The Art of Fantasy Worldbuilding In SF

Google Alerts sent me the following alert on "Jacqueline Lichtenberg"

http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/2008/05/09/building-your-own-world/

This link is to a blog posted May 9,2008, by Angela Benedetti, which discusses the reasons why a writer should make the effort to construct a fictional world solidly. It's a very well written post (read it, please!) and speaks right to many of the points that I've made recently on this blog. About me, she says:

And if the vampire turns someone, even if it’s only once per book, extrapolate that back for however many centuries or millenia vampires have existed, figure out about how many vampires there probably are in the world, and escalate the problem accordingly. Even the occasional Van Helsing with a satchel full of stakes isn’t going to be able to hold back that particular tide — how long before the human population dwindles to the point where the vampires are all going to starve to death?

This sort of economy of dwindling resources can be done and done well, and turned into an excellent story arc of its own. Jacqueline Lichtenberg wrote a series of SF books where the human race had mutated into two forms, one of which was a vampire-like predator who had to kill one of the other sort each month to survive. The predators started out as a minority population, but about halfway through the series (which covered centuries of future history) she addressed the problem of twelve deaths per year times a lengthening lifespan for the predators multiplied by an expanding predator population, and came up with what she called Zelerod’s Doom, named after the predator mathematician who ran the numbers and gave his people the extremely unwelcome news that Something Had To Be Done by a certain year or they were going to kill all the prey and then starve to death. It was a major plot point of the series and eventually forced a significant shift in the functioning of her society, with all the politics and wars and death and crises this sort of shift usually entails.

This is great worldbuilding, following the implications to their logical conclusion and then using that conclusion to tell an absorbing story. Note also that this sort of conflict would’ve rocked in a romance series — classic Romeo and Juliet stuff.

And of course Angela knows that when the first 8 Sime~Gen novels were published in hardcover and mass market, the SF world would not allow any whiff of Romance in an SF novel, and the Romance world would reject outright any novel that had something vaguely fantasy or Sf about it. Mixing SF and Fantasy was death to sales. I did all of this and more in blatant defiance, but tried not to let them know I was defying them. Really, after all, what they don't know won't hurt them. So here are some clues to what I didn't tell "them."

The Sime~Gen premise is based on the Vampire archetype and welded to an SF framework that has Fantasy "rebar" reinforcing the masonry. It's a complex cross-genre world, so to publish it in the SF genre, most all the fantasy had to be folded inside and underneath so no editor would notice (the fans did, though!)

The following link of my name will take you to the amazon page listing my books where you can find the Sime~Gen titles very easily.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Right after I saw Angela's blog entry, simegen.com acquired a new advertiser who is selling lessons leading to a massage license.

I commented to our sysadmin, Patric Michael, "Well that advertiser certainly belongs on simegen.com because after all it's the root of the Companion's Training." And Patric insisted I write an article about the connection.

In the Sime~Gen premise, the Companion is a kind of voluntary donor to the vampire figure, called a Channel whose major job is Healing and giving Life.

And I started thinking about the Companion's training in terms of this blog.

The Companion and the Channel are the solution to Zelerod's Doom. Working in pairs, they are able to provide all the sustenance the predator Simes require.

Most readers of the Sime~Gen novels assume the Channel has the upper hand, control, power in the ever increasingly intimate relationship between Channel and Companion. They assume it's the Channel's decisions and the Channel's talent that Heals and Sustains, and the Companion just follows along and does as instructed.

NOTHING could be further from the truth.

In any relationship between Sime (predator) and Gen (prey) -- the Gen always has the upper hand, the greatest portion of the "power," and makes the really critical decisions. The Companion uses the Channel to accomplish Healing and other miracles.

It's the Companion's trained and disciplined ability to Heal and use the Channel that allows this whole crazy system of Sime~Gen society to work. A person with Companion's talent who isn't so trained is a monster, a danger, a menace. One fan writer, Andrea Alton, picked up on this and wrote a marvelous story titled ICY NAGER about a Gen turned hunter of the Simes because he had acquired a unique sort of training.

http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/icynager.html

How the Companions learn to use Channels to Heal has been covered in some of the published novels, and explored and elaborated on in many fan written stories (posted online for free reading at http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/ )

But not a lot has been written about how exactly Companions do all this and where those skills came from in our "real" world.

The Worldbuilding process takes a bit of our "real" world and extrapolates it or alters it to serve the constructed world.

Sime~Gen is an SF Universe and most all the stories are pure SF. But the science behind what Companions do is from the Occult Sciences, or Magick which normally is the science behind Fantasy worldbuilding.

At the time the Sime~Gen world was built, Chakras, acupressure and acupuncture, Auras and assorted models of the human nervous system were considered rubbish by mainstream science.

Today reputable chiropractors use acupressure and other procedures related to the nervous circuitry of the human body that manifests as acupressure points.

So today, this science is "science" and when you use it to build a world, you end up with a "science fiction world." When the science stood in disrepute and you used it to build a world, you ended up with a "fantasy world."

If you look at a map of the human nervous system such as acupuncturists use,
http://www.stressreliefproducts.com/charts/large-chart.htm

You see one nervous system with nodes strung along the lines.

A similar chart of a Sime's or a Gen's nervous system would look pretty much the same, differing in some details because both Sime and Gen are mutated Ancients (us).

A Channel's nervous system would be very different from ordinary Simes' and Gens'.

A Channel has two separate but conjoined nervous systems with two sets of nodes running all over the body.

Here's an old, traditional poster of Chakras and information about them:
http://www.yogalifestyle.com/images/Chakra2.jpg

And here's a page of colorful Chakra posters and diagrams
http://spiralvisions.com/chakracises/chakraposters.htm

These two sorts of diagrams of connections that hold a spirit into a body, if extrapolated to a science about the Channel's body and its Healing functions become the basis for the Companion's training. The Companion has to learn to sense these nodes and free up the energy flowing among them. That is done by using personal emotions to affect his/her own body, very much as a Yoga Master can control respiration and heartbeat, etc.

For Ancients, physical stimulation of the points on these diagrams affect strength of body, mind, spirit, psychology, mood, emotions, pain, vigor, well-being, and everything we consider important in life.

Today Massage Therapists, soft tissue workers, chiropractors, healers of all sorts use these theories to alleviate all manner of suffering that conventional medicine just doesn't address.

A number of schools have grown up and there are vigorous arguments among them about what's best for whom under which circumstances.

And so it is with Companions and Channels. They have their colorful and informative charts hung on their office walls, and their erudite arguments and a huge variety of ways they are trained, and those trained this way look down on those trained another way while others invent even more new ways to train people.

But it all boils down to massage therapy. The job of the Companion is to know where to touch a Channel, how hard, how often, in what pattern, and most especially how to use concentration and imagination to affect the condition of the channel's nervous system. There's a lot of book learning behind it all, but most of it is talent, skill, practice, and most of all compatibility with the particular Channel.

The Companion must diagnose the Channel's problem and apply the correct remedy - or the Channel won't be able to save the next life put into his/her care.

The Companion's strength, skill and discipline, (and talent) keep the Channel going, and keep the Channel's perceptions honed to a fine edge so the Channel can diagnose and treat the problem presented by ordinary Simes and Gens (or even other Channels and Companions).

Now why isn't all this explained in detail in the novels? Because there's no way to "show" it and it's mostly irrelevant to the plots (so far).

These stories are set so far into the future that the characters don't know anything about the Chakra charts etc. and the actual Ancient science on which their practices are based. They mostly had to reinvent all this for themselves from scratch. Few Ancient texts survived, though some hidden communities preserved a lot of it.

So the writer has a big problem avoiding expository lumps! All that's visible when a Channel and Companion pair work on a patient is a couple of gestures, a careful touch, a precise repositioning holding the distance between them just so.

When writing from the Channel's point of view, all that shows is the Channel's awareness of the Companion's attention focused at a particular point. If that attention wavers or becomes fuzzy, the Channel can't do his/her work.

The best Companions have not only the talent and training of a Companion, but also good, old fashioned Ancient psychic talent.

A good Companion can see auras as psychics can, and can see the hitches and clogs in the flow of energy among the chakras and pressure points.

It takes training to hone those perceptions, and it takes training to know what to do about any given problem -- and even more training to do it reflexively, easily, and in time to help. Elements of the Companion's training resemble training in the martial arts. Do without thinking.

Not everyone can learn it, not everyone can master it.

Personality also figures in. Channels prefer certain Companions over others. A personal, and very intimate, bond is necessary to produce a really great Channel/Companion team. The tensions and conflicts involved in forming such teams make for a good story.

As the centuries pass, Companion training is standardized so that teams can work together without the long years of forming an intimate bond. This, too, is a situation fraught with dramatic possibilities.

