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

What Makes Us Care?

A Canadian friend sent me an article that appeared in the GLOBE AND MAIL last July, on the topic, "What Makes Us Care." Why do we feel more sympathy for the suffering of individuals or small numbers of people or animals than for vast throngs of people starving or being slaughtered in distant countries? According to one study, the more we think about and analyze a situation, the less likely we are to act compassionately (give money, for example). Shouldn't it work the opposite way? As the article puts it, sympathy "has a short attention span and a tendency to lose interest when things get complicated or unpleasant." The areas of the brain that control compassion, it seems, are more primitive than those that work on a rational level. Another factor, the "identifiable victim effect," means we are more likely to sympathize with individual victims we know something about. Huge numbers of anonymous people suffering far away don't have an emotional impact on us. As somebody or other has said, "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." That's why charities try to "trick" our brains by mailing us photos of sad children or abused puppies. Also, like one of my own favorite charities, the local homeless ministry, they send newsletters with real-life stories of people who've been helped or who are waiting for help. Another proven factor in giving, alas, is that we're more likely to want to help attractive victims. We often get "freaked" by mutilated victims or the visibly mentally ill and are therefore less likely to respond positively.

The article reminded me of an online essay about the Monkeysphere. Google that strange word, and the essay will pop up high on the search page. It's well worth reading. The author cites a study showing that various primates differ in the number of members of their own species they can know as individuals (and therefore the optimal number to make up a social grouping), and by examining the size of a primate's brain, scientists can approximately predict what that number is. For Homo sapiens, the maximum is about 150. That's our Monkeysphere. Unless we make a conscious effort to think otherwise, people outside our personal Monkeysphere aren't "real" to us. The car that cuts us off in traffic is just a car to us, not a person behind the wheel. Some of us have no qualms about yelling (and gesturing) at that other driver in a way we'd never think of doing if we met him or her face to face, say, in an elevator. As the author of the essay puts it in one example, the garbage collection guy isn't a person to us; he's "the thing that makes the trash go away." To return to the topic of sympathy, the essayist asks which would upset you more, your brother being in an accident or a busload of children across town being in one? Similarly, which would you be more distressed about, that bus accident across town or thousands of people getting killed by an earthquake in Asia? The emotional and rational parts of our brain work in opposition to each other where caring for others is concerned. Now, there's another way to look at the matter, as proposed by C. S. Lewis (in one of his letters, if I recall correctly)—that the modern media are placing demands on our capacity for caring that it wasn't designed to handle. It's natural for us to feel sympathy for the people we come into contact with, about whose plight we can actually do some concrete good, rather than for people we'll never meet whose suffering may distress us but about which we can't do much of anything. Yet, on the third hand, we can make some limited contribution to the good of those abstract masses by wise giving to organizations that seek to address their plight. Which brings us back to the necessity for rational analysis of the options, so that our charity dollars don't go to scam artists or get intercepted by greedy warlords. And there we are again, with the problem of the rational part of the brain working against the impulsive part that wants to jump in and help. Psychologist George Loewenstein (quoted in the GLOBE AND MAIL article) suggests that the solution is "for people who are responsible for good causes to make use of what we know about human sympathy, to channel people's efforts in particular directions."

Moonstruck

MOONSTRUCK by Susan Grant
HQN Books, June 1, 2008

PEACE IS FOR LITTLE GIRLS.
And Coalition starship admiral Brit Bandar is one tough woman. A mere intergalactic treaty could never get her to trust the Drakken Horde. There was too much bad blood between the Coalition and the Horde and, for intensely personal reasons, Brit wasn’t sure that she was through spilling it! But now a peaceful accord has made Finn Rorkken, a notorious Drakken rogue, second-in command on her starship – and through some grand cosmic irony – front and center in her thoughts…and her heart.

WARLEADER. PIRATE.
Either title sat easily on Finn’s battle-hardened shoulders. Though second-in-command to “Stone-Heart” Bandar? That would take some getting used to. Peace required as much sacrifice as war, so he’d comply even if his reaction to the gorgeous admiral fell decidedly outside protocol. But would he end up kissing or killing her if the galaxy’s tentative truce turned into all out war?

