I often get some takers. This time I wasn't doing that at all, but did have a couple of books to wave around that I commented on during the panels.

At my second to last panel, someone came up to me and asked if I had any books of mine for sale because someone told her that I usually carry some around to sell. So I sold one of the books that threatened to make my suitcase over-weight.

I'd given out flyers too, so I went home a lot lighter than I'd come because I refused to buy anything in the Dealer's Room (that was hard). Good thing I went home light, though, without the suitcase handle.

I made a DIARY ENTRY: Don't Fly With A Headcold.

But I wouldn't have missed this convention for anything. Due largely to the oil crisis and that the venue was more expensive than usual, there were barely more than 300 people at this convention -- more like a pre-Star Trek con. Next year, when Westercon is in the Phoenix suburb Tempe, we might have as many as a thousand attend. I've already been invited to be on programming there, and since it's a 20 minute drive up the road from me, I definitely plan to be there.

But frankly, with the cost of air fare soaring, I'm not planning as many trips as usual next year.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

A CHALLENGE: So, why do you write this crazy genre?

Romance novels are one of the top two best sellling genres out there, coming in at about forty-five to fifty-five per cent of all books sold. Science fiction, it's often noted, accounts for about seven to ten per cent of sales. So here we are, combining the best and--well, okay, not the worst but certainly not a front-runner.

So why do we do it? What drives reasonably-minded authors to spend the time penning novels that have such a funky and often precarious market? The old adage is that writers write because they can't NOT write. But certainly, we could (and some of us do) write other genres.

What is the appeal of the unknown, the odd, the inexplicable? What's the appeal of writing a novel where a reader asks, "What's is about?" and when you answer, their eyes start to glaze over (starships? wormholes? vampires? shape shifters? interstellar military? aliens?)?

So here's my challenge to published authors:

Your name:
Your website:

Post your answer in ONE sentence:

I write [fill in your genre] because [fill in one short reason why--your best reason, your strongest reason].

Then answer this:

If readers could read only one book of mine, I think it should be: [title] because [one short reason why.]

I'll start.

Name: Linnea Sinclair
website: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

I write science fiction romance because I love the vast possiblities, conflicts and love stories that can be explored in cultures and worlds that may not be like our own.

If readers could read only one book of mine, I think it should be FINDERS KEEPERS because it's an accurate melding of SF and romance in a light, fast-paced and fun way.

(Wow, that last one was tough and I invented the dang question!)

So authors--post your answers! And readers, feel free to comment and tell the authors if you feel they're on-point.

~Linnea
SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost, coming July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

"Four and 1/2 Stars! Chaz and Sully are back, and their lives haven't gotten any easier! Picking up after Gabriel's Ghost, the singularly impressive Sinclair thrusts her dynamic lovers into a maelstrom of trouble. The first-person, high-octane action is exhilarating. When it comes to futuristic romance, it doesn't get better than Sinclair! " --Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine

A dog eating contest

When a headline makes me blink, I make a note of it. An alien would be forgiven for taking "a dog eating contest" literally.

There are parts of the world where dog meat is eaten. There is at least one video on you-tube that shows a small, sleeping puppy inside a hot dog bun. Competitive eating is popular enough to be televised occasionally.

Talking of which, have you seen the new TV reality series "I Survived A Japanese Game Show"? In one game, team members ran against the flow up a treadmill, with a seed tray strapped to their heads. In the seed tray was a mealy, sticky food item that the "Eater" had to grab without using hands, and consume completely. An umpire was responsible for looking in the Eater's mouth to be sure it was empty before the next runner was dispatched.

Would anyone like to contribute a headline that jarred them?

Newspapers and paper money don't make sense to one of my alien god-Princes of Tigron.



Excerpt from KNIGHT'S FORK

North London
Hampstead High Street

“Read all abaaaht it!” an evening boy of papers shouted, by a strange, half-tented cart from which passersby could exchange very small pieces of folded paper for very large, folded stacks of dirty paper, which they would then unfold and look at.

Prince Thor-quentin was fascinated. He loitered to observe the folly of mankind. His attention was captivated by more-efficiently folded papers. They were colored, and individually sealed in tight, clear wrappings to stop them flipping in the London street wind. Many of these colored papers showed bare-chested males, proudly displaying their favorite exercise equipment, or modest females in heat, bending over conveniently placed vehicles.