When setting out to do some serious worldbuilding, start with something that is well known and accepted -- add something that's just a crazy theory of the day, a fad maybe, shake well and decant into your novel. See what happens. But when marketing your novel, play your cards close to your chest.

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

Sexism and the English language

I love writing alien romance in part because it allows me to comment on our society and our ingrained beliefs without being offensive... I hope.

This weekend, I've been going over the copy-edits of my most recent romance, Knight's Fork, which is due for release in October 2008.

It's been a delightful and instructive experience. I've inferred that my copy-editor is an erudite, scholarly, English professorial type of the male persuasion.


Possibly, I've enjoyed a similar mixture of glee and embarrassment to that reported by RomVet Cindy Dees.

Cindy Dees recounted that a lieutenant colonel in the lowest regions of The White House had to read her slightly steamy Romance novels to make sure that no Cindy Dees fictional action adventures accidentally betrayed the sitting President's secrets.

Cindy Dees, Lise Fuller, Lynn Hardy, Larissa Ione, and Ashley Ladd were my guests last night on a special radio program in honor of Armed Forces Day and Lynn Hardy's dedicatedtoourdefenders.org organization which sends books to members of the armed forces who are desperately bored during their down-time while deployed overseas.


Back to my copy-editing.

In this scene from KNIGHT'S FORK, the hero, 'Rhett has just shared the contents of a letter from his grandmother. The letter summarizes family history.


One name she had heard recently. “The toddler who was a terror, Djetthro-Jason. Is that my sister’s new Mate? He spoke to me at your fortune-telling.”

’Rhett nodded, unsmiling. “He’s my half brother. His mother, Djavena, was my mother, too. My father married—on Earth, they call Mating “marrying”—three times. My mother, Djavena, also was Mated three times. Three brothers had her, one after the other. She got passed around.”

His mother had three Mates.

Electra noted his casually brutal tone, and also the doing word-choice for his father’s sex life, and the done to wording for his mother, as if Djavena hadn’t had a choice. Possibly ’Rhett’s view of females had been affected…and also his attitude toward sex.



Au: means this is a question for the author. The comments pertain to the last paragraph.

Au: this doesn’t seem to refer to anything above; delete?
Au: ‘the had her wording for his mother’ ? [is ‘done to’ from an early draft?]


Did you notice the difference between the Active and Passive constructions? Did you notice the Subjects and the Objects of the phrases and sentences?

I did it deliberately, of course.
Surely, it doesn't take an alien, or an immigrant, or a feminist to notice the subtle sexism in our language, does it?

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Crossover Promotion

How can a new book be effectively used to promote other books in an author’s backlist? What’s the secret to luring readers who’ve enjoyed one novel into seeking out the rest of the author’s work? It’s been a frequent source of frustration for me that new releases don’t seem to produce the carryover effect I’d hoped for. My Silhouette vampire romance, EMBRACING DARKNESS, was my first full-length fiction opportunity to reach a mass market audience. The bio in the front included my website URL. The book sold fairly well (as far as I could make out) and got a 4-star rating from ROMANTIC TIMES. I hoped for at least a temporary bump in sales of my earlier works to people who liked my vampires in EMBRACING DARKNESS and discovered other books in the same universe on my web page. I saw nary a bump, not even a discernible blip. If I enjoy one book by an author who’s new to me, I usually check out her previous work and sometimes even buy from her backlist. I assumed (well, yeah, we know what that word spells) other readers would react in a similar way. Whenever I’m interviewed, I mention books I’ve had released by several different publishers, and if appropriate I make a point of mentioning that my vampire series is listed chronologically on my website. I send out a monthly newsletter with excerpts and review links, as well as other goodies such as interviews and brief book reviews. I occasionally give away books from my backlist through various venues; if that tactic draws in new readers for the rest of my oeuvre, I haven’t noticed. I haven’t even seen any crossover from my e-book sales with Ellora’s Cave—fairly high-volume for e-books—to sales of my books from other e-publishers (not so high-volume), even though EC’s readers are obviously web-savvy and willing to buy e-books and small press releases.

I’d hate to think the obvious answer is correct—that almost everybody who reads one of my novels reacts so lukewarmly that he or she has no interest in ever reading another. :) Setting aside that possibility, is there a secret to stimulating crossover readership? I’ve often encountered the advice that an author should promote herself more than promoting any particular book. What are the most effective ways of doing that, other than things I’m already doing?

The Exogamous Human Female

I've been thinking a lot about ethics lately, more even than morals. But you can't really separate the two from your total view of the universe when worldbuilding for an Alien Romance novel.

Chabad is offering a course, titled Talmudic Ethics about how the great Rabbis of yore solved ethical problems (find list of courses at chabad.org ). They developed a very methodical way of solving these problems, but I haven't taken the course and I know nothing of how they'd solve these kinds of problems. Here's an example of an old classic dilemma they've posed, a word problem:

You are waiting at the train tracks for the train to pass, suddenly you notice that there are 5 people tied down to the tracks. You want to save their lives (I hope) so you jump out of your car and as you are running over to the people, a man stops you and says: flip this switch to make the train change tracks - here is the catch -- if you do force the change, you will kill one person that is tied down to the other track. What should you do? Can you stand by and do nothing and see FIVE people get killed, or should you save five and CAUSE one person to die?

Now you have to understand I'm a Star Trek fan and sharpened my ethical teeth on James T. Kirk's problem solving method. (does it count as alien romance when you have a crush on a fictional character?) Remember the Kobayashi Maru?

And I have always flunked word problems in algebra even though I was very very good at algebra itself. I never manage to understand the problem correctly.

So my first solution is to yell at the man to turn the switch to divert the train, grab flares and anything sharp out of my car's trunk and run to release the single victim, tossing lit flares at the train as I run, preferably into brush where they'll start a visible fire. I'm not so good at running these days, so that might not be an option. But it's easier to get one person loose than 5, especially if the nit-wit manning the switch comes to help.

My second solution would be to yank off my blouse or dress or anything bright colored I was wearing and run at the train waving it down -- naked. (this is a Jewish ethics course so there's a modesty issue here but I just don't have that much modesty that I would hesitate to strip to save a life.) I might also drive my car onto the track and get out quick then run at the train waving anything I could strip off in time.

But before even thinking of how to solve the problem as presented, my questions to the person posing the problem would be about the missing vital details that I would have in a flash if this were a real-life problem.

Are the 5 people already dead -- or maybe the one person is already dead? Is there brush on the side of the tracks? Do I smoke and have a lighter in my pocket? What's in my purse?

What's in the trunk of my car? What am I wearing? Is the grade up or down and is there a cliff on one side? How fast is the train moving? Do I know anything about trains and tracks? There's a lot of computerized equipment routing trains today -- I could smash something and make the dispatcher stop the train by radio.

What kind of train is it, passenger or freight, and if passenger are there people aboard? If freight, what's it carrying? Is there a third siding track with no danger or some other danger? How fast can I run? How fast can the other person with the bright idea of switching tracks run?

Where does he get off trying to trap me into an ethical dilemma? Who does he think he is? Those are really 6 dummies on the track and this loud-mouth is my real enemy. He wants my fingerprints on that switch -- the train hits the dummies, derails and bankrupts some business his boss is trying to buy and I get the blame. I knock him out with the crowbar and call 911 while tossing flares to stop the train.

Or, having assessed my resources, I would consider derailing the train. My car trunk might yield a crowbar, or the guy standing there telling me to divert the train might have one. Pry up one section of track and the train is stopped. Now that might cost some insurance company millions of dollars -- in fact, it might well put me in jail for the rest of my life, but it would stop the train. Two of us working together might manage that (if he's not the bad guy).

Another bit of data missing is whether the guy giving the advice is the one who tied the people to the track -- and whether I know this guy or any of the victims or not. What if the 5 people had tortured me for days in a basement, and the one guy had rescued me?

See why I flunked word problems time and again all the way through school?

But let's play the school-kid game and take the problem at face value.

It is a classic no-win scenario, and the only thing that makes it a problem at all is the unwillingness of the test taker to think outside the box, to take personal risk, to accept personal damage, and to defy the authority of the test-giver and change the parameters of the test, as James Kirk did in the Kobayashi Maru test.

The test-administrator is trying to define your world for you, and to convince you that you know things you in fact do not know. (like whether or not you can save all the people) The way I approach these tests and life in general is that I make my own rules and no human being tells me what I can or can't do.

If you don't let the test administrator mess with your head, and you proceed on the assumption that it doesn't matter what the odds against you are, but you only care that you do the right thing -- you will change the rules of the game and generate new solutions that defy all odds. The impossible WILL happen -- or it won't. But you will have stayed true to your own character and not let any petty authority figure dictate the parameters of your world. You may die, but not with blood on your hands.