Cover: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514Ay5Ag9BL._SS500_.jpg
Excerpt: http://www.susangrant.com/books/moonstruck.htm

ABOUT SUSAN GRANT
RITA award winner and NY Times best-selling author Susan Grant loves writing about what she knows: flying, adventure, and the often unpredictable interaction between the sexes! When she’s not writing romances set in far-flung locales, Susan pilots 747 jumbo jets to China, Australia, Europe, and many other exotic overseas destinations where she finds plenty of material for her novels.

REVIEWS
4.5 stars! The quick pace and compelling characterization make this space adventure riveting! --reviewed by Jill Smith, RT Magazine
[A gripping storyline, fascinating characters and great writing. Susan Grant has an immense talent for writing this special brand of romance. --Tanzey Cutter, Fresh Fiction."[A] can’t-put-down read that draws you in from the first page and doesn’t let go until the tension-filled final chapters!" -- Linnea Sinclair, RITA award winning author of THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES
This tale packs a punch! Fans of the Honor Harrington series (by David
Weber) will thoroughly enjoy Brit and Finn's story. I could not help but give a spontaneous high-five when I finished this gem. -- Detra Fitch, Huntress Reviews,

This book kicked serious butt. Susan Grant can write more like this and I'll be ready to devour them at a moment's notice! -- Kathy Boswell, The Best Reviews


Website: http://www.susangrant.com
http://www.the-borderlands.com

E=mc2 -- God clapped

Last night on the Science Channel someone defined science in terms of "finding out what we don't know" on a programme about the Large Hadron Collider

The first thing that struck me was the absolutely marvellous English understatement. (OK, that's superficial of me, but I am, first and foremost, a wordgeek!)

In my opinion, the "Large" Hadron Collider might be large enough and ambitious enough to qualify for inclusion in the list of new engineering wonders of the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fJ6PMfnz2E

It's all about the Big Bang, energy, mass, dark holes, Einstein's most famous equation E=mc2 , and the difficulty of seeing back in time to the Big Bang because when the Big Bang happened (if it happened) there were no stars, so there's no ancient light to follow.

The second thought to hit me was the proposition that two subatomic particles collided with great force. I visualized these colliding particles as "Good" and "Evil".

This morning, as I sat in Church, it came to me to wonder, "Suppose God clapped His hands?" So I googled "God clapped" and discovered with some relief that this notion has already occurred to several extremely learned people, who've published their ideas in places I wouldn't normally look.

While looking around youtube, hoping to find out what happened in November 2007 when the LHC was --apparently-- intended to be turned on, I learned that the Higgs particle has been called "The God Particle".


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fg16j5hbvY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9feXeL-3XA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQYXMqEwRxc&feature=related

Another youtube clip describes the LHC as "Satan's Stargate" which seems a wicked cool tag!

Apologies for so many links in this blog, but I hope you are as fascinated as I am with some of this material.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

MIDNIGHT TREAT Release

I’m thrilled to announce the publication of MIDNIGHT TREAT, an anthology from Pocket Books reprinting three erotic paranormal romance novellas from Ellora’s Cave by Shelley Munro, Sally Painter, and me. Meet three ravishing, not quite human heroes—a gargoyle, a ghostly werewolf, and my vampire, Claude, from “Tall, Dark, and Deadly.” Here’s the Amazon.com link (if it wraps, so it may have to be pasted in two parts):

http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Treat-Elloras-Sally-Painter/dp/1416577238/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212680126&sr=1-1

Here’s a teaser from my story, in which Eloise, a writer of fantasy, horror, and paranormal romance, tries to persuade actor Claude Darvell to produce and star in her screenplay adaptation of VARNEY THE VAMPYRE (a well-known Victorian “penny dreadful”). Little does she suspect that he’s actually a vampire himself, hiding in plain sight by performing in horror roles. They first meet at an SF convention awards banquet, after which they go to her hotel room to discuss the potential film.