The boy of papers varied his cries of what was interesting. “Antipodean alarm!” he wailed. “Australian Air Force authorities allay anxiety over alleged alien…”

So many big A-words! Thor-quentin thought.

Then, he caught sight of the grainy, blurry, black-and-white photograph. The boy of papers might call the object diving into the sea a twisted, distorted weather balloon, but Prince Thor-quentin knew it for what it was. A Volnoth water-capable shuttle.

He’d practiced Djinncraft before on impressionable, sacrificial virgins. He’d never imagined that he’d use it to obtain something as worthless as a pile of dirty papers.

Approaching the boy of papers at a suitable lull in the passing trade, Thor-quentin murmured, “I will take. You will not cry out.”

The boy of papers promptly turned aside, folded from the midsection, and vomited into the slightly lower level of the trafficway.

Slack damn! Less force is required in this lesser gravity, Thor-quentin noted. He helped himself to a selection of the folded stacks of papers and passed a hand over the wad of small, purplish papers, as if he might be making a fair exchage like everyone else. In addition, since he could, he took one catalog of the local females in heat.


Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Originality

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND includes a column called "We're Only Human." Its June-July essay is headlined, "Got an Original Idea? Not Likely." The author refers to the fact that ideas spring from "complex patterns of collective behavior, many spontaneously organized and most entirely outside our understanding or awareness." That premise makes me think of jokes and urban legends. New ones do spring up from time to time, yet it's hardly ever possible to trace them back to their originators. These memes (to use another popular term for conceptualizing how ideas spread) just seem to pop into existence, with no way of knowing who first told the joke or disseminated the rumor. How does the collective mind generate ideas, and how can people strike a balance between too much connectivity -- resulting in a homogeneous social group whose individual members lack any originality -- and the peril of being too much of a "rogue explorer"? The author of this essay uses the metaphor of "foraging" for ideas in the social environment. He wants us to think of ideas as "really just abstract resources, food for the brain." Maybe the Jungian collective unconscious really does exist.

One interesting result of research into the hunter-gatherer model of generating ideas is that huge, global networks do best in conceiving solutions to easy problems. But for trickier problems, small, local networks function better. The more complex the problem, the greater advantage a small network has.

The author, Wray Herbert, has a blog called "We're Only Human," where he muses on these and many other psychology-related topics:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman/

Dancing With Fire

I know I'm a bad blogger because every time I come here I have to recover my password again. And they keep changing how e blogger works. sigh. However, if i wait until the computer can simply do it for me on voice command, it might be a long wait. But I did want to stop in and tell you about my new romantic suspense which should be hitting the stores right now.


DANCING WITH FIRE
Tor Romantic Suspense—July 2008

Accident or Murder?

Dance instructor Kaylin Danner has sacrificed her opportunity on Broadway to help her father raise her younger sisters in Florida. When her father's laboratory blows sky high and his priceless formula for a revolutionary new fuel disappears, Kaylin is left with nothing but her father's business partner Sawyer Scott and a cache of deadly trouble.

Life or Death?

When the Danner home is vandalized and her sisters threatened, Sawyer and Kaylin team up to unmask the killer terrorizing her family. Sawyer's bent on pursuing both Kaylin and the missing formula, but Kaylin fights the attraction, believing Sawyer's a dreamer like her father-and in her experience dreamers end up dead.

Indiana Jones 4

WEDNESDAY JULY 2 I'll be going to Las Vegas for Westercon. So before we discuss Indiana Jones, here is my program item schedule:

Here is your Westercon 61 Las Vegas Programming Schedule. All of the programming rooms are on the first floor of the Convention Center and very near one another. Each item is scheduled for 60 minutes in 90 minute intervals.

7/3 2:30 pm Grand Ballroom C
Fantasy: Is the Magic Gone?
Has the genre been overdone? Or can you use traditional themes to tell wonderful new stories? Can there be new fantasy without overused archetypes?
Kage Baker (M), Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Tony N. Todaro

7/3 4:00 pm Galicia
Autographing: Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

7/4 10:00 am Grand Ballroom A
Little Known SF Television
Someday while flipping channels you saw an episode of Supernatural or Smallville or Torchwood. There are dozens of these shows on cable or available on DVDs. Which ones are worth watching? Are there even some canceled ones that you should hunt down on DVD?
Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Milt Stevens, Lee Whiteside (M)

7/4 11:30 am Sevilla
The Flip of a Card, The Toss of the Dice
There are a lot of way to lose (or win) large sums of money. Here are some of the betting situations found in SF and Fantasy novels and movies.
Kevin Andrew Murphy, Jacqueline Lichtenberg (M), Barry Short