So can't you see The Authorities administering tests like this to Aliens who land on the White House lawn trying to find out if they share our ethics?

What has all this to do with the human female's exogamous tendencies and Alien Romance worldbuilding?

Now I get to make up the word-problem and mess with your head, if you let me.

Your soul-mate turns up in your life, but you defy all his rules and finally find out his big secret. He's an alien from outer space sent to Earth to fix our health-care delivery system for us. You are a major diversion that's kept him from his job. That has put him in trouble with his employer.

He has two solutions to offer Earth, mutually exclusive solutions. He says because he's in love with you and you're human, he will give Earth whichever solution you choose and it'll be free, initially. But you can only choose one plan.

While romancing you, he has set his orbiting ship to collect all the medical records data in computers and on paper all over the world, all the medications, searched the medicinal plants now growing, even ones not yet discovered, catalogued it all along with all human medical knowledge.

A) Now he can create a Best Practices database that will let any doctor prescribe the cure that has worked best for the most people with a given condition. All this would be Earth-based state-of-the-art equipment and data we could maintain and grow. But everyone would be treated as an "average" person, therefore people on the out flung tails of the bell curve would die -- shrinking our genetic diversity.

B) He can use all that data to program an army of robots (enough to serve the world) who are able to diagnose individuals and select a treatment based on that particular individual's idiosyncrasies. But the robots would only last two hundred years, and there would be a replacement and maintenance charge that he can't waive.

Either plan can be fully implemented within two weeks.

Then he tells you that you're pregnant by him and he has to leave in two weeks on a dangerous mission and might not be back. He can't take you with him - not won't, can't - because you would die. But you are soul mates, and he does love you, and he believes he will reincarnate as an Earth human with you again for a lifetime. But he must complete his job honorably for this lifetime to earn that. He can't decide which system to leave behind him -- you must choose for Earth and for the future you.

If you need a clue read this news item -- I'm hoping it'll still be available when you read this:

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080511/BUSINESS/805110356

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

Blogging, Computer Crashes and Me, Oh My

Yes, it's Monday and yes, I'm supposed to blog. But my main Dell PC went to blue screen hell on Thursday and life has been annoying ever since. The Dell is now back in the office but has been reformatted and I'm in the process of reloading everything, both via backup and from scratch. I finally finally found where my old emails resided in the backup but restoring them brought them back in one huge (2000+) lump. All my folders are gone. So now I have to... you know. Pound my head on the nearest hard surface.

Given that, I did blog yesterday at the HEA Cafe. I'm their 11th day gal. If you didn't know, I blog there on the 11th of the month. So you can go read my rant on Amazon trolls:

http://www.rwaonlinechapter.org/pubbedauthors/2008/05/11/how-thick-is-your-skin/

Also, my agent, Kristin Nelson, has been fully brilliant in her blogs of late. Lots of good pitching advice for writers there:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/04/building-pitch-paragraph-part-one.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/04/building-pitch-paragraph-part-two.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/04/building-pitch-paragraph-part-three.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/05/building-pitch-paragraph-part-four.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/05/building-pitch-paragraph-part-four_02.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/05/building-pitch-paragraph-part.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/05/building-pitch-paragraph-part-five.html

That should keep you busy and off the streets for a while. ~Linnea
http://www.linneasinclair.com/

Bear Awareness Week

Not only is today (Sunday) Mother's Day, but it is also the start of
Bear Awareness Week.

And the connection to alien romance is...?

Admittedly, it's tenuous. It has to be were-bears and shapeshifters, and maybe berserk, bear-spirit-possessed Viking warriors who seem to have had a dark ages type of 'roid rage.

Anyway, an intrepid bunch of bear-loving, speculative Romance authors are going to get together to thrash out what it is we love about men who have a lot in common with bears.


Angie Fox, Carrie Masek, Sandy Lender, Cynthia Eden and Charlee Boyett-Compo are joining me on internet voices radio tonight between 9pm Eastern and eleven pm to give a whole new depth of meaning to Bear men and Romance.

We'd love some listeners, even for a little while.


For those whose taste in alien romance veers off the beaten track into exotic historicals, check out the last CRAZY TUESDAY/

In the last program, Jade Lee and Emily Bryan (aka
Diana Groe) talked about everything below the belt in honor of Earth
Day... from Brazilian waxes for courtesans, to castration, to foot
binding.

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/CrazyTuesday.htm


FOR CHERRY PICKING SPECIALS, which is the irreverent and irregular
Sunday night-time show about Romance heroes and the animals they shift
into being when the right female comes along.

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/rowena.htm


Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
http://www.internetvoicesradio.com

Netherworld

I am currently reading Netherworld by Michelle Lang. Its the latest in the Shomi line that released Twist. I love the fact that Shomi features stories that don't have a niche in the mass market world.

Netherworld talks about living a simulated life. People are actually able to experience life as an Avatar in a computer game. They "feel" everything that happens to their Avatars, even down to sexual satisfaction. But by humans spending so much time inside the sims the AI is able to learn more about the human psyche until it becomes more powerful and demands that all humans become part of the machine. Which brings into question, what happens to the human soul once the humans reduce down into the machine? I'm not quite done with it yet but it brings up some interesting prospects. Plus its a great read.

It also kind of goes along with Margaret's post. How much human simulation is enough? At what point will robots become more like human or animal clones that are imprinted with the images of pets or even people that we've lost. As technology becomes more advanced it will be something that our conscious and our governments will need to decide. I guess it all will come down to the value of the human soul.

I have to admit that it would be nice to have a replica of my cocker spaniel around. But would I see the essence of what was Dauber when I looked into a replicant's eyes and would it feel the same. I'm not sure these are questions that apply to my generation but I am fairly certain they are not too far off in the future.

Lifelike Robots

Reflecting on predictions of glossy futuristic technology envisioned in cartoons and utopian SF, I’ve decided I don’t want the flying car, after all. Imagine the chaos if two of those collided in mid-air (not unlikely, considering the way many people drive). What I want is the household robot. Robert Heinlein’s DOOR INTO SUMMER predicted commercially viable cleaning robots by the 1970s. Up to now, so far as I know, all we have in this country is that self-propelling vacuum cleaner, the Roomba. The Japanese, however, are working on more complex automatons. I found several articles by Googling “Japan robots emotion.” (Give it a try.) Engineering students at a Tokyo university are experimenting with robots that have rubbery faces capable of simulating six emotional states in response to key words: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise, and disgust. The project leader says that in order to work around people, “robots need to handle complex social tasks.” In Japan, robots already perform many varied jobs, not only factory work, but such tasks as acting as receptionists, serving tea, and spoon-feeding the elderly. Japanese culture, according to this article, views robots as “friendly helpers.” With an aging population, they expect to rely on automata to replace human employees in the workforce and care for the aged. On the emotional front, currently available are a soft, dog-shaped device and a furry character called Paro, resembling a baby seal, both designed for “pet” therapy in nursing homes.

Even robots that aren’t cuddly, much less as human-like as the maid on THE JETSONS, seem to evoke an anthropomorphizing response. People get attached to them. I read somewhere that Roomba owners have been known to name and adorn their robot vacuum cleaners. A talking robot on wheels was once lent to a family for research (according to one of those online articles); when it had to be taken away for an upgrade, the child of the family cried. “People aren’t going to be able to throw away robots when they break,” one researcher says. How small a step is that kind of reaction from considering the robots so nearly human that we’d feel guilty about “enslaving” them—especially if they do advance to the point of having some degree of intellect and consciousness (or the ability to simulate it)?

This quandary comes to life in a delightful poem, “Too Human by Half,” by Suzette Haden Elgin in her recent book TWENTY-ONE NOVEL POEMS, a collection of narrative poetry on SF themes. DearCompanion.com supplies elder-care robots constructed in roughly human shape so the aged clients will feel comfortable with them. The problem arises when the machine wears out. “Mama” protests angrily, “Replace JANE?. . . Just because she’s getting OLD?” The solution: When DearCompanion designed its next line of assistive robots “they made every one of the units look exactly like a broom.” You need this poetry collection. Really you do. :) It even includes suggestions for discussion topics. Information for ordering the book is on Elgin’s home page: www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/

Linnea Sinclair and Mike Shepherd

Margaret Carter noted, in a comment to my April 29th 2008 post here, That ALIEN NATION (the TV show -- which I was and am a fan of!) presents a species that doesn't biologically require submission in order to reproduce.

Since it was a TV show, (based on a film) they really didn't develop the alien-ness of the aliens very well. When they did explore a premise, it usually made no scientific sense, but it did make a kind of psychological or artistic sense.