Excerpt from “Tall, Dark, and Deadly,” by Margaret L. Carter:

When Eloise opened her eyes, a rosy mist clouded her vision, and her throat felt dry. After dragging herself to a sitting position, she rubbed her face and looked around. *Oh, Lord, I can't believe I acted that way! How can I ever face Claude again?*

Come to think of it, where was he? His cape still hung over the chair, but he was nowhere to be seen, and she didn't hear any sounds from the bathroom. No way could she look him in the eye, at least not until she'd put some distance between herself and her humiliating cat-in-heat behavior. Maybe he'd be gentleman enough, next time they met, to pretend the encounter had never happened. Meanwhile, she had to get out before he reappeared. When he saw her gone, with luck he would return to his own room and leave her alone.

Standing up, she had to grab the bedpost until a surge of dizziness faded. Noticing how loosely the bodice of her dress hung, she reached behind and pulled up the zipper. Muzzy-headed, she staggered out the door and along the hall to the elevator, one hand on the wall for balance. By the time she'd ridden to the ground floor, the danger of toppling over at every step had passed. Her brain still felt like oatmeal, though. She drifted through the lobby to the main doors, with a vague idea of letting the night air clear her head.

She shoved through the double glass doors and meandered to the corner of Wilshire Boulevard.

* * * * *

Claude came back from his foray to the vending machines with a full ice bucket and a can of Coke. After her involuntary donation, Eloise would feel dehydrated. Even before unlocking the room door, he sensed her absence. What the devil had got into the woman? He hadn't expected her to wake so quickly, but what had possessed her to run off the moment she did?

And without her shoes, he noticed. Or her key, which he'd taken with him. While these thoughts ran through his mind, he was already heading for the stairs. He could dash to street level on his own power faster than the elevator could arrive and carry him down. If Eloise hadn't gone all the way to the first floor, he could search the hotel at leisure. The first priority was intercepting her if she was indeed wandering around the lobby barefoot and half-conscious. Damn, this was the last thing he wanted to be doing after the mutually satisfying "dessert" they'd sampled.

Hurrying from the stairwell into the lobby, he scanned the area. Just in time, he caught a glimpse of Eloise disappearing out the main entrance. He strode after her as fast as possible without breaking into a trot. She paused at the corner. As he walked toward her, he noticed the dreamy vagueness of her gaze. She stepped off the curb with no sign of noticing the red stoplight. Claude darted into the stream of traffic, wrapped his arms around her, and flashed back to the sidewalk too fast for human eyes to follow.

Clinging to him, she shook her head in obvious bewilderment. "Claude—?"

He sensed the fog lifting from her brain. In a second she would start complaining about the way he'd chased and grabbed her. He also sensed eyes boring into him. Not just the curious glances of people who wondered how a man in a tuxedo and a barefoot woman in a formal gown had suddenly appeared on the sidewalk. Hostile eyes that felt not quite human.

He wasted no time processing this impression. Choosing action over analysis, he draped himself in a psychic veil that repelled vision. He projected a "you don't see me" aura that amounted to invisibility. With Eloise held close to him, she fell under the same curtain. Casual passers-by would blink at their "disappearance," then instantly forget about them. As for the watcher who troubled Claude the most, if he, she, or it existed at all, the illusion might provide enough time for an unseen retreat to the shelter of Eloise's room.

Claude carried her, murmuring confused protests, up the stairs to that refuge. "What the blazes is wrong with you?" he said as he plopped her on the bed. "Where did you think you were going?" And why did his own heart hammer with alarm at her narrow escape? He tabled that question for the moment.

"Out, if it's any of your business." Her flushed cheeks stirred his appetite, even though he'd just feasted on her.

"It's my business when you nearly get yourself killed. What the devil did you want to run away for? Surely I didn't do anything to frighten you, did I?" He smoothed the hair straggling out of her braid.

She jerked her head away from his hand. "Of course not. I just wanted to be alone."

"Really?" He captured her eyes with his.