7/4 4:00 pm Andalucia
Classic Science Fiction Literature
Most people who read SF start reading science fiction by the age of twelve. But there was a lot written before you were born. What are the classics of science fiction?
Bradford Lyau, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Milt Stevens (M), Ben Yalow

7/6 10:00 am Sevilla
Vampires - Much More than Buffy
Although Buffy created a huge following for modern vampire tales, there are many more vampires out there than the ones found in Sunnydale.
Catherine Cheek, Jacqueline Lichtenberg (M), Kevin Andrew Murphy

7/6 11:30 am Andalucia
How to Break an Editor's Spirit
Editors and writers gather together and reveal secret methods for destroying markets and driving editors crazy!
Beth Meacham (M), Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Deirdre Saoirse Moen, Tony N. Todaro


check out westercon.org -- choose this year's Westercon and get all the details.
---------------------

So now to Indiana Jones 4 --


A while ago, I did an email interview for a blog about Alien Romance. It's now been posted at http://thegalaxyexpress.blogspot.com/2008/06/state-of-science-fiction-and-romance.html

If I'd done the interview after seeing The Crystal Skull (Indy 4), I'd have woven that movie into the interview discussion because Indie4 does represent a high point in Science Fiction Romance, and I think that's something Blake Snyder missed.

Here below are my comments (slightly rewritten) in answer to Blake Snyder's post on Indiana Jones -- and don't read it if you are sensitive to spoilers.


---------------------

Answer to Blake's post & some of the comments
Why 1 and 3 Beat 2 and 4
Today's Blog — 2:44 pm on June 16, 2008
http://www.blakesnyder.com/2008/06/16/why-1-and-3-beat-2-and-4/#comments


Blake:

I think we're all missing something vital here. Story Arc.

I totally agree with Blake about how perfectly the beats were reticulated in 1 and 3, and just blurred a bit in 2 and 4. But that may not be due to flaws in those films but rather due to the planting of a clue.

Take 1,2,3,4 in order and let's first consider what we learn by looking at all 4 as an entire WHOLE story, not 4 different stories. Define the beats for this envelope arc.

Indy starts by not believing in the mystical -- has his nose rubbed in it -- tries to live in his old world with one toe on the mystical line -- gets roundly trounced (fun and games) by more mysticism (the Nazi side of the Force), and now discovers (science again) aliens from outer space, and mysticism (true love). True Love = Soul Mate = Applied Mysticism.

Indy's discovery of Aliens messing with our History (crystal skull evidence) after his lifetime of "fun and games" is the rude awakening of a story-mid-point.

4 doesn't have the feel of a "final chapter" but rather of a springboard into a whole new adventure in a whole new world. It's a midpoint. It needs 4 more episodes to complete.

Indy's "Universe" has been touched and perhaps altered by alien mysticism which could throw some light on humanity's mixed up ideas of mysticism.

In other words, 4 has the mid-way beat and BAD GUYS CLOSE IN beat -- the real threat invisible in 1,2,3, now becomes central and clear.

Aliens have messed with Earth History, and History is Indy's territory. You just don't mess with Indy.

His rude awakening is a story-mid-point. You think Nazi's are bad guys? Wait till you meet the Skulls. (that is, if I were writing this). But Indy's OLD (like his father was). We need the story of Indy's death and how the son figures into all that.

So instead of looking at these 4 films as individual stories, maybe we should run the "beats?" Set the end of 4 as the Mid-point in the beat sheet and see what comes next.

To do that, we have to reinterpret the first 3 movies in terms of the existence of that crystal skull and the effects it had -- especially on Indy who "just knew." What did discovering the Arc and the Challace have to do with that "just knew?" in Indie4? (that would be the plot of #5 if I were writing it.)

Those skulls have/had power.

What does that say about the Arc of the Covenant and the Challice that Indy found and all the rest (even objects we haven't seen in films)? When exactly was the kid conceived? Born? Indy's "just know" comes from channeling mystical power -- what was he channeling when the kid was concieved? Power like that can change genes. Is that kid entirely human? Is his mother human? Is this marriage a soul-mating? Or was it engineered by the Skulls way back in Indie#1?

Match up the year those skulls were entombed with what else was going on all over the world in that year -- in the Indy Universe.