I'm assuming fans of Alien Romance are all thoroughly familiar with the film ALIEN NATION and the show that sprang from it. If you missed it, get the DVDs.

ALIEN NATION was only marginally successful as a TV show, but it did spawn fanzines gallore. You might find some good fanfic still posted. Many Sime~Gen fans participated. But I originally brought up the topic of "submission" as part of the Romance formula because the Romance field is changing with the attitudes of the general public and the romance reading public.

How much of sexual submission is biological -- and how much just cultural conditioning?

Obeying or defying cultural conditioning can deliver a sexual thrill just as intense and primal as biology. How do you tell the difference?

In my July column, I've reviewed Linnea Sinclair's new book SHADES OF DARK as well as a new Kris Longknife novel by Mike Shepherd titled AUDACIOUS.

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/

The Kris Longknife novels aren't technically "alien romance" -- they are military Space Opera with a female lead character tough as nails and twice as deadly. But in that category, they are really good reading.

My only quibble, that I didn't mention in my review, is that there are "anacrhonisms" sprinkled through the backgrounding of the Longknife novels that irritate me. The rest of the writing is so good, though, that I suspect we will eventually get a good explanation for these anomolies.

Kris Longknife and Sinclair's Captain Chasida "Chaz" Bergren are characters made popular by our culture's search for answers to the question I raised in my April 29th entry.

Can a society have "freedom" at all if half the people willfully submit to the other half?

Will refusal to submit result in an ever lowering birth rate and thus extinction of the species?

Margaret Carter touched on that in her entry here of May 1, 2008 -- a new theory that the human species, our own ancestors, once shrank to a gene pool of about 2,000 individuals.

And that brings up all the issues connected to questions of who among us holds power over reproductive choices. Margaret mentioned Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels -- when the lost Terran colony ship crashed on Darkover, it was decreed that the women would become breeders and have no other responsibilities. The men decreed this, and made it stick, and that shaped the subsequent cultures.

Currently, disaster preparedness officials are debating how to handle pandemic or other disasters that limit medical treatment resources. How do they decide who dies?

None of the plans considered, as far as I know, called for volunteers. The Darkovans, facing a tiny gene pool and no help coming, didn't call for women to volunteer to breed, even though under primitive conditions, that does risk life iteself. Did our 2,000 ancestors call for volunteers?

Now look carefully at Chaz Bergren (did I mention SHADES OF DARK is a strong, fast moving, intricately backgrounded, splendid great good READ!!!???) Linnea Sinclair has given us a female lead character who is confronting head on the basic biological conflict of dominance/submission male/female. And she's considering what to volunteer for.

Chaz isn't even sure she's "married" to this man whose strange telepathic talents are morphing so fast he doesn't even know who he is. But he's sure she's his wife because of their telepathic bond.

Kris Longknife is in the part of her adventurous life where she's not marriage material. Being royalty, she will be, and she knows it. But she's not confronting that dilemma yet while she is sent off to various trouble spots in the galaxy to solve problems.

Her psychic talent, in addition to some telepathy, seems to be to bend the laws of probability in her vicinity such that her rather ordinary actions produce extraordinary results. This talent runs in the family, and thus the Longknife family has a fearsome "reputation."

Kris's conflict is with her mostly invisible older relatives who are pulling her strings.

Then, when embroiled in an external conflict by actions of her relatives not her own choice, she resolves it. Mike Sheperd is a good enough writer that I believe the series will eventually come to a confrontation with marriage, dominance and submission.

There are a number of really good novel series featuring female lead characters like Kris Longknife -- tough bitches embroiled in so much action they have no spare capacity for romance.
There are a number of really good SF/F Alien Romance series where the female lead character is so embroiled in romance that she has barely enough capacity to survive the action exploding over her head.

And then there's Chaz Bergren and her ilk -- a rare breed of female character whose life's main external action-conflicts are fully integrated into her internal romantic submission and sexual issues. This creates a karmic picture that makes sense, adds up to a statement about the purpose of life, and also delivers an entertaining good read.

Sinclair is practicing a more complex artform here than the genre publishers are equiped to market.

Is the readership ready to explore directly the issue of the indomitable woman who has no dominating tendencies at all?

Is the readership able to conceptualize a human female who is neither submissive nor dominating?

If she can find a mate -- what would her children be?

Does Alien Romance have a place for The Mother? Where are the SF Romance novels about women with a passle of children to raise? Are children the plot or the complication? Ever read CHILDREN OF THE LENS by E. E. Smith?

I'm also a fan of the old TV series, SCARECROW AND MRS. KING (1983-1985)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085088/

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

What I'm reading...

I'm just out of deadline hell, so am tickled silly with myself for reading someone else's book this week.

Of course, I really ought to have printed out my own, and be going over it for stray commas and missing tiny parts that make all the difference whether or not a sentence makes sense.

However... for the last month, I've been leaping wildly out of bed at 3am (not good for the waistline or the eyes) to meet my own deadline for KNIGHT'S FORK. Now, I want a reward.

I'm reading Lisa Shearin's sequel to Magic Lost, Trouble Found. Raine Benares's adventures continue in Armed and Magical.

Since I'm only up to p 49, this isn't a review, and I wouldn't be writing about Lisa Shearin's books at all if I weren't thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying her magical world of elves, goblins, humans, mages, pirates, a nightclub owner who used to be a Duke and who is revealed to be more powerful every time we see him (at least, he was in MLTF).

Right... I've got to find out what's happening next

Anon

Rowena Cherry

The care and feeding of your deadline slammed author

I was trying to explain to a friend the other day about deadline hell. What happens to writers when we have to slide into that dreaded place that consumes every bit of our time, imagination and energy. I realized that until you really live it, that most people do not really understand what it is. So hopefully this will explain it a bit and give you some hints on what you can do to help your favorite writer get through it.

Deadline hell is what occurs when you don’t hit your carefully planned out page count for each day that you have until your book is due. Best laid plans and all that, but quite frankly, life happens and it does get in our way. For me lately it’s been my dad’s cancer, which is now in remission, thank you. So said book that was due March 1 is now due June 1 and has to be turned in or else it will not make it to production on time for its February release. This also means that since I missed the first deadline I will not have a Cindy Holby release this year (only Colby Hodge’s Twist) andI SUCK AS A WRITER AND MY CAREER IS OVER.

Since I now have two extra months to write I can do it. Woohoo! WRONG. During April Dad is in hospital twice with complications, I am preparing for RT, I go to RT for eight days and it takes me a week to recover, catch up from RT. Two of those days were spent sleeping as I got no sleep at RT. So now its May 1, book is due June 1 and I’m about 4,000 words away from halfway. Which means I have to write around 250 pages in a month. Which is around ten pages a day if I write everyday which I won’t be able to do because life gets in the way. Can I do it? I better because if I don’t I SUCK AS A WRITER AND MY CAREER IS OVER.


So what happens then. I sit in front of my computer. I tell myself I will not play Freecell ever again for as long as I live. I play Freecell. I look at manuscript. I decide entire book is the great dedication to sucktitude. I put on writing inspired songs to get into the story. Since I am writing an angsty story I get depressed. I listen to them over and over again. I get all weepy. My bwff (best writing friend forever) tells me to quit listening to angsty songs and I reply with giant wail. “But I caaaaannnn’t. It’s the soundtrack to Atonement and I Lurve James MacAvoy and he diieeesss.” Btw dialog like this goes back and forth all day with my bwff posse. If you want to know who they are check out the dedications in my books. Finally I decide I am in right frame of mind to write.

But first I check my email. Why? Because writers are isolated. Email is our connection to our friends. What are our friends doing? Are they in writing hell too? Ohh, here’s a link to something. Maybe I should check that out. Finally I realize that I’ve wasted half a day on internet. Turn off internet and write. Go back to manuscript. Maybe it doesn’t suck. Hmmm, writing historical and I need to know what certain building on certain street looked like in eighteenth century. Sign back onto internet. Get distracted again by email, IM or something Brittany/Paris/TomKat has done. Oh, another email, someone I know has hit list/won award/got new multi comma contract and while I am happy for them it didn’t happen to me because I SUCK AS A WRITER AND MY CAREER IS OVER.

Why do writers obsess over things like that? Because we write in a vapor. Some writers have critique partners. I don’t. If the story takes a direction I’m not sure of I’ll send it out to a few of my friends for some feedback but for the most part it’s just us and the story.