"If you must know, I was embarrassed." She gasped at her own frankness. He knew she must feel baffled by the way the truth had popped out.

Maintaining the gentle pressure of his mind on hers, he prompted, "Why in the world would you be embarrassed?"

"Humiliated. The way I acted when you, you know, touched me." The heat radiating from her skin made him want to absorb every drop of her essence.

"I enjoyed every minute of it. And so did you, didn't you?" He stroked her head, and this time she didn't resist. His hypnotic gaze and touch already had her partly tamed. "Here, you're thirsty," he said. He held the cold soda can to her mouth. She drank half of it and licked her lips in a maddeningly sensual way. He held her close and crooned a wordless song of languid pleasure until she went limp in his arms. "Don't worry about it. Lie down and rest. Everything is all right now."

He lowered her head onto the pillow and turned her on her side to unzip her dress. After peeling it off, he folded back the covers and tucked her in with the sheet up to her waist. He knew he ought to leave now, but her half-closed eyes watched him with drowsy lust that sparked a burning in the pit of his stomach.

*Damn, I want her again! I can't remember the last time I was this hungry for a donor!* If he couldn't remember, he told himself with an ironic smile, maybe the answer was "never". In any case, resisting temptation had never been his forte. Earlier, he could have satisfied his thirst without bringing her to climax. Her arousal alone would have spiced her blood. Her eagerness, though, had inflamed him past caution. Now the sight of her bare breasts, flushed with passion, and the aroma of her female musk, tinged with traces of soap and bath powder, overcame the remnants of his scruples. After all, what harm would another sip do?

-end of excerpt-

Margaret L. Carter

www.margaretlcarter.com

My monthly newsletter includes excerpts, book reviews, and guest author interviews:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/margaretlcartersnewsfromthecrypt

Real World Building

Folks:

This post below was supposed to go up last Tuesday, but it didn't. So I'll put it up today -- and just let you know that NEVER in the history of families has a family-visit gone so well. If I wanted to make a short story out of it, I'd have to add some characters and events to create conflict -- there just wasn't any.

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

We spend so much time building imaginary worlds, but sometimes we have to put that craft to work in our everyday reality.

After all, what's the point of writing or reading SF or Fantasy or Romance or any sort of fiction if you don't use what you've learned, invented, mastered, practiced or just theorized about to craft your own life?

You aren't a character in a story -- you are the hero of your life.

Fiction is only practice. Living is what it is practice for.

So this week my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter are here for a visit and we're running all over the place being an extended family on adventure watch.

My granddaughter is going on 6 and totally enamored of the Disney Princess fantasy that is being given such a hard sell lately. I don't know if she's a victim or just born at the right time and having the Establishment feed her what's best for her.

There's a generation being enchanted by dreams of glory, beauty, power and rightful sovereignty (not to mention love, but 6 is a bit early for that). How much is that generation's natural bent and how much Disney hype? Is there serious pain on the horizon for these kids when they thump down into "reality" at last?

I have to spend this week finding out what's going on in her head. She makes up stories, plays endlessly in costumes and dress up in grandma's old clothes, and will recite the biographies of all the Princesses. Having been 6 one time myself, I sympathize -- and envy her. We didn't have all the glitter and hype, the "reality mill" of Disney. We had books, a couple of movies (no DVD) and grandma's old clothes. But we played princess.

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

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

Why I write... alien romance

George Orwell is one of my literary heroes, along with Shakespeare, Tolkien, Asimov and Georgette Heyer.

George Orwell is best known for Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm but the rest of his works include essays, such as Why I Write, and Politics and the English Language, and his documentaries/social commentaries The Road To Wigan Pier, and Down and Out in Paris and London.


While I don't claim to share his politics or his extreme sense of adventure, I admire George Orwell for his commitment to accurate research; his integrity; and his ethics as a writer, commentator, and master of the English language.


In his essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell lists six rules for writers:

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive voice where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

My personal favorite is Rule 6.


It is in part due to George Orwell's essays that I write about aliens instead of imaginary aristocrats and real historical figures.