I don't think we're looking at two films, Indie2 and Indie4, that miss the beats. I think we're looking at some masterful worldbuilding going on in the feature film arena rather than the weekly TV series arena.

Also, as far as mysticism goes, you realize that we now have 3 generations of men marching through history revealing ultimate truths. We should keep count of the number of "wives".

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com

Eats, Shoots And Leaves.... grammar may be different in outer space

I took the title of Lynne Truss's superb bestseller because this isn't intended as a public argument about copy-editing and the serial comma.

It seems to me that publishers' guidelines pay lip service to the serial comma, but cheerfully sacrifice it if it is felt that the reader won't notice, and the page would be visually more appealing with fewer commas.

Does anyone else feel that way?

I've read a lot of grammar manuals in my time, much of it too esoteric for the modern world, and one of the most sensible comments I ever saw was to the effect that punctuation is a courtesy to the reader, to remove ambiguity as to what the author intended.

A very useful convention in science fiction is the use of an initial capital, or else of italics, to show that a word is being used in an unusual (un-American) sense.

There is a difference between "his Mating Ceremony", "his mating ceremony", and "his Mating ceremony".

Isn't there?

By the way, I deliberately put the inverted commas before the commas.

Maybe I'm too much of a word geek, or maybe the language has moved on and I haven't, or maybe it's because I'm stubborn and British educated, but I do sometimes wonder whether I am alone (violins) in thinking that there should be handbook --a supplement-- to the standard manuals for FFandP writing.

Is there one already?

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Meet Me on the Holodeck

The Baltimore SUN recently had an article about a computer simulation called "Virtual Iraq," used to treat veterans suffering from traumatic stress syndrome. Here's the URL:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/world/iraq/bal-te.virtual22jun22,0,2471081.story

The system includes 3-D goggles, earphones, an odor-producing machine, and a vibration platform. Other than the last device, there doesn't seem to be a tactile component. The technique aims to recreate as vividly as possible the experiences that created the original stress. Repeated exposure is designed to drain the memories of their "haunting power" so that the patient can freely talk about them in therapy. The whole set-up costs about $7000 (cheaper than I would have expected, actually). The psychologist who invented the system was inspired by observing brain injury patients, who ordinarily have trouble concentrating, deeply absorbed in video games. So far, proponents of this therapy say it shows significant improvement over other approaches.

You SF fans will easily guess what this article reminded me of—the holodeck on STAR TREK. Aside from its recreational purpose, the holodeck was used for training simulations and for therapy. The Doctor on VOYAGER set up scenarios for Seven of Nine to practice social skills and a Vulcan officer in pon farr to be intimate with a simulation of his wife.

I wonder how far in the future we'll achieve totally immersive virtual reality. Judging from the Virtual Iraq system, we seem to be getting close. When something like the holodeck eventually comes into existence, it will doubtless get used for a variety of purposes, good and bad, serious and frivolous, like every previous medium—teaching, therapy, socialization, entertainment, fiction delivery, interactive porn. Hmm, considering the Doctor’s pon farr simulation, could such a virtual reality system enable couples separated by work or military service to “meet” in a multi-sensory, fully lifelike online environment?

Persistence Pays

BLAKE SNYDER SAID IN HIS BLOG ENTRY
"Closer"
on June 19, 2008
Every “no” is one step closer to a “yes.”
http://www.blakesnyder.com/2008/06/19/closer/

And I answered him:

----------------

Blake:

You've raised a philosophical point that can generate many strong plots.

Good, commercially viable, stories come from listening to the popular philosophical undercurrents -- assumptions people use but don't challenge. Dramatize a challenge to one of those blythe assumptions and you generate a dynamite plot.

And you've done just that with this post.

There is a powerful, popular saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

You have said keep doing it and you WILL generate different results - at least once, and once is all you need.

Our prevailing culture nurtures a "failure" attitude. If it doesn't work the first time, quit, or make random changes to avoid being thought "insane."

You have expressed the "heroic" attitude prevalent in science fiction, fantasy and action/adventure. Die hard.

These attitudes are diametric opposites. These two attitudes are "in conflict." Thus they form the backbone of a plot!

Science says we live in a world governed by probability. But science also says two people, in different places, doing the same thing will get the same results. Results are repeatable. That's the key to the scientific method.

Yet, science also says that you can throw the dice a certain way hundreds or thousands of times -- and no matter who does it or where, the dice will fall a specific way an exact percentage of the time. That is -- do the same thing over and over and get differing results in the short term but predictable results in the long term.