So now its time to really get serious. What happens next in the story? Write write write. Hmmm, write some more. Shove kitten off desk. Try to ignore sad doggy eyes. Grab apple, yogurt, banana, hand full of chips for lunch. Grab some caffeine. Grab some more. Stay up late writing. Eyes cross, wrists aches, back and shoulders ache, butt hurts because this continues day after day after day. Husband pokes head in and asks about dinner. You look at him like he’s an idiot and wave him off. Husband carries in dinner, does laundry, vacuums, rubs back and tries to stay out of your way. (I am fortunate that my kids are grown and pretty much self sufficient and I also have an awesome husband) Week goes by, then another, then another and you realize story has come together and perhaps you aren’t the giant burrito of sucktitude (bwff term) that you once thought you were. But you are also very lonely, and you kind of look like crap since you have basically lived in front of your computer for a month. Since I am now working on my thirteenth book I’ve kind of been through this before so I know what to expect. You think that one day I would figure it out and stay out of deadline hell but I don’t because I SUCK AS A WRITER AND MY CAREER IS OVER.

So what can you, as a fan/friend of a deadline crazed writer do? I have my own little support group. I just got a text hug from one. Another is giving me rah rahs every night and I have realized how much I really appreciate it. I look forward to it. It keeps me inspired because I know these people believe in me and maybe I don’t SUCK AS A WRITER. So if you have a writer friend who is in deadline hell then drop them an email (believe me they will be checking) or a comment on their myspace page and say Yay, we believe in you and can’t wait for the next book. They will appreciate it more than you know. And it’s also great to know that you don’t really suck that you are just doing the best that you can.

Oh yeah, we procrastinate too. Why else would I be spending my time writing this instead of working on my story?

Remnant Populations

Did you read about the new hypothesis that the entire human species, about 70,000 years ago, declined to no more than 2000 people? Genetic studies suggest that severe climate conditions caused the near extinction of Stone Age humanity. At first I wondered whether this discovery meant only one small group of people survived. The researchers think, however, that “humans separated into small populations prior to the Stone Age” and later “came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.” Depending on how many tens of thousands of years they were separated, though, I wondered why genetic drift didn’t make it impossible for them to produce fertile offspring when they reunited.

This theory brings to mind numerous SF and fantasy post-apocalyptic scenarios. (It also makes me think of Noah’s flood and the dispersion of the people who built the Tower of Babel. I’m not a biblical literalist, but these do make exciting stories.) Another similar situation appears in novels that chronicle the ordeal of an abandoned colony (e.g., C. J. Cherryh’s shared-world Merovingen series) or a starship’s crew stranded on a seemingly uninhabited world (e.g., Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series) trying to establish a society and build up their population to a viable size. I imagine a small band of Cro-Magnons believing they are the last surviving people in the world. What would they think when they finally ran into another group with wildly different language and customs that have developed during the long divide? Would the two tribes even recognize each other as human? Come to think of it, even today, would an alien biologist at first glance identify Scandinavians and Australian aborigines (for example) as members of the same species?

"You've Got Mail" 1998 Award Winning film

First I have to thank (once again) Rowena Cherry for posting my entry of Tuesday April 22, 2008.

I was offline and in the midst of the Passover Holiday. We do a lot of "scratch cooking" for Passover -- though packaged everything is available many places.

So I spent a good amount of time thinking about "women's work is never done."

And I thought back to raising my daughters who were born in the late 1960's, almost before the women's movement got a name. Even teaching them to walk, to play with toys, to take the knocking when falling off the sofa, I tried to foster a kind of independent strength only boys were taught then because I knew (as an SF writer) what they'd face in the world as it was shaping up (and I was right).

Passover is about "freedom" -- it's the commemoration of leaving slavery for real freedom of choice, and about the consequences of making a choice, about Honor (the stuff of Alien Romance Adventures, of Heroism).

It occurred to me that you can look at spending a multiplicity of hours scratch-cooking and hassling around a kitchen BECAUSE YOU ARE FEMALE as a step back into slavery. And that's not what the holiday is about. That's not where it's "at" philosophically.

In what way is being chained to a kitchen sink freedom?

The story/parable of leaving Egypt is commemorated by eating matzah - unleavened bread -- (i.e. crackers made from flour and water only -- baked so quickly it can't rise even if some yeast lands on it from the air.)

This is a more primitive or basic form of bread. It takes away something you don't even know you have. It's kind of like Rowena's novel where the male and female leads get stranded on an island and don't have what they're used to and have to "relate" in that context.

Or like going on any vacation -- away from your ordinary haunts. Going on an Adventure. Take AWAY what you normally have, the normal way your kitchen is organized, and your mind can open up to receive new ideas.

This morning I heard President Bush chanting his usual line about liberty and freedom and democracy bringing peace. To me, he seems to chant this -- like a liturgy. It's so strange to really listen to that man without thinking about whether you agree or not.

I heard Bush right after watching a movie I'd recorded a couple weeks ago on The Family Channel -- YOU'VE GOT MAIL. The two items juxtaposed were illuminating.

YOU'VE GOT MAIL is a nice romantic comedy that was made in 1998. It depicts the difference between how we relate via chat and email and how we relate "in person" with an accuracy that holds true today. The only two anachronisms that will eventually make this film grate on our nerves are AOL dialup email and the lack of cell phones with internet service and texting.

Today they'd be texting buddies and it would be a more intimate relationship because they would interface during the day. I assume you all remember the film. If not -- well, if you like alien romance, you gotta see this film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128853/

Also read Hal Clement's novel MISSION OF GRAVITY. Put the two together and you've got a springboard into a whole bunch more novels you could write. In MISSION OF GRAVITY we have an alien and a human boy making friends despite living in different atmospheres. Clement wrote a lot about friendship over impossible gulfs, which is what Star Trek is ultimately about.

The relationship between friendship and romance, the differences and similarities -- the question of whether there is a necessity for friendship underneath romance -- all that is discussed brilliantly in YOU'VE GOT MAIL.

What's this got to do with Passover and Bush and Freedom of choice?

Bush assumes that any human being would choose freedom, what he calls Liberty and his version of "democracy" (note he never discusses the concept Republic).

In YOU'VE GOT MAIL, Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) makes some whopping assumptions, too, and his assumptions and Bush's may actually be coming from the same place.

Joe Fox presents Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) with a choice at the end of the movie, or rather it seems to be a choice.

In the middle of the movie, she discovers that "Joe" is THE "Joe Fox" who is opening a book selling superstore around the corner from her children's bookshop. When he first met her, he didn't let on that he was "THE" Fox. But he didn't actually lie about it, just omitted this bit of information. She insists he was lying to her by that omission and is pissed. At the end of the movie, Joe reveals one more piece of information he's been withholding, and she is NOT pissed, doesn't call him down for it, and just totally accepts him as who he is.

The email relationship she's developed with this "stranger" (Joe) is rooted in "Psychological Visibility" (google that if you don't know what it is). The real world relationship is rooted in Mortal Combat between business owners (he puts her shop out of business and it's "nothing personal" but like me, she says everything is personal.)

So in the end of the movie, she gives up a certain FREEDOM or LIBERTY by surrendering to the controlling decisions of an information-withholder who manipulates her by keeping her ignorant and using what he's learned of her inner psyche as a weapon to get what he wants (and she doesn't seem to understand that's what happened).

It's a great movie, lots of awards attention, well made, stellar cast, GREAT script, addressing a hot topic of the day (the transition in relationships to electronic communication and how that changes "who" we are to others). But coming out of Passover, I found the ending very disappointing.

Must every pair-bonded relationship between humans have a dominant party?

Is manipulating by using information gained while looking into a person's soul an aggressive act?

It seemed to me in the movie that he knew more about what made her tick than she knew about what motivated him. She was responding to being seen -- and didn't notice that she wasn't seeing into him.

He used what he learned about her to get her to do what he wanted her to do. She didn't use what she learned about him to get him to do what she wanted him to do.

He dominated her. She joyfully submitted.

Now that made it a popular movie because that's what our society expects and lauds. But it's not what I tried to raise my daughters to be.

It was a good movie because it raises a lot of interesting questions about sexuality and social norms. There's an important bit of dialogue missing (from the televised version) in which he wonders if she's a he -- and she wonders if he's a she. By email you can't really tell and they don't ackowledge that at all.

I keep thinking of the e-mail relationship as a telepathic relationship, perhaps conducted across interstellar distances. Or perhaps two empaths kept in adjacent cells "for their own protection" and relating through empathic fields without words.

So what has that to do with Passover? Well, slavery to freedom. Right away as the people left Egypt, some of that rag-tag band were bemoaning the lack of water and meat and wanted to return to the cushy life in Egypt. Freedom is hard work, full of decisions.

Remember a generation had to live and die in the desert before the whole people was free enough of slavery to plunge in and govern a country.

Can a society have "freedom" at all if half the people willfully submit to the other half?