The allowed fool is a concept from literature that harks back to the middle ages. The Court Jester was one of the only people who was able to speak his mind without risking his life, because he was usually considered a Fool or mad, or of such low status that his opinions were laughable.

Nevertheless, because he was entertaining and occasionally funny, his views were widely heard. I think the traditional traveling musician was more of a carrier of news
and might have been under more social pressure to deliver a popular message.

The character in my Romances who most resembles the archetypical Fool (and occasionally a Greek chorus of one) is Grievous, a very useful fellow!

If George Orwell were alive and writing today, I wonder whether he'd be writing Futuristics (Nineteen Eighty-Four was a futuristic. Or was it SF?) Or would he write Fantasy? ( Animal Farm was subtitled a fairy story).


Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Action Scenes

One of my e-mail lists had a recent thread on writing action scenes. That’s one of the most difficult parts of fiction writing for me, partly (I’m sure) because I don’t especially like reading or watching them. It takes a highly skilled author to compose an action scene that won’t confuse me, so I tend to skim such passages to find out who won the fight and let the details drift past unheeded. While watching a TV show, I use the action scenes as an opportunity to read a few pages of a book. Yet it’s clear that a suspenseful narrative almost has to include one or more chase or fight sequences, so I can’t avoid writing them sometimes. One suggestion from the person conducting the workshop on the e-mail list struck me as particularly useful: Write out the whole sequence of actions in painstaking detail first, then trim the passage to a fast-moving narrative that will sweep the reader along; that way, you can be sure you haven’t missed any important points. Another often-recommended technique is to act out the movements physically to get a feel for them and catch any awkwardness or downright impossibility.

In my own fiction, human characters often have to fight against paranormal creatures with superhuman physical strength as well as unusual powers. If the story requires the human hero to overcome or at least escape alive from the vampire or werewolf, how can he or she plausibly accomplish this goal? It helps if the nonhuman character has well-defined weaknesses, and the hero or heroine needs a reasonable way of knowing these weaknesses and being able to take advantage of them.

My first vampire novel, DARK CHANGELING, featured a vampire-human hybrid protagonist, a human female he’s in love with, and a fullblooded vampire antagonist. Relatively early in the story, the hero, Roger, clashes face to face with the villain for the first time. It’s far too early for a decisive combat. The scene has the goal of making the renegade vampire’s villainy and powers clear, while pushing the relationship between Roger and the heroine, Britt, to the next level. Roger’s knowledge of his own kind, to this point, is largely theoretical. Britt has never seen a vampire before, yet she needs to escape largely unscathed from the creature’s clutches. Luckily, being quick-witted, she realizes that although Roger is a vampire, too, he has her welfare at heart. Here’s how the confrontation concludes in the published novel. (Volnar is the elder who taught Roger what little he knows about their species; Sylvia is the only other vampire he’s met.)