You have said in this blog that in the long term, the well constructed script will sell.

We know that if our dice are precision crafted (i.e. our scripts are properly structured), that it is a matter of random chance whether a given production company will need that particular script right at that particular moment.

We know that if the script is solid and we keep it on the market, it will sell -- or attract attention to another script we would love to sell.

One time in a thousand, or one time in ten thousand, we win. Persistence pays because the longer something has not happened, the more likely it is to happen. Keep at it long enough, and science says it is inevitable, repeatable and reliable.

But another good old saying holds that it's better to work smart than to work hard.

We need to spend the rest of this year on adjusting the ODDS, increasing efficiency, targeting specific markets.

Maybe a dramatized discussion of the definition of insanity would sell.

------------------

Now I wasn't specifically referring to an "Alien Romance" -- conflict applies to all story forms. But consider how these two human philosophical views might look to a non-human.

What do we think of a man who sets out to attract a woman -- and gives up the minute she shakes her head?

But what do we think of a man who persists "too" long -- i.e. a nerd. A stalker.

How could you explain to a non-human how hard and how long to pursue a human female?

Wars have been started over less. Galactic war isn't beyond imagining.

Take our current problems with Democracy vs. Islamic Fundamentalism.

The whole argument turns on a fine point of abstract philosophy -- that generates a whole plethora of overt behaviors (from dress modes to domestic violence).

The line between persistence and insanity is just exactly the same sort of abstract philosophical point -- that leads to a plethora of overt behaviors.

If we can't get along with other humans -- how can we get along with galactics?

On the other hand, there's a new TV show (which I haven't seen yet), a comedy involving a Moslem family in an ordinary US neighborhood. (I think that's the mix).

And we all know stories of various sorts of mixed-marriages with and without children.

Is it the role of women to reach across these philosophical chasms first -- to change the culture of the next generation? I've discussed that here, before, but it's an endless topic.

In the mating dance, does persistence pay -- or does it mark you as insane and undesireable?

Women look for heroism in a man -- which basically means "never say die" -- but is that really what we accept? Is the very trait that makes a person successful in life a blight on a Relationship?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

One Month and Counting: More Relentless Promo

Yep, we're a bit more than a month from SHADES OF DARK release on July 29th (though I know from past releases that my books often come out weeks early in the UK and Europe). In the continuing spirit of celebration, let's start with a nice contest with lots of prizes, all centered around SHADES OF DARK:

http://jacescribbles.blogspot.com/2008/06/shades-of-dark-pre-release-contest.html

Or click HERE

Blogger Jace Scribbles is doing a bang-up job and all she asks is that you post on her blog your favorite Gabriel's Ghost passage. I've been following the postings with a smile as it's always interesting...well, okay, it's freakin' amazing to me which scenes or passages resonate with readers. Sometimes it's the ones I worked the hardest on. Sometimes it's ones that just showed up or were shoved in at the last minute to cure what I or my editor saw as a plot flaw or lack.

One of these days I think I'll blog on that crazy part of writing--what works, what doesn't and how to a great extent, an author Has No Clue (really, we don't).

In the meantime, go win some neat stuff. Including signed copies of SHADES OF DARK.

For two fugitive lovers, space has no haven,
no mercy, no light—only...
SHADES OF DARK

Before her court-martial, Captain Chasidah “Chaz” Bergren was the pride of the Sixth Fleet. Now she’s a fugitive from the “justice” of a corrupt Empire. Along with her lover, the former monk, mercenary, and telepath Gabriel Ross Sullivan, Chaz hoped to leave the past light-years behind—until the news of her brother Thad’s arrest and upcoming execution for treason. It’s a ploy by Sully’s cousin Hayden Burke to force them out of hiding and it works.

With a killer targeting human females and a renegade gen lab breeding jukor war machines, Chaz and Sully already had their hands full of treachery, betrayal—not to mention each other. Throw in Chaz’s Imperial ex-husband, Admiral Philip Guthrie, and a Kyi-Ragkiril mentor out to seduce Sully and not just loyalties but lives are at stake. For when Sully makes a fateful choice changing their relationship forever, Chaz must also choose—between what duty demands and what her heart tells her she must do.

Happy reading, hope you win! ~Linnea

SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost, coming July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

…and suddenly I love you beyond all measure is not just words but a heart, a soul bursting open, a stripping raw of all pretense. It is Sully, it is Gabriel, it is his tears on my face, his body in mine, our minds seamless. It is hopes and dreams and failures. It is apologies and a prayer for redemption. It is heaven and damnation.