You don't think that's an Alien Romance question ripped from today's headlines? Go listen (really listen) to Bush carrying on then go learn something about the history of the people's he's talking about. Dominance and Submission - Sexuality and Religion -- Biology and Reproduction.
What kind of biology would an alien species have to have to avoid this submission-for-fun-and-reproduction dilemma humans face?

Would you give up your freedom for psychological visibility? Would you let yourself be "visible" to someone who would use that data about you to put you in a cage you couldn't even see was a cage?

Does aggression cause defensive action -- or does defensiveness cause aggression?

Even if you've seen YOU'VE GOT MAIL a few times, go watch it again.

Oh, and the other reason it really grabbed me - it's about my own bread and butter, the publishing and marketing of books. There's a line in that movie I'll bet most viewers don't notice -- that the big chain book sellers destroyed the mid-list, which they did.

If you're a mid-list reader like me, you might consider that all bad. But in truth, I'm wondering if the death of the mid-list just pushed a lot of mid-list writers and readers into the Romance field and started the proliferation of sub-genres of Romance?

So YOU'VE GOT MAIL is a movie that says a lot, very elegantly, so it's worth a writer's study.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Shades of Dark Video Teaser

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

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.

~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

Don’t give up on me, angel-mine. No matter what you hear or see. Remember, please, this isn’t the only thing I am.

Editing

OK, connoisseurs, would this inspire you to pick up or track down?

Rowena Cherry

RT recap

Wow, so much happened it eight days that it is hard to even remember what the beginning was like. So I’ll just have to do it a day at a time.

I arrived in Pittsburgh on Sunday after driving six hours with the back of my car filled to the ceiling with promo stuff for the Intergalactic Bar and Grille Party. I met Linnea Sinclair and Stacey Klemstein at the airport and we left for the hotel after having a great laugh when we saw an exit for Moon Beaver PA. From that point on Isobo Kelly’s baby was referred to as Moon Beaver. I shortened it to Moon Beam. I like that better. The four of us had a fabulous dinner at a restaurant called the Palomino and had a great time catching up on things.


Monday I was privileged to have the chance to speak at Bobbi Smith’s advanced writers course. I talked about creating internal conflict and research in two different workshops. I loved seeing the excitement of these writers and especially loved catching up with them during the rest of the week. Good luck to all of you that were in those workshops.

Monday night my friend Chris Winters who was participating in the Mr. Romance pageant arrived and we talked for a long time. I really enjoyed having the hotel to a small group because I knew in twenty four hours all hell was going to break loose. I warned my favorite Bellhop Val what he was in for. I’m not sure he really believed me.

Tuesday taught another class and then got to go out on three photo shoots with Annette Batista of Between Your Sheets. I had walked around downtown Pittsburgh a bit that morning and have to say it is the most beautiful city. My room had a view of the two rivers, the Steelers stadium (I love NFL Football) and the ridge opposite with the most beautiful old church and houses. Wish I would have taken pics but kept forgetting too everyday.

Went on totally enjoyable photo shoot with Chris Winters. I told everyone I was his personal assistant since I was keeping track of all his stuff. It was a blast and I learned a lot. Photography has always been a hobby of mine and it was amazing to watch Annette to her magic. Plus Chris just lights up a camera.

Came back and had lunch with the amazing women of Between Your Sheets. Then got invited to do more shoots. Went out with John Fish of the amazing humongous muscles. We even got him to unbutton his shirt out on the street. Have to say women were tripping. Then went out for photos with the adorable Christopher Howell who is beyond sweet. I hope next year he shares some of his dance moves with us. He teased us a bit at the pageant. I want more more more!

The amazing and totally priceless J.C. Wilder arrived and a group of us went to Max and Irma’s for dinner. Have to say we closed the place down. J.C. decided it was her project to make me yeep. And she succeeded. I also spewed. Needless to say there was much laughter. The hotel was filling up fast and Val the bellhop gave me a ride on his amazing cart. He also made an amazing amount of money in tips. I saw Mark Johnson arrive and he gave me the sweetest hug. He truly is a great guy. So sweet. Also saw the totally vivacious Jade Lee whom I adore. A bunch of us went up to Linnea’s room to pack goodie bags for the Intergalactic Bar and Grille party. Came down to my room and ran into fellow Shadow Booty Clan member Liz Maverick where we proceeded to have the best reunion ever not caught on video tape. At some point we will reenact it for the public. Caught up with the last third of our terrible trio, Marianne. The two of them make up the Rebels of Romance. I just kind of hang around and terrorize them.

By Wednesday I was surviving on no sleep. I was practically staggering. That afternoon we had the Intergalactic Bar and Grille which was an absolute blast. We gave out lots of prizes. By the time it was over I was so desperate for sleep and so tired that I fell flat on my face in a packed elevator. (Luke Walsh has his own version of what happened. Don’t listen to him. It’s all lies.) Luckily for me there was a hero on board and I was rescued by a very gallant Mr. Romance contestant who saw me safely back to my room.

Wednesday night was the EC Hollywood Glam party. Since I didn’t pack a ballgown I wore my jeans and sneakers and had a blast dancing and making new friends. Finally got some sleep that night. Thursday morning I participated in a writing sci-fi panel and then my RT responsibilities were done. From then on I could just hang out and catch up and talk to people. Thursday night was the fairy ball which I love dressing up for and Lifetime TV interviewed me in my fairy costume. After that we went to Christine Feehan’s speakeasy. I adore Christine, she is truly amazing. Her entire family is wonderful.

Friday I went to club RT and talked to lots of fans of my Colby Hodge books. Caught up with my old friend Bill Freda and John DeSalvo who graced the cover of Stargazer. Then went to a workshop with my new friend Natalie Stenzel. Friday night was more dancing and talking with my wonderful editor Chris Keeslar and the rest of the Dorchester gang, Diane Stacey, Erin Galloway and Renee Yewdaev. Saturday was the wonderful book fair where I signed in between Cheryl Holt and Sandra Hill. Wow was I in good company. I also got to meet Roberta Gellis, who wrote the first romance novel I ever read, Alinor.


Then the Mr. Romance pageant where Jade Lee and I made a spectacle or ourselves on stage and my friend Chris Winters, who played the part of Zander from Star Shadows in the pageant won. Then there was an awesome bookseller mixer put on by the amazing Dorchester Staff and I met Christina Tanuadji and Veronika Kahrmadji from Australia and Sara Loftus from Huntington WV, which is where a lot of my Wind books take place. Then there was nothing left but the totally awesome Dorchester party where the Impalers, who were sponsored by my good friend Kathy Love and Erin McCarthy totally rocked the house.

I made so many new friends this week. Jennifer St. Giles and the gang at Between The Sheets. There there was Rose, Anthony and Lisa from Crossing Realms. The incredibly sweet and gallant cover guys, Brian, Steve, my boy Luke Walsh, Ryan, Jimi, and of course Fred and Christopher along with my dear friend Mr. Romance Chris Winters. It was great getting to know J.C. Wilder, and Isobo Kelly better and chowing down in J.C.’s room when the restaurants couldn’t serve us and laughing at stories. I adore my new friends, Leanna, Morgan and Stacey, the most amazing bookseller from Grand Central in NYC and I am coming up to NYC for a visit soon. Also have to mention Sue from Troy and yes Sue I am coming for a visit and bringing Luke with me. So many people it’s impossible to remember them all.

All in all it was the most awesome, busy and mind blowing week of my life. I can’t wait until next year.

Health Care of the Future

This week our workplace had a “health fair” to promote enrollment in health insurance plans. Not being in the market for coverage, I just went over to look around and pick up free trinkets (pens, pocket first aid kits, etc.). One lady was measuring body fat percentage and BMI with a handheld electronic gadget one holds out in front of one’s body. (Luckily it doesn’t sound an alarm or anything like that.) Undergoing that test made me think of Dr. McCoy’s tricorder. Today we do have devices such as MRI, ultrasound, and the currently popular full body scan. They’re expensive and sometimes inconvenient, though, not to mention (as some women report in connection with mammograms) occasionally uncomfortable to the point of pain. We’re still far from a small, computerized machine that can read out someone’s complete health profile in an instant, or even the Enterprise sick bay’s diagnostic beds (although I imagine the latter are within our technological capability).

Actually, what I want from my medical providers is the painless ray that can instantly, noninvasively repair a cracked tooth, broken bone, or malfunctioning internal organ. And when do we get the much-discussed nanobots that will clean toxins out of our system, kill harmful microbes, and maintain us at the perfect weight for our body type? Or those miraculous gene therapies that will nip congenital illnesses in the literal bud? Or replacement organs custom-grown for transplant into each individual? That is, if we ever manage to overcome the challenge of providing basic health care for all citizens, never mind extending the medical super-science of the future to everyone. Personally, my great fear of infirmity in old age isn’t the illnesses themselves, but the medical treatment. Too bad I won’t live to see those miraculous healing rays. Meanwhile, I’ll just have to go to the dentist later today and the primary care clinic tomorrow and accept the old-fashioned manual intrusion into my mouth and other body cavities.