His right hand still lingering on her neck, Sandor said, "Now that we're more comfortable, we can have a little refreshment and talk over our differences."
Britt's face lit up with amazement that momentarily canceled her fear. If they ever got out of this, Roger didn't know how he could possibly deal with her. "Look, Sandor, I don't want --"
"Don't give me that, Darvell. I can sense your thirst the same way you sense mine."
What Roger felt emanating from the murderer, though, was not simple appetite like his own, but a violent lust that revolted him. He said wearily to Britt, "Now are you convinced? You won't get immortality from this sociopath; you'll get yourself killed."
"I'm convinced of that," she said, her voice steady, "but not that he's typical of the breed."
"Quiet!" Sandor tightened his grip on her wrists, not forgetting to watch Roger. He favored Britt with a caricature of a smile. "So you want the vampire's kiss? I haven't had one like you in a long time. It'll be my pleasure to grant your desire -- and you'll sure as hell get more from me than from the fangless freak, here." In fact, Sandor didn't have fangs, either, except in his transformed shape, but the insult registered loud and clear.
Beyond caring what the renegade said to or about him, Roger interrupted, "Will you stop wasting time? I came here to negotiate, not --" He couldn't say it, not about Britt.
"Right. What kind of deal are you offering?"
"The only deal I'll make with you is that you get out of my territory -- right now. If you leave this county -- no, better make that the state of Maryland and the D.C. suburbs -- I won't pursue."
Sanders barked a laugh. "Don't you think I can see when you're lying? The only way I can be safe from you is to make sure you're in as deep as I am. Now, you listen to my terms. We're going to become partners. And you'll start by sharing this one with me."
The image of Britt writhing in the outlaw's clutches, blood spurting from her torn throat, hit Roger like a blow to the pit of the stomach. He struggled to mask his reaction from the enemy.
"You want it, Darvell -- why don't you admit that?" Sandor's fiery eyes flicked repeatedly from Roger to Britt and back again. "You've been wanting this one for a long time. Well, you can just wait your turn." He drew a curved fingernail down the side of her neck. She winced as a thread of blood, luminous with life-energy, bloomed on her fair skin.
A pang of yearning pierced through Roger's outrage. Britt's eyes met his for an instant, and he thanked God that he saw no fear of himself there.
"You can work up an appetite watching," Sandor continued. "I could make her want it, too -- make her beg me for it. But I'm not going to cloud her mind. She'll feel everything when I bite into her. If you've never taken one fighting and screaming, you haven't lived. Believe me, after you've watched that, you'll be ready."
Roger's long-denied desire to possess Britt, not in terror but in mutual passion, surged up, to be swamped by the fear and anger that washed over him in frigid waves. Britt, thoroughly frightened now, leaped to her feet. Sandor shoved her down with casual roughness.
Roger was amazed at the intensity of his own rage. The worst, he thought, was the subtext of that emotion -- not a chivalrous, "Unhand that damsel, you cad," but a predator's roar of, "Hands off -- she's mine!" Forgetting diplomacy, he lunged at Sandor.
The vampire jerked Britt to his chest, facing him, and placed his bared teeth against the side of her neck. Roger saw her cringe, her face twisting with disgust. "Not another inch, Darvell."
Roger stepped back. Britt tamed her revulsion and said quietly, "You don't have to go through all that -- what's your name?"
"Call me Neil." His hand still encircled her throat, but not so tightly.
"You were right, Neil, I do want intercourse with a vampire. A real one." Sandor shot Roger a triumphant glance. Did his egoism blind him so thoroughly he couldn't penetrate Britt's insincerity? Good -- but Roger doubted her fake submission could disarm Sandor enough to tip the balance their way. "Give me a chance to experience it to the fullest," she purred. "I'm ready to cooperate here and now."
With another gloating look at Roger, Sandor said, "Don't even think of interfering. How long I let her live is entirely up to you."
Roger could scarcely keep himself from rushing the killer, against all reason.
"One thing I'd really like, if you don't mind," Britt said, leaning pliantly against Sandor. "Change back into that -- whatever it was. Giving you my blood would be so much more thrilling that way."