All that I am is yours pales beside it.

It is everything.

It is love.

Of dinosaurs and bodice rippers

"Do you read Romance novels?" MSNBC asks.

"Asks" might not be the mot juste. Their skewed manner of asking might be better tagged as "whispers" or "sneers".


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25195786/

It's not an easy poll to find. You have to know where to look, which is half way through a substantial excerpt from a Danielle Steele novel. However, here is your only choice, if you do read Romance:

"Yes, yes, yes! Bodice-rippers are my ultimate escape."

Excuse me? Not all Romances are "bodice rippers". The pollster does not seem to understand that.

It would be a very brave reader who would vote "Yes" given the tone and phraseology of that choice. If the pollster deliberately phrases an answer to deter those being polled from selecting that choice, it is not a scientific survey.

However, thanks to all the Romance readers and authors who blog and have posted the link, a lot of Romance lovers have boldly gone to the MSNBC site and voted. Some have gone further, and found a place to comment.

http://lizardking797.newsvine.com/_news/2008/06/07/1551891-live-votes-on-msnbccom?threadId=282372#c1994104


As far as I know, Danielle Steele does not write alien romance. I'd love to see a similar poll posted for every sub-category of Romance that there is, and each poll should be inserted within an excerpt... which, I suppose, ought to be a current or recent RITA winner.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Becoming Creative

To glance back briefly at my last week’s post, I stumbled upon a sentence in Garrison Keillor’s column today that sums up the topic perfectly: “People who aren’t real to each other are dangerous to each other.” Wow!

On to a new topic: The June-July issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND contains a panel discussion article on creativity. The members of the panel agree that creativity isn't the sole possession of certain gifted people. Rather, everyone has the capacity to be creative in some way; moreover, creativity can be taught. I find those ideas quite cheering. The concept that all people have creative gifts reminds me of Dorothy Sayers' MIND OF THE MAKER, an exploration of the doctrine of the Trinity through an analysis of how human artists' works come into existence and influence others. Sayers' basic premise maintains that when our species is said to be made in the image of God, the most important component of that "image" is our ability to create.

One of the magazine's panelists, Robert Epstein, explains four "competencies" that "are essential for creative expression": "Capturing," being open to new ideas and preserving them without prematurely judging them; "challenging" or "giving ourselves tough problems to solve"; "broadening," learning a variety of new things all the time so that we can make innovative connections; "surrounding," making sure our environment contains lots of "interesting and diverse" people and things, which lead to the generation of interesting ideas within our own minds.

Another member of the panel talks about her "morning pages," a technique she uses when she feels blocked. It consists of writing three pages in longhand about anything at all, a kind of written stream of consciousness. I've noticed that many writers recommend exercises similar to this one. I haven't tried it and think maybe I should.

The article emphasizes the high productivity of highly creative people—in the sense that such people have "lots of ideas." Many of those ideas might not work, but the abundance of them makes it likely that some will. Failure doesn't throw these people into despair. Instead, they treat it as an opportunity to figure out what went wrong and what approach might work more effectively next time.

The panelists discuss why our society doesn't stimulate as much creativity in children as we should and how that situation could be remedied. For one thing, our culture harbors some negative stereotypes of creative people, such as the starving artist who's half-mad or addicted to drugs or alcohol. Parents often respond to a child's aspiration to become a writer or artist with the caution that they'd better have a more practical skill to fall back on. So young people need "permission" to be creative, as well as positive role models of creative people. Also, teachers should offer children open-ended problems and encourage the production of multiple solutions, instead of cutting off discussion with one "right" answer. (I trust the article is referring to truly multivalent problems in this case, not advocating a laissez-faire approach to math and spelling!) The exhilarating message of this article is that everyone has the potential to create, and all we need to do is find ways to unleash that potential.

Coincidentally, the latest issue of LOCUS contains an interview with fantasy author Jeffrey Ford, in which he makes a comment bearing directly on this topic. So I’ll close with that: “Writing has widened my world, made my whole life more eclectic. When people avoid the creative, they seem to have a tendency to only think in one particular way, but art allows you to get impressions of the ways other people think and feel.”