When Is A Writer Wrong

Linnea Sinclair wrote, Monday April 7th 2008:

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

Q - My critique partners tear apart and change everything I write. What am I doing wrong?
A - Possibly nothing. Possibly everything. My first concern is, who are your crit partners? Do they have books on the shelves of Barnes & Noble or Waldenbooks? Have they actively studied the craft of writing? Or are they just starting out, putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard?
Jack Bickham, a noted writing guru, states in his The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, "Usually it's a mistake to seek advice from other amateurs at writers' clubs. I don't think it's a good idea to ask family or friends to read and 'criticize' your manuscript, either...for two reasons: they won't be honest; they usually don't know what they're doing anyway ...
---------------

This is really a very deep, wide ranging and intricate issue. Where can a new writer get reliable advice?

Some people shrug it off as, "Well, it's art, so there is no "wrong." It's all a matter of taste."

And that's true for Art. But it's not true for commercial art.

There is a part of novel writing that actually has that "there is no wrong" aspect to it, but that part can't be learned and can't be taught. It's talent.

Many beginning writers yearn to be told they have "talent" -- because they believe that affirms their self-image, that it means they can become famous for writing.

Not so.

Many of the really REAAALLLYYYY famous writers don't have much talent for writing (for other things, sure, but not the art behind storycraft).

Talent isn't an indispensable ingredient in commericial art. But a sense of what is or is not commercial definitely is indispensable.

Writers or other commercial artists who don't have that sense become victims of agents or business managers rather than fully independent, self-employed businesswomen themselves.

Also, writers who are burdened with talent are always bursting with stories to tell. The real art that a commercial writer needs is to tell the difference between those ideas and develop only the ones with commercial potential.

So, now you've selected an idea and written it out in full, and you take it to a local writer's critique group -- what happens? The different readers all tell you that there's this or that "wrong" with the words you have written.

Here is where you must leap across the dividing line between amateur and professional.

When a critique circle participant (even one who's sold stories already) says "this part really drags. It's so slow, I wanted to put the book down and never pick it up again" -- the amateur writer hears "You are a bad writer, this is all wrong" -- the professional hears "I wanted the story to be about A but in this section it's about B".
The amateur thinks "I have to change this into something that isn't my story."

The professional thinks, "Well, maybe it's not to this reader's taste." or "It's possible to tell not show this information and make it shorter -- maybe leave it out totally -- no, I have a better idea, I'll MOVE IT!" Then the professional thinks, "I wonder how many readers would react that way?" (commercial, remember? Mass audience.) Then the professional interrogates the test reader to find out what story thread they were following that seemed to disappear in the "slow" part.

With enough information about the test reader and enough details about the reader's response to the story, a professional can figure out whether to change anything -- and if so, what to change INTO WHAT.

Making random changes won't help the manuscript sell.

You must make charted changes calculated to take you to a WIDER audience. Your amateur or beginning writer (who is a writer, and a reader, not an EDITOR) can only tell you how their own responses vary. An editor (totally different type of person) can tell you where you have narrowed your potential audience.

So in response to the critique group comment "it drags here" the professional writer might well not change a word of the "dragging" section, but go back and add a character early on in the story -- involve the reader in that character's life and build it in such a way that the information revealed in the "dragging" section, piece by piece, puts that new character in ever growing jeapardy.

Then on rewrite, coming to the dragging section, other changes would get made (cuts most likely -- vivid language -- other tricks of the trade) that would speed up that section.

The beginning writers who put a manuscript before a "critique group" should do so in order to develop the attitude that they are using that group -- not that the group is using them.

If the group is using them to get stories the group finds entertaining, those stories very likely will not entertain the mass market. After all, few people spend their time in critique groups -- lots of people read books.

If the writers are using the group to widen the target audience for their story, then the comments will be viewed in a wholly different light.

And if the professional writer is using the group -- the group does not have to contain a single person who has ever written any fiction, nevermind sold it. After all, readers are the target audience, not writers.

Whether you are a professional or an amateur is not a matter of whether you've ever sold any writing. It is a matter of whether you write to sell.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

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

I survived RT 2008

I'm fairly sure "where were you when the lights went out?" might be found on several T-shirts come next RT in Orlando (2009). For those of you not there, the lights literally did go out the last ten minutes or so of the ginormous book fair (think: 300+ authors and thousands of fans in an interior ballroom and...blackness. Not even the exit-signs lit up). Be that as it may, it was wild as usual. And enormously fun, as usual.

I tried to load pics but Blogger is failing to permit that today. Internal errors or such.

Some photos are here: http://www.linneasinclair.com/rt2008.htm

I'll be adding to that page as I can.

Back to laundry, ~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

Zero Sum (Opinion)

I never was very good at mathematics, which makes some aspects of writing alien romance a bit of a struggle for me.

However, if I understand the concept of Zero Sum, it means that there has to be a winner and a loser. There are only a fixed number of place or units (or sales).

If the book industry were a Zero Sum business, every author would achieve success, fame and fortune at the expense of other authors.

I don't believe this, but I think some people might.

In this last week I've seen fine examples of generosity and support from one author to another, but I've also seen things written that bother me, and issues that I think should interest all book-lovers apparently being shrugged off.

When I was very young, there was a movie (about a trade union) "I'm all right, Jack."

The title reminds me of a saying from a shipwreck context, where a rescued survivor would prefer that everyone still in the water is left to drown. "Pull the ladder up, Jack, I'm on."

Today, the attitude seems to be more, "She's all right... let her fend for herself." But, to mix salt and fresh water metaphors, if we do nothing when the piranhas attack the dolphins, who will help save us from the sharks?


In society and in the book industry there is pressure to compete. Sometimes the pressure is overwhelming. What is more, some contests field cheetahs versus foxes versus flying lizards and fairies. All in the same race.

If it's not apples on apples, it's not Zero Sum.

Rowena Cherry

PS
If you think it is only fair that the government defends the book industry's copyrights with the same vigor that they protect the music and movie industries, please consider signing this petition, set up by former EPIC president, Brenna Lyons.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ebooksandpirates/

The Writing Biz Then and Now

Over the years I’ve had a fair number of tales included in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover and “Sword and Sorceress” anthologies. Recently her estate (which is still publishing Sword and Sorceress volumes) sent me the pleasantly surprising news that they’re posting all the stories for sale individually as e-books on Fictionwise.com. Naturally, they requested electronic files of the stories if possible. The first lesson I learned from this offer is that one should, ideally, store all writing-related computer files permanently in currently readable formats. All I could find were the two latest Sword and Sorceress tales. Fortunately, the MZB editors are willing to scan the older pieces. They also offered to upload any previously published works I wanted included, even if they hadn’t appeared in an MZB book, so I sent them two stories that hadn’t been reprinted elsewhere. Now, I thought I still had at least the more recent Darkover stories in readable electronic form. I had doubts about the ones dating back to the days of WordPerfect 5.1 in DOS, but at least there was a chance MS Word could convert them. Because of a major rearrangement of our home office not too long ago, though, those old disks apparently vanished into a box, which I can’t find. Did it ever cross my mind that I could possibly need to revisit those archaic files? No, but now I’ve learned that one never knows when an old, almost forgotten piece of writing may become a potential source of fresh income. At least one of the Sword and Sorceress stories, “Late Blooming,” is posted on Fictionwise.com already; that and all my titles available from Fictionwise can be found by searching the site under “Margaret Carter.”

Another small project also reminded me of how writing for publication has changed since I started. The Horror Writers’ Association newsletter wants essays on the theme of “My First Book,” about the author’s introduction to the world of professional publication, so I’m thinking of writing one. My first book, when dinosaurs walked the Earth, was an anthology of vampire stories, intended to provide a chronological overview of the genre, starting with Polidori’s “The Vampyre” (early nineteenth century). I considered this project to be filling a need because I didn’t know of any other vampire anthologies, and in fact there weren’t many in print at that time. At age 22, I was completely ignorant of the publishing business. All I knew was that submissions had to be typed (double-spaced on one side of the paper) and include a SASE. Fawcett held the submission package for over a year without a reply. Sadly, in dealing with many mass market publishers, the typical wait time hasn’t changed much. I sent a follow-up query (in the form of a “why haven’t you written” funny greeting card, something I would never dare to do now). Fawcett immediately offered me a paperback contract for CURSE OF THE UNDEAD. One big difference between then and now is that today an unknown, unpublished editor could never sell an anthology to a mass market publisher. (As far as I’ve seen, it’s a hard sell for an editor WITH a track record, unless partnered with one of the major anthology packagers.)