The breathy appeal was so foreign to the real Britt that Roger wondered how Sandor could be deceived by it. Volnar must have been right about the renegade's defective empathic power. What was she up to? Under her fascinated gaze, the vampire did begin to flow out of human shape. Roger suddenly thought of the ogre in "Puss in Boots," devoured when he let himself be flattered into becoming a mouse. But Sandor's alternate form had no such weakness.
Wait -- didn't it? Seeing the silver-gray wings overshadow Britt, Roger recalled what Sylvia had told him the first time he'd seen her transform. When the molecules were in flux, a vampire was abnormally vulnerable. The wings, in particular, were hypersensitive.
How could he use the knowledge, though? Sandor was still watching Roger out of the corner of his eye, while mouthing Britt's throat. Apparently intent on prolonging the suspense, he hadn't yet bitten her. He did, however, relax enough to let go of her arms, instead grasping her around the waist.
"Beautiful," Britt murmured. "I never dreamed of anything like you." Her slender hands crept up over his shoulders, caressingly skimmed over his temples and cheeks. A low growl rumbled in Sandor's chest. Nauseated, Roger ordered himself not to look away. Britt was fighting to give him an opening.
Her body molded itself to Sandor's. Then her thumbs dug into his eye sockets. At the same instant, she rammed a knee into his groin.
Roger could have told her that wouldn't disable Sandor. With undescended testicles, a vampire wasn't sensitive in that spot like a human male. However, the shock of the double attack broke the outlaw's hold on Britt. Roger charged at Sandor, at the same time as Britt fell to her knees and rolled out of the way.
Sandor's claws slashed at Roger's right arm. Springing backward, Roger suddenly thought of the rosary in his shirt pocket. He pulled it out and thrust it toward the other vampire.
To his surprise, the enemy actually retreated. "Halfbreed scum -- using human weapons!"
"Your crimes give all of us a bad name." Roger heard the rasp of his own breathing as well as Sandor's. A crimson haze blurred his vision.
"`Crime' to you and the rest of Volnar's tame dogs! You think he holds himself to those rules?" Reaching behind him, Sandor ripped a branch off the nearest tree. He swiped at Roger, knocking the rosary to the ground.
Roger attacked Sandor empty-handed. Slipping on the pine needles underfoot, they grappled, Roger struggling to keep his antagonist's claws and teeth away from his neck. Though Sandor's wings quivered with the strain, Roger saw at once that the other vampire was stronger than he. A purely defensive strategy stood no chance.
His peripheral vision glimpsed Britt on her knees, groping on the ground. Damn -- if only her eyes could handle the dark like his. Roger focused on Sandor, well aware of the danger of getting distracted a second time. The shimmering wings seemed to mock him.
The wings. Roger relaxed the pressure of his hands, throwing Sandor off balance for a second. As the killer, with a growl of triumph, closed the gap between them, Roger grabbed both wings near the shoulder blades and crumpled the delicate membrane in his fists.
Sandor let out an agonized howl. Roger was vaguely aware of Britt jumping up, the rosary clutched in her hand. She jabbed it at Sandor's chest. The vampire collapsed, stunned, on the ground.
Staring down at him, Roger noticed a second-degree burn where the crucifix had branded the flesh.
Britt gulped a few breaths and said in a shaky voice, "Interesting psychosomatic effect."
Roger's chest ached from the exertion. He, too, had to catch his breath before he could ask whether she was all right. At the moment he didn't trust his perceptions.
"Sure," Britt said. "I knew that book on how to survive rape would come in handy someday. What do we do now?"
Roger eyed the prostrate vampire, who had resumed human form as soon as the cross had touched him. Sandor's legs jerked.
"Get back!" Roger ordered Britt, plucking the rosary from her hand.
Sandor struggled to his feet. Roger thrust the crucifix at him. Sandor's lips curled in a snarl. Lurching backward, he shifted from human to winged form and back again like a time-lapse special effect. He seemed weak, disoriented. One good blow should knock him out, and then -- Roger lunged for the wounded vampire. Sandor spread his wings once more and rose straight into the air. A lupine howl keened from his throat as he vanished above the trees.