Futurology of Romance

Folks:

I prepared a post that was to go up Tuesday June 3 and it didn't, so I found it in blogger's listing and posted it -- but as Rowena Cherry once noted to me, when you do that blogger posts it on the date you saved it to the que, NOT the date you clicked POST.

So there is now a short (!!!) post from me inserted below on Tuesday June 3 -- and I didn't post on Tuesday June 10 because it was Shavuoth - a holiday.

So today's post is about the Futurology of Romance -- and no, it's not about computer error messages exchanged by AI's in love or inserted by AI's jealous of one another.

--------------------
Jean Lorrah found the following online article about the effects of the writer's strike on Hollywood and "The" Industry.

http://www.storylink.com/article/225

Essentially, that article describes what my techie-son-in-law Ernest was showing me on the web when he was here -- Phil Foglio is doing an online comic that's blowing the hit stats out of the park. Others are doing stills and animateds that are capturing the young audience. Ernest knows tons of URLS -- his interest is mainly in humor.

The problem those new writer-producers will all have though is the same as with the e-book -- no editors, no "gatekeepers" to vet the work and direct it to people want that particular thing done at that particular skill level. The whole internet system will re-invent the wheel pretty soon.

People don't have TIME to hunt for the good stuff they want to spend an hour before bedtime on. They need Underwriters Laboratory for fiction. A guarantee it won't blow up on you!

There could be a product there that's sellable -- the 'zine or reviews or imprint or logo or colophon -- that guarantees the product has a certain skill level behind it, and the genre-label sorter that indicates what type of entertainment it delivers.

Do you think people would pay a monthly or annual fee to be sure that what they click on will meet their needs and not waste their time? Or would they stick with the current method of hearing about it on social networks from friends or on Lists etc?

Do you enjoy flawed fanfic more than tightly crafted pro-fic? Because that's what such independent productions often are -- fanfic in animated clothing.

How will large, international audiences respond to a flood of amateur productions online? Would such productions tend to be worse than Little Theater?

In Star Trek fanzines, the commercial forces that forged Manhattan Publishing also shaped and energized ST fanfic. Star Trek 'zines became enormously expensive to produce and someone had to upfront the printing costs and warehouse them in their basement, tote them to cons, etc. So publishers (who were often also the editors) would consider a submitted story in terms of whether they could make their investment back in time to print the next issue of the 'zine. Would this story enhance their reputation with readers who would pay for the next issue?

Readers objected to some content, others adored that content. Publishers split off whole 'zines to handle specialized content -- and re-invented genre. 'Zine buyers LOVED that guarantee of content at a certain editorial skill (readers hate typos and continuity blunders -- 'zine readers were just as picky about plot-resolution as pro-fic buyers) and 'zine buyers LOVED being able to buy the subject matter they wanted without it being polluted by stuff they didn't want.

I think the Wild-Wild-West goldrush this article describes will result in the same market forces reasserting themselves but in another way.

Video production DOES cost, especially if you want to do it well. The voracious market my son-in-law has found will demand ever increasing production values -- and actors, animators, artists, videographers, etc will want to be paid for their skills. So the most popular online fiction will bea small percentage of the BEST produced stuff.

Bandwidth does cost. Even though it's cheaper now, hard drive space on a server COSTS. YouTube is providing small spaces by selling advertising. So once more, fiction availability comes back to commercial market forces.

Amazon will already let you post whatever self-published shlock you want -- for a fee. If your stuff is not valued, or if you fail in self-promotion -- you will not make back that cost. Soon you'll be hiring an independent editor to edit your stuff before posting. Another new profession -- and I've run into a lot of them already -- independent editors.

Have you seen that commercial where, at a tennis match, everyone rushes onto the field from the stands and the announcer says if you let everyone play, you don't get anywhere?

It's a commercial for a website which posts only high paying jobs.

We hate the gatekeepers who reject us, and blame "gatekeeping" for keeping our valuable output from the hands of our audience.

Do we really need gatekeepers in the worlds of Art?

Isn't every romance that pours out of a writer's heart something you, yourself would want to read as desperately as the writer wants you to?

As artists, portraying the intricacies of Relationship, passion and love melded into something higher, how can we tell if what we produce is of any value to anyone but ourselves?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Shades of Dark - Coming July!

Yes, I know I've been absent. I plead the usual writing insanity and a move to Ohio for the summer. While I try to dig out from under it all (and hang mirrors, drapes and all the rest of the move-in shtufff), here's a reminder that Shades of Dark will be out next month:


~Linnea

SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost, coming July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: www.linneasinclair.com

Something cascaded lightly through me—a gentling, a suffused glow. If love could be morphed into a physical element, this would be it. It was strength and yet it was vulnerability. It was all-encompassing and yet it was freedom. It was a wall of protection. It was wings of trust and faith.