Another difference is, of course, that home computers didn’t exist. If revisions were requested, one had to type the material over. Scanning texts or saving them electronically wasn’t an option. An anthologist sent photocopies of stories to be reprinted, which the publisher set in type from scratch the old-fashioned way, hard as that is to imagine now. That procedure had advantages for an editor who might want to reprint a long out-of-print work—no nonsense about having to scan the text into a file and clean up the resulting mess. Getting manuscripts into printable form was the PUBLISHER’S job. Nowadays, although e-publishing has been a wonderful boon for authors in many ways, it has the downside that almost every publisher requires its own house-approved format for book files, which the author is expected to provide. (When did the author become the designated typesetter, I sometimes silently fume while struggling with the arcane so-called “Help” provided by MS Word?) Unfortunately, one factor hasn’t changed much in all these decades—the pay rate. For my first two books, two anthologies from Fawcett, I received an advance of $2000 each (half of which was to be divided among contributors). Some paperback publishers still offer advances of only $4000 per book, merely doubled in over 30 years. Meanwhile, costs of books, gasoline, cars, and houses, just to name a few items for which I know the approximate prices, have risen tenfold.

Joan Winston - Without Whom . . .

As you can see from the image of Joan Winston's natal chart [ http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/cz/cz24/JoanWinston.html ] -- she has Sagittarius rising. And boy is she typical Sag -- honest to a fault, with a huge, warm, inclusive welcome.

These traits are reflected in the title of her first book, The Trek Conventions, or How To Throw A Party For Twelve Thousand Of Your Closest Friends.

During the 1970's, she was nicknamed Mama Trek for a reason -- she organized and took care of things for the Committee that created and ran the first 5 huge Trek Conventions in New York City.

At the time, she was in charge of Contracts at one of the national broadcast TV networks. She had a knack for detail and never forgot a thing.

So it was natural that she came to handle the publicity for the conventions. As described in her first book, this job escalated from totally out of control to truly astronomical.

If you like any of the Star Treks -- TV, animated, comic, graphic novel, Internet New Voyages or film -- you have Joanie to thank.

The way Hollywood works, the only thing that counts is publicity. A nice, warm little convention with a few hundred (or even thousand) fans means nothing to Hollywood. No number of conventions would have gotten Star Trek revived, made into an animated, or made into films, or more series, no matter how many people attended or how many books were published and became "best sellers."

The only thing that matters in Hollywood is publicity. What mattered, what made a difference to the Powers That Be was the way the press covered these conventions, reviewed the books, focused on fans and their "real" lives, and interviewed those of us who had written books on or about Star Trek.

Star Trek, and its bumper stickers like "Beam Me Up, Scotty" became a pop-culture phenomenon -- became a total cultural phenomenon.

Remember, in those days there was no Internet, email, Lists, blogs, chat rooms, texting. The only way fans came to know other fans existed was through Media coverage and published books.

A lot of the impression the Media got from the huge Star Trek fan events came via Joanie Winston's sunny, warm, chatty, breezy, utterly SANE and NORMAL businesswoman with an insane job persona. Though coverage included a lot of derision, it also became permeated with Joanie's attitude of joyous fun, and that attracted more attention than the derision ever did.

During the 1970's when the New York conventions were attracting all this media attention and spawning other huge Star Trek conventions around the country, Joan suffered through the transit of Pluto over her MC and through her 10th House. She had breast cancer, twice, and gall bladder surgery (the old fashioned, "most painful surgery recovery there is" style) and several other major problems. In fact, she put off the gall bladder surgery until after one convention because the con was more important! And despite the pain, she charmed every reporter and Mothered all the frazzled committee and the Trek Stars who attended.

With the conventions over, and her health improving, she turned more to writing and speaking at many other conventions. In addition to Trek, she spoke about her experiences with breast cancer (in a day when such things were NOT discussed in public). I believe Joanie saved several lives because of her open Sagittarius-Rising honesty. And she'll still talk to you about it today more than thirty years later -- get those checkups!

The Making Of The Trek Conventions came out after David Gerrold's The Making Of Star Trek, and my book, the Bantam paperback Star Trek Lives! by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak, and Joan Winston. David Gerrold wrote the ST:TOS script The Trouble With Tribbles, and is still working in the film industry with a film in theaters now. He's had a number of very prominent and well written Science Fiction novels published as well.

Sondra introduced me to Joan as someone who could write us a chapter for Star Trek Lives! on how the conventions happened. Joan talks a blue streak, but her pencil can't keep up with her mind! It took a lot to get her to put the words she spoke so fluently down on paper, but once she did -- it was dynamite. So we included Joan in the byline of the book.

Joanie's chapter is the one most remembered from Star Trek Lives! For decades afterwards, she'd tell those tales to enthralled convention audiences. Her talks were always packed because she could add personal anecdotes about all the Stars. The chapter led to her being able to tell the whole story in her own book -- and then a couple more Trek books, too, one that she edited filled with cartoons.

Somewhere in between all this, Joanie contributed a story to my Star Trek fanzine universe, Kraith. http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/kc003/kc03_01.html#OBLIGATION/

Much later, she went on to become a famous fanzine writer for her Riker/Star Trek: The Next Generation stories published in various 'zines.

Actually, I wasn't impressed with Riker at first -- Joanie opened my eyes to nuances of the character and Jonathan Frakes' wide ranging skills. In 1996 and 1998, Frakes directed the 8th and 9th Star Trek movies. I'm telling you, Joanie has an instinct for this stuff! Frakes launched into a totally stellar career using skills and talents I never saw in him at first. See his filmography at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000408/ and goggle at what Joanie saw in this man from the first.

Meanwhile, Joanie tried her hand at novel writing and turned out two blockbusters in the best seller mode -- one of which even sold for good money, neither of which ever saw print! It was the most bewildering misfire of the publishing industry I have ever seen.

Our friendship went through many stages. Often, during the early Star Trek conventions I'd end up rooming with her and a couple other women. Once I slept on a lumpy bed because she'd hidden the Star Trek blooper reel under my mattress! Another time, she and some other friends dressed me up as T'Pring and entered me in the costume contest (my first and ONLY time in a costume!) -- I met a woman just last month who saw me as T'Pring and remembered it! I thought I'd lived that down.

My zany adventures with Joanie continued -- she lived in Manhattan and I lived in the northern suburbs of NYC. She dragged me into town as often as possible to take me clothes shopping at bargain shops with higher class clothing than I could find near me. She has a sense of classic style and value that is as unerring as her sense of high craftsmanship among entertainers.

I went to her apartment to watch Star Trek episodes -- she was one of the first to have a video recorder. Her first was a JVC with 3/4 inch tape -- a broadcast machine she picked up used when the studio discarded it. Through numerous upgrades to DVD's, she always has the best equipment.

During those years, we talked on the phone for hours, a couple times a month at least. Often she'd relate uproarious encounters with the stars of stage (she does live in Manhattan, you know) and screen. She dated a number of them and loved to go dancing. She was always the first to tell me about the best new TV shows, too. She had the inside scoop on everything to do with show business.

In the 1980's and 1990's she used to come up to my house on the bus, stay over, and then we'd drive to Maryland for Shore Leave together -- then I'd drive her home to Manhattan and circle on north to my own house -- a 7 or 8 hour drive home instead of 6. We'd blast along the highway singing with Theodore Bikel tapes (before cars had CD players). We discovered we had a lot of favorite movies in common -- Dirty Dancing being one.

Since I moved to Arizona, we only talk via telephone.

Which brings me to the reason for this web page. You see, despite being cutting edge on TV video equipment, Joanie has never gotten online!

The electric wiring in her incredibly old New York walk-up apartment just wouldn't (and she had several techs try different things) allow for running a computer or getting it online.

If you Google "Joan Winston" you'll find mention of her books, some casual references in con reports perhaps -- but you won't find her homepage, you won't find her blog, you won't find her on social networking -- you won't find HER. And, except for here, you won't find a reason for that, either. Joanie just doesn't do computers. Period.

So we wanted to create that online presence for Joanie, explain why you can't find her, and point out that without Joanie Winston -- (and 12,000 of her most intimate friends) -- there might very well not have been any more Trek than ST:TOS.

If Star Trek, the Conventions, the books, the additional novels, the online continuation by fans, http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/ which is now called PhaseII, have touched your life -- then you have been touched by Joan Winston.

Please contribute your thank-you Joanie's website. You'll find instructions at http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/cz/cz24/JoanWinston.html

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