Margaret L. Carter

www.margaretlcarter.com

Preserving Worlds That Have Been Built

Most people didn't think of Star Trek: The Original Series as "alien romance" but I'm telling you the FAN WRITERS did! It might well be billed as the first AR on TV. There have been some interesting follow-ups like Forever Knight and now Moonstruck. Alien Nation comes to mind, but more as family drama than romance.

So it's time to capture for future generations some of the origins of our genre, bits and pieces scattered here and there that build up to what the authors on this blog are now able to publish -- stuff that would have been banned a few decades ago.

Appropos of that, on May 21, 2008 I got the following GOOGLE ALERT (by having signed up to get notices when my name appears in a google search)

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

Google Blogs Alert for: "Jacqueline Lichtenberg"
please help identify these costumers
By angeet(fanac)

Also from DisCon 2--3 individual costumers--I'm pretty sure that's Star Trek author, Jacqueline Lichtenberg on the right--any ideas of the other 2 and/or their costumes? Thanks, ...
FANAC - The Fan History Project - http://community.livejournal.com/fanac/

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

Well, so I had to go look at the photo because I think I remember DisCon 2. I believe that was the WorldCon where I was nominated as Best Fan Writer for my Star Trek fan series, Kraith.

http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/

I didn't win the Hugo, but it turned out the person who did win needed it more than I did.

And it turned out the photo wasn't of me.

So I dropped a note on the livejournal site to that effect and got a nice email back from -- an old friend! Angelique Trouvere!! The famous costumer who wowwed crowds at Star Trek conventions for years.

She said:

Hi Jacqueline,

Thanks for clearing up my mistake about the DisCon 2 costume! I inherited a ton of photos from Jeff Maynard who recently passed away and most are not identified other than the obvious like Shatner addressing the crowd at a 1975 Trek con, or Nimoy at a 1973 con, etc. So I’m trying to figure out the who’s who & what’s what.

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

We exchanged more quick notes, I invited her to connect with me on LinkedIn and she said:
-------------------
While I’m not sure what to do with Jeff’s massive collection, I’d be happy to be listed if that would help.

Ideally, I would like to see his collection in some sort of Trek archive open to the public and dedicated to Jeff’s memory.

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

So a new project on my desk is finding a home for these photos online where they can be enjoyed (Jeff took hundreds of photos of fan costume contests that will knock your eyes out, and snapped some famous people in interesting poses!)

So spread the word as far as you can. Angelique Trouvere is

http://angeet.livejournal.com/

And she has contributed a comment to our page about Joan Winston's contribution to Star Trek. Another piece of history we'd like to see preserved -- The Making Of The Trek Conventions.

http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/cz/cz24/JoanWinston.html -- see the index at the bottom of the page. Comments are collecting nicely. To add yours email simegen@simegen.com with your memories.

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

Omnipotence

I write futuristic romances about an alien royal family whose male members are so widely mistaken for gods, that they believe their own mystique.

Not only do they have superb predator senses (seven of them), and a few nifty and deadly paranormal abilites, but they control highly advanced technology, and also the media and the history books.

I'm allowed approximately 90,000 words, which means that a great deal of material that I would like to include gets bumped (a motor racing metaphor) in favor of the romance, the characters, whatever my subplot is, and any colorful detail that appeals to my editor.

One day, I'd like to do more than glance at Lord Acton's dictum that Power tends to corrupt. Most Romance heroes, and not a few heroines in our genre, are extremely powerful individuals. They are either born great, achieve greatness, or have greatness thrust upon them.

How many are corrupt?

If they are not corrupt, why aren't they?

Was Lord Acton unduly pessimistic? Or since the Magna Carta, have lesser beings found ways to institute and enforce checks and balances?

Personally, I like my heroes to be slightly morally questionable. That's the charm of Dominic, Lord Vidal in Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer; of Selendrile in Dragon's Bait by Vivian Vande Valde; of Tamnais Nathrach in Armed and Magical by Lisa Shearin.

When I think about the direction I'd take if I wanted to show a "god" going about his business of maintaining "the image," a big part of seeming omnipotence has to be the appearance of omniscience.

Knowledge is power.

Sun Tzu made a similar point in The Art of War.

So did George Orwell with Big Brother in 1984.

;-)

Happy Memorial Day.

Rowena Cherry

"When I Saw the ET...."

This is SO mind-blowing! Everybody go over to Suzette Haden Elgin's blog right away and read this post entitled "Writing Science Fiction" and its responses:

http://ozarque.livejournal.com/525475.html

It's a series of one-liner "storylets" each completing a sentence that begins with the clause, "When I saw the ET trapped in the storm drain...."

There's nothing I can say to elaborate on it, except that I wish I could do that with such apparent ease and grace.

Hmm—now I wonder what might be some other opening clauses that could yield equally enticing and provocative variations. "When the vampire flapped at my window...."?

Margaret L. Carter
http://www.margaretlcarter.com

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/