It was Gabriel Ross Sullivan, answering the questions I couldn’t ask. Not that everything would be okay, but that everything in his power would be done, and we’d face whatever outcomes there were together.

Myths. Timeless inspiration

My Knight's Fork cover flats arrived this week. This is a thrilling and flattering experience. It's hard to put into words the emotions I feel, but they are mostly positive.

What irks? The Keynote.

"An idealistic Knight, a jaded Princess determined to become pregnant, and a new-age chastity belt add up to a delightfully wacky and highly sensual alien-god romance."


Given my druthers, which I wasn't, I wouldn't have called my romance "wacky" on account of the mental image that "Wacky Racers" left with me.

I've learned to beware of popular culture. A lot of people associated the antagonist in FORCED MATE with an unattractive and large-mouthed member of the Clampett family.

Ah, well, I am sure the Marketing people know best!

Nevertheless, I would love to give a classic Graeco-Roman myth (or a Norse myth, or an Indian one) to a select few Romance editors and their assistants, and see what kind of Keynote blurb they'd come up with.


Imagine....

Imagine the myth of Perseus and his quest to bring home the Gorgon's head (but not the rest of her).

When I consider the classical myths, they are full of dark, nasty, and controversial issues. There's cruel and unusual punishments, abduction, rape, incest, bestiality, adultery, spouse abuse, child abuse, patricide, suicide, murder, theft grand and petty, scrumping, mutilation, hunting an almost extinct species to extinction, revenge, cannibalism... to name a few.

Is that what makes them timeless?

Knight's Fork (the chess position) is about tough choices in an impossible situation where you can only save one of two (or more) threatened pieces.

I love the official cover art for KNIGHT’S FORK (which you can see on Amazon). It captures a lot of the undercurrents and symbolism about the aloof and sexually unattainable Rhett.

Although Rhett’s quest story was inspired by the Greek myth of Perseus (including his encounter with Andromeda), the official cover is like the Greek myth of Tantalus... the hero who was doomed to be half submerged (up to his neck) in water that he could never drink. So, I created an imaginary Tarot card, which I called The Tantalized Male, but it is based on The Hanged Man. It draws on the ideas of still waters running deep, of everyone having a dark side, of the chess-like battle between the White Knight and his inner Dark Knight.

Why a Tarot card? Insufficient Mating Material ends with a violent scene in a fortune teller’s parlour. Knight’s Fork is what happens next as –too excited to go to bed— the rogue Royals turn on Rhett to discover the truth about his sex life, if they can.


In FORCED MATE (an abduction-of-Persephone-from-earth-by-an-impassioned-Hades story), I introduced Rhett as the ultimate altruist. He tried to stop one of his big brothers from having unwise sex.

(He does that a lot, that's partly why his brothers get mad at him.)

So, his big brother thumps him. As a result, Rhett is arrested, imprisoned and threatened with torture and death. He keeps quiet about who he really is, and risks his life to protect the bad-ass older brother who hit him.

In INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL, ’Rhett volunteers his unsolicited opinion to the exceedingly dangerous Tarrant-Arragon after Tarrant-Arragon has forcibly marooned Djetth (the wild brother) on a tropical island with the slightly overweight and bitchy Princess Martia-Djulia.

Tarrant-Arragon has his reasons for shooting down the unhappy couple, and they are mostly political. Martia-Djulia balked at the altar of her shotgun Royal wedding (to Djetth), but she needs a husband before she creates a bigger scandal as a result of a really bad choice of bed partner for a defiant one-night stand.

KNIGHT’S FORK is a quest story, but just as Jason and the Argonauts set out to steal a fabulous golden fleece, then discover that it's just a ratty old ram skin once it's removed from the magical tree, Rhett's quest doesn't turn out the way he expected, and he gets exactly what he went on the quest to avoid.



KNIGHT’S FORK will be released in October.

#1. Forced Mate,
#2. Insufficient Mating Material,
#3. KNIGHT’S FORK


"I think Rowena's true skill is that she weaves this intricate world of aliens and sex just the same way J.K. Rowling weaves the world of Wizards."~ Des DiFabio, http://www.book-club-queen.com/free-book-review-6